I'm approaching sixty years, and to give this essay some pre-tangentiality: For someone with my diagnosis and my history to be even alive, much less writing for small newspapers, and not living with my mother, is a substantial accomplishment. Yet, along the way, many people, during this time, have harassed, heckled, doubted, scoffed, and in some instances, physically attacked me. When you are successful and you are mentally ill, it seems that you invoke the scorn of many people.
When you are on your way to achieving something, other people don't like it. This is a general observation, and it doesn't solely apply to people with disabilities. When other people can't do what you have done, often they can't handle it.
Invalidation is a weapon. It is deployed to attack people in their minds. If you get enough of it, some of it will inevitably find its way in. It harms self-esteem. It harms self-confidence. It harms people's souls and their identities. It is doled out generously in the places where mentally ill people go.
Often, invalidation is unintentional, with no malice, and wishing a person only the best. Rather, it stems from bad assumptions skewing the perceptions of the inadvertent invalidator. It is propagated through interactions. For example, if someone is identified as a mentally ill person, a self-believed wiser person wants to show them the best way to do something they already know very well how to do, such as the best way to pour a glass of ice water, or the best way to bake a cake. Or, assuming we don't know anything, explaining something very basic in terms they'd think someone in the twelfth grade could understand. Such as, "Magnetic North is not exactly the same as actual North."
Unintentional invalidation causes harm just as does intentional invalidation. Yet, you can't prejudge someone's level of competence--not by their physical appearance, not by what other people have said about them, and not even by whether they come across to you as intelligent. I've been invalidated plenty of times, and it was caused by people making incorrect assumptions. Or it was caused by malice. Or...maybe it was done because a group of people believed, "That Jack Bragen guy is sure good to pick on."
How to deal with invalidation? We must value ourselves. We must do so generously, unbreakably, deeply, at the core. And, by coincidence, self-validation can get you through a lot of very difficult situations in life. It can also prevent people from thinking they can "get you" without repercussions. A self-validated person is better at self-defense. And getting angry may be part of that.
Getting tangential again:
Anger itself, which I believe is partly a product of valuing yourself, can help you. Classically, in some psychological models and in some spiritual practices, you supposedly don't need your anger. I believe you need your anger.
If you have been brainwashed into a cult, you may need your anger to un-brainwash yourself. If you are psychotic, on the other hand, excessive anger is a problem. When you are "decompensating" (itself a provocative terminology, but please excuse) you might be excessively angry, and that's how others might realize something is wrong. Anger isn't good or bad. Sometimes you need it, and sometimes it is poison.
Invalidation hurts us, and it doesn't really matter why someone does it. But our own self-worthiness and self-validity are central to going from start to finish in good form.
Jack Bragen is a writer who lives in Martinez, California.
With the greatest respect for Kelly Hammargren for the wonderful work she does providing us with information about how the City Council, commissions, and city administration are operating, I’m writing to counter the implications that may be drawn from her report on Measure L that we should vote No on it.
I’ve lived in Berkeley since 1962, and for many decades have seen reports and admonitions that the city is not allocating enough to infrastructure, that failing to maintain, repair, and upgrade infrastructure will cost taxpayers much more in the long run. Almost never do the city budgets allow for catching up on the needs, and indeed the needs get more extensive and expensive because of the shortfalls every year.
Police and fire services use about 50% of the city budget. Even with the movement to reallocate police funds to more productive and constructive unarmed health, traffic, and related workers’ services, there will still be only 50% or less of the budget for maintaining and improving infrastructure as well as funding parks, libraries, recreation, public health, permitting, building inspection, and the myriad other services the city must provide for us.
The current council has had the courage to put on the ballot at last a measure large enough to actually allow the city to catch up on the decades of backlog in infrastructure maintenance and to make improvements required by the climate crisis, so that the city COULD in fact in future maintain and repair our streets, public buildings and recreation facilities, communications equipment, and the like using regular budget funds annually, as various critics have long said it should.
It will take a long time for such a big endeavor to reach its goal. The more years, the greater the total of interest payments on the bond amount. Those are realities of bond funding and construction that the measure cannot avoid. And it can be highly problematic for a long-term bond measure to specify precisely what the funds are to be used for in what order of priority, because unforeseen disasters or infrastructure failures may demand immediate action that would then be foreclosed by not being specified in the measure.
Keeping in mind that continuing to fail in maintaining and upgrading our infrastructure will inevitably cost more, I intend to vote YES on Measure L.
Kelly gives us very valuable insight into the problems facing committees tasked with overseeing how bond funding is being spent. I’m very grateful for that. What it tells me is that we citizens must make more of a fuss to the city council and the city administration when the spirit of oversight is being undermined or sabotaged. I think this is not a reason to fault Measure L. It is a constant problem for all measures that provide for independent oversight, as L does. No person working in administration likes having an oversight body looking over the work with an eye to finding fault, so hedging, delaying, even obstructing release of data are common tactics. In a better world, administrators and oversight committees would both feel the bond of wanting to get the work done the best they can to serve the needs of the public; but we don’t live in such a world. We, the public, need Kelly to keep us informed of what’s going on and need to press city officials for improvements that will serve our interests.
I ask you to join me in voting YES on Measure L. (And thanks for reading this far!)
Mari Mendonca, candidate for Berkeley City Council, has a clearly iterated understanding of the importance of open, natural space.
She recognizes Measure L as "a lofty wish list of vague goals with no specific plan, no accountability and no oversight."
Willing to publicly question the dominant narrative, Mari will open the door to the substantive debate lacking within the council; and potentially inspire sleeping dragons to rise. Many aspects of the shadowed, uninspired, lifeless Berkeley plan proclaimed to preserve climate are diametrically opposed to its stated goal. Resemblant of the Pied Piper, it seems our present city council will lead us to "go gently into the good night." I think Mari may be 'just what the doctor ordered' to facilitate a directional pivot of momentum leading toward sunshine and wakefulness.
I write this with profound sadness, as tomorrow another 100-foot tree will be killed to make space for two ADU's that will 'fill in' over a thriving established regenerative organic garden. The squirrels who nest in the tree will lose their home. Our crow friends and hawks will not be visiting. Hummingbirds, smaller corvids, green finches, bumblebees, honey bees, metallic green bees will no longer avail themselves of the bountiful flowers and seeds. Swallowtail, buckeye, painted lady, monarch and gulf fritillary butterflies will not be sustained. Their eggs, laid carefully on their host passion vines and aromatic fennel, if they have time to hatch, will not have time to metamorphose from larvae into butterflies.
I am so, so sorry. I'm not sure we humans deserve you.
I thank you, acacia tree for the shade, the oxygen, the wind and heat mitigation, the hosting of birds and squirrels, the conversations of your leaves as they dance with the wind, for your roots that hold together the earth, drink and retain water in the ground. Thank you squirrels for endless entertainment as you chatter and chase one another up and down the tree. Thank you, corvids, for your company and your patience when I attempt to emulate some of your language. You are loved.
Another hundred-foot tree on the block was killed a few months ago, but for a better reason, to my mind, as arborists told the owners the tree might fall. This at a house that is empty, purchased by investors a few years ago.
The house next door is to be demolished and 2 houses will go up, covering most of the nature-filled yard with cement, further destabilizing West Berkeley's liquefaction-prone foundation.
As I mourn, I am wondering what is wrong with the city council and mayor of Berkeley. Where is the life-affirming energy of the Free Speech Movement, the Black and Gray Panthers, the dynamic substantive debate?
Does the council and mayor have Stockholm Syndrome? Investments in pharmaceuticals (which might explain ongoing mandates that City of Berkeley employees take particular drugs)? Partnerships with real estate developers? Are they banking political capital by planning for three times the state required quotas for 'housing' in Berkeley? Why are they allowing/encouraging development before we have functional public transit? With Mayor Arreguin's massive conflict of interest with his position as president of the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), why does he not recuse himself from any votes on the subject of development? The City of Berkeley colludes with, praises and advertises Monsanto/Bayer--two corporations that have and continue to cause massive climate change with bee-killing Round-Up, neonicotinoids, and myriad facilitations of destructive agricultural practices.
Judging by the obsequious praise of the city manager for sometimes doing her job, even while she refuses to take responsibility for hiring an incompetent group of IT people to 'fix' the web site, who instead created a web site that seems to intentionally further abrogate the democratic process, all the council and the mayor fear the city manager (who recently receiving an $80,000 raise.)
The present city council is an echo chamber of mind-obliterating platitudes, with group-think vocabulary displaying an astounding paucity of personal integrity and apparent willingness to deceive.
We will not balance the climate by destroying the ecosystem, murdering trees and manufacturing a sterile, sun-blocking environment wherein plant life will not thrive. Nature is irreplaceable. Those who enjoy breathing might want to remember that photosynthesis creates oxygen; and thank every leaf on every tree, every blade of grass, bacteria, fungi, archaea and the mycelium through which the plant kingdom communicates.
I will be supporting Mari Mendonca for city council.
We require diversity of thought, personal integrity and courage to stand up even while most seem to be hypnotized.
Please wake up, Berkeley.
And if anyone else can relate, please send prayers, love, light, energy, apologies and/or gratitude to West Berkeley trees, butterflies, birds, squirrels, opossums, skunks, bees, and bacteria.
On my Sunday run, I noticed a couple of signs that stopped me in my tracks. Outside the unmarked Bar Method site on Rose Street, the sounds of an exercise class were clearly audible. In case passersby were wondering what all the clamor was about, a poster in a window offered a clue with the following statement: "Tears are what happens when muscles cry."
Next door, a hand-drawn sign outside the office of an insurance company sported the following warning: "No Whiring!"
I was puzzled. Was that a request not to gun your car engine or try to spin donuts in the parking lot? At this point, my inner-editor spoke up: "Shouldn't whiring be spelled with two, not one, rs?"
That's when I realized the message was actually supposed to read: "Now Hiring!"
UC's Plan for Peoples Park Is a Crime
The dedicated legal team that has been challenging UC Berkeley's plans to demolish the historic Peoples Park and erect housing for ever-increasing numbers of tuition-paying students, has recently filed a 70-page brief. (Question: If a legal document runs 70 pages, can it still be called a "brief"?)
The lawyers (who work is supported by voluntary public donations) have done a good job exposing how UC has ignored other housing alternatives—including the nearby University-owned Ellsworth Parking Structure.
The park's defense team also demolishes the false meme that Peoples' Park has become a magnet for crime.
As People's Park defender Harvey Smith points out in a recent People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group email: "Campus messages portraying People’s Park as an area of frequent crime on the Southside is quickly countered by facts. A review of data from the Crimemapping website over a six-month period from January through June, 2022 for a 20-block area surrounding the park revealed that 94% of crime occurred outside of People’s Park. Crimes do occur there, but at a lower rate than the surrounding neighborhood. Keep in mind that the promoter of the image of the park as 'crime-ridden' is the same institution that was fined $2.35 million in 2020 for underreporting campus crime."
What's Wrong with This Sentence?
The most recent issue of TIME salutes NASA for successfully crashing a 1,200-pound mini-spacecraft into a 2,500-foot-wide asteroid at 14,000 mph in an attempt to show such an intervention could deflect an incoming space rock heading for a collision with planet Earth.
At this time, we still don't know if the deflection strategy was successful. If not, no worry: space rock Dimorphos was not headed towards our planet. But then, TIME writes: "Doing the same to an asteroid headed toward Earth could allow the planet time to move out of the way before a collision."
Hold your jet-packs, TIMEsters! Getting the planet to jump out of the path of an oncoming asteroid wasn't the plan!
What kind of planet-poking intervention does TIME have in mind?
One vision: An asteroid is racing towards an Earth encounter so the 6.4 billion inhabitants of the Northern Hemisphere are all told to go outside, stand on a chair or ladder and—at the count of three—jump for a hard landing that could briefly alter Earth's orbit and "move [the planet] out of the way before a collision."
Another scenario: A nuclear exchange between Washington and Moscow manages to push the planet out of the way of an oncoming "killer asteroid." Upside: planet saved. Downside: life on Earth destroyed.
Chisel This One on Stone
In a recent article on the importance of negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine (instead of ending the world in a nuclear finale), Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone reflected on the dire legacies of "global strategists" in the West and concluded:
"A think tank is an institution wherein academics are paid by the worst people in the world to convince everyone that good things are bad and bad things are good."
Fashion Plates (Banned Edition)
Every year the DMV receives tens of thousands of requests for personalized license plates and turns down around 10 percent for being "inappropriate" and/or "offensive." Here's a selection of DMV NOGOs in a news video from -way back in 2014.
And here are a few more plates that the DMV would likely DNI: 4NIK8 DVNT
PRNSTR FUHQ SHTHPPNS
The GOP's Odd Anti-war Animus
What has happened to the Democrats? They all—including the "progressives"—voted to promote the war in Ukraine by diverting billions of US dollars to feed a costly (and potentially nuclear) proxy war with Russia.
Meanwhile, it seems that the peace movement's only allies are the Odd Fellows of the GOP.
Donald Trump referred to America's honored war dead as "suckers" and "losers." He correctly called the Vietnam conflict "a stupid war" and characterized the 20-year US occupation of Afghanistan "unfortunate" and "ridiculous."
And now we've got Arizona Senator-wannabe Blake Masters, a GOP extremist candidate who calls abortions "demonic and like a religious sacrifice," insists that "women are not paid less than men," warns that immigrants are being brought into the US "to dilute your vote," opposes Social Security and argues that US gun violence "boils down to Black people, frankly."
But Masters also proclaims a truth that has yet to be uttered by Democratic lips: "in the 140 years since America's birth, we've never conducted a just war."
The Match Before the Match
On September 23, a climate activist set his arm on fire in front of hundreds of tennis fans gathered to watch Roger Federer's final doubles match in London. Images of the protester (with his right arm briefly aflame) went viral but—despite the universal coverage of the incident—there was precious little coverage of what prompted the bizarre protest.
No reporters appear to have interviewed the demonstrator, a fellow named "Kai." The only clue to Kai's motive was his T-shirt, which read: "End UK Private Jets Now" (EUKPJN).
Some online sleuthing reveals EUKPJN's cause for concern. To wit: an average private UK-to-US jet jaunt by a wealthy celebrity, official, mogul, or corporate honcho carries a crew-customer ratio of 2.3 while emitting nine times as much carbon as a regular passenger-packed commercial flight.
A YouTube search turned up the following video of Kai explaining his concern over environmental collapse and the role "Private Jets" play by typically transporting only a single pilot and passenger on long, fuel-gobbling, air-polluting intercontinental flights.
According to a tweet from End UK Private Jets, "The liveable climate of our planet is collapsing. No one is taking it seriously. Is humanity not worth saving? Let's get into resistance against this death machine."
The eco-group Extinction Rebellion (ER) is also aghast at the exhaust exuded by the august super-rich and has resorted to a number of media-enticing stunts to press its cause. Last October, ER parked a limousine at the entrance to Britain's Farnborough Airport—with one protester inside chained to the steering wheel and another protester glued to the top of the vehicle.
One demonstrator, a former airline pilot named Todd Smith, explained his concerns to Sky News. "The term 'sustainable aviation fuel' was coined by the aviation and fossil fuel industry to deceive the public and greenwash the utterly destructive notion of biofuels. Biofuels result in land-grabs, deforestation, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, rising food prices and land-use emissions which can be worse than the fossil fuel they are replacing."
Support Assange
At noon on October 8, free speech advocates will congregate in front of San Francisco's Ferry Building Plaza and form a "human chain" in solidarity with Wikileaks editor Julian Assange who faces deportation to the US and life in prison for exposing secret documents that reveal how the Pentagon routinely murders innocent civilians in conflict zones around the world.
"Hands Around Parliament," a parallel demonstration in London, had more than 3,000 people registered as of last week. Another gathering in Washington, DC—"Hands Around the DOJ"—will publically petition US Atty. General Merrick Garland to drop the charges against Assange and squelch his extradition.
A Big Win Against Big Oil
Food & Water Watch's message was jubilant: "Together, we beat Joe Manchin!"
True! Senator Joe Manchin’s dirty pipeline deal was stripped from Washington's must-pass budget bill. The oil-slick “side deal” was designed to fast-track oil and gas infrastructure—including the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline that would carry fracked gas through Virginia and West Virginia.
It was a major loss for Big Carbon but Manchin has vowed to keep pushing for “permitting reform” that will expand oil, gas, and coal extraction.
Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the work FWW undertook to secure this victory:
• Generated 10,000-plus calls to Congress members.
• Organized civil disobedience actions in New York, Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. Organizers were arrested in New York and San Francisco. FWW's executive director Winonah Hauter was arrested in DC.
• Held dozens of office visits, lobby meetings and rallies with volunteers and organizers
• FWW's policy experts met with over 60 members of Congress.
• Mobilized more than 700 organizations and over 400 scientists and health professionals to oppose the deal.
While this grassroots-versus-bigshots struggle is far from over, FWW see this as "an incredible victory against the overwhelming financial and political might of the fossil fuel industry and its Senate enablers."
Rep. Raskin Rakes Republican Rivals
With the return of the House Select Committee hearings into the January 6 Trumpist coup attempt delayed by the advent and aftermath of Hurricane Ian, here's a nourishing video tidbit of Jan. 6 panelist Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) digging his teeth into the hindquarters of his GOP brethren. This September 22 encounter has been posted on YouTube under the propitious title: RASKIN BLOWS THE ROOF OFF THE HOUSE.
Head of ADL Defames Rashida Tlaib
The act of defamation is defined as communicating to a third party false statements about a person that result in harm to that individual's reputation. So the free speech question of the week becomes: "When one of the most prominent engagers in defamation is the Anti-Defamation League, whom does one complain to?"
Here's the issue: Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League recently tweeted a defamatory statement about Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. It read: “In one sentence, @RepRashida simultaneously tells American Jews that they need to pass an anti-Zionist litmus test to participate in progressive spaces even as she doubles down on her #antisemitism by slandering Israel as an apartheid state.”
Here's Tlaib actually statement: "I want you all to know that among progressives, it becomes clear that you cannot claim to hold progressive values yet back Israel‘s apartheid government." Problem is (as the Tlaib's defenders pointed out): the tweet was not addressed specifically to American Jews, it didn't propose a litmus test, it didn't say anything anti-Semitic, and "it didn't slander Israel as an apartheid state, because Israel is an apartheid state—according to in-depth research by, among others, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem."
Let's Win the Civil War: Berkeley Book Party on October 12
Author-activist Steve Phillips is prepping for the October 18 release of his new book, "How We Win the Civil War," which focuses on the "American democracy and the upcoming midterm election." Phillips is embarking on a cross-country tour to tout his tome and the promotional itinerary includes a launch on October 12, 7PM at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley. The KPFA-hosted event will also feature PolicyLink founder Angela Glover Blackwell. You can register for the event here.
Phillips will discuss the state of our democracy and "why a race-conscious lens is key to understanding how to win in the upcoming midterm elections and beyond."
There will be a Virtual Town Hall follow-up event on October 19 at 3 PM PT. Phillips will be joined live by Senator Cory Booker and MoveOn Executive Director Rahna Epting to discuss how to promote a "justice agenda" in the face of widespread voter suppression and the promotion of white racial resentment and fear. The list of progressive organizations participating in this Virtual Event includes MoveOn, Community Change, Netroots Nation, Working Families Party, Voto Latino, and Justice Democrats. RSVP for the livestream here.
A local Iranian activist is urging millions of female Iranians and women throughout the Muslim world to oppose the compulsory hijab laws following the murder of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurd by the “morality police”, - gangs of males who terrify, vulnerable women, beating them if they fail to follow ancient, archaic dress codes, the hijab or full ‘head to toe’ burkas.
Masih Alinejad opposed “the hijab-burka” as a gross symbol of oppression, an attempt to make women invisible.” Kudos to the courageous Iranian men and women, including the large Iranian diaspora who denounced Iranian leaders who continue to subject women to such cruelty. Even Iranian soccer super stars acted in solidarity with the protestors, several sacrificing their professional careers by urging FIFA to ban Iran from the Word Cup. Afghan women demonstrated in the streets in support of their Iranian sisters.
Let us hope the courageous efforts by Iranian women will not be in vain. It is a pity Iran’s earlier efforts creating a functioning democracy were torpedoed by a UK-US orchestrated coup and the imposition of the UK-US tyrant, the Shah of Iran in 1953 in a blatant theft of its oil. President Biden’s economic sanctions have only intensified the economic hardships of ordinary Iranians. The nuclear accord which the Trump administration arbitrarily revoked, in complete violation of Article 54 of the UN Convention on international treaties, should be immediately resurrected and the crippling economic sanctions lifted. Iranians should not be punished for Donald Trump’s capricious actions.
Finally, God did not create women to be subservient to men. Women must be accorded the same rights as men to function as equal members of society. They are a huge untapped resource.
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In the September 25, 2022 edition of the Activist’s Diary, I ended with a recommendation of the book The Privatization of Everthing by Donald Cohen and Alan Mikaelian. If you watched any of forecasts of hurricane Ian, this was made possible through government funding of the National Weather Service (NWS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Hurricane Center and the international cooperation of 193 countries to provide free and unrestricted weather each day. It is an amazing feat.
Free access to NOAA, weather forecasts was close to lost if Barry Meyers, former CEO of AccuWeather, brother to Joel Meyers, founder of AccuWeather, a private forecasting company, had made his way as a Trump appointee to head up NOAA. It was sexual harassment lawsuits that brought Barry Meyers down, but that still hasn’t stopped private companies like AccuWeather from taking free government funded service and monetizing weather forecasts and suing the government to secure profiteering.
Next time you use AccuWeather, remember the Meyers brothers, how Barry Meyers in his advisory capacity on the NWS Board in 2017 killed the NWS work on a mobile ap, or maybe you will be like me and do your best to avoid AccuWeather. AccuWeather is just a rehash of all that data collected through international cooperation and our own government. Google is filled with accolades for AccuWeather and links to direct you there.
The 3 x 3 Committee (3 council members and 3 Berkeley Housing Authority members) was the only City committee to meet during Rosh Hashanah. All other meetings were pushed to Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Mayor Arreguin announced at the 3 x 3 that five groups have been selected as potential developers for the North Berkeley BART station and mentioned a November 10, 2022 meeting to review the developers, but these days announced meetings get squishy with short notices, cancellations and rescheduling. The previously announced meeting on bolstering oversight for Measure L is now forecast (but not posted) for 4 pm October 11.
Concerned citizens need to keep a finger on the city website https://berkeleyca.gov/ to avoid missing important meetings posted at the last possible minute.
Selection of developers for the Ashby BART station per the mayor is postponed until the Fall of 2023 while air rights and the location of the Ashby Flea Market are worked out. Meetings on planning for the Adeline Corridor Ashby BART Station resume on Monday, October 3 (check Activist’s Calendar or City Website for virtual meeting links).
Once previously settled plans offered up from the City seem to be unraveling.
At the Agenda Committee on Wednesday, Councilmember Hahn with co-sponsor Wengraf submitted, “Reconsideration of the Hopkins Corridor Plan in Light of Newly Available Material Information” for the October 11 City Council meeting. It is posted as Agenda item 23 and puts a hold on the May 10, 2022 City Council action for the street redesign of traffic, parking, and bike lanes on the section of Hopkins from McGee to Gilman. This section of Hopkins contains the shops, Monterey Market and created the public uproar.
Sam Kaplan-Pettus attended the Environment and Climate Commission to request the addition of a Youth appointee to the commission in addition to the nine appointees by the mayor and council. The commission voted to approve the proposal, but the comment that caught my attention was when Sam Kaplan-Pettus said, “I think a lot of the work that commissions do is symbolic, because City Council doesn’t actually have to listen to us.” How true. That insight is one to remember when reviewing whatever is passed by City Council to rescue Measure L.
Later in the Environment and Climate Commission meeting Kurt Hurley (new city employee) gave a presentation on the new building codes and recommendations as to whether council should exceed the new state codes. The recommendation that EV charging parking spaces be set at 5% (minimum state standard) in new construction met with firm resistance that 5% is wholly inadequate. Range anxiety is already an issue in converting to EV. Certainly, requiring the minimum number of spaces be devoted to EV charging stations will not get the City or us to where we need to be in transitioning to EV. Additionally, fewer charging stations pushes bigger heavier batteries to power vehicles longer distances between scarce charging sites.
I’ve lost count of the number of Fire Chiefs and interim chiefs since I started attending the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission. The newest interim Fire Chief is David Sprague. Sprague gave an enthusiastic presentation of using Measure FF funds to expand and reorganize Fire Department services with filling vacancies a continuing challenge. There was not much response from commissioners as they absorbed the overview of the new plans.
Sprague was asked about fire prevention inspections. Sprague answered currently properties are inspected only as far as is visible from the front. Back yards in fire zones are not inspected. This was not the desired answer.
Year-end financial reports were included in the agenda packet for FF and GG. Whatever the voters might have thought Measure FF (2020), wildfire prevention and preparedness, and Measure GG (2008), fire protection and emergency response, covered, these measures are primarily used for the cost of staffing and related benefit expenses. https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/disaster-and-fire-safety-commission
Looking at the May 2020 FEMA paper on Creating a Community Wildfire Protection Plan, the three scheduled CWPP meetings for the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission may fulfill some requirement. However, it doesn’t look like this is what the U.S. Fire Administration and FEMA had in mind. https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/publications/creating_a_cwpp.pdf
The Multi-Commission meeting on the Civic Center Vision Plan Project on Thursday morning felt a little thin when it came to commission attendees. Erin Diehm was present from Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission, Lisa Bullwinkel and Liz Ozol from Civic Arts Commission and Steve Finacom from Landmarks Preservation Commission. Susi Mazuola went through her slide presentation stopping after each section (Veterans Building, Maudelle Shirek and Civic Center Park) for comments from commissioners leaving 8 minutes at meeting end for the public comment. The meeting was not recorded which is a shame and typical for the City when minds are made up and public meetings are perfunctory.
There were good suggestions and some definite criticisms. New council chambers are definitely part of the plan.
Should these come up again, the presentation of adding a signal in the middle of the block between Allston and Center for pedestrians was strongly rejected. The suggestion to close Center street to traffic was countered with the problem that there needs to be dropoff/pickup at the entrance to the Veterans Building. Allston Way is an important street for east-west bound traffic to and from the downtown and should remain open. External buttressing of the Maudelle Shirek Building is far more desirable than basement bracing which would eliminate the potential for useful community space. The Maudelle Shirek building should be a center for community space, the historical society and community organizations and not city offices. Big trees in the heart of the city should be preserved. Diehm asked for cost comparisons between the levels of seismic stabilization for the buildings. That information was not provided. Lisa Bullwinkel suggested a sculpture garden in front of the Maudelle Shirek Building. Those representing the Arts requested that the level of external seismic buttressing of the Veterans Building be upped to BPON+.
A number of members of the public requested exploration of daylighting the creek, which Diehm described as magical. And I learned that daylighting creeks, an international movement in building resiliency to climate change, has roots in Berkeley.
Lori Droste wrote in her newsletter that IKE Smart Kiosks would not be coming to Elmwood. The members of the Elmwood Business Improvement District Advisory Board voted against the placement of IKEs. So it was interesting that at the Friday morning Elmwood Business Improvement District Advisory Board meeting, Kieron Slaughter, City of Berkeley Office of Economic Development, announced the planning of placement of an IKE Smart Kiosk at College and Ashby and College and Alcatraz. I checked the map to see if I was imagining that the intersection of College and Ashby was in Elmwood and, of course, Elmwood is plastered right over Ashby and College on the Berkeley online map. So much for neighborhood and business wishes when City minds are made up.
The business improvement district boards across the city are pretty lacking in members. Elmwood has only three members and only two attended on Friday; the chair is on maternity leave.
One of the members was complaining of the difficulty of keeping tree wells cleaned up and free of weeds. I was waiting for the person from the City Manager’s office to say something, but nothing until after I raised my hand and spoke to the flexi-pav and rubberway product used on University by BodyRox. Then Slaughter mentioned it was also used at the Downtown Y.
For the less than handful of times I have attended any of these business improvement district meetings it is obvious why it is so hard to give up any time to attend one. Why should anyone sit on an advisory board and give up time for a City of Berkeley meeting that blows off business requests (IKE Kiosks) and with city staff that don’t share innovations from other areas (flexi – pav) and don’t offer to connect business owners and representatives to the person (Scott Ferris) in the city that could help solve their problem?
I would love to be writing an Activist’s Diary filled with creative, innovative, engaging, forward thinking actions by City Council and City Administration. Sadly, those actions are few and far between and when something good does come along, sharing doesn’t seem to enter the picture.
The closest we got to City Council listening to the public was Thursday evening at the appeal hearing of 1201 – 1205 San Pablo Use Permit #ZP2021-0070 ZAB. The planned project is a 6-story mixed-use building on a vacant lot with 66 units (including 5 very low income units), 1680 sq ft of commercial space, 2614 sq ft of usable open space, and 17 to 28 ground-level parking spaces. The project takes advantage of California SB 330 which limits the number of public meetings for review to five and is able to exceed zoning height limits by two floors because of including five very low income units. The neighbors limited their appeal to moving the building parking garage entrance to San Pablo and planting 36” box trees as a barrier instead of 24” box trees.
One attendee zoomer complained that holding the hearing was a waste of time, but this time council came through and listened. Council voted that the project proponent shall contact CalTrans to request the garage door open on San Pablo and if that is permissible for the architect to redesign the project to relocate the driveway to San Pablo. The neighbors got their 36” box trees and that negotiations on the solar shaded by the project continue. Robinson’s attempt to limit moving the garage door to only if a traffic study proved it to be safer rather than if CalTrans determined moving the garage door was permissible was quickly slapped down by Arreguin.
Council was sharply criticized for not establishing objective standards to protect solar as neighboring cities have done.
In closing, Holding the Line: Inside the Nation’s Preeminent US Attorney’s Office and Its Battle with the Trump Justice Department by Geoffrey Berman was just released September 13, 2022 and I have already finished the audiobook from the San Francisco public library. The San Francisco library is simply amazing for access to just published books.
There are quite a number of reviews of Berman’s book Holding the Line focusing on Bill Barr and the telling by Berman of how the justice department was weaponized under Trump. You need to read all the way through to the end to get the full picture. Descriptions laying out how Bill Barr threw his weight around to advantage Trump and Trump cronies and attempts to “even things out” were spattered through the book.
Berman paints a picture of the work of SDNY (Southern District of New York) through indictments, like the way they closed in to end the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking operation and to deal with Laurence Doud III, CEO of Rochester Drug Co-Operative (RDC) , in the opioid crisis. There is the back and forth in the Halkbank indictment as Erdogan swung in and out of Trump’s favor. Barr’s involvement in George H. W. Bush’s pardons to dismantle indictments in the Iran Contra affair should leave his meddling in justice under Trump as no surprise, but the ending still carries quite a punch.
Two Community meetings worth attending before plans are set in stone:
Monday at 6 pm is the redesign for Ashby BART Plaza.
Wednesday at 6:30 pm is Santa Fe Right of Way Park development planning meeting.
There are no City Council meetings scheduled including no council committee meetings. The October 11 City Council regular meeting is available for review. Agenda Item 23 is on the Hopkins Corridor. The October 11 special meeting at 4 pm agenda is not posted.
Thursday the Housing Advisory Commission and Landmark’s Preservation Commission both meet at 7 pm.
Saturday Berkeley Neighborhoods Council CANCELED the planned meeting for October 8.
The Housing Element Draft Environmental Impact Report is a plan for adding 19,098 housing units not the RHNA 8,934. As stated at the Planning Commission in the presentation, the larger number is to push changing zoning in the City of Berkeley. The Comment Period ends October 17, 2022 at 5 pm. The document including appendices is over 500 pages.
AGENDA: virtual meeting for new plaza, community gathering place, including Berkeley Flea Market, while improving bicycle and pedestrian safety and connecting to transit
AGENDA: Discussion and possible action items 5. Amendments to the Housing Code, 6. Tenant Habitability Plan Ordinance, 7. Preferences for Affordable Housing, 8. Fund a Study to Document Berkeley’s History of Discriminatory Actions, 9. Ordinance to Remove Credit Checks and Eviction History for Applications for Housing, 10/ Update Harriet Tubman Terrace Tenant Support, 11. Grand Opening 1685 Solano Ave Small Sites Program.
2nd reading - 2023 Tax Rate: Transportation Network Company User prearranged trip originating in Berkeley single rider 53.775 cents, pooled 26.249 cents per user.
Amend Contract 117596-1 add $17,500 total $67,218 with Animal Fix Clinic for Spay and Neuter Services extend to 9/14/2023
Amend Contract 108-410-1 add $17,500 total $134,466 to Paw Fund to provide no-cost spay and neuter surgeries to eligible pet owners for FY 2023 extend to 9/14/2023
Formal Bid Solicitations $2,968,600
Amend Contract 3220192 add $100,000 with Alameda Co. Network of Mental Health Clients for one additional homeless outreach staff member and extend to 12/31/2023
Revenue Grant WIC projected $1,810,197 for Federal FY 2023 – 2025
Expand Program Manager Series by establishing Principal Program Manager Classification and Annual Salary Range $151,819 - $183,719
Establish Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer Classification and Annual Salary Range $137.966 - $181,293
Assistant to the City attorney Classification and Annual Salary$137.966 - $181,293
Revision of the Tool Lending Specialist Classification and increase salary by 4%
Contract $500,000 with Abbe & Assoc LLC for the development of the Integrated Zero Waste Management Strategic Plan
Kesarwani co-sponsor Taplin – Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Program expansion for West Berkeley Neighborhoods within two blocks of commercial corridors
Taplin – Regulation of Autonomous Vehicles
Harrison co-sponsor-Hahn - Adopt an Ordinance adding Chapter 13.09 to BMC Prohibiting Discriminatory Reports to Law Enforcement
Harrison – Referral to November 2022 AAO #1 Budget Process for $50,000 in additional traffic calming at MLK and Addison
Harrison – Refer to the Transportation and Infrastructure Commission and City Manager to consider and make recommendations regarding policy of deploying rectangular rapid flashing beacons and other treatments at dangerous or high-collision pedestrian and bicycle intersections
Hahn co-sponsor ArreguinLand Acknowledgement Recognizing Berkeley as the Ancestral, Unceded Home of the Ohlone people
ACTION:
CM – Amend Zoning to clarify and streamline the permit process for Amusement Devise Arcades
ZAB Appeal 2018 Blake Street #ZP2021-0095 six-story multi-family residential building with 12 units (including 2 low-income units),
a. Commission on Labor - Fair Work Week Ordinance adopt ordinance, b. City Manager refer Fair Work Week to Health, Life, Enrichment, Equity & Community (item has already been reviewed by Health Life Enrichment, Equity & Committee).
Hahn, co-sponsor Wengraf - Reconsideration of Hopkins Corridor Plan in Light of newly Available Material Information
Housing Advisory Commission - Harriet Tubman Terrace Tenant Support Recommend following action, Review Tenants video, Direct City Manager to investigate health and safety violations, provide dedicated tenant advocate to assist with relocation and other needs,
1643-47 California (new basement and 2nd story) 11/3/2022
Remanded to ZAB or LPC
1205 Peralta – Conversion of an existing garage
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.
WORKSESSIONS and SPECIAL MEETINGS:
October 11 Measure O Report and Update at 4 pm
October 11 Oversight responsibilities for General Obligation Bond Measure special meeting time 4 pm
Unscheduled Presentations
Civic Arts Grantmaking Process & Capital Grant Program
Fire Facilities Study Report
African American Holistic Resource Center (November 15)
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
Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin has long been one of my favorite operas. So I looked forward to an acclaimed production of Eugene Onegin by Canadian director Robert Carson that is currently presented at San Francisco Opera. Alas, when I attended this production on October 1.
I was sorely disappointed. Robert Carson’s staging strips Eugene Onegin of nearly all the Russian local colour in which Alexander Pushkin steeped his famous verse novel. There is no country estate house wherein Madame Larina raises her two daughters, no gardens where Olga and Tatyana walk with their guests Lensky and Onegin, no interior where Tatyana’s name-day is celebrated, and so on. What we get instead, in Carson’s staging, is a an abstract setting of Eugene Onegin. To make matters worse, Carson makes frequent arbitrary choices that distract and detract from the wonderful music of Tchaikovsky’s opera.
Carson’s Eugene Onegin was originally staged at the Met in New York in 1997. It was here staged in revival by Peter McClintock. Right from the outset, indeed, during the overture, Carson heavy-handedly raises the curtain on a single chair on a bare stage in which the character Eugene Onegin sits reading and then tearing up what appears to be the infamous love-letter that Tatyana sends him on the day after their first meeting. As the torn pieces of paper fall to the floor, the heavens unleash a torrent of falling paper (or birch leaves) that inundate Onegin and lliter the stage. However, in Carson’s staging, this letter inexplicably reappears throughout the opera, and, inexplicably, it is not torn in shreds.
Fortunately, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin is one of those operas, like all of Mozart’s operas, that contain such beautiful and emotionally incisive music that even a bad staging cannot spoil the audience’s enjoyment. But this bad staging of Eugene Onegin by Robert Carson does indeed distract and seriously detract from the audience’s enjoyment. And this is true in spite of San Francisco Opera’s offering a fine cast and a conductor, Vassilis Christopoulos, who here makes his auspicious American debut. Heading the cast was Russian soprano Evgenia Muraveva as Tatyana; and with her multi-hued vocalism she was admirably paired with bass-baritone Gordon Bintner as Onegin. Also excellent were lyric tenor Evan LeRoy Johnson as Lensky and mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina as Tatyana’s sister Olga. And Act III brought us the magnificent Ferruccio Furlanetto as Prince Gremin, Tatyana’s eventual husband. (On opening night of this Eugene Onegin, Ferruccio Furlanetto was awarded San Francisco Opera’s Medal of Honour for his forty-plus years of outstanding performances here.) Also included in the fine cast were mezzo-soprano Deborah Nansteel as Madame Larina and mezzo-soprano Ronita Miller as Flipyevna, Tatyana’s nanny. Tenor Brenton Ryan was an engaging Monsieur Triquet; and small roles were sung by bass Stefan Egerstrom as Zaretsky and tenor Michael Jankowsky as a Peasant.
Whereas Pushkin’s novel focuses primarily on the restless, aimless character of Onegin, Tchaikovsky shifts the focus to concentrate on Tatyana, a sensitive young provincial woman whose head has been turned by reading too many novels of lovers who struggle to rise above the obstacles society places before them. When Tatyana first sets eyes on Eugene Onegin, a neighbour from a nearby country estate, she declares to herself ”He is the one.” Later that night, unable to sleep, Tatyana impulsively writes a passionate letter to Onegin confessing her love. The writing of this letter is quizzically staged by Robert Carson in what barely suggests a bedroom, with only a bed and a table and chair, no walls, a trapdoor through which the nanny Flipevna enters and exits, and a crescent moon hanging over the largely bare stage. The trapdoor is a particularly arbitrary and off-putting stage conceit of Robert Carson’s. Vocally, Evgenia Muraveva offered a letter scene that was a mixture of conflicting emotions — a sometimes passionate outburst of love and at other times a fear that Onegin will despise her for opening up her soul to him. The orchestra is a major element in this letter scene, and occasionally Evgenia Muaraveva failed to sing loudly enough to overcome the flood of emotions that the orchestra unleashes at moments when Tatyana tries to hold back her emotions. On the whole, however, Evgenia Muraveva sang convincingly in this crucial, indeed, central letter scene.
The next day, when Onegin confronts Tatyana, once again in an abstract void in Carson’s staging, he acknowledges being moved by her letter but sententiously admonishes her for naïvely opening her heart in such a vulnerable way. Onegin also adds, with accurate self-appraisal, that he is not a man to settle down with a wife and raise a family. Tatyana is crushed and secretly humiliated by Onegin’s coldly analytic rejection of her love.
The plot thickens, however, when Lensky invites his friend Onegin to a ball held at the Larin household. Bored with the rustic gentility, Onegin decides to chide his friend Lensky by inviting Lensky’s fiancée Olga to dance. During their dance, Onegin purposely flirts with Olga to punish Lensky, who takes offence at what he sees. When Lensky takes umbrage at Onegin’s behaviour, an argument ensues between these two close friends. The argument quickly reaches a point of no return when Lensky impulsively throws down a hankerchief and challenges Onegin to a duel. For his oart, Onegin acknowledges in an aside that he has gone too far, but he cannot refuse the challenge or lose face, so he agrees to the duel and the friends part company.
The next day, Lensky arrives before dawn at the place of the duel. He sings a most beautiful, poignant aria reminiscing forlornly over the golden years of his youthful love for Olga. This aria was admirably sung by tenor Evan LeRoy Johnson, and it was indeed the vocal highlight of this performance of Eugene Onegin. In the ensuing duel, Lensky is shot by Onegin and dies, mourned by his former friend.
Act III opens with yet another parade of extras carrying empty chairs and setting them in place in an otherwise abstract stage-scene, an all too frequently recurring visual motif in Robert Carson’s staging. (Incidentally, why was it deemed necessary, in an abstract staging with minimal sets, to have long silent, pauses between scene changes? This seemed unnecessary and it interrupted the emotional flow of this highly emotional opera.) This Act III scene opens in an elegant ball in St. Petersburg, where the courtly glitterati of Russia dance an elegant Polonaise, which, in this abstract setting, was less than elegant and nearly passed unnoticed. Onegin, who has only this day returned from restless years abroad, finds himself bored once again by the meaningless life of yet another ball. But his interest is piqued when he recognises Tatyana, who is now the elegant, poised and self-assured wife of the eminent Prince Gremin. After Ferruccio Furlanetto sings his admirable paean in praise of his wife of two years, Onegin is suddenly overcome with remorse at his rebuke, years ago, of Tatyana’s offer of her love. But here too, I find fault with Robert Carson’s staging, when he spotlights Onegin in such a way that his huge shadow appears on the wall behind the assembled nobles at the ball.
Then, in the opera’s final scene, after yet another excruciating pause, Tatyana, who has excused herself from the ball, is seen seated in a chair in her drawing-room re-reading the infamous letter she impulsively sent as a naïve young woman to Onegin. When Onegin rushes in and declares his love, Tatyana reluctantly admits that she loves him still, but that she is a devoted wife of a man who truly loves her and to whom she will remain faithful. In spite of Onegin going on bended knee and imploring her to leave Gremin and run away with him, Tatyana returns her letter to Onegin and exits the scene, leaving a thoroughly disillusioned Onegin to stew in his own juices, as the opera ends.
The Free Speech Movement Archives (FSM-A) recently sent out a notice announcing a string of upcoming events celebrating famed singer/activist Barbara Dane." This is an edited version of the press release.
In October 1964, Barbara Dane, stood in Sproul Plaza atop a police car containing an arrested activist named Jack Weinberg. Dane sang some rousing, FSM-customized versions of classic spirituals like Go Tell It On The Mountain and then lowered her guitar to address the crowd of student protesters: “It was a long time there in the early fifties—especially when you couldn’t seem to get a rise out of anybody about anything, 'cause everybody thought they had to play it safe, play it cool, don’t take part, and I want to say that I, as a waiter and watcher and prodder and hoping that things would get moving again, I want to thank you all for being here. It’s marvelous.” Listen! to the KPFA recording.
And here's the good news: Barbara Dane has conspired with Berkeley's prestigious Heyday Books to release a new book, "This Bell Still Rings: My Life of Defiance and Song"—a jaw-dropping autobiography like no other.
Dane was not just a renowned folk, blues, and jazz singer who performed with some of the twentieth century’s most celebrated musicians—from Louis Armstrong to Bob Dylan—she was also a proud progressive who tirelessly championed the causes of racial equality and economic justice in America, and traveled the world to sing out against war and tyranny.
Dane was also an organizer, a record label founder, and a woman who has charted her own creative and political path for more than ninety years. She has led an epic, trailblazing life in music and activism, and This Bell Still Rings tells her story in her own adventurous voice.
The memoir charts Dane's trajectory from singing in union halls and at factory gates in World War II–era Detroit, to her rise as a respected blues and jazz singer, to her prominence as a folk musician who frequently performed at civil rights and peace demonstrations across the US and abroad—from post-revolutionary Cuba to wartime Vietnam. This Bell Still Rings offers a wealth of inspiration for artists, activists, and anyone seeking a life defined by courage and integrity.
Coming Soon: Barbara Dane Onscreen
Also in the works, the local Arhoolie Foundation is raising donations to help produce a documentary dedicated to the life, music, and activism of Barbara Dane. "The Nine Lives of Barbara Dane" (working title) has engaged the talent of two local filmmakers—Maureen Gosling ("Burden of Dreams," "This Ain't No Mouse Music") and Jed Riffe ("Ishi, the Last of the Yahi," "The Long Shadow"). The film's producer, Nina Menendez ("Tropicola"), is also Dane's daughter. The feature-length documentary illuminates the true story of a trailblazing woman and an unsung hero of American music—a blues, jazz, and folk-singer, a social activist, wife, mother of three, world traveler, feminist, record producer, maverick and general troublemaker. Donations will allow filmmakers to secure music rights and finish editing, sound mixing, and color correction.
A fiercely independent woman, born in the 1920s, Dane took the power of her voice from the bright lights of jazz and blues celebrity to the tumultuous streets of 1960s America, paving her own way with her art, in the service of social justice, civil rights and peace.
Still going strong in her early 90s, Dane recounts how she turned setbacks into opportunities and became an inspiration for generations of musicians and activists. The documentary includes interviews with a range of other musicians including The Chambers Brothers, Pablo Menéndez, and Bonnie Raitt, along with archival footage and music featuring Louis Armstrong, Pete Seeger, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Earl "Fatha" Hines. Here's an advanced peek.
October 17: A Barbara Dane Book Launch Party in Berkeley
On Monday, October 17, KPFA welcomes Barbara Dane to a book party at Freight and Salvage (2020 Addison Street) to celebrate the release of her autobiography, "This Bell Still Rings: My Life of Defiance and Song." The event will be hosted by KPFA's redoubtable Kris Welch. Tickets are a mere $20 and can be ordered online (as long as they last) by clicking here.
