It wasn't the first time I stood and demonstrated on the Savio Steps outside UC Berkeley's Sproul Hall but it was the first time I found myself hoisting the middle of a 12-foot-wide banner reading "Save People's Park."
In the early hours of Tuesday, armed police had sealed off the park with a metal fence, standing by as hired contractors set to work chopping down the park's trees.
A rally had been called for 5PM and now, more than a hundred park supporters were standing in the shadow of the Student Union as a tattooed activist flipped on a microphone. He invited the crowd to move into the sunshine to hear short messages from a half-dozen scheduled speakers.
The choreographed event soon turned into a Free Speech free-for-all when a self-important bozo in the audience marched up the steps, snatched the mike from the startled moderator and began to pontificate.
The crowd responded by booing his bullying tactics. He only stopped ranting when the power to his microphone was cut.
With power—and decorum—restored, Park co-founder and legendary radical presence Mike Delacour returned the rally's focus to the University's desecration and peoples' defense of the park. A few more speakers stepped forward with comments, condemnations and legal updates—while an unamplified chorus of critics hovered behind, waving their arms, pointing fingers, and seeming to challenge whoever held the microphone.
Then it was time to join my two fellow banner-bearers and begin to march. Two large banners were supposed to be in the lead as the crowd surged onto Telegraph Avenue but we got a late start and soon discovered a mass-action fact: You can't steer a banner through the middle of a mob. We eventually moved toward the curb and weaseled our way to the front.
As we reached Haste and turned toward the park, we passed alongside Osha Newmann and Brian Thiele's historic mural showing the park's birth—along with the immortal image of Free Speech Movement activist Mario Savio speaking from atop a cop car surrounded by a painted crowd of UC students.
Approaching the park was a challenge since it involved mastering some trampoline-hopping maneuvers to cross over sections of metal fencing that had been torn down and let piled on the sidewalks and street.
The sight was heart-breaking. An open space that once resembled a scruffy Urban Eden, now looked like a battlefield—or worse, like the site of a massacre. Scores of once-tall trees lay dismembered on the ground. A single towering sequoia (quite possibly older than the city itself) was one of the few trees that had not been felled. Huge mounds of sawdust cluttered the land. Heavy equipment stood abandoned in the park, dismantled by the clawing hands of park defenders.
A a number of the sawed stumps and truncated limbs had been honored by anonymous artists who had covered their remains with painted images of hearts and flowers.
We spread our banner over the front of two disabled bulldozers and joined the crowd as speakers began to climb on to the park's still-intact stage and began to share memories and strategies.
One park elder (who was so well-known that many in the audience greeted him by shouting his name) spoke emotionally of his bonding with the park. At one point, he swept his arm toward an empty patch of parkland and uttered an anguished cry: "They cut down my tree!"
Park defenders offered advice for the days ahead. "Dress in black to show solidarity." "Wear masks to protect your identity." "Don't take photographs of other protestors."
Many speakers recalled the magic of the park as a place of refuge. Many speakers condemned the University. Some spoke of the brutality of the minions who would destroy the park to YIMBYfy the city's vanishing open spaces. (Was it really necessary to weld shut the metal door on the park's public restroom?)
After an hour of oratory, ranging from rebellion to regeneration, a van pulled up on Dwight and two black-clad volunteers emerged with two large saplings in planter pots. They carried to the young trees to the edge of the stage and placed them on defiant display—ready to plant and protect in the days ahead.
Leaving the park, I headed back down Haste and encountered a woman heading up the middle of the street. She was pushing a shopping cart filled with clothes, food and some meager possessions.
"Is that People's Park?" she asked.
I nodded yes.
"I remember it with trees," she sobbed, wiping her eyes.
Downieville Courthouse, Downieville, Sierra County, CA,
The People’s Park Hearings opened this week in Downieville, CA. Called by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the hearings were originally scheduled for Oakland, CA, but University of California lawyers called for a change of venue to the second smallest California county where digital access is extremely limited. However, the old Courthouse where the hearings are taking place does have indoor plumbing. The UC attorneys originally opted for the town of Loyalton because its name reminded them of the historic UC Loyalty Oath controversy, but the town lacked a large enough space for the hearings.
The central question before the UNEP panel is the destruction by UC of a park and urban ecosystem in the midst of extreme climate change. The hearing opened with questioning of Chancellor Carol Christ. Christ was asked if she felt the destruction of the park contradicted the public mission of UC. She responded that in the era of tight budgets the bottom line was paramount and that public-private partnerships called for a scorched earth policy.
The panel asked if this policy seemed to Christ to indicate a corporate, not public, mission. She reminded the panel that the governing body of UC, the Regents, was almost entirely made up of corporate representatives, for example, Barclays Capital, CBRE, Microsoft, and various real estate and entertainment corporations. Christ pointed out that the UC mission may be public, but it is guided by the not so invisible hand of the market.
The next line of questioning focused on the broken collaborative agreements between UC Berkeley and the People’s Park Project/Native Plant Forum. They were enumerated: the Letter of Agreement of May 8, 1978, the Letter of Understanding of January 5, 1979, and the Letter of August 31, 1979. Christ responded, “Please that was the 20th century. The internet was not even invented!”
In the same vein, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin was called to the stand and asked why a secret agreement was forged between UC and the City with no public input and an alleged violation of the Brown Act. He clearly explained that in his quest for higher office he had to cater to the whims of UC and his campaign contributors in the development and real estate industry. He responded, “Even if it’s a bad deal for the City, why should the Brown Act stop me?”
Next Arreguin was asked about violations of Berkeley ordinances Measures L and N, which mandate respectively that the City preserve and expand parks and that the City strive to get the best possible reimbursement from UC for city services. He replied, “Those ordinances are really old school 20th century policies, better ignored than obeyed.”
Ms. Christ was called back to the stand and queried about the several alternative sites available for building student housing. The questioning focused on the Ellsworth Parking Structure just over a block from People’s Park. The panel noted this earthquake unsafe structure was built in 1959-1961 under the 1958 building code and was suggested for demolition in 2016. The area of the parking structure would accommodate the housing proposed for People’s Park. When asked why favor an unsafe parking structure over a park, Christ responded adamantly, “It’s about the bottom line!”
At this point the questioning got heated. One panelist asked, “Isn’t that rather Trumpian?” Another asked if the chancellor was just carrying on the work of Governor Ronald Reagan who had promised “to clean up the mess at Berkeley.” The UC lawyers suggested that Christ be silent on these questions.
The panel is still soliciting more witnesses to come forward and promises a few surprises in the next hearing.
This Diary is going to cover a lot of territory. It’s August and at least things look quiet for the week ahead. Looking back, there is so much that happened.
The Berkeley City Council is finally on summer recess through September 12th. Thank goodness! I so hope they stay away for the remainder of the summer. We could use weeks of peace to recover from CoB (City of Berkeley) WHIPLASH.
July 27, 2022 was the date that City Council was supposed to leave town or at least close up shop until mid-September, but Mayor Arreguin scheduled a special council meeting for August 3 dedicated to ballot initiatives. The mayor must have reconsidered how he handled the Rent Stabilization and Eviction for Good Cause Ordinance Ballot measure from the 4 x 4 Committee at the July 26th council meeting. By Monday afternoon Arreguin had resurrected it, placing it as the last item on the August 3 special council meeting agenda.
On Tuesday afternoon, on the day before the meeting, I received an email from someone I don’t know, Geoff Lomax (evidently my email is being shared – thank you and I mean that sincerely) saying that the calculation of the total debt service payment (the expected cost for property owners) in the city’s documents for the General Obligation Bond ballot measure was off by as much as 50%. And that wasn’t in the good direction: if he’s right, any of us who are property owners would actually be paying almost double what the City initially estimated.
On the website ("blog") of a new organization called Within Our Means Berkeley, Geoff Lomax is identified as a volunteer. His analysis can be found here. Some of the group’s supporters (“endorsers”)can be seen here. The site does not specifically identify its organizers.
I heard more about this error at National Night Out when I talked to one of these endorsers who is a neighbor of mine. It all fell into place when I saw the “Revised material – Finance (Supp 2)” from Henry Oyekanmi, Director of Finance, with the document header, “Revised tax statement figures for both $600 million and $650 million tax statements.” https://berkeleyca.gov/city-council-special-meeting-eagenda-august-3-2022
Lomax’s analysis seems to have pushed the city’s revision, but can we rely on the city’s 22% adjustment as the final answer when there was so little time to review their package? That was the next question posed in the WOM blog.
The council debated for nearly three hours whether the bond should be $600 million or $650 million and whether the “median” should be used instead of “average” to help property owners calculate the impact to their property tax bill. At times it felt that they were almost giddy with the prospect of the big spending bond package.
The bigger question for me is; Does a $650,000,000 General Obligation Bond that residents of Berkeley are going to be paying for either directly or indirectly for the next 48 years, with fuzzy spending and numbers, even make sense? And even if it did make sense, can we really expect commission oversight to prevent the funds from sloshing around to cover budget overruns or pet projects, when right now commissions that have been assigned oversight responsibility for much smaller ballot measures complain that they are not provided the financial information, the documentation they need to fulfill their responsibilities.
The council finally ended discussion at 12:05 pm. Droste was absent for the entire day, leaving the unanimous vote count as eight in favor of the bond. Arreguin, Hahn, Wengraf and Kesarwani will author the ballot argument in support of the bond.
After a brief break, next up was Vice Mayor Harrison’s ballot initiative to tax residential units vacant for more than 182 days. This is a ballot measure that I have supported from the beginning. Berkeley has more than its share of housing that has been vacant for years and some for decades. It is past time for these vacant units to be brought back for housing, or if they stay vacant for the owners to pay a tax on that vacancy.
Arreguin signed on to the revision, which brought a sigh of relief from supporters, since Wengraf, Taplin, Kesarwani and Droste have previously questioned a tax on vacant residential units. Taplin was a little cagey about his position: he suggested that the ballot measure should go to committee for further review. It has always been a question of where Sophie Hahn would land. Hahn said earlier in the meeting (which she attended by phone) that she was in favor of the measure, but I’ve seen her say one thing and vote the opposite so many times that I sat on the edge of my chair when her name was called to vote not once but six times before she got through.
Her vote would determine the outcome of whether the ballot measure would pass or fail. It was unclear if she had just dropped off the call because of technical problems or changed her mind. Finally, she was able to speak through her phone, voted yes and the ballot measure passed with Wengraf as a resounding no and Kesarwani and Taplin abstaining.
The Rent Stabilization and Eviction for Good Cause Ordinance Ballot measure, which came from the 4 x 4 Committee joining City Council and Rent Board members, was the last agenda item of the day. By the time that discussion started at 2:37 pm, we had all been on Zoom since 9 am. Hahn, who could only connect by phone, dropped off the call after the Vacancy Tax passed, so when the vote came to support the option of designating units in new construction as rent-controlled when they are created as the result of demolishing a building with rent-controlled units, it lost with one vote short of the needed five. Bartlett, Harrison, Robinson and Arreguin all voted for the option of designating the new units as rent-controlled (one new for one rent-controlled demolished). Kesarwani and Taplin abstained. Wengraf voted no.
The section on Eviction for Good Cause for the Golden Duplexes did not come up for a vote (lack of support). The only vote that was held was the vote to suspend the current ordinance that ends rent control if the annual average rate of vacant units exceeds 5% over a six-month period. We should still keep an eye on this, as with all the massive construction of large multi-unit buildings we may soon reach this threshold. I wouldn’t be surprised if that condition arises, pressure would come from the big international investors like Blackrock to end rent control.
In the end Soli Alpert, representing the Rent Board, said the cost of a ballot initiative could not be justified with only one section of the Rent Stabilization and Eviction for Good Cause Ordinance measure being passed by council and the rest failing.
This is a good time to pay attention to Kesarwani’s comments and watch how she votes. Elisa Mikiten just announced she is running against Rashi Kesarwani in District 1. Mikiten is currently chair of the Planning Commission and was previously on the Police Review Commission.
Wednesday meetings finished with Carol L. Rice, Wildlife Resource Management, and Cheryl Miller, Registered Landscape Architect, giving a well-practiced presentation that they defined as the first of three meetings on the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) at the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission. It sounded as if they were hired as consultants and their presentation along with the two meetings to follow, one in September and one in December, is to fulfill some state mandate.
As far as meeting the goal to better prepare the community for the growing threat of wildfire, I would classify the presentation as 1 on a scale of 10. I can’t comment on this year’s meeting by councilmembers Wengraf and Hahn on wildfire in urban wildland interface, but prior year presentations from councilmembers were so much better than this run through a power point--but then I haven’t fully explored the new CWPP page to the city website. This may all be better than first appearances. https://berkeleyca.gov/safety-health/disaster-preparedness/community-wildfire-protection-plan
The Hillside Fire Safety Group showed up in generous numbers for the CWPP presentation and is still fixated on eucalyptus trees.
I saw the text on a proposal for council action suspending the prohibition of the use of pepper spray and teargas just as the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission closed. It constituted the Brown Act’s minimal 24-hour notice for another City Council Special meeting at 8:15 pm Thursday evening (the posting notice went up at 8:14 pm). The AGENDA: 1. Discussion and possible action regarding the temporary suspension of the June 9, 2020 policy prohibiting the use of tear gas, smoke and pepper spray for the duration of the City Council recess [emphasis added] From: City Manager.
This is all about People’s Park, where UC Police donned riot gear and marched in to clear the park of people and then trees.
The mayor must have gotten a flood of pushback as the cancellation notices for the new meeting started to appear Thursday morning. Relief was the word of the day, but let’s not forget how we got here.
The destruction of Peoples Park is another chapter in this ugly history. This was decades in the making. The entire scene smacks of an institution determined to exercise its hold on this city and People’s Park, to leave no doubt who has the hands of power. There are absolutely other places to build, but that wasn’t the point for UCB. It is power and the groveling of our elected at its feet that got us here. It all adds another layer of bitterness to the scene. https://www.peoplespark.org/wp/
I walked up to see for myself the damage wrought by UCB. Words can hardly describe the heartbreaking scene and even the pictures don’t capture the impact of standing in the middle of the park surrounded by felled giant tree trunks lying like corpses amidst piles of branches with shriveling leaves. Towers of mulch fill empty spaces and when I looked up, a flock of birds circled overhead as if lost searching for the stately oaks and redwoods that once were their refuge. Devastating!
The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on Thursday evening was less than stunning as was the commission’s assessment of the new 8 story student housing project with 188 units at 2065 Kittredge. There can be no more than 5 meetings to review a project (SB 330) so the LPC was essentially stuck with approving a project that all of them found lacking in appeal and design. Bill Shrader, developer is still whining that he can’t have natural gas in the new building though I do agree with him that an open café/coffee shop on Allston across from the Y will have more traffic and a better chance of success than moving it to the corner of Harold Way and Kittredge across from the library as was requested by Commissioner Denise Hall Montgomery. The Shattuck Cinemas will soon be demolished to make way for the project. And the LPC dismissed the request from Commissioner Finacom who was unable to attend but sent written notes including a request that pictures be taken and preserved of the murals and artwork in the Shattuck Cinema theaters before they are demolished.
Before I picked up the book This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race by Nicole Perloth, I had never heard the term zero-day. Of course, I understood that systems can be hacked and read about cities and companies held hostage in the press. I’ve had my credit card hacked and replaced numerous times and shudder when I need to use my old computer with the operating system that can no longer be updated. I just didn’t know the word for a hole in security, a vulnerability in software that can be used for malicious intent like the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline in May 2021 is called zero-day.
I have my reservations about how much spyware I bring into the house. I certainly would never have an Alexa to collect personal data or put appliances or devices on the internet just for convenience. It is bad enough that my iPhone tracks me everywhere and now my data could be picked up by IKE as I stroll through Berkeley commercial areas. These are the little things that those of us not skilled in coding can recognize.
Perloth’s book is about so much more. In her epilogue she writes that her intended audience is for those of us not deep into cyber security.
The cyber invasions by Russia take up a lot of writing space. It was a huge surprise that some of the most skilled hackers are coming out of Argentina. Seems that being in a country that lacks broad digital access is actually a motivator for teenagers to learn how to hack into systems. Another piece of news was that two decades ago American teams from Berkeley, Harvard, and MIT dominated the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), the oldest and a prestigious contest of its kind with over a hundred countries represented. These days US teams don’t even make the top ten finalists. The winners are Russian, Polish, Chinese, South Korean and Taiwanese. a
Perloth doesn’t hold any punches. Section VII, Boomerang, chronicles how withholding notification from companies like Microsoft of zero-days discovered by the US NSA came back to bite us.
If you wish to pick up This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends, it is available as an ebook at all the local libraries (Oakland, Contra Costa, Alameda County, San Francisco) except Berkeley.
One more thing, I heard at National Night Out that Charles Clarke is moving out of the area. If you don’t attend City Council meetings then you missed Charles Clarke’s dry sense of humor as he detailed points on issues, always in wonderfully entertaining ways as he dove into the heart of the matter. Even when I found myself on the other side, which was most of the time, I always admired Clarke’s incredible research and tenacity. I will miss him and hope he puts all his talent to good use wherever he lands. If you know Charles personally, I don’t, please pass on a thank you for me.
Managing to Make a Difference—With Ice Cream Sandwiches
ActivSpace, a block-long triple-story office building on Seventh Street (where I rent an office) recently got a new office manager. I first encountered Chandra Thomas in a second-floor hallway, standing atop a chair and adjusting one of the building's wall-mounted emergency lamps.
I noticed further evidence that there was "a new sheriff in town" when the scramble of business cards and publicity fliers haphazardly splayed across the building's bulletin-boards were suddenly up-dated and rearranged in a neat and visually pleasing manner.
But the biggest sign of the new ActivSpace Era came in the form of a colorful flyer posted in the shared elevators. The posters announced that an hour-long "Ice Cream Social" was slated for the office parking lot—"Wow!" "Good Times!" "First Come, First Served!" "Enjoy Every Moment!"
The host for the event: our new office manager Chandra "Chan" Thomas.
Alas, on the promised day, there was a glitch. The food company that was supposed to deliver a bunker load of ice-cream bars at 3:30, showed up at 1 instead. It was a hot day and there was no way the frozen snacks were going to survive until mid-afternoon. What to do?
Chandra turned out to be a true problem-solver. She found a two-wheel handcart in storage, filled it with scores of wilting ice cream sandwiches, and set off on foot to deliver the snacks by hand. Going door-to-door, Chan managed to meet every promise on the poster with the sole exception of "First Come, First Served."
I got my sweet treat hand-delivered as CT wheeled the goods down Seventh Street and paused to stop at my table outside Nina's Café, where I was enjoying a cup of hot chai and a muffin.
I caught up with Chan a few days later and gathered some details.
"I actually went door to door to reach the customers," she explained. "I didn’t want it to melt and go to waste, so the next best thing was to hand them out—and meet some new folks in the process.' Fortunately, she had some assistance: "The lady that came along was my 74-year-old mother. I figured she could hang out with me and we could spread the joy of ice cream together."
And that they did. Call it "Ice Cream Socialism"—sweet treats for the working class.
Fashion Plates
Some personalized license plates spotted around town:
A brash red Dodge sportscar: MUSLPUP (Think: A young dog on steroids)
A Subaru speeding away flashing a plate that read: BYEEEUH
A black VW with Washington, DC plates: GH 1961 (The bottom of the plate bore the embossed statement: "End Taxation Without Representation.")
A Toyota: 34MERSO (A 34-year-old who is "merso"?—happy on the outside; depressed on the inside?) (Three roommates who share a fondness for "Merso Labs," a cannabis testing business in Lompoc?)
Vintage Scully
I grew up in Southern California listening to sports announcer Vin Scully covering the LA Dodgers. Scully's recent passing at the ripe vintage of 94 brought forth a flood of tributes, including wonderful audio clips of Scully at his warm and rambling best.
There was Scully retelling an encounter between one of the players and a wolf he mistook for a dog (the tale rolled out over the course of several minutes, occasionally interrupted by reports that a strike had been called or a ball had been bunted off to left field).
One of my favorite Scullyisms was his response to a reporter who asked why Scully (unlike most of his colleagues) seldom filled his airtime with recitations of ballgame statistics. Scully's reply: "Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamppost—for support, not illumination."
The New York Times, the LA Times and the Chronicle were among the many publications paying tribute to Scully and posting selections of the broadcaster's on-air adlibs—including Scully's majestic summation of the difference between baseball and football:
“Football is to baseball as blackjack is to bridge. One is the quick jolt. The other the deliberate, slow-paced game of skill, but never was a sport more ideally suited to television than baseball. It’s all there in front of you. It’s theater, really. The star is the spotlight on the mound, the supporting cast fanned out around him, the mathematical precision of the game moving with the kind of inevitability of Greek tragedy. With the Greek chorus in the bleachers!”
A Few Hot Tips
With the local weather about to warm up a bit, here are a couple of Hot Weather Tips that popped up in my email. "Cover Your Windows. Place tin foil with the shiny side facing outward in your window to reflect the heat." "Freeze your water bottles overnight so you'll have ice cold water to drink during the day." "Make yourself an electrolyte-infused hydration drink by mixing ¼ cup lemon juice, 2 tbsp lime juice, 2 cups water, 2 tbsp raw honey, 1/8 tsp sea salt."
Actions Have Consequences: Pelosi's Payback
Author/activist Steven Starr recently shared these thoughts on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's controversial China-provoking traipse to Taiwan.
"The Monroe Doctrine has now been replaced with the Moron Doctrine. Actually, it is the Neocon Doctrine: 'Follow My Rules Or Else!'
"We will see who 'wins' when China nationalizes all US factories built in China and cuts off trade to the US. There won't be any supply lines to disrupt . . . good luck getting anything at WalMart. And that will only be one byproduct of this insane policy of confrontation."
Protests Outside Pelosi's San Francisco Office
A Voice from Kyiv
Yurii Sheliazhenko, the executive secretary of Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, has had a front-row seat for the chilling spectacle of war between Russia and Ukraine. He recently shared the following thoughts.
"I live in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and every day my house shakes because of the Russian’s bombing. You may ask me why I didn’t leave? It’s because I am not allowed to leave Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky is currently pushing everyone to become soldiers to fight against the Russians.
"We don’t have the right to leave Ukraine and I may have to join the army against my own will. But, I will never kill another person, because I am a Ukraine pacifist, and I believe that war is wrong. It’s wrong to kill people. I will not go against my own conscience, even if they threaten me and put me in prison for five years.
"I hope the war will end soon through peace talks. I believe that people should talk to each other instead of killing one another. . . .
"No more killings and profits for merchants of death, please. Nobody knows how they plan to profit from the nuclear apocalypse, but escalation is now on the table."
Lies of The Times: Today's A-Bombs Are "Much Less Destructive"
On April 19, Ray Acheson, the Director of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom wrote a complaint castigating the New York Times for appearing to "normalize" the use of nuclear weapons: "In this apparent attempt to either push for—or at least normalize—the prospect of nuclear war, much of the focus is on the type of nuclear weapon that Putin is 'expected' to use. The New York Times describes tactical nuclear weapons as 'smaller bombs,' 'lesser nuclear arms,' 'less destructive by nature,' 'much less destructive,' and having 'variable explosive yields that could be dialed up or down depending on the military situation.'
"Even while acknowledging that one of these weapons, if detonated in Midtown Manhattan, would kill or injure half a million people, the Times suggests that the use of these weapons is 'perhaps less frightening and more thinkable.'
The article says the billions of dollars that the Obama administration spent on nuclear weapons went towards 'improving' US tactical nuclear weapons and turning them into 'smart bombs' that 'gave war planners the freedom to lower the weapons’ variable explosive force,' would have a 'high degree of precision, and would lower 'the risk of collateral damage and civilian casualties.'”
Minimizing the Unthinkable. The Question Is "Why?"
In the notorious Public Service Announcement discussed below, a spokesperson for New York's emergency planning department schools viewers on how to avoid being vaporized by a nuclear warhead. She starts off by stating there are "three important steps" to take. She reinforces her message by holding up her hand and displaying … just two fingers. Guess we're back to "Duck and Cover."
This recent 13-minute discussion with Glenn Beck just adds to the nuclear jitters—jitters that were only magnified by the UN's recent warning that humanity is just "one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation."
How Mark Made His Mark by Living the "Big Lie"
Republicans like Trump's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows have been quick to complain that extensive voter fraud has undermined “election integrity.” Meadows now runs the Conservative Partnership Institute where he continues to howl that the 2000 election was stolen thanks to massive voter fraud.
Truth to tell, there is evidence of actual voter fraud—and it involves Meadows.
Earlier this year, investigations revealed that Meadows (in the run-up to the 2020 national election) registered to vote in three states: Virginia, South Carolina and his native North Carolina.
North Carolina election officials have since booted him from its rolls, but Meadows remains illegally registered in the other two states. According to a report in Buzzflash: "Meadows and his wife were listed as living in a rusting trailer home near the South Carolina border, but, in reality, the 14-by-62-foot mobile home trailer home was empty. Now, his right to vote in his home state has been removed."
Our Mission Is Omission
In an email with the subject-line "Oops, we did it again," Public Citizen writes:
First it was the Secret Service.
Then the Department of Homeland Security.
And now even high-level Pentagon officials within the Trump administration.
All of these entities—which, let’s remember, are funded by our tax dollars—had a significant role in the events on and leading up to the January 6 insurrection.
And each of them has been exposed for deleting text messages that could advance our understanding of the breadth and depth of Trump’s attempt to remain in power illegally.
In some cases, phones may even have been wiped *after* texts were requested by people investigating the attempted coup.
Each of these agencies says the destruction of text messages related to January 6 was just part of normal IT procedures.
The Pentagon Researches the Cures; Big Pharma Pockets the Profits
Think Pentagon and you'll most likely imagine some general dressed in a crisp uniform plastered with combat ribbons. It turns out the Department of Defense also has its own teams of white-jacketed doctors and scientists and some of the tax-dollar loot that the DoD sucks up actually goes to support military researchers who (among other things) have created and tested vaccines to repulse COVID-19 and its variants.
But what happens after these taxpayer-subsidized cures are ready for public deployment? The Pentagon hands the cures over to powerful, private corporations that gain total control over the production, distribution, and—most importantly—pricing of these vaccines.
As Public Citizen points out, this practice has lead to global vaccine shortages, rationing of medicines, long waits in vaccination lines, and having to "pay Pharma excessively high prices to vaccinate Americans."
Public Citizen is adamant: "If life-saving vaccines are developed by government researchers with taxpayer dollars, corporations should not get to control their production and make excessive profits from these vaccines."
What can we do about this? There's a petition afloat that has a demand for President Biden: Don’t give control of taxpayer-funded vaccines to private companies. Instead, the petition urges Biden to "share new vaccine technology with qualified manufacturers worldwide and not to give it away to private corporations who would monopolize the production of new vaccines."
Parting Shots
"Yes, I'd like a receipt. If I don't like the contents, I may want to bring this item back for a refund." — Spoken by a man with a cheeky grin buying a Sunday Chronicle. Overheard at the CVS in North Berkeley.
Love Knows
It's been a hard week so let's end on a high note. Let's hear it for Founders Sing—and The Beatles.
In the past, both Sens. Joe Manchin (D.WV) and Kysten Sinema (D.AZ) have blocked much of President Joe Biden’s agenda. Now that Sen. Manchin and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.NY) have agreed to the "Inflation Reduction Act of 2022," which includes $790 billion for the climate and healthcare financed by a tax increase on the rich and big corporations. As far as I know, Sen. Sinema was not a party to the negotiations between Sens. Manchin and Schumer.
Sen. Sinema enjoyed the media attention while we waited for her to announce how she will vote on the proposed legislation. She did finally agree to support the legislation but used her leverage to get Democratic leaders to agree to drop a $14 billion tax increase on some wealthy hedge fund managers and private equity executives, change the structure of a 15% minimum tax on corporations, and include drought money to benefit Arizona.
Because Democrats are using the budget reconciliation process to protect the measure from a filibuster, it must be approved by the Senate Parliamentarian to ensure that its elements adhere to the strict rules that govern the process. If approved by the Parliamentarian, the Senate will vote on the measure. If passed by the Senate, the legislation moves to the House for a vote.
If signed into law, the U.S. will be able to show by example progress at the next climate conference in November. Passage of the Act should also help Democrats at the midterm elections.
The U.S. has fully implemented the new 988 national suicide prevention phone line. It works for talk and text. It can be called by anyone experiencing an emotional crisis in which there is a perceived or possible suicide risk. A family member can also call when worried about the wellness of a loved one. Rather than me trying to answer all questions related to this resource, I'm going to give you this link:
Writing this column has been an especially stabilizing influence for me. In 2012, after my first year of writing it, I was honored with an award for the column by the Alameda County Mental Health Commission. This was especially gratifying. A week later, my father passed away. Within 72 hours of that, I was in a substantial car accident with minor injuries that totaled my Toyota Matrix that family had paid for.
These were some dark times for me. Not very long before the abovementioned, my special companion cat, Boris, a Russian Blue mix, needed to be put down due to kidney failure. Writing this column helped me endure the hard times. I don't know whether the column was any good at the time, but I wasn't fired from it, so that says something.
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Paranoid symptoms are more than a headache. If you are paranoid, you might not be able to focus on the genuine threats to life and limb that you must heed. Instead, you're focusing on imaginary threats. How to distinguish? Sometimes this can be accomplished by speaking with people who are not paranoid but who are also not naive. Naivete is not a virtue. But paranoia, its opposite, can be worse.
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Doing something that you really want to do in life may be a higher priority than doing what you think you "need" to do. Sometimes, real happiness takes precedence over security and/or propriety. On the other hand, if you completely disregard basic needs, basic necessities, and social norms, you won't last long enough to do something fun or meaningful.
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Medication isn't salvation. It is the unhappy task of ingesting pharmaceuticals that often have adverse effects, and you may need to take them to function and to do basic tasks. Remaining medicated may prevent brain deterioration. And going a long time without medication may have lasting adverse effects. That's what many experts seem to theorize. Theory has it that unchecked schizophrenia has a burnout phase after time, in which the brain barely works and has sustained a lot of structural damage.
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I'm impressed by the bravery and fortitude of ordinary Americans. Those with whom I've spoken are facing challenging times that seem unprecedented. Yet, people are hanging tough--those that can. And what choice do we have? I find that many people have it a lot harder than I do in their lives. But I'm holding up my end of things as well as I can. Sometimes, things slip by me. But I'm not accepting the concept of being a rodent on a wheel. If something is too hard, I don't try to do it.
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In a few more months, we are headed for the next holiday season and a midterm election that could determine the fate of humanity. We must be persistent and insistent in the dissemination of real facts and in the rejection of idiocy, stupidity, and hatred. Lies must be extinguished with simple fact. We face the nature of human beings in which the mind works to prove its assumptions, and you can't convince anyone of anything they don't want to believe. Good luck to us all, the fools and the wise people alike. We can't be in a swordfight for dominance of a sinking ship.
A psychiatric diagnosis is a life sentence to poverty, suffering and humiliation? That is a rather narrow point of view.
The reality: We are a broad and diverse demographic, earning to the millions, holding every university degree, and every profesional, white, and blue collar job.
Relief – City Council is finally off for summer recess and most commissions do not meet in August.
Monday the BART Police Citizen Review Board meets, it is only listed because you may find the crime report interesting. The increase in crime is at the Alameda and Contra Costa County Stations not San Francisco or Santa Clara.
Thursday the Zoning Adjustment Board (ZAB) has two home addition projects on the consent calendar. There are no action items and no major projects for review at the August 11 meeting.
Saturday the Berkeley Neighborhoods Council is scheduled to meet at 10 am. Check later in the week for the agenda. (This is the meeting I will be watching.)
2. 6 Nogales – add a 143 sq ft addition above 14 ft in average height and 20 feet maximum height on a lot that is non-conforming for lot coverage.
3. 1445 Virginia – 321 sq ft second story addition on a lot that is non-conforming for lot coverage and occupied by a 2-story single-family dwelling. Total bedrooms increases from 2 to 4.
Notice of Decision (NOD) and Use Permits with the End of the Appeal Period
Bad news on tracking approved projects in the appeal period. Samantha Updegrave, Zoning Officer, Principal Planner wrote the listing of projects in the appeal period can only be found by looking up each project individually through permits online by address or permit number https://berkeleyca.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/Online-Building-Permits-Guide.pdf
The website with easy to find listing of projects in the appeal period was left on the “cutting room floor” another casualty of the conversion to the new City of Berkeley website.
Here is the old website link, Please ask for it to be restored.
If you would like to receive the Activist’s Calendar as soon as it is completed send an email to kellyhammargren@gmail.com. If you wish to stop receiving the weekly summary of city meetings please forward the weekly summary you received to kellyhammargren@gmail.com.
Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel and his wife, actress and director Maria Valverde, created the Encuentros Orchestra as a way to explore and promote cultural unity by bringing together outstanding young musicians ages 18-26 from many different countries. This year,
Dudamel and Valverde brought more than 100 young musicians from 22 countries to California for an intensive two-week program of master classes, rehearsals, cultural activities and concerts in conjunction with Los Angeles Philharmonic and Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA). On Thursday evening August 4, Gustavo Dudamel conducted the Encuentros Orchestra with special guest artist esperanza spalding in a concert at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre under the aegis of Cal Performances.
This concert led off with a work composed by Venezuelan trumpeter Giancarlo Castro D’Addona that was commissioned by Los Angeles Philharmonic and was dedicated to the Encuentros Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel. D’Addona is one of the most acclaimed artists to emerge from Venezuela’s youth training program El Sistema, in which Dudamel himself received his musical training. D’Addona’s Encuentro Obertura Festiva, is a lively work with festive fanfares from the trumpets and a general feel reminiscent of big band Latin jazz. There was also a lovely brief cello solo exquisitely played by principal cellist Siul Alberto Angel Prado from Venezuela. This piece also paid homage to the musical heritage of the diverse members of Encuentros Orchestra.
Next on the program was Gaia, a work by Wayne Shorter featuring esperanza spalding on double bass and vocals. Gaia was composed by Wayne Shorter in 2013 at the age of 82. Having collaborated with Shorter on his opera Iphegenia, which received its West Coast premiere here at Zellerbach Hall in February of this year, esperanza spalding is uniquely qualified as an interpreter of Wayne Shorter’s innovative music. In Gaia spalding’s work on double bass was inspiring, and her vocals were full of agility featuring extreme vocal leaps. It is regretted, however, that supertitles were not provided that would have enabled the audience to understand the verbal text that spalding sang so expressively. Perhaps the late addition of Gaia on this concert’s program simply did not give Cal Performances time to prepare supertitles. In any case, esperanze spalding was expertly joined by a small jazz combo consisting of Matthew Stevens on guitar, Eric Doob on drums, and Darrell Grant on piano, as well as by the Encuentros Orchestra. All told, Wayne Shorter’s Gaia was an inspiring work combining elements of jazz and classical music.
After intermission, Gustavo Dudamel led Encuentros Orchestra in Antonin Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, From the New World. This work was written during Dvorák’s yearlong stay in America in 1893. During his time here Dvorák immersed himself in African American spirituals and native American dances, though he later vehemently rebuffed assertions that he cribbed music from these sources, maintaining instead that he wrote his own material in the spirit of these American melodies and rhythms. This symphony opens with violas and low strings punctuated by a horn call. This syncopated theme is then carried over by the woodwinds. A transitional subject in flutes and oboes leads to the second main theme, introduced by the flute and picked up by the violins. This second theme bears some resemblance to the Negro spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”
The second movement, a beautiful Largo, is one of the most celebrated in all symphonic music. The principal theme, the so-called “Goin’ Home” melody, is first played by a single English horn. Two subsidiary themes are introduced, the first in the flute and oboe and the second in the oboe alone. The third movement, a Scherzo marked Molto vivace, opens with a forceful theme in flute and oboe then answered by the clarinet and punctuated by strings, timpani and triangle. The highly spirited dancelike music of this movement may have been inspired by Dvorák’s hearing of traditional indigenous American ritual dances. This symphony’s final movement, marked Allegro con fuoco, features a jubilant theme first presented by horns and trumpets against sharp chords from the strings. This famous theme recurs at various moments in this symphony’s finale and leaves the audience humming it as a memorable curtain-closer. To tumultuous applause, conductor Gustavao Dudamel acknowledged each of the Encuentros Orchestra’s soloists in turn, striding deep into the orchestra to embrace these excellent musicians individually. It was a fitting conclusion to a very inspiring concert of collective music-making.
The first article of music criticism I ever wrote was a review of a 1974 Merola Opera production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. (This review appeared in the August 25-29, 1974 issue of the now long defunct Berkeley Barb.) Now, 48 years later, here I am writing a review of another Merola Opera production of The Magic Flute, or, to call it by its original German title, Die Zauberflöte. Happily, by whichever name you call it, this opera never gets old. It is as amazing and delightful today as it ever was and forever will be.
Musically, Die Zauberflöte contains elements of Singspiel, intermezzo, folksong, dance, oratorio, and religious liturgy. (The latter is present in the initiation music, set to a text reminiscent of Masonic rituals, at Sarastro’s temple.) As W.J. Turner writes in his book Mozart: The Man & His Works, Die Zauberflöte is “a special combination of the whole gamut of opera, comprising the threefold root of poetry, dancing and music in its entirety; no longer as a primitive beginning but, on the contrary, as a culmination in which the widest divergences… are once again recombined.”
Mozart wrote the music for Die Zauberflöte on commission from his friend Emmanuel Schikaneder, a barnstorming singer-impressario who in 1789 began producing popular works of music theatre at a wooden barn-like outdoor theatre just beyond the city gates of Vienna.
Schikaneder’s specialty was crude and vulgar spectacles full of trivial melodies. For Mozart, who had long been a court composer and pianist for Viennese high society, it was hardly a dignified commission that Schikaneder offered him. However, Vienna in 1791 was experiencing hard times. Emperor Joseph II had died and the new emperor, Leopold II, had reversed many of Joseph’s progressive policies. Mozart and his music were now out out of courtly favour. It is also true that Mozart had long desired to write another German opera after the lukewarm reception of his earlier Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Further, Mozart needed money; and, finally, not only was Schikaneder an old friend from Salzburg but also he and Mozart were both members of the Viennese Freemason’s Society. As Edward J. Dent writes in his book Mozart’s Operas, “This was very probably the most cogent reason of all” for Mozart’s acceptance of Schikaneder’s offer.
The current Merola production of Die Zauberflöte, which I attended on Saturday, August 6 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in the Blue Shield Theatre, was sung in German with spoken dialogue in English. It was staged by longtime Metropolitan Opera director Gina Lapinski and featured projections by award-winning designer Ian Winters and lavish costumes by Dame Zandra Rhodes. The San Francisco Opera Center Orchestra was ably conducted by Kelly Kuo.
Featured in the cast were soprano Chelsea Lehnea, who was an excellent, sweet-voiced Pamina, baritone Scott Lee as the earthy Papageno, soprano Maggie Kinabrew as the Queen of the Night, and tenor Sahel Salam as Tamino. The latter’s voice was, in my opinion, ill-suited to this role, being not a lyric tenor but rather a dramatic tenor. Though Sahel Salam sang well, his performance lacked the usual innocence and sweetness associated with the role of the young prince Tamino. In the notoriously difficult role of the Queen of the Night, Maggie Kinebrew came on strong after a somewhat hushed opening of her First Act aria, though in the latter part of that aria she showed admirable vocal projection. Moreover, her famous Act Two aria was impressively sung. Bass Edwin Jhamaal Davis was impressive as Sarastro; and bass-baritone Le Bu was outstanding as the Speaker at Sarastro’s temple. Tenor Chance Jonas-O’Toole was the malicious Monostatos. Soprano Ashley Marie Robillard was a fine Papagena; and the Three ladies were ably sung by soprano Adia Evans, mezzo-soprano Erin Wagner, and mezzo-soprano Veena Akama Makia. The Three Boys, or as they are identified here as The Three Spirits, were sung by soprano Olivia Prendergast, countertenor Cody Bowers, and mezzo-soprano Maggie Renée.
In the initiation scene at Sarastro’s temple, tenor Daniel Luis Espinal was the First Priest; baritone Andres Cascante was the Second Priest; tenor Moisés Salazar was the First Armored Man; and bass-baritone Seungyun Kim was the Second Armored Man. It was a bit jarring to hear the misogynist overtones warning against listening to women in the initiation rituals modeled in part on Masonic initiation rituals. In all other respects, however, this was an excellent and most enjoyable production of Mozart’s lovable Die Zauberflöte.
