Due to the extreme and deadly surge in the coronavirus this winter, there is a shelter in place order in Contra Costa County and in many places elsewhere. Most people are probably unhappy about this, partly because it comes at the height of the holiday season, and partly because most people would rather get out and do things.
Many are in dire straits because the shutdown of businesses has eliminated their jobs, and they are at risk of homelessness, starvation, and other economically caused, dire woes. I can understand how many people are unhappy about the shutdowns, and how it makes no sense to them. It seems that the U.S. and other countries have the choice of deaths due to coronavirus, versus deaths due to starvation and/or eviction. This is not an easy choice.
However, for me personally, the order brings relief, and it brings a gift of being able to remain home more. This is because I don't like to go anywhere. This could be a part of my schizophrenic illness, or it could be a separate issue.
This is not to minimize people's suffering; everyone suffering and those losing loved ones have my deepest empathy. It is just that for me, personally, staying at home is a good thing.
That said, here is the rest of this week's column...
For many disabled poor people, it is not feasible to own a car. When we do own one, it burdens us with numerous expenses and complications. Those who can meet their needs without one may be better off not owning one. I have a car, it is a huge convenience, and it is essential in case I need to evacuate.
However, too much driving stresses me out. There are too many idiots on the road, and far too many of them do dumb things that I cannot predict. Driving is also one of the primary contributors to greenhouse gases. Electric vehicles do not completely remediate this, since they rely on the power grid, which continues to get 63% of its energy from fossil fuels.
In the age of coronavirus, fewer people want to use public transportation. When people take a bus or BART, it may subject them to a greater risk of contracting the virus.
Because of the new computer software and other technology, many people can get most of their needs met without leaving their homes. This is a substantial opportunity for people with disabilities. A person can work at remote jobs and earn what they need to earn to make ends meet. We can order groceries delivered, often no more expensive than a trip to the supermarket. We can have medications delivered. We can communicate with helping professionals through the web.
Any task that we can accomplish electronically, not involving an item physically delivered, is a direct reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases. If we can accomplish more and more of our tasks through remote methods, this will be an essential segment of meeting the imperative goal of zero net carbon emissions.
In the age of coronavirus, Zoom is fulfilling a tremendous role. We can see friends, relatives, doctors, and nurses through video. It is amazing how much video, as opposed to a voice call, helps me in my meetings with psychiatrists and psychologists. And the concept of obtaining work that I could perform remotely is a necessary source of hope. I already write for publications remotely. Yet, I could obtain a job (for real money, not just a feather in the cap--you can't eat that) in which the work is done from home through the computer. And I can usually receive paychecks electronically, eliminating a trip to the bank to deposit them.
There are home-based business models that include no traffic of people or products in or out of the home. There are businesspersons and workers who conduct their practice remotely. This has advantages. Many people who have, in the past, had chronic difficulties with holding jobs may have a new lease on work, due to the ability to work from home.
It is harder for mentally ill people to show up for a job than it is for non-afflicted people. Any method of remediating that, such as working remotely, helps us with our chances of maintaining employment. For many mentally ill people, it is far less scary to work from home. When we physically go to a job, it involves adapting to different surroundings, ones that could be overstimulating or that could just be unfamiliar. In work at an office or other jobsite, we have to adapt to a new and often more difficult environment. This is completely aside from accomplishing the tasks of the job.
The ability to do work and to accomplish other objectives from home is a technologically produced change that levels the playing field for numerous disabled people in need of independence and a career. Furthermore, the fact that these technologies are inexpensive to the point where almost anyone can afford them, further levels the playing field.
Members of the public lack understanding of the factors that limit mentally disabled people. One of the biggest hindrances of my psychiatric condition (when I'm in treatment) is transportation related. This is due to phobias and to getting stressed easily.
Remote technology is within reach of most high-functioning mentally ill people. Internet has transitioned from a novelty into a necessity.
Remote technology already helps many disabled people become less dependent on government assistance. For some, it could make the difference between a life of loneliness, poverty, and helplessness, versus one of plentitude and friends.
Jack Bragen is a commentary, self-help, and fiction author who lives in Martinez, California.
When President-elect Joe Biden takes office Jan 21 he will be faced with some very expensive problems, from bailing out the Covid-19 economy to getting a handle on climate change. Vaccinating over 300 million people will not be cheap, and wrestling the US hydrocarbon-based economy in the direction of renewable energies will come with a hefty price tag. One place to find some of that would be to respond to Russian, Chinese and United Nations (UN) proposals to demilitarize space, heading off what will be an expensive--and destabilizing--arms race for the new high ground.
Last December the US Department of Defense (DOD) created the Space Force, although a major push to increase the military’s presence in space dates back to the Obama administration. In fact, space has always had a military aspect to it, and no country is more dependent on that dimension than the US. A virtual cloud of surveillance satellites spy on adversaries, tap into communications and monitor military maneuvers and weapons tests. It was a US Vela Hotel satellite that caught the Israelis and the South Africans secretly testing a nuclear warhead in the southern Indian Ocean in 1979.
While other countries have similar platforms in space, the US is the only country with a world-wide military presence, and it is increasingly dependent on satellites to enhance its armed forces. Such satellites allow drone operators to call in missile strikes from half a world away without risking the lives of pilots.
The US is not the only country with armed drones. Turkish and Israeli drones demonstrated their effectiveness in the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and scores of countries produce armed drones. But no other country wages war from tens of thousands of miles away. American drones stalk adversaries in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East piloted from air conditioned trailers in southern Nevada. “It’s only really the US that needs to conduct military operations anywhere in the world all the time against anyone,” says Brian Weeden of the Secure World Federation told Scientific American in the magazine’s November article, “Orbital Aggression: How do we prevent war in space?”
According to the DOD, it is the Russians and the Chinese who have taken the initiative to militarize space, although most of that is ancient news and a lot of it is based more on supposition than fact. Moscow, Beijing and Washington have long had the ability to take out an opponent’s satellites, and have demonstrated that on a number of occasions. It takes no great skill to do so. Satellites generally have very predictable orbits and speeds. Astrophysicist Laura Greco of the Union of Concerned Scientists calls them “sitting ducks.”
Satellites do, however, have the capacity to maneuver. Indeed, it was a recent encounter between a Russan Cosmos “inspection” satellite and a US spy satellite that kicked off the latest round of “the Russians are coming!” rhetoric from the Pentagon. The Americans accused the Cosmos of potentially threatening the American satellite by moving close to it, although many independent observers shrug their shoulders. “That’s what an inspection satellite does,” says Weeden, “It is hard to see at this point why the US is making it a big deal.”
Because blaster rattling loosens Congressional purse strings.
China’s military and civilian space budget is estimated to be $8.4 billion, and Russia’s a modest $3 billion. In contrast, the US space budget is $48 billion and climbing and that figure doesn’t account for secret black budget items like the X-37B unmanned space plane.
The DOD also points to the fact that the Chinese have launched more satellites in the past year than the US, but that is a reflection of the fact that the US currently dominates space, both on the military and the civilian side. Other countries--like India and the European Union--are simply trying to catch up. Out of 3,200 live satellites currently in orbit, the US controls 1,327.
Space is, indeed, essential for the modern world. Satellites don’t just spy or direct drones, they are central to communication systems, banking, weather predictions and monitoring everything from climate change to tectonic plate movement. An actual war in space that destroyed the satellite networks would cause a worldwide blackout and likely lead to a ground war.
Which is why it is so important to sit down with Russia, China and the UN and work out a way to keep space a realm for peace not war. While there are treaties that cover weaponizing space, they are dated. The 1967 Treaty on Outer Space keeps nuclear weapons from being deployed, but doesn’t cover ground-launched or space-launched anti-satellite weapons, or how close a satellite has to get to another country’s satellite to be considered a threat?
In 2008, and again in 2014, Moscow and Beijing proposed a Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space Treaty. So far, the US has not formally responded, and rejected four resolutions proposed by the UN’s General Assembly on preventing the militarization of space. There have been informal talks between the Russsians and Americans, but the last three US administrations have essentially stonewalled serious discussions.
Of course, the US currently holds most of the cards, but that is shortsighted thinking. Adversaries always figure out how to overcome their disadvantages. The US was the first country to launch an anti-satellite weapon in 1959, but the Russians matched it four years later. China destroyed one of its old satellites in 2007, and India claims it has such a weapon.
But there is strong opposition to such an agreement in the Pentagon and the Congress, in part because of growing tensions between Russia, China and the US, and in part because of the power of corporations. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics stand to reap billions in profits by supplying the hardware to dominate space. Added to the formidable lobbying power of the major arms corporations is another layer of up and comers like Virgin Galactic, SpaceX and Blue Origin,
The Space Force also has bipartisan support. Some 188 Democrats joined 189 Republicans to pass the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020.
The creation of the Space Force has not exactly been met with open arms by the other military services. Each of the services have their own space-based systems and the budgets that go along with that, and they jealously guard their turf. For the time being Space Force is under the Air Force’s wing, but its budget is separate and few doubt that it will soon become a service in its own right.
At this point the outlay for the Force will be $200 billion over five years, but military budgets have a way of increasing geometrically. The initial outlay for the Reagan administration’s missile-intercepting Star War system was small, but it has eaten up over $200 billion to date and is still chugging along, in spite of the fact that it is characterized more for failure than success.
The Biden administration will have to make hard choices around the pandemic and climate change while continuing to spend close to $1 trillion a year on its military. Adding yet another military service when American states are reeling from the economic fallout of Covid-19, and the warming oceans are churning out superstorms, is something neither the US nor the world can afford.
Conn Hallinan can be read at dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and middleempireseries.wordpress.com
Celebrate the Solstice on Monday, December 21. Curious about the Winter Solstice? Your questions may be answered, thanks to a Monday webcast set to run from 4pm until sunset (or so). Alan Gould, a Lawrence Hall of Science leader of Winter Solstice Gatherings, will host a free, public zoom event to commemorate the advent of winter. There will be demonstrations of hands-on projects relating to the astronomy of seasons followed by an exploration of solstice celebrations around the world. To join ithis free event, follow this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5108484466?pwd=QlpnNFhFSlhvZW41bU5OZGt0eE11UT09
Merry Holidays and Happy Post-Solstice to all our readers! We're mostly taking the next couple of weeks off. If there's a major happening that absolutely must be reported, we'll add the information as an Extra to the current issue, dated 12/18/2020. With any luck, we'll be out of the abominable 2020 when the next regular issue appears in January.
Because national and local anti-eviction laws will expire on December 31 millions of tenants could face eviction. According to the Census Bureau 11.6 million tenants would not even be able to pay their rent the following month nor their mortgage payment if they are home owners. Particularly troubling, the number of tenants struggling to meet their obligations has been increasing in the last several months,
The major problem is not only that the coronavirus is impacting people’s lives. Also, many millions of working people are being deprived of their livelihood. Particularly worrisome has been the considerable increase in long term unemployment. Just recently the number of workers unemployed for at least six months has tripled in one month from 1.2 million to 3.6 million. This huge jump is very rare and also quite ominous.
Could it be the dark cloud before the thunderstorm? Perhaps, because too many job seekers are crowding the job market. So even working people who have been fortunate enough to have a job have been forced to accept lower pay. Among the consequences is that a larger percentage of their income must be allocated to paying rent.
How much rent is just right? We have been told that affordable rent is about 30 percent of income. But this rule of thumb certainly does not apply to poor tenants because it would yield very little to the landlord. But unfortunately for tenants, the high rents that property owners charge leaves very little to renters.
According to researchers, a substantial number of poor tenants must pay at least 80 percent of their income to retain their apartments. In Los Angeles county 600,000 residents spend 90 percent of their income on rent. Clearly, the high rents do not leave much, if anything, for food and medical expenses. And since almost two thirds have children, their low income can be very problematic and even dangerous.
Moreover, when tenants face eviction they are often summoned to court. Think for a moment of the legal obligations of the judge. It is not their job to put pressure on the landlord to charge a more reasonable rent to protect the health of the tenant. Instead, their task is to do what they can to compel the tenant to meet its financial obligations regardless of the adverse impact on the well-being of the family.
Some evicted tenants may have family members, friends, or an available facility to provide shelter to evicted families . But most tenants are not so lucky. And of course, for the same financial reasons they were evicted, they are unable to pay the rent for another apartment. So it is not surprising to learn that eviction is the main reason why evicted tenants are homeless.
What we have learned about the connection between eviction and homelessness is very disturbing. According to research in Seattle, the percent of evicted tenants who are homeless is 37 percent. Also, according to the US Census Bureau, 26.4 percent who were interviewed claimed that they were unable to pay their rent.
The number of individuals and families living in the streets is substantially larger than the public realizes. That’s because of how the statistics are often reported. For example,according to a report on homelessness 12 percent of the residents in New York City are homeless. That doesn’t seem like much unless we know how many residents does the 12 percent encompass. So it may surprise you that aside from those who live in shelters every night 4,000 New Yorkers live on the streets, subway system, and other public places.
Although the problems of the homeless are immense, it would be a serious mistake to assume that the rest of us are thriving. As a result of the downward slide in the economy and other nasty problems, there is a growing number of Americans who are in serious trouble. Since June almost 8 million Americans have joined the ranks of the poor. Cutbacks in government spending is part of the problem. So it is immensely important that the government change its course by developing and funding programs that will improve the standard of living and the quality of life of all of us.
A good beginning is to pay serious attention to the advice and wisdom of Bernie Sanders. Unlike proposals that the federal government is seriously considering, which are both ungenerous and temporary, Bernie’s proposals seek to make both substantial and permanent improvements in the political landscape.
First, Bernie advises the federal government to enact a federal program that guarantees stable jobs to everyone who wants to work. As Bernie correctly notes “There is more than enough work to be done in this country”.
Second, Medicare for All should be adopted as soon as possible. As Bernie notes, it would not only save billions of dollars that are paid to the private sector. It would prevent 68,000 unnecessary deaths a year.
Third, Bernie wants to guarantee housing as a human right and to eliminate homelessness. It would be paid for by a wealth tax on the top one-tenth of one percent. Don’t you agree that those who have a net worth of at least $32 million can afford it?
Clearly, we need to act on Bernie’s proposals. Words are not enough. So as Bernie insists “LET’S DO IT”
YouTube failing is the modern equivalent of a power failure and thus no TV. What do we do? We might have to speak to our family. We might find out that Monopoly comes in a physical version. More importantly we won't be able to upload our latest, greatest video clip. It's time to send in a strongly worded protest email, what? Gmail is also down?
Another advantage of living in Australia, apart from almost being free from COVID, is that this happened during our night, except perhaps for those addicted to YouTube who might finally go to bed before the sun rises.
With the weird, and scary, 2020 it might be best to re-evaluate what is actually important, our families, our friends and our health, not our screens. Turn off the screens voluntarily and go out to see how you can volunteer to make the world better. Go on, lots of other people are already out there.
I don't understand why nationally-known Democrats haven't simply taught the American people what the difference is between a "Social Democrat"and a "Socialist"? It is so simple---A social democrat wants to keep our market-based capitalist economic system but wants to have a lot of federal government social programs to help the people--A socialist wants to abolish capitalism and have a socialist economy. What is so hard to understand about this? They are not the same thing.
How can someone be a socialist when they want to keep capitalism?
And, if supporting a social program such as Social Security makes someone a socialist, then that would make Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and President Kennedy socialists. Really? With that line of thinking, most conservative-Republicans are socialists.
It is so simple--to be a socialist you have to want to have a socialist economy, not a capitalist economy. Who has said that they want to abolish our capitalist economy and replace it with a socialist economy? NO ONE has---NOT Joe Biden. NOT Bernie Sanders, NOT AOC. What is not to understand?
It is simply ridiculous to claim that anyone and everyone who is to the political "left-of-center" is somehow some kind of a socialist or communist or Marxist or radical-leftist.
On November 4th, after it became apparent that Donald Trump had lost the 2020 presidential election, I suspected that he would not be a gracious loser. Therefore, I haven't been surprised that Trump has taken the position that the election was "stolen" by Joe Biden. What has shocked me is that Donald has stopped doing his day job. In the midst of four crises, Trump has abandoned any semblance of operating as President of the United States.
In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised. From at least the time that Donald Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19, October 2, he checked out of his traditional White House duties. Since November 3rd, Trump has seldom appeared in public and very rarely spoken to the press. Nonetheless, Donald has tweeted a lot; an average of 25 per day -- 75 percent of these tweets have been claims of election "fraud." (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/24/us/politics/trump-twitter-tweets-election-results.html)
While it's understandable that Trump is upset and, therefore, has sequestered himself in the White House to "lick his wounds," that doesn't excuse his failure to do his job. The United States is beset by four crises. Over the next 33 days, we need presidential leadership.
National Security: On November 4th, after I realized that Trump had lost the election, I mused: "I hope there is no national security event between now and January 20th." Unfortunately, the United States has been the target of a massive Russian cyberattack.
"The [Russian] malware was on [SolarWinds] software from March to June. The number of organizations that downloaded the corrupted update could be as many as 18,000, which includes most federal government unclassified networks and more than 425 Fortune 500 companies. The magnitude of this ongoing attack is hard to overstate. [Emphasis added] The Russians have had access to a considerable number of important and sensitive networks for six to nine months...While the Russians did not have the time to gain complete control over every network they hacked, they most certainly did gain it over hundreds of them. It will take years to know for certain which networks the Russians control and which ones they just occupy."
This is the most serious cyberattack ever. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the hack, "poses a grave risk to the Federal Government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations." It's an act of war.
President Trump has yet to address this crisis.
Coronavirus Pandemic: We're in the middle of the third wave of the pandemic. So far, 17.7 million Americans have been infected and 320 thousand have died -- we're adding 220 thousand new patients per day. Since November 3rd, Donald Trump has frequently tweeted, but not about the pandemic. (On November 13th, Trump held a brief press event, to tout the development of the Pfizer vaccine; he took no questions and did not acknowledge the US pandemic statistics.)
US Economy: In the closing days of the presidential election, Donald Trump ran with the message: "Biden wants to shut down the economy, I want to open it up. Coronavirus is no big deal; I survived it." Of course, we've learned that Coronavirus is a big deal, and that it does have a savage impact on the economy.
At the moment, because of the third wave of the pandemic, the U.S. economy has stalled. Employment growth has slowed down and unemployment lingers around 7 percent. This week jobless claims increased to a three-month high (885,000). Consumer confidence has fallen. About 25 percent of US renters face eviction. Millions of Americans are suffering.
At this writing, the US Congress is struggling to agree on a compromise stimulus package. Donald Trump has had only marginal involvement in this process. (And, Trump has not addressed the pain endured by many working-class Americans.)
National Confidence: Finally, as if it weren't bad enough that Donald Trump has ignored a Russian cyberattack, mismanaged the pandemic, and provided no economic leadership, he has also failed to send a positive Christmas message. We're coming to the end of a very difficult year; American need to be cheered up. A normal president would transmit a message of hope.
Instead, Donald has hunkered down in the White House. Trump's narcissistic focus is on the 2020 election results. This stance furthers the impression that the 45th President of the United States does not care about the welfare of the American people -- that Donald Trump only cares about himself. At a time when Americans need to come together to fight for the common good, Trump is, instead, promoting a message of "you're on your own."
Donald Trump has, once again, failed to be a leader. Since November 3rd, he's M.I.A.
Bob Burnett is a Bay Area writer and activist. He can be reached at bburnett@sonic.net
The lives of most mentally ill people are not filled with glitz and glamor, nor do we live lives of ease and abundance. This is unless we have one or more benefactors in the family willing to shower wealth on us.
Unfortunately, many persons with mental illness fall through the cracks of a broken treatment system, they may become incarcerated or homeless, and/or they could die prematurely from any of numerous causes. This has become normalized, and it should not be normalized.
Persons with mental illness have a shortened expectancy due to the health risks of psychiatric treatment. Some have shorter lives due to poor self-care, and some fall prey to suicide. Thus, a long, happy, and healthy life is often the exception and not the rule.
The above describes the reality that mentally ill people have it hard enough. When disabled and accepting treatment, many of us can not perform well enough at a job to last at one. The expectations of a job are often too steep. It is harder for us to show up for work every day than it is for someone who does not have the limitations of a disability and of mind-restricting drugs.
The expectation that we should be employed should be non-applicable for many of us--those of us whose cases are severe enough that we must be heavily medicated. Yet, if we are capable of employment, we should be encouraged in this. It is a fine line between trying to be encouraging, versus applying undue pressure.
When a mentally ill person can get well, we may be able to navigate the treatment and government benefits systems so that things are at least tolerable.
The biggest single hurdle is that of having the insight that we have a serious psychiatric condition that requires treatment. Once we can get past that, it still isn't easy.
If we have only Social Security and/or SSI to live on, we cannot afford living expenses in the San Francisco East Bay. This could mean we have to live in vastly substandard housing. If we can obtain a housing voucher through HUD, living under their requirements is often anxiety-producing.
Both Social Security and HUD periodically examine beneficiaries to make sure we are not living in the lap of luxury while bogusly obtaining government benefits. This is not to say that we are ungrateful. This is to point out that it feels like restriction and intimidation when government needs their evidence--that we need the money and housing, and that we are not faking anything.
Additionally, it is currently harder to get anything accomplished with government agencies, since they are all shut down to the public due to the virus. If we can't conduct business remotely, we are out of luck.
Middle class, well-off people do not have much understanding or tolerance of poor disabled people, and often regard us as scum. We aren't. We would gladly trade places with them, socioeconomically speaking, if we had a practicable, genuine opportunity to do so.
COVID-19 hasn't made life easier. Although I have a computer system that I have nursed along well beyond its life expectancy, other people with mental illness may not have a computer or may not know how to use Zoom or Skype to connect with people. Not being good with internet makes life much harder. Internet makes it possible to do many things remotely that would otherwise require transportation. This gap in cyber knowledge creates the need to go out in public more often, entailing rides on public transportation, causing increased vulnerability to COVID-19.
Poverty is everywhere. I feel fortunate that I have food, shelter, clothing, communications, and transportation. Many persons with mental illness have none of this. These are the basics, and many mentally ill do not have them.
Many, not all, persons with mental illness do not have the skills needed to live independently. When I say 'independently' I am not referring to earning our living, I am referring to people who do not depend on social service agencies and/or the mental health treatment system to act as our guardians, supervisors, caretakers and/or decision makers.
I handle my money, my housing, my bills, my rent, my utilities and so on. I shower, shave, brush and floss when needed, and I make my decisions concerning health care. That’s about as independent as it gets for those of us who can't work while in treatment. Some can. At one time, I did. I had to quit because it was becoming too difficult, and because people kept coming after me--maybe they were envious; I don't really know.
I am also a writer. This, in many people's thinking, is probably out of the question for a person with my background of being mentally ill, being medicated, and the whole package deal.
Now I'm older, and most employment won't work because my job skills are more than twenty years out of date. Medication and age prevent me from doing a grunt job, and I haven't created a career in which I would be in a supervisory position. Some people still try to harass or attack me now and then, but it is not as bad as it was.
The happenings in our government, irrespective of which side you are on, can inspire a lot of paranoia to people already susceptible to that. In these days of COVID-19, the difficulties of living with mental illness are made harder.
The combination of COVID-19 and political unrest means that falling through the cracks is even more likely than it once was. These are times in which mentally ill people must be brave.
Jack Bragen is a fiction and commentary writer and lives in the East Bay.
Using a blizzard of misleading appeals to his gullible supporters about the integrity of the election, Trump has raised roughly $250 million since Election Day. The contributions from thousands of duped donors across the country are deposited into several accounts, including Save America, which is loosely regulated and could be used to personally benefit the president after he leaves the White House.
More than $60 million of that sum has gone to a new political action committee, which Mr. Trump will control after he leaves office. This is about as much money as he spent to win his party’s presidential nomination in 2016.
Email and text solicitations have also solicited Trump supporters to give to a “Georgia Election Fund,” even though no funds go directly to either GOP Senator David Perdue or GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler. Instead, the fine print shows 75% of the donations to the Georgia fund go to Mr. Trump’s Save America PAC, with 25% to the Republican National Committee.
Who knew that losing an election would be so lucrative? Clearly, our shameless grifter-in-chief knew.
During a weekly visit to the Chavez-Huerta Memorial—perched atop a summit at the Berkeley Marina—Santiago Casal found a votive candle left in front of the site's iconic "HOPE" stone.
A hand-written message taped to the outside of the container read: "For those who have lost, are suffering, and in memory of 300,000 people who died of covid-19. We remember you. Love."
Have an Xfinity Xmas
For the holidays, Xfinity has hired Steve Carrell to play an "overbearing, stress-eating, stay-at-home Santa" in a TV ad called "The Greatest Gift." In the video, Santa's elves save the day by filling empty gift boxes with "The Little Things" that count — "the smell of grandma's cooking," "grandpa's same old stories," and "family snowball fights."
But Xfinity's radio spots are not so jolly. They begin by conjuring familiar images of families gathering to share holiday memories but then listeners are warned that they'd better be prepared to increase their Internet speeds so that everyone can watch the day's football broadcasts and download their favorite holiday movie classics. And, of course, if your extended family includes children "who are gamers," make sure to expand your bandwidth so the young ones can go online and gun down avatars "to their hearts' content."
What a strange, isolating message: Gather everyone together under one roof so that each individual can feed their addiction to computer games, sports events, and social messaging. Not a word was heard about sharing thoughts in actual human conversation. Instead, the holiday becomes a hollow day with everyone in the family masking themselves behind glowing screens while practicing "anti-social distancing."
Karmic Strips
Covid-19 seems to be everywhere these days—except in the nation's comic strips.
Peanuts and the weekly Doonesbury strips can be excused—they're re-runs. But most panels still feature lots of unmasked characters crammed inside lots of tiny, crowded panels. So, here's a salute to the few who have set a good example. In recent weeks, masks have popped up in the panels of Foxtrot, Lio, and Candorville.
Politics in Strange Places
A special elbow bump goes out to Darrin Bell's Candorville comic strip for daring to wade into the turbulent waters of post-election politics.
In his December 14 episode, Bell's alter-ego, journalist Lamont Brown, calls Joe Biden's transition team to protest the nomination of retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defense. Lamont points out that "Mr. Biden will be ignoring the same law Trump ignored four years ago."
Austin, a former commander of the US Central Command, should be ineligible to serve in a position traditionally filled by a civilian. By law, Austin should not be offered the DoD post until he has been retired from the military for seven years. (Donald Trump won an exemption to install former general Jim Mattis as Defense Secretary even though Mattis had only been out of uniform for a few years.)
Austin's real disqualifier, however, should be the fact that he left the Pentagon to serve on the board of Raytheon, one of the Pentagon's largest weapons manufacturers. (This year, Raytheon won a $20 billion contract to build nuclear-armed Cruise missiles at the same time it was shipping billions of dollars of weapons to despotic regimes in the Middle East.)
Appointing an arms promoter to lead the Pentagon would create a profound "conflict of interest" since Raytheon profiteer Austin has clearly demonstrated that he has "an interest in conflict."
Comic Quips re POTUS Quits
Will he or won't he? Will Donald Trump and his awful offal orifice peacefully exit the Oval Office or will he dig in and dare the Deep State to dig him out?
According to CNN: "In his moments of deepest denial, Trump has told some advisers that he will refuse to leave the White House on Inauguration Day" but in a New York essay, Jonathan Chait predicts: "Even the scholars who expressed the deepest fears of Trump's intentions to undermine the system did not put credence in the possibility he could defy the outcome by simply refusing to leave."
If Trump opts to overstay his tenancy (more likely now that his potential Mar-a-Lago neighbors are objecting to the idea of Trump and his kin resettling in the neighborhood), the Oracle Prize for Political Prognostication would not go to the pundits but would be handed to comedian Bill Maher who has been predicting Trump's Last Stand since April 13, 2018. Maher nailed it—over and over, again and again—building his case that Donald Trump will not willingly emerge from the depths of the White House bunker.
(Fun facts: The White House boasts six floors, 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, 412 doors, 147 windows, 28 fireplaces, 8 staircases, 3 elevators and one bomb-proof bunker buried five stories below ground.)
Media for the Masses? Reich On!
It troubles UC Berkeley economics professor (and MoveOn.org Media Mensch) Robert Reich that "eight of the top ten most popular posts on Facebook were created by far-right extremists—including Donald Trump, Ben Shapiro, and Franklin Graham." But Reich was more than ready to stand up to these Orators of the Oligarchy. Armed with little more than a video camera, a Sharpie, a paper easel, and a profound knowledge of monetized political gamesmanship, Reich has created his own antidote to Big Right's media-inoculations of feverish lies and contagious conspiracies.
Reich's Inequality Media has now become a titan of gut-honest online economic education. As Reich proudly notes: "Our videos and posts are shared seven times more than Sean Hannity's, our Facebook page receives 15 times more engagement per post than Ben Shapiro, and our videos have been viewed more than 440 million times." If you'd like to increase the spread on those stats or haven't yet checked out Inequality Media (not the best working title, by my reckoning), have a look at Reich's latest video.
Chron Blows the Pentagon's Cover: Kudos, Kiddos!
Speaking of Berkeley profs, President-elect Joe Biden has just announced he has chosen a second UCB professor to join his cabinet. First was economics prof (and former Federal Reserve chief) Janet Yellen who was tapped to serve as Treasury Secretary and now, UC Public Policy prof (and former two-term Michigan governor) Jennifer Granholm has been named to serve as Energy Secretary.
In the course of reporting on Granholm's selection, the San Francisco Chronicle revealed one of the US government's Big Lies. While the Department of Energy is typically associated with All Things Carbon—oil, gas, coal, and fracking (with a touch of wind, solar and geothermal)—the Chron laid out the truth in the first paragraphs of its December 17 news report when it noted that Granholm's expertise includes renewable energy systems while the Department of Energy's main focus is "maintaining the nation's stockpile of nuclear weapons." (And, the Chronicle could have added, "the nation's stockpile of aging nuclear reactors.")
Global Warming Threatens to Detonate Pentagon's Ammo
Need another good reason to cool the planet's carbon-induced fevers?
December 23 marks the first anniversary of the publication of a Scientific American article that warned rising temperatures in the Middle East could lead to "instability and possible unplanned detonations" of US ammunition and explosives stored in countries under US military occupation. Bombs and bullets stockpiled at scores of US bases in Iraq and Syria (as well as bases in Afghanistan and on the African continent) are increasingly vulnerable to "intense heat [that] can weaken munition's structural integrity," causing "thermal expansion" that can trigger massive detonations.
The Center for Climate and Security reports that "heat-related detonations are 60% more likely in ammunition depots between late April and mid-September."
Temperatures are rising around the planet but countries in the Middle East—where summer temperatures routinely top 113 degrees Fahrenheit—are especially at risk.
It's not a theoretical danger. In June 2018, an arms depot in Iraq exploded, sending bullets, artillery shells, and rockets flying in all directions. A year later, another blast lit up an Iraqi arms deport and destroyed millions of dollars worth of US ammo. In the summer of 2019, at least half a dozen munitions depots were destroyed in heat-triggered explosions. The problem has become so common that it now has an official Pentagon abbreviation—UEMS, for "unplanned explosions at munitions sites."
A Covid Relief Plan to "Flatten the Curve"
Despite the constantly soaring numbers of infected and dying victims of Covid-19, too many Americans are failing to adopt habits that would "flatten the curve" of the raging pandemic. Instead of flattening the curve, we find ourselves "fattening the curve."
If Washington's new leaders really want to end the spread of Covid-19, they might consider sending every American $1,000 a week on the sole condition that we simply stay home and practice sensible hygiene for two months. Black in the USSR
Here's something to watch: a 25-minute documentary from RT, the Russian news service, that reveals a surprising piece of unknown history—the stories of African-Americans who moved to USSR in the 30s to escape poverty and institutional racism in the USA.
Musk Versus Mars
Tesla titan and Space X CEO Elon Musk is pushing an out-of-this-world project to drop 10,000 nuclear bombs on Mars to, as he puts it, “transform [Mars] into an Earth-like planet.”
According to Business Insider, Musk believes that nuking the planet's icy poles “will help warm the planet and make it more hospitable for human life.” Musk posits that the massive explosions would “vaporize a fair chunk of Mars’ ice caps, liberating enough water vapor and carbon dioxide—both potent greenhouse gases—to warm up the planet substantially . . . .”
The plan has a couple of faults. First, Musk's atomic arsenal would need to be shuffled across more than 34 million miles of space—a journey of seven months. The transport would require 1,000 of Musk's Starships. (Yep. Like the one that recently blew up on landing.) Oh, and the Musk bombing would leave Mars radioactive.
But Musk remains characteristically cheeky, promoting the project by selling SpaceX T-shirts flaunting the slogan “Nuke Mars.”
Here's hoping Musk puts his Nuclear Musket aside long enough to read a recent article in Universe Today that reports “a NASA-sponsored MIT think-tank has weighed up the future energy needs of a manned settlement on Mars and arrived at an interesting conclusion…solar arrays might function just as well, if not better, than the nuclear options.”
Weird Work If You Can Find It
An unsolicited voicemail left by a caller named "Neil," announced that I was targeted as a business that might be interested in the services of 4dollarstaffing.com. (Note: If you click on this url, you might get an alert that the website "may be impersonating '4dallarstaffing.com' to steal your personal or financial information.") According to "Neil," I could expand my staff by paying 4dollars' workers a record-setting sub-basement wage of "$3.90 an hour." Neil promised that 4dollar's hirelings could do it all: "real estate, medical, law, retail, and social media"—these tasks could all be tackled by "low-cost, outsourced" workers.
Looking for a second opinion, I found that the Trusted website, gives 4dollar a "low" trust rating, flags it as a "risky" site, and reports the five-year-old site was Born in the USA but is "possibly located in Pakistan."
My first thought when I heard the proposal was: "human trafficking?"
But then I came across a Webpage for a company called DollarsStaffing.com that has a different take on the Employee Search challenge. It seems as though the search firm applies an hourly finders' fee for its job-matching services. As DollarStaffing puts it: "A dollar an hour from both the employer and the employee makes the difference in addressing the current industry challenges and helps the customers identify the best."
Sounds like hiring a wedding arranger to match a groom and a bride—except the fee continues to be collected on an hourly basis for the duration of the marriage.
Peace Heroes Revisited
In the previous column, a salute to the "78 Peace Heroes Who Voted Against the Pentagon Budget," missed one of the heroes. Apologies to Squad member Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) whose name was inadvertently left off the previously posted roster of Peace Heroes.
As a follow-up, here's a list of senators who subsequently voted "No" on the massive S.4049 war-funding bill.
According to the US Senate Roll Call, 84 Senators voted for the massive package while 13 cast a “Nay” vote. The Senators who voted against the huge transfer of wealth to the military included seven Republicans, five Democrats, and one Independent. Dianne Feinstein voted for the Pentagon bill. Kamala Harris was one of three senators who failed to cast a vote.
A List of Senate War Resisters
Cory Booker [D] New Jersey
Mike Braun [R] Indiana
Tom Cotton [R] Arkansas
Ted Cruz [R] Texas
Josh Hawley [R] Missouri
John Kennedy [R] Louisiana
Mike Lee [R] Utah
Ed Markey [D] Massachusetts
Jeff Merkley [D] Oregon
Rand Paul [R] Kentucky
Bernie Sanders [I] Vermont
Elizabeth Warren [D] Massachusetts
Ron Wyden [D] Oregon
Not voting: Lindsey Graham [R] South Carolina, Kamala Harris [D] California, and Mike Rounds [R] South Dakota
The week of December 13 City meetings started with the Council Budget and Finance Committee review of financial reports and Mayor Arreguin’s proposed annual appropriations, which include a $5 million additional allocation to the Police Department overtime budget. Hearing about this figure, I couldn’t stop thinking about the incident I wrote about last week, seeing 10 uniformed officers, 5 patrol cars and 5 meter-maid traffic vehicles all hanging out at McGee and Hearst with an empty dented meter-maid vehicle by the light post. I wondered: Is there nothing else to do in a city of over 100,000? My walk partner said it out loud.
Councilmember Kate Harrison suggested an allocation of $2.5 million and holding $1 million in reserve pending review of police overtime staffing at the end of the next quarter. The final proposal passed at Council on Tuesday evening was $3.5 million to police overtime and $1 million in reserve, as submitted by Teresa Berkeley-Simmons, Budget Manager.
This week was a lesson in how just a couple of words can dramatically change accountability, both as regards policing policy and to remove protections to preserve manufacturing space in West Berkeley.
Police Chief Greenwood sought an amendment to the Use of Force Policy passed by City Council on July 23, 2020, inserting the words “strive to” so the Use of Force Standard would read, “…officers shall strive to use the minimum amount of force…” The Police Review Commission (PRC) had rejected this insertion, determining it would water down the use of force policy to a semblance of effort, making it difficult to hold a police officer accountable for excessive use of force.
On Tuesday evening, after much discussion that pushed the Council meeting until 12:30 a.m., the final solution adopted by Council to 300.1.2 Use of Force Standard substituted “a” for “the” and added “within a range” in the definition of “minimal” amount of force. The final wording, “…In all cases where physical force is used, officers shall use a minimum amount of force…”
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At the Planning Commission on Wednesday evening, Item 10, Business Support Zoning Amendment Referrals-Research and Development, did not look like much, a change of adding a word here and there, expanding the definition of what qualified as Research and Development, until Rick Auerbach, a longtime activist on behalf of West Berkeley’s artists and industries, spoke about the West Berkeley Plan.
West Berkeley is the area where the Plan provides land use protections to support light industry, artisans, manufacturing and labs. The change in the definition would unravel protections for these uses.
Commissioner Ben Beach asked for continued discussion with impacted stakeholders, balancing existing policy goals, rather than open season on displacement of businesses that we have been trying to protect. He was joined by Commissioner Robb Kapla who asked why we should try to expand R&D in the protected area. Why not have R&D which is office work in offices?
Protected uses in West Berkeley provide the kind of jobs which are often filled by high school graduates and persons of color. When it was clear that representation for the West Berkeley Plan was not contacted, a statement from the Commission secretary about the email list was offered as cover for the absence of contact with West Berkeley advocates and impacted industries.
It was Jordon Klein, formerly with the Office of Economic Development, but now Acting Director of Planning, who unintentionally clarified the intent of the R&D amendment by adding technology to the definition. It was pointed out that instead of renting space at 50 cents to $1.50/sq ft for light manufacturing/protected uses, by expanding the definition and moving in technology the same space could be leased for $6.00/sq ft.
When Planning Commission members asked more pressing questions, such as why tech work which is basically office couldn’t be in other locations like the downtown, Jordan Klein said he was calling in the cavalry, and brought in planner Steven Buckley to the rescue.
No decisions were made, and it was left with staff to meet with Mr. Auerbach (who had been left off the contact list). City staff were asked to review the impacts of changing the definition, to consider whether there was a site with long term non-use and to look at other spaces for offices for technology.
The question here is, will Berkeley sell out to the big developers or retain its values by keeping an area for industry, manufacturing, artisans and the people who fill those jobs? There is lots of vacant space in the downtown, ground floors in mixed use buildings, that could benefit from tech workers needing office space rather than unraveling the protections which were established for West Berkeley.
Maybe there should be a change in thinking about what makes the city “vibrant.” It certainly isn’t store front commercial space that sits empty.
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The Community for a Cultural Civic Center (CCCC) continues to move along and is using berkeleycccc@googlegroups.com. Thanks to John Caner and conversations with Tipping Structural Engineers and the City, it looks like with a little fund raising, the seismic evaluation of the historic structures that wasn’t included in the report from Gehl could finally get done.
Three sub-groups are forming. Liza Bullwinkel, the Chair of the Civic Arts Commission, reported that the Commission has a subcommittee, Civic Arts Visioning, which can work on uses of the Veterans’ and Maudelle Shirek Old City Hall buildings:
Ann Harlow (annharlow@pacbell.net) offered to be the contact for fund raising and the CCCC accepted the suggestion to use Berkeley Partners for Parks as a fiscal agent.
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We can’t seem to get anywhere on moving the Bird Safe Berkeley Requirements through the Planning Commission, and while some of the developers are becoming more receptive to native plants, dark sky and downward lighting it will take more than good will to make the changes that the Design Review Committee can only suggest and recommend. We need the Bird Safe ordinance passed.
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The news on the spread of the pandemic is all bad. It will take months for everyone to get vaccinated. If people behave as badly over the coming holidays as they did over Thanksgiving nurses like me who haven’t worked in an ICU for 45 years might get called up. In California we’ve gone from under 9000 new cases per day a week before Thanksgiving to over 63,000 new cases on Wednesday. The number of deaths are climbing and that number will continue to get higher as ICU beds become out of reach. If you get hospitalized and I get called up, don’t expect kind words. I have a mouth like a sailor. My sympathies are with the farm workers, grocery store staff, nurses, doctors, hospital housekeepers.
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If you need some suggestions on reading while staying at home, I definitely recommend It Was All a Lie by Stuart Stevens on the Republican party and Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi. Disloyal by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, is on the Berkeley Library lucky day shelf.
I am looking forward to no city meetings and have a stack of reading to catch up on. The Secret Life of Groceries was on the lucky day shelf and I expect that will be an important partner to the presentation by Nilang Gor on Vision 2025 for Sustainable Food Policies at the Health, Life Enrichment, Equity and Community Committee on Monday. I could use some help on putting the meeting audio with the presentation visual. We’re killing ourselves and the planet with a meat-based diet.
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The Community Advisory Group (CAG) for the BART station developments is still hearing from community members who don’t want mid-range-high apartments in a single story and 2-story neighborhood. It is unlikely they will get their wish, but planning is moving along and there will be more community meetings in the new year. Parking for BART users who live in the hills is another issue to watch.
Just one month ago on November 17, 2020, the rolling one-week average of daily recorded new COVID-19 infections in California was 8979. Now three weeks after Thanksgiving, a one-day record of 63,817 new COVID-19 cases in California was set this week on Wednesday.
I don’t think anyone wants to spend the holidays with an order that lasts until January 7, 2021 to Stay at Home for all but essential services, but this is where we are. And, if ICU bed availability doesn’t head back over 15%, we could be looking at an extension of that Stay at Home order.
There is only one City meeting in the coming week on Monday. Winter Holiday scheduling has begun. City reduced service days wrap around the Christmas and New Year’s Holidays beginning on December 24, 2020 and continuing through December 31, 2020. Normal schedules resume January 4, 2020. The City Council Winter Recess lasts until January 18, 2021, although there will be an Agenda Planning meeting on January 4, 2021.
Monday, December 21, 2020
Ashby and North Berkeley BART Community Advisory Group (CAG), 5:30 – 6:30 pm
