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Dont know if you read the Voice or not (I do - for laughs) check out this "Man On The Street" bit....to get the full effect you need to check out the link for the pics of the people interviewed...
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0435/lee.php

You're talking to the president. What would you tell him?
New Yorkers to Bush: Listen Up!
by Chanel Lee / Village Voice August 31st, 2004 11:10 AM

Republicans gathering in midtown for their love-in at Madison Square Garden aren't rubbing shoulders with the majority of New Yorkers. They may not know the toll that gentrification, the lack of affordable housing and high-quality education, and the weak economy have taken on the working class and poor, on people of color, and on immigrants. So, from the South Bronx to East New York, here are some of those people whom the delegates and a worldwide TV audience did not see whooping it up for Bush and company. Here's what they say they would tell the president:

Renee Woody
45, paralegal, Bronx

I'd show him the schools, the drug addicts, and the buildings that aren't up to par. There're mice here bigger than your hand running around in these streets. No one cares.

Eddie Cantaloupo
41, construction worker, Bronx

I work in seven buildings in the Bronx where the families have no gas in their homes. How do people feed their families?! You can't cook a meal on a hot plate. We live in a society where pizza arrives faster than the cops do.

L. Griffin
32, cabdriver and security guard, East New York

I live dead in the ghetto. There's a lot of drug madness here, a lot of homelessness, abandoned buildings. I'm ready to go. The cost of living is too high. New York City is becoming just for the filthy rich. I work two jobs and I'm still broke.

Bernard Bolter
29, artist, Fort Greene

I wouldn't want to hang out with the guy. I really, really don't want to. I don't like his policies, but I don't think he's responsible for that. To me, he's just a big puppet, honestly.

Phillip Mendez
28, security guard, Bronx

I wouldn't show him anything. What's the point of looking around all the 'hoods of the city, of the country? Nothing's going to change. We have a billion-dollar mayor and nothing's getting done. What would the president do?

Emilia Wiles
27, program coordinator, Bronx

Since I work in the South Bronx, I would make Bush sit and eat dinner with single moms on food stamps and victims of police brutality, and he can answer questions about why he locks up the majority of men and women from this neighborhood, as well as Queensbridge, the Lower East Side, and Harlem. Breakfast would be at the Spofford Juvenile Detention Center, and he could explain why it's overcrowded, underfed, and abusive. We would cruise along the Bronx River, and he could apologize to the one out of eight kids who have asthma and explain why there is so much industry and pollution in this particular low-income neighborhood. To leave it off, I would handcuff him at 125th so he can answer to all his friends in the 'hood why he ignores the war going on here in America to start a bullshit war in the Middle East. Lastly, I'd leave him in the Bronx just so he could learn what a pussy he really is.

Mauro DePasquale
24, bassist, Fort Greene

I think I'd take him to meet all my psuedo-revolutionary friends. You know, the ones with more smoke and alcohol in their brains than good ideas. He'd probably get a kick out of that!

Alex Stimmel
29, teacher, Park Slope

I'd want him to look out of my window and see all the guys dealing. Drugs are a big problem around here. Frankly, I don't think he gives a shit about anyone.

Ken Boot
34, carpenter, Bronx

Everything's more expensive in the poorer neighborhoods than in the more affluent ones. It's a double standard. The same thing you get for a quarter here you can get for a dime in Westchester.

Rebecca Ferrer
28, student, Columbia University, Bronx

I would bring him to the grocery store with me and let him see how far my unemployment check goes. I would escort him to the public library and let him see the kids forming long lines just to spend an hour on the Internet.

Frank Robbins
26, political organizer, Williamsburg

I'd take him for a little tour and show him all the oil tanks near Greenpoint and Norman and the waste-treatment plant in Greenpoint. And I would show him the Williamsburg and Greenpoint firehouses that have been closed recently because he never came through with the $10 billion for first responders.

Erika Stimmel
29, artist, Park Slope

I'd want him to know that there aren't enough opportunities out there, especially for black men. On Fourth Avenue, a lot of posters at the bodegas have anti-Bush slogans on them, and a lot of the small business owners are anti-Bush. I'd want him to see that.

Patrick Phillip
62, cabdriver, Bed-Stuy

Bush has cut so many services to the poor, and they are the most affected. They aren't getting the services they need to survive. They forgot the small people.

Jake Fleischmann
20, a manager at a sporting goods store, Fort Greene

I'd show him the poor and impoverished. Just shove it in his face. There's like 18 percent unemployment here—what are you doing about it? He's not gonna get re-elected, so it doesn't matter.

Oliver Solomon
18, student at University of Vermont, Fort Greene

Maybe I'd take him down to the squatters in the L.E.S. . . . show him that things are not all right all the time. Nothing's being done about it. I'd like to see how he rationalizes these things.

Lisa Gonzalez
34, unemployed, Crown Heights

People are coming into our country, taking our jobs, and everyone's unemployed. We have college diplomas and we can't get a job here. And now they're outsourcing to other countries. We're selling all our stuff to get food—we can't get emergency food stamps. People who need help can't get it.

Edwin Wild-Gonzalez
24, unemployed, Crown Heights

People are all too happy to hire foreigners because they work cheap. What happened to the surplus? I think Bush just ruined the surplus. Budget cuts make it hard to get a teaching job, and Bush claims to be for education.

Tara Nova
46, entertainer, East New York

I'd show him the poor people begging for money. Someone's always asking me for a quarter. There's no housing for poor people. They'd rather provide housing for Iraqis than provide it for Americans.

Jonathan Detrixhe
29, writer, Prospect Heights

I'd show him how America lives. We don't live in mansions in Texas. People can't afford to buy meat for dinner. He seems so rich and so far removed from everyone else. I'd take him to C-Town and show him people bargain-shopping.

Megan Brackney
31, lawyer, Prospect Heights

I'd show him some of the schools in the poorer areas of Brooklyn, show him the standard of living in the poorer areas. In our neighborhoods, it seems like people are barely getting by, and there's a depressing atmosphere.

Jeannette Alexander
48, kindergarten teacher, Bronx

I'd show him the conditions of our streets, the conditions of our housing. I'd show him how children have no after-school programs or community programs to provide a safe haven. We have had a really hard time with lack of school supplies and after-school programs for the children. This administration has been—socially, economically, spiritually—a total disaster.

Richard Cofield
40, MTA bus driver, Bronx

I'd show him all of the poor conditions that exist in the community. The vacant lots, the look of the children that have no place to go and have no way to spend their time constructively. I would show him the non-presence of the police on foot patrol. The school system is also really messed up, and these educators aren't telling the truth about everything.

David Smith
23, entrepreneur, Bronx

I'd take him to the park and show him how messed up the parks are and how the kids have no place to go and how run-down the apartments are, compared to downtown, how the schools are messed up and the teachers are there just to get a check.

Will Fullenweider
53, counselor, Board of Education, Bronx

I'd show him the corners, how we really live. The young black and Latino men who don't have jobs and do what they have to do to survive. The young brothers on the corners, victims of circumstance. They ask me about jobs, about trades. It's not like they're thugs—they're trying.

Cornelia Canada
44, clerical supervisor, Bronx

The housing situation, the squalor we must live in, the dilapidation, the rats, the supermarkets where you can't get decent food. I'd show him the schools and show him how many children are really being left behind. Because of budget cuts, kids have no place to go, no art and music education. Hell, I'd show him a piece of my damn mind.

Lauren Thogerson
22, editor, Greenpoint

I would take President Bush to my hometown of Shoreham, New York, and I would show him the decommissioned Shoreham power plant and the national laboratory . . . and the high-voltage power lines . . . and then I would show him the cemeteries where my friends, neighbors, classmates, and relatives are buried who have died of cancer. I had five close girlfriends, and of three of their mothers, two died of breast cancer and one is a survivor. It's really not talked about, but it's an alarming number. Even in my high school, at least one kid a year in every class got some sort of strange cancer.

Larry Weinstein
54, physician, Greenwich Village

I would show President Bush the facilities of NYU to make a point that his administration has reduced funding for student loans and has made it much more difficult for students to attend college, which is going to be devastating to the United States in the future.

Siobhan Watson
23, recent college grad, Fort Greene

I would show President Bush all of the 35-hour-a-week jobs listed all over the place because people can't afford to pay their employees' health care—the jobs that should be full-time but aren't.

Cicily Williams
41, housekeeper, Bronx

I'd want him to see that the parks are not safe and that the kids are in danger. It's ridiculous in the neighborhood right now, drug dealers sitting on the corner and influencing kids to go in the wrong direction.

Victor McBean
56, construction worker, Bronx

I'd show him the infestation of rodents in the neighborhood, endangering our children. He can give money to hurricane victims, but he can't help people out here. Also, the lack of affordable housing and health insurance. People can't afford any of these things.

Mildred Ramirez
51, homemaker, Bronx

I'd take him up to 181st and Crescent and show him the people out in the street, hanging out and being unproductive. They have nowhere to go, the schools need improvement. There's no hope.