My background is as follows: I am a Master's level teacher-counselor, poet-essayist and advocate for the poor whose poetry and prose have been published in more than 70 periodicals. My opinion pieces have been published in The State Newspaper, Columbia, SC, The Tallahassee (FL) Democrat, The Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC), The Asheville Citizen-Times, and The Sun-News (Santa Fe, NM). A number of my letters have been published in USA Today. During 2008 and 2012 I did grassroots work for the Barack Obama campaign in South and North Carolina. Currently, I am making calls for Joe Biden to a variety of states. My politics are moderate-liberal, I suppose. I am a Conscientious Objector who advocated for an end to detainee abuse for Amnesty International and wrote hundreds of letters to public officials regarding this outrage. I also was a civil rights worker in the South during the 1960s. I currently live in North Carolina with my wife, Linda.