The Soccer Mom Vote

You made a difference

A big fat thank you to each and every one of you who helped make the following happen today:

Former CHP officer Craig Peyer, convicted of murdering 20-year-old college student Cara Knott, was denied parole Thursday during a hearing at a state prison.

He will be eligible for parole again in 2012.

The state Board of Parole Hearings said the seriousness of the 1986 murder near Interstate 15 in Sabre Springs was the main reason it chose to deny his request.

Commissioner Robert Doyle said Peyer, who still maintains that he is innocent, has not explained the reasons behind the killing.

“We were looking for some insight here today. We did not get it,” Doyle said.

In emotional statements, Cynthia and Cheryl Knott, Cara's sisters, urged the board to deny Peyer's parole.

The board deliberated about 30 minutes after a 2½-hour hearing at the California Men's Colony.

click the above for the whole article from the San Diego Union-Tribune

After speaking with my friends as they left the prison, they were thrilled with the outcome and deeply grateful for the overwhelming support from the community.  The parole board received over 300 letters opposing Peyer's parole request and they were bolstered by the support of the District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who sat in on the hearing.  While it's a huge emotional strain to have to revisit this brutal murder every four years so that they can put a face on this tragedy for the parole board, they are so grateful that Peyer was again denied the opportunity to walk free.  As someone who has followed this case for 21 years and who has seen the love and kindness the Knott family has to offer, I couldn't be happier about the decision the parole board made today.  Thank you for your part in this, whether you sent letters or just sent out the intent to keep him behind bars.  Oreet (Cara's sister-in-law) will be writing up a thank you when she gets home and gets some rest.  She's asked me to share it here and I'll do so as soon as it comes through.  But for now, know that you made a difference and we're all so grateful for you.

Thank you.

want to really make a difference?

When I was eleven-years-old, I remember being in a car with my dad as he drove us down the 15 freeway. My father pointed to an unfinished off-ramp marked "Mercy Road" and told us how a young woman, Cara Knott, had just been killed there by a police officer named Craig Peyer. He then went on to try to explain that sometimes people who are supposed to be good are simply not. It wasn't an easy thing to understand at eleven. To be honest, I still don't fully understand it.     

When I was fifteen and my dad was teaching me how to drive, he taught me something that no father should have to share with his little girl. He instructed me, "If you ever get pulled over by a police officer, and they want you to stop somewhere remote or dark, I want you to refuse." He went on to say that I should drive to a well lit, populated area and if the officer gets mad, just tell him that I remember Cara Knott. He said that if it was a good officer, he would understand. I remember how afraid this made me feel.

When I grew up, I met John. An unassuming, warm, likable man, John easily fit into our circle of friends. After a year of poker games, late night music musings, dinners and laughter, I learned that his sister was Cara Knott. I met the rest of his family at holidays: Cara's mom Joyce, a woman who welcomed me and our new baby into her home and made us feel like we'd known her forever and a pair of sisters who laughed and joked with us like we we're part of the family. I never got to know Cara's father, who died of a heart attack and was a tireless champion of victim's rights.     

Today I got a letter from my friends, telling me that the man who brutally murdered their sister and daughter was up for parole again. That this man, who taught me at eleven that not even police officers are safe and made me fear getting pulled over by a CHP officer, could possibly walk free.

They need your help.     

Please help keep Craig Peyer where he belongs; where he can never put another family through such hell; where he can never again viciously strangle and bash in the skull of a beautiful, warm young woman or terrorize the hundreds that came forward after Cara's death. Help us keep this generation of little girls, girls like my own Lily and Anya, grow up without this man preying on them.

Here's what you can do:     

• View this letter from the Knott family.
   
• Peyer's parole hearing is at the end of January, 2008 and letters make a huge impact.  If you can, please write and mail a letter yourself.  Think about how this case affects you personally, whether you be a parent, love someone who has been lost to violence or simply are invested in a more peaceful planet.  Tell the parole board why you personally need this man to stay behind bars. 
   
• Link to this post or email those people who you feel can help, whether it be to someone who can pass on the message or someone who can write passionately on Cara's behalf. 
   
• Don't have the time or energy to write a letter of your own?  That's OK, volume still makes an impact.  Download this letter and modify before mailing it in.  Of course a personally written statement has more impact, but the form letter still expresses sentiment and adds volume to the public outcry, so please do that if nothing else!
 

Letters should be addressed and mailed to:    

John F. Monday
  Executive Director
  Board of Parole Hearings
  P.O. Box 4036
  Sacramento, CA 95812

 

Re: Craig Peyer, CDC# D-93018    

and to the prison where Peyer resides:   

California Men's Colony
  Highway 1
  P.O. Box 8101
  San Luis Obispo, CA 93409-8101
  Attn: C&PR

Re: Craig Peyer, CDC# D-93018

Please be sure to reference Peyer’s name and CDC identification number in your letter: D-93018 and mark the letter "CONFIDENTIAL."    

Let me know when you've mailed your letters as I'd like to let the Knott's know how many people are backing them up out there.  This is a good family who have suffered an impossible loss.  You can help.  Please choose to do so.

What does "family" really mean, anyway?

Recently, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders was faced with a very difficult decision: toe the party line or follow his heart. The issue? Marriage Equality. Some of you may know the issue better when it's labeled "Gay Marriage". No matter what you call it, the vote was there in front of him and he had promised to veto it. That why his emotional announcement the following day shocked the nation. Turns out his adult daughter is a lesbian and Sanders “...decided to lead with my heart... to do what I think is right — and to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice. The right thing for me to do is to sign this resolution.”

When the news hit a local message board I belong to the reaction was, at first, ecstatic. Then one member attacked the original poster, claiming that this kind of news should not be welcome on a "Natural Families" board. She claimed that a family cannot exist without a mother AND a father, thereby invalidating all the different blends of families that exist today. The result? Messy would be putting it lightly.

But it did get a few of us thinking about the definition of "family". These days you can find families of various designs in every major city in America. But when you follow the etymology of the word "family" you might be surprised to discover it once included everyone in the household, including the servants. From Etymonline:

c.1400, "servants of a household," from L. familia "household," including relatives and servants, from famulus "servant," of unknown origin. The classical L. sense recorded in Eng. from 1545; the main modern sense of "those connected by blood" (whether living together or not) is first attested 1667.

Whether you agree with Sanders decision and how he formed it or not, one does have to wonder how the term "family" became so limiting and exclusive. One also has to wonder if the word is evolving again and what it could one day come to define.

How would you like to see "family" defined? How generous are you with the term "family" when referring to the people in your life? Do your children have an "Uncles" or "Aunts" that share no blood relation to them?

Alternately, do you agree with Mayor Sanders reversal in his political stance? Do you feel he made the choice for the "right" reasons? 

There's a veritable mountain of discussion here. Go refill your coffee cup now and jump into the fray. Just don't forget the rules.

Citizen Josh Review

It's always hard for me to figure out how to explain Josh Kornbluth. In the interest of full disclosure, I produced three of his monologues back when I was the managing director of a local alternative theatre and after spending three weeks with the guy, still couldn't figure out how to nutshell him. He's funny, in an awkward kind of way; smart, abet failed to graduate Princeton because he thought maybe his graduate thesis would write itself if he just kept himself "available to it"; he's a political activist who insists that his contribution to the democratic process has usually been accidental and instead professes to be a master of wasting time. Josh is just... Josh. But the thing about him that matters to those of us at The Soccer Mom Vote is that with his new piece, Citizen Josh he manages to bring politics to the forefront in such a way that we all want to get involved and feel like we could actually manage to accomplish something in the process. After all, if funny little Josh can pull it of, why can't we? And, as an added bonus, the work just happens to be his graduate thesis, so he kinda takes care of that whole diploma thing in the process. Nice.

At its core, Citizen Josh is about starting right here, at the beginning, right now. While so many of us see the word "radical" and think of people acting out in rash and sometimes destructive ways, Kornbluth tells of his first meeting with his mentor at Princeton and his understanding that "radical" really has more to do with starting from the root or origin. We can at every moment in our life, simply start right now to implement radical social change. Sometimes just showing up turns out to be a radical event. A trip to the park leads to his involvement in Project 3650 and ultimately finds him sitting next to Al Gore in a conference room (where he informs our former vice president that he feels it's too hot NOW, so we better do something!), witnessing the beginning of a project aimed at taking the approximately ten years left before global warming becomes an irreversible problem we cannot overcome (thus 3650 days). A bike ride by the capital building in Sacramento, finds him accidentally attending a PTA rally where, by dialing a senators appointment line over 100 times on the leaders cell phone, the group gets a much needed signature on their petition. Even at home in Berkley, he accidentally stumbles into a meeting to erect new playground equipment and sees how persistence gets the neighborhood exactly what they need. The common theme he pulls from these moments of democracy is that all it takes is persistence, something he is not, he claims actually known for. And yet, by actively bringing his story to the stage it turns out Kornbluth is radically altering our perception of our own ability to make a change in the world. He's spreading the kind of democracy that you and I can totally grasp, even without a trip to the capital.

Citizen Josh is peppered with references to Berkley locations and history; a large portion of the setting being what was formerly called People's Park Annex and the incredibly odd structure that he first sees as a death trap for children and latter discovers is a vital part of Berkley's political history. Performing at Berkley Rep provides Kornbluth with an eager and responsive audience with similar political temperaments. One does have to wonder how well Citizen Josh will translate to the larger political climate and if it will read as poignantly to some of the nations more conservative audiences.

Ultimately, the work is tight, keeps you on your toes, manages to entertain, inform and proves to be an excellent next step in his career of monologues. If he's not heading your way anytime soon, check out his collection Red Diaper Baby. If nothing else, be persistent in making the change you want to see happen in the world. That's all it takes to be able to wear the title of "radical" activist. Even accidental democracy can change the world.

 

For more information of Citizen Josh, now showing at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, click here.

For more information on Kornbluth, see his website or check out one of his blog or podcasts.

 

Keeping Your Newborn Safe By CoSleeping

Sonia recently gave her thoughts on Keeping Your Newborn Safe and I would be a bad little wannabe hippie if I didn't share a rebuttal with you all. Most of my work has already been done in the comments section of Sonia's post, but I wanted to make a few links and comments available at the ready for any of you that are trying to educate others in a practice that is widely accepted everywhere but the US. Well, unless you consider that it's estimated that something like 90% of the US population sometimes sleeps with their babies in the bed with them, even if only for part of the night.

If we want to traffic in horror stories to make our point, I'm happy to share my own. When Lily was only a few months old she was asleep next to me on our bed and I awoke to the very soft sounds of her choking. She had spit up and because she was on her back, she was drowning in her own spit up. Because I was asleep right next to her and heard what was happening, I was able to quickly and effortlessly flip her over and help her start breathing again. Had she been down the hall in a crib, even with the monitor on I fear that I would have lost her. Who knows for sure, but I'm thrilled I'll never have to find out. Oh, and I also became totally fine with the concept of tummy sleeping that day, but that's another topic altogether.

If you're a cold hard facts kinda person, take a look at some of the numbers surrounding infant deaths in 2000 found on Dr. Linda Palmer's website Baby Reference. Breaking it down for the sake of brevity, I give you this one fact:

Of the 28,411 infant deaths recorded in 2000, 2,523 death were attributed to SIDS (previously called cot or crib death, by the way) while only 19 were suspected as being the result of "overlying."

CoSleeping is safe when done correctly. In fact, commenter Mary Jo put it brilliantly when she pointed out that there hasn't been a single reported case of a coSleeping death when:

1. the baby is being breastfed
2. NO ONE in the household is smoking
3. The mother is not under the influence of drugs or alcohol (birth pain medications?)
4. They are on a safe sleep surface (a bed without heavy blankets - of the cases of suffocation, many were in an armchair, on a couch, etc.)
5. They are in bed with a biological parent (there are incidents where an uncle, etc. was present and baby died)
6. Mom is not obese and does not have sleep issues (apnea, etc.)

 

Instead of making blanket statements against coSleeping I want to encourage you all to pass along the recipe for safe situations (for a more detailed list and explanation check out Dr. Sears website, specific links are provided below):

• Best place for baby is between mom and a stationary object such as a secure bedrail or wall. Make sure baby won't roll off the bed and into dangerous traps (such as between the bed and wall where they could suffocate).

• Don't try to coSleep on narrow surfaces. Instead of spending $500 on a fancy crib, get yourself a big FIRM mattress and make sure everyone has the space they need. Place the mattress on the floor if you're worried about baby falling off.

• Do not place baby in bed with you if you have been drinking, smoking or doing any drugs (some prescription meds apply here, folks). In a perfect world, nobody in the house should be smoking at all.

• Do not place baby in bed with you if you are overly tired. If you don't think you'd be easily roused from sleep, you need to put baby in a bassinet next to the bed or in a coSleeper.

• Do not place baby in bed with you if you if you are extremely obese. Studies have shown that obesity can cause sleep apnea issues that may threaten your baby.

• Baby should ONLY be in bed with mom and/or dad (mom is best). Siblings or other relatives are not as aware of a tiny baby and may make the bed a wee bit too crowded.

For more on safely coSleeping, please see the following links:

Dr Sears' one sheet on Sleeping Safely with Your Baby
Dr Sears' on should YOU sleep with your baby
Dr Palmer's CoSleeping and SIDS fact sheet
KellyMom.com on The Family Bed
Dr. James McKenna’s (Director, Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Lab at University of Notre Dame) FAQ
Dr Jay Gordon's tips for safe sleeping

And happy sleeping to you all!

Citizen Josh

I first met Josh Kornbluth when the Artistic Director for the theatre I managed discovered his work and enticed him into a run at our theatre. He performed three of his one-man monologues for us during that time, Red Diaper Baby, The Mathematics of Change and Ben Franklin: Unplugged. At first glance, Josh was small, quiet and just a wee bit awkward. But after one night in our guest room after a hotel mishap and three weeks of working with him at our theatre, I quickly discovered he was none of those things. His work is powerful, direct, outrageously funny and poignant.

Since then, he's been very busy and whole lot more political. About his latest monologue Citizen Josh he writes, "Citizen Josh grew out of my distress at the anemic condition of American democracy -- and my nagging suspicion that our society's political health depends on the active participation of all its citizens, even ones as habitually passive as myself."

While planning a girls get-a-way week up in the Bay Area I was thrilled to discover that Citizen Josh would be playing at Berkeley Rep while I was there. I was even more thrilled when Josh said I could come review it for you all.

So if you're anywhere near the San Francisco area from August 16 through September 2, catch the play and tell me what you thought when I review it for my August 27^th post. Or heck, let me know when you'll be there and maybe we can meet up to say Hi!

The people behind the politics

Jen Lemon (a fabulous artist and writer) recently wrote on her blog about meeting Elizabeth Edwards at the recent BlogHer Conference in Chicago. If you have any desire to hear more about this remarkable woman and why she's totally committed to her husband's presidential campaign despite being faced with incurable cancer, click the quote below for more.  Jen writes:

“I worry about you,” I said, surprised at how emotional I felt putting these thoughts into words. “I know your cancer is back and that you have these little children. I want to be so supportive of what you’re doing, but at the same time I don’t want to participate in something that would diminish this time in your family’s life–your time is so precious.”

It's an excellent reminder that there are real people behind the politics.  Follow the links for more on Mrs. Edwards and her participation in blogging.

Thank You, New York!

As part of World Breastfeeding Week, New York Hospitals made a pro-baby move by removing formula samples from their goodie bags for new moms and instead replacing the controversial powder* with "disposable nursing pads, a mini-cooler for breast-milk bottles, and pint-sized T-shirts for the babies that proudly declare 'I eat at mom's.'"  This is part of the city's initiative to increase the paltry number of women leaving the hospital with baby at the breast. Jacobi Hospital in The Bronx is feeling pretty excited about their efforts and now boast that the 25 percent of 2,200 babies born at the hospital each year are breast-fed.  To me, that number is still horrifying, but here's hoping that this new initiative will up those numbers and increase the overall health of babies everywhere!

YAY New York! 

*Formula samples will still be available upon request.

Co-op Healthcare?

With Michael Moore's latest film SiCKO taking on the American healthcare system, the subject has been on my mind lately. Years ago, the two-year-old daughter of some friends was diagnosed with leukemia. They had "good" health insurance and despite that, her dad still told me at the end of her treatment, "We'll never be able to own a home; we'll never be out of this crushing debt. But you know what? How can I care when she's alive and looking at me with such a beautiful smile?" And while I agreed with him, I couldn't understand how it could be possible that a family would lose everything in this country just to keep the one thing that mattered more than anything in the world: their child. The company they worked for was also deeply impacted with a sudden and dramatic increase in premiums to the point that many employees had to drop their spouse or children from the coverage and seek "inferior" plans.

Even my dear friends with a child who lived only five days in the NICU before they took him home to die are struggling under the debt their insurance passed to them.  They have to face the same "crushing debt" and don't have the comfort of his smile.

Is this really what having "good" insurance should mean?

On Tuesday the issue came into sharp focus for my family when I had to call an ambulance for my husband. He's home and resting now, but I'm still afraid of what the day spent in the ER, the emergency surgery and the overnight hospital care will eventually cost us. Our premiums already went up once this year and as a freelance family, we pay every penny ourselves.

Personally, I happen to find it sick that anyone makes a profit off of something that should be a basic right in an industrialized country such as the USA. I'm not talking about care providers or administrators, I'm referring to shareholders. My husband and I recently tossed around the concept of a co-op heath insurance company. Aren't HMOs (Health Maintenance Organizations) reporting record earnings more and more frequently? Why can't the customer see some of their money back rather than the shareholder pocketing it all? Is there a reason we can't simply pass the profit back to the little guy at the end of the year? Your premiums would still be about the same but if the company made money by years end, as a co-op member, you'd be entitled to a share of that profit. I know, it sounds distinctly un-American, but I'm OK with that.

Could it work?

With the Soccer Mom Vote getting more and more of the politicians' attention, we have the opportunity to make a difference. This is where we start brainstorming ideas, ladies.  Those in power are listening, let's give them somewhere to start.

SiCKO

Just a quick heads up to let you know that Michael Moore's new film SiCKO can be viewed online here.  Not sure how long it will be up, but if it makes you feel better, Moore claims he has no issue with people watching pirated versions of his films, as long as they're not making a profit from his work.  Go take a look while you can, it's an eye opening film.