Perhaps you have been wondering why the planet’s not publishing this week? The short answer is that I broke my ankle in three places and have been in bed ever since it was operated on at Kaiser. I can’t stand on it for 3 to 6 weeks.and it’s too hard to type from bed. Our faithful correspondents have been submitting as usual but I haven’t been able to post their work. Watch this space for updates.

I was walking by the the Frances Albrier Community Center the other day (actually twice) and I was remarking on the very cool forms and architectural heritage that building has. That type of building is clearly a hat tip to a famous architect and designer named Edward Larrabee Barnes who was an AIA gold medalist. The strict geometric forms are from the early 60's, and these buildings were a big departure from (ironically) traditional modern architecture of the time. "The" design most famous is the Haystack School of Arts. You will recognize the roof-line as similar to the Community Center though Barnes preferred 45 degree angles in his works.

Clearly, after years of good use, the structures need a good renovation. I "think" updating these buildings is relatively easy and it's already a sturdy work.

The design has good flow, rigid forms and language and has a pleasant courtyard and shade space. It's also modest, as opposed to much of the newer buildings being created in the City. Those buildings are messy, have no distinct style except for the hodge-podge of cheap materials slapped on the exteriors to add some visual distraction from their simple box forms. The Community Center was efficiently designed but manages to not be monolithic as it is broken into smaller masses, halls and courtyards. 

I know the City is hot to trot to demo this building because it's showing its advanced age but honestly it's not very environmentally friendly to demo and rebuild perfectly good structures. I think the building exterior facing walls could be broken up with perhaps some windowing which would make it more inviting from the west side. The building was created for another time, maybe after HUD stepped in to assist the renovation of the park, so it has a bit of "fortress" to it. That is something easily addressed with added windows and more trees and landscaping. 

In addition the north-facing clerestory windows would allow a lot of energy-saving passive sunlight into the rooms if it was not for the tattered curtains. Updated to modern standards, those would look, frankly, "way cooler" than the latest vernacular we see in Berkeley. Also consider these current roof angles are near dead on for solar paneling. 

As far as the pool is concerned, I wonder how realistic is that venture? There is also a big lawn area next to tennis courts which is currently being used as this ad-hoc-off-leash-dog-jamboree®; I WISH the city would address and fine dog owners at least during the high-traffic periods. I also have a dog but I respect the use of the lawn as a place where children play. That area could be a good expansion and have more outdoor seating as opposed to the current plan which is a bit restrictive for a useful pool. 

With the right attention to detail and sympathetic expansion this too can be a project to be proud of. It's a shame to erase buildings like these. 

Thanks, 

Regular readers may note that the dateline on this issue is on a Tuesday instead of the normal Sunday. Posting here is pretty much a one-person operation (Becky) with an occasional assist for graphics (Mike), and last weekend we were in Santa Cruz visiting family and absorbing culture. We can report that the Santa Cruz Festival of new music is phenomenal, as it has been for about forty years, and Santa Cruz Shakespeare is delightful, as it has been for many years, especially since it moved off of the UC Santa Cruz campus to a lovely site in Delaveaga Park. There are still a few performances left. Tickets here.

The first week of August was a perfect kind of week. The Berkeley City Council was on summer recess and so were most of the boards and commissions. Trump was finally indicted for his attempted coup culminating on January 6 and I managed to fit in Oppenheimer, Barbie and finish Thomas E. Ricks’ Churchill and Orwell.

As you might expect, I’ve read both of Jack Smith’s indictments of Trump and suggest you read them too. I doubt that the MAGA crowd/MAGA cult who according to polls believe that “these are just made up charges” and “Trump won the 2020 election” would change their minds, but it would be a good idea for them too. Nonetheless, there is a reason Trump is sweating, but remember he is a media master. 

DC indictment for Jan 6: (45 pages) - https://www.justice.gov/storage/US_v_Trump_23_cr_257.pdf 

Florida Documents Case: For those of us who are not lawyers, we do not have to find the June 8 indictment and then the July 27 superseding indictment. The July 27, 2023 superseding indictment contains the original June 8 indictment with the new charges added making it one document (60 pages). - https://www.justice.gov/storage/US-v-Trump-Nauta-De-Oliveira-23-80101.pdf 

It is official now: July 2023 was the hottest month recorded, with July 4th as the hottest day. The planet crossed the 1.5°C of temperature rise at least temporarily. I added Phoenix to the cities I track. 

While Berkeley basked in afternoons of the gentle 70s, those living in Phoenix got a taste of what 1.5°C of temperature rise feels like, with 31 days of temperatures over 110°F. People who were so unfortunate as to fall on Phoenix streets and sidewalks suffered 2nd and 3^rd degree burns. 

The heat wave finally broke on July 31, 2023 when the peak temperature dropped to 108°. 

Burns from contact with scorching pavement and sidewalks or heat stroke are not the only worries from excessive heat waves. Chronic Kidney Disease of nontraditional or unknown cause CKDnT is being added to the list. CKDnT aka kidney failure has been showing up in medical journals and articles linking CKDnT to outdoor laborers working under extreme heat conditions. This week CKDnT made it into Time in “Chronic Kidney Disease Is Poised to Become the Black Lung of Climate Change.” https://time.com/6303020/chronic-kidney-disease-climate-change/ 

Andrew Needlam wrote in his August 4 article in the Atlantic “The Problem With ‘Why Do People Live in Phoenix?’” that, “America’s hottest city is still booming…the horror stories of life in 115 degrees is hardly guaranteed to blunt Phoenix’s explosive growth. There are currently building permits for 80,000 new homes in the Phoenix metro area that have not yet commenced construction – homes that will require more water, more AC, and more energy.” 

People are still moving to places that will be unlivable part or much of the year in a future that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described as “[T]he era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived…” This is insane. 

As I was getting ready for this Diary final clean-up, I joined the monthly zoom meeting with my college classmates. While we were on, the news banner flashed across my screen that the youth who sued that Montana violated their right to a “clean and healthful environment” WON. 

After I shared the announcement, I asked my classmate living in Texas how people felt about climate change. Did they think it was real? She said yes, they believed climate change was real and we should get off fossil fuels. She confessed to liking her gas stove and since electricity was created by burning coal, she didn’t feel compelled to get rid of it. 

As the discussion continued, she spoke about how young people are depressed, and then followed that with observing that every generation has their challenges: “They just need to put their big boy pants on.” 

I was stunned. Is this really how we feel? Children just need to suck it up, put on their big boy pants and deal with the mess we’ve left? I guess this is why I never felt any connection to my college classmates and rarely join the monthly zoom. We have completely different perceptions of the world, then and now. 

Lahaina is in the news everywhere. The number of deaths has now eclipsed Paradise, California, making Lahaina the deadliest fire in over 100 years. As people sort through their losses and trauma, they say what we always hear: They will rebuild. 

Rebuilding after a disaster may replace destroyed buildings with new, but what happens to community is the subject of Jake Bittle’s book The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration. Bittle takes us into the personal stories of how people’s lives are impacted and changed from the Four Horsemen of the Anthropocene, fire, heat, drought and flood. The book is worth reading. Paradise is in it. 

The investigations into the causes and the responses to the fire that engulfed Lahaina has barely started, but already there are similarities to Paradise and the Oakland-Berkeley Hills fires. 

There was a small fire earlier in the day that was thought to be out and within several hours it exploded into a conflagration. Evacuation notices were delayed and when sent were on systems that were down/no longer working. There were few evacuation/escape routes. People hesitated to leave, then found themselves trapped by fire and abandoned cars and fled on foot for their lives. 

The Maui siren warning system was not activated. The Lahaina fire moved at a mile a minute. 

Berkeley’s installation of a siren warning system is nearly complete according to the Deputy Fire Chief Kenneth May. 

At the one Berkeley Commission I did attend the first week in August, JaniceThomas from Panoramic Hill said at the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission, she was more afraid of the commission than – I thought she said living on Panoramic Hill, but it could have been the Fire Marshal’s report or something else, I couldn’t be sure. It is so much easier to catch full phrases on zoom especially when live transcription is activated.  

There is not much reason to be afraid of commissions after watching what City Council does with commission recommendations. They don’t seem to hold much sway unless the recommendation is something Council is already is favor of doing. 

The entire discussion and comments from Thomas started because Commissioner Raine (appointed by District 6 Councilmember Robinson) put the California Office of the State Fire Marshal’s review of the Panoramic Hill neighborhood on the agenda. 

The State Fire Marshal report rates Panoramic Hill as very high fire risk and recommends to create a secondary access, install reflective signage, limit street parking, require locked private gates to remain unlocked during red flag warnings or high fire danger conditions, conduct community-wide evacuation drills and install reflective markings to indicate road edges during periods of low visibility (think smoke). Many edges of the roads drop off steeply into canyons. 

It seemed like several members of the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission were unfamiliar with the designation of Panoramic Hill as a Fire Zone 3 area, meaning it is at the highest risk in Berkeley of a wildland-urban fire, even though Panoramic Hill managed to escape both the 1923 fire that stopped just short of Shattuck and a block from University and the Berkeley Oakland Hills fire of 1991. 

Escape is the key word, the same word that describes why Point Molate should never be a housing development site, one way in and out. 

The roads in Panoramic Hill were built in the 1880s according to Thomas. 

I was glad I no longer had my Saab with a clutch when I drove them Saturday in my little Prius just to see how bad they really are. When I met a car coming down as I was going up, one of us had to pull over to let the other pass. The passage is too narrow for two cars side by side and definitely too narrow for a wide-bodied fire engine and car to pass side by side. 

With all the sharp turns and cars parked on the edges, if a wildfire hits this area it is hard to imagine people getting out or a fire truck coming in, though Commissioner Shirley Dean (Berkeley Mayor from 1994 – 2002) related during the meeting discussion that she once rode in an open cab fire truck up Panoramic Hill to understand the full difficulty of navigating a fire response to the area. 

My annoyance with the commissioners, that they didn’t seem to have a full grasp of the City of Berkeley Fire Zones, ended when I went looking for Berkeley’s Fire Zone Map. Finding that map in the new revised city website was definitely a challenge. The map is only a gross picture containing no street names for the borders. https://berkeleyca.gov/sites/default/files/2022-04/Berkeley-Fire-Zone-Map.pdf 

At one time,, according to Dean (decades ago), there were plans for a second road route out. Thomas said she still had those records. The item was continued to the next meeting. 

Dean’s agenda item to look into development fees for high-rise buildings met with pushback from Commissioner Theo Gordon appointed by District 8 Councilmember Humbert. Gordon said that property owners in the hills should be paying higher fees, not the developers of high-rises, since the new high-rises are more fire resistant and have lower rents. Panoramic Hill is in District 8. 

I wasn’t quite sure where Gordon gets his information: claiming that the new mixed-use buildings are cheaper to rent than older existing buildings. Councilmember Harrison has stated at council meetings that our most affordable housing is our existing housing. 

When I related Gordon’s comments that new high-rises are cheaper to rent to people who follow the cost of rentals in Berkeley, they called the comment laughable, and asked if Gordon is a paid YIMBY staffer or a true believer. California YIMBY is the land-use lobbying group for Big Tech and developers that celebrates big mixed use projects. 

A light search on google and Gordon’s twitter handle lists him as the Lead of East Bay YIMBY. Gordon isn’t listed as staff on the California YIMBY website, but the average annual YIMBY Action Salary for Lead is approximately $175,423 according to Salary.Com. https://www.salary.com/ 

As for the new high-rise units being cheaper to rent, the 10% very low income units calculated on the “base project” hardly make the other 90%, market rate units, affordable for people who do not have a job earning more than the area median income (AMI) in Alameda County. That is currently at $147,900 for a four person household. Rentals for under $1000 listed in the various online rental apps are by the “bed” not by the unit. 

Setting aside 10% of the units for very low income households using the “base project” for calculation is how developers access the California State Density Bonus to increase a project size by 50% more than what would be allowed under existing zoning code. This is how 2190 Shattuck can provide 32 very low income units out of 326 and go from 18 floors to 25 or 1598 University (appeal date 10/3/23) with 21 very low income units out of 207 went from 4 stories to 8. 

Dean’s item on a developer’s fee stems from Fire Chief Sprague’s comments at the April 27, 2023 Budget and Finance Committee regarding how many firefighters are needed for a high-rise building, which is any building above 7 floors. Sprague said that the change really comes at above 5 floors. Thirty firefighters would be needed for a residential fire, but 50 – 100 for an elevated fire. Any fire in a high-rise that is more than a couple of rooms would need several 100 firefighters. Sprague’s statement is quoted in the April 30 Activist’s Diary. https://berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2023-05-08/article/50289?headline=A-BERKELEY-ACTIVIST-S-DIARY-week-ending-April-30--Kelly-Hammargren 

I skipped the Landmarks Preservation Commission. There were two demolition items which could be guaranteed to be approved and another on the color of paint for a historical building. 

The Community for a Cultural Civic Center (CCCC) met for a debrief after the City Council vote to approve the Civic Center Plan Phase II including a full evaluation of daylighting Strawberry Creek. The Strawberry Creek culvert runs underneath the Maudelle Shirek Building. The group promoting daylighting the creek has already been invited to submit a full grant application for funding. Just how the rest of the project will be financed is up in the air.  

Moving on, the takeaway from the Police Accountability Board Fair and Impartial Policing Subcommittee on August 7 is that the three-pronged approach to traffic stop policing, which places the focus on Vision Zero (zero severe injury and fatal accidents), is not making the expected difference in reducing/eliminating disparate treatment of Black and Brown persons. Implicit bias appears to continue,with a need for further review of community service calls and suspicious vehicle stops. 

Only three members of the Commission on Disability attended the August 9 meeting. There are four commission vacancies and four of the five current commissioners were appointed in April and May of this year. Commissioners Sun and Walsh (the only member with several years on the commission) were absent. Thomas Gregory, the Commission Secretary, is also new with only 4 months as a City of Berkeley employee. 

A letter from a Berkeley resident to former Councilmember Droste and the commission was in the meeting packet, calling out Droste for using accessibility and ADA compliance as an issue for supporting the new Willard Park Clubhouse plans and involving other city commissions, but not the Commission on Disability. 

The new commissioners were not involved, and likely did not know that at the Agenda Committee meetings, starting on June 15, 2020 when the Agenda Committee referred to itself the Commission Reorganization authored by Droste and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Kesarwani and Robinson (Mayor Arreguin joined later), that the proposed plan was to continue with only those commissions and boards required by law, charter, city ordinance and/or ballot initiatives. That would have eliminated the Commission on Disability. 

With Droste as the author of the reorganization, it is no surprise that the Commission on Disability was not consulted. Additionally, since the Willard Park Community Center is planned around children and later discussions on commission mergers suggested combing the Commissions on Aging and Disability into one, it further dismisses these commissions from contributing to the planning, even though there are children with disabilities and their parents, grandparents or caregivers may have disabilities. 

It was finally decided in 2021 and 2022,as the commission mergers and eliminations moved forward, not to merge Aging and Disability in the first commission reorganization round, but to come back to further reductions later. Councilmember Hahn, Agenda Committee member, was a vocal contributor to the slicing and dicing of commissions. 

Much is made of making streets and intersections safe for pedestrians and persons with disabilities with little thought to engaging the Commission on Disability. That might be about to change. The new Commission Secretary is working on bringing project presentations to the Commission before they are set in cement. Then we could hear from the Commission on Disability on things like whether persons in wheelchairs really find it safe and desirable to ride in a bike lane in the street, as suggested by a Transportation and Infrastructure Commissioner on January 19, 2023. 

It didn’t look like The Zoning Adjustment Board (ZAB) would vote for Board member Igor Tregub’s substitute motion on the approval of 2147 San Pablo to include cleaning up the approval language to specify that monthly transit passes were for each bedroom and to recommend bird-safe glass, native plantings and compliance with the Hard Hat Ordinance. 2147 San Pablo is a SB 330 State Density Bonus project which means that it complies only with whatever ordinances were in effect when the application was filed. 

That means there is no native plantings requirement, the Bird-Safe Ordinance went into effect after application and the Hard Hat Ordinance is still up in the air. ZAB member Brandon Yung liked the virtual signaling, but others vocalized their objections to making recommendations. In the end it passed 5 to 2. Kathleen Crandall who was subbing for the evening abstained and Debra Sanderson voted no. 

The other surprise of the evening was that after extended discussion, ZAB continued 1515 Derby, which adds a 3-story single family residence behind the current single family home. While only the house was before ZAB for approval, the plans included adding an ADU later. The discussion (and neighborhood objections) revolved around decreasing the impact to neighbors by swapping the placement of the house and the ADU. 

All for now. 

Let's abandon our parks. It won't take much.

Parks nationwide are one of the most bipartisan, easily supported ideas on earth. But Berkeley has found a way to divide people over their existence, their purpose, and reduce parks to their potential commercial worth, with little opposition from current leadership.

People's Park is victimized by the University of California's greed, neglect, and disinformation such that even the Sierra Club failed, despite UC's alternative sites, to take a stand against its possible conversion to housing. Cesar Chavez Park is at risk of being converted to a ferry-ride parking lot with absurd, unnecessary concessions. Civic Center Park, despite its historic origins and connections to world famous architects, runs the risk of being destroyed by civic leadership with no understanding of its historic foundations, and Willard Park, despite community opposition, is at risk by a plan for a large, rentable building in its center opposed by neighbors.

The loss of habitat, open space, natural landscapes has powerful public health implications. Our town's plans used to champion these needs, but have been altered by successive assaults by the same developers who pooh-pooh the elemental California Environmental Quality Review requirements as excessive and burdensome. 

What happened is money, and the easy language it speaks to politicians eager to please developers, whose nimble ways with the internet prove more valuable than common sense. Few trees can show up at the City Council meeting. Few hawks and gulls can argue with the lucrative nature of nipping away at natural landscapes. 

We're in danger globally. The wrong-headed thinking is right here in our community when representatives such as Buffy Wicks and Nancy Skinner think nothing of partnering with developers who can be much more help with re-election than the rest of us. And most of us scramble to break even, putting off that letter to the California Senate Appropriations Committee about to commit an atrocity. 

Remember, when you see the burnt banyan in Lahaina, Hawaii, that the resonant lament for its historic significance has had its sound and power dampened here by those hungry for money and power. California's environmental protections are being systematically eroded with the full favor and support of our elected representatives. 

Our parks need and deserve our full focus so that our leadership does not consider them an easy item to trade in favor of re-election.

I am profoundly concerned regarding the recent deployment of U.S. Marines to guard commercial ships in the Persian Gulf, as reported in the article titled "Is Biden Risking War with Iran as U.S. Deploys Marines to Guard Commercial Ships in the Persian Gulf?" published on August 8, 2023, by Democracy Now!

This development has raised alarm bells regarding the potential escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran. By positioning Marines to protect commercial vessels, the Biden administration seems to be taking a proactive stance in ensuring safe maritime trade routes. However, this move carries the risk of unintentionally provoking Iran and heightening an already fragile geopolitical situation in the region. 

While it is crucial to safeguard international shipping lanes, it is equally vital to consider diplomatic solutions that foster stability and prevent unnecessary military confrontations. The history of U.S.-Iran relations underscores the complexity of the situation, and any move that may be perceived as aggressive could exacerbate hostilities. 

As concerned global citizens, we must encourage open dialogue and peaceful resolutions to conflicts. It is my hope that the U.S. administration remains committed to diplomatic efforts and exercises caution in its actions, avoiding any unintended consequences that might lead to further conflict.

My cellphone recently issued a familiar audible scold: "Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and dial again." Wait a minute!

"Hang up"? "Dial"? Those instructions are leftovers from the by-gone days of large desktop rotary phones. I'm up for a verbal reboot but what's the best re-write for using a modern fits-in-your-pocket smartphone? "Please log-off and try again?" "Please poke to close and re-tap the keypad"?

The Right to Spear Arms?

Earlier this week, three conservative judges at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Second Amendment's "right to bear arms" doesn't just apply to guns—it also grants citizens the "right" to carry knives, including "butterfly knives" and switchblades longer than two inches. The advocates at Knife Rights are cheering this cutting-edge decision. The judges admitted that knives are "sometimes" used by criminals but claimed that these potentially deadly weapons are "commonly owned for lawful purposes." An 11-judge panel could reject this ruling but the case would then rest with the Supreme Court.

Somehow I fail to recall any images that depict our Founding Fathers or members of the Minutemen indulging in "open carry" of switchblades. 

I asked my neighbor, Redneck Ralph, for his opinion. Ralph, the founder of Right-to-Lifers for the Death Penalty, was emphatic. "The judges didn't go far enough," he railed. "What about my right to carry my Elden Ring broadsword in public? What about my right to brandish my Ozark Trail battle hatchet or my Kurui chopping axe?" 

The Party Lost a Rigged Election and There Was No Violence 

The election WAS rigged. The defeated/cheated party DID stage a historic protest. And there was NO VIOLENCE. 

Those statements sound like right-wing conspiracy fibs but they are all historically true descriptions of a recent US presidential election. No, not the Trump-Biden contest that was held in 2020 but the one that was held in 2016—the election that saw Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million popular votes. Trump was declared president thanks to a rigged anti-democratic voting scheme known as the Electoral College. 

Were the Democrats steamed? You bet they were. (It had already happened before when Al Gore won the popular vote but the Supreme Court handed the Oval Office to George W. Bush.) Did the Dems descend on the Capital to "fight like hell" in 2016? They did not. Instead, 67 elected representatives staged an unprecedented silent protest and refused to attend Trump's inauguration. Here's the story as reported by KPIX: 

Congressional Democrats Boycott Trump's Inauguration  

 

Fashion Plates 

ASYOUDO: As you do 

STY4CZD: Stay Focused 

GOZGOZ: It goes and goes? 

PAZADAN: Peace to Dan? 

AUTEMPO: Australia Time? 

GHEEVAN: A lover of Indian food 

Bumper Snickers 

Goddess on the Loose 

Boldly Going Nowhere 

Life Is Short. Dance Often 

Easily Distracted by Plants 

Federal Subsidies for All!
If "corporations are people"—the key argument behind the Supreme Court's infamous Citizens United decision—maybe it's time for people to start demanding the same rights and powers as corporations. 

Major corporations routinely receive massive federal subsidies "to create jobs" (not to mention expanding corporate profits for business leaders and investors.) 

These appear to be Interest-free loans. 

Here is some data gleaned from the Subsidy Tracker website. 

The list of the Top 100 Parent Companies reveals the major corporate beneficiary of Washington's subsidy apparatus is Boeing, which received 946 awards totaling $15,136,286,466. Yep, that's $15 billion plus—nearly twice as much as the number two recipient, Intel with $8,371,896,017. Also in the Top Ten: Ford, General Motors, Alcoa, General Atomics, and Amazon. In the 17^th spot, with $2.8 billion, is Tesla. 

A detailed breakdown reveals that most of Boeing's bucks came from state and local coffers—i.e., while the federal portion topped $89 million (55 awards), state and local subsidies accounted for $15 billion (381 awards). 

In addition to the Fed's fiscal freebies, Boeing (like the rest of the Big Biz brood) also benefited from government (read "tax-payers") loans and bailouts. In Boeing's case that pencils out to 395 awards worth a whopping $71,398,372,534. 

But there's some evidence that these corporate cash-grabbers may not be repaying their debts. For that story, one needs to go to the Violation Tracker, the Corporate Rap Sheet, and the Project on Government Oversight's Federal Contractor Misconduct Database. 

VisionAiry  

Franklin Greenwald is a local artist with a gift for twisting words to produce eye-grabbing, thought-provoking posters. When Greenwald looks at a word, it begins to morph into intriguing—and frequently insightful—mutations. 

Some examples: Odyssey becomes OtterSea, Apples and Oranges = Apples&Origins. Innuendo = InYouWhenDo, Efficiency = AFishInSea. Rhapsody = RapCity. Assassination = AssassinNation. Global Citizen = GlobalSitterZen. Incarnation = InCarNation. 

Some word-morphs invoke celebrities (as in "Leonard Koan" and "the BeatIlls") while the artist Ai Wei Wei becomes ImagineASIAN and Abbie Hoffman is memorialized on a poster with a label that reads: InSIRboredInNation, 

Recently, Greenwald created a poster to commemorate the US nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombings constituted a monstrous warcrime that killed a many as 226,000—mostly civilians and mostly women and children. Greenwald's poster shows the bombs' Apocalyptic aftermath—a bleak landscape of smoke-and-rubble looming over the invented word: "WreckIgnition." 

If you would like to see examples of Greenwald's work, a collection of the artist's work is on permanent display at Bobby G's pizzeria (2072 University near Shattuck). According to Greenwald, "there are about 20 framed prints in the second rest room" while a selection of smaller art cards are available in the Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archives gift shop. 

"You may want to let the readers know that I was quoted with Albert Einstein in a New York Times best seller by pop psychologist Dr.Wayne Dyer and also received a nice note from legend Lawrence Ferlinghetti," FG shares, adding that "Folks are welcome to check out my work on Facebook under my name. I generally post a statement a day." 

Internet as EnterNyet 

In a possible sign that the Internet has not yet come to a full recognition of the horror of the Pentagon's first-and-only use of city-destroying nuclear bombs, a Yahoo search for "hiroshima nagasaki number of civilians killed" returned only the following mis-directing links. 

hiroshima nagasaki number of civilians killed in ukraine 

hiroshima nagasaki number of civilians killed on 9 11 

hiroshima nagasaki number of civilians killed by assad in syria 

hiroshima nagasaki number of civilians killed at pearl harbor 

hiroshima nagasaki number of civilians killed in iraq war 

hiroshima nagasaki number of civilians killed in afghanistan 

Keep Deep Fakes Out of Politics 

The Federal Election Commission is deciding whether to act on a petition from Public Citizen that hopes to ban AI-generated deepfakes from political ads. Thanks to the advance of faux-reality computer magic, images of politicians can be manipulated to show targeted candidates engaging in egregious and even illegal acts or appearing to accomplish near-impossible feats. (Joe Biden tumbling head-first out of Air Force One? Donald Trump giving a speech in which he does not once use the words "I," "me," or "witchhunt"?) 

"This is a big step toward protecting our elections from the severe threat of deepfakes being used by federal candidates and political parties to confuse or mislead voters," Public Citizen reports. 

The FEC has agreed to post the petition for public comment so the next step is up to the public. If you wish to weigh in on the issue of creepy flakes using deepfakes to win votes, here's a link to Public Citizen's FEC petition page. 

 

Tell Congress to Pass the OLIGARCH Act 

A small group calling itself Patriotic Millionaires has a petition on the ActionNetwork that would raise taxes on the rich. "The richest households are the largest tax evaders" PM notes. And that will remain the case until we start taxing excess wealth instead of workers' paychecks. The proposed billionaires tax was introduced by Pennsylvania's Summer Lee and Berkeley's own Barbara Lee. It would impose a 2% tax on wealth that is 1,000 to 10,000 times the median household wealth; 4% for wealth 10,100,000 times the median; 6% for wealth worth 100,000 to 1,000.000 the median. In addition to shifting massive amounts of stranded assets, the bill would also serve as "a constraint on wealth accumulation." 

Another reason to love this bill? The title OLIGARCH stands for the bill's title: Oppose Limitless Inequality Growth And Reverse Community Harms. 

Relax, Kids. You're at Greater Risk When You're Not in School  

In an August 10 column in USA Today, criminology professor James Alan Fox posted an op-ed with the headline: "Students worry about shootings. They shouldn't." And why? Because: "The majority of school shootings are not indiscriminate slaughters." 

Well, that's reassuring. We only need to concern ourselves with occasional, low-body-count incidents. 

According to Fox's "bright-side-of-life" argument, three-fourths of all school shootings from 1999 to the present "resulted in no fatalities and a third in no one being shot." More good Fox news: "only one-half of 1% of school-age victims of gun homicide are killed at school." 

Fox argues (with some authority) that more students are needlessly traumatized by being forced to participate in classroom "active shooter drills" when, according to the stats on classroom gun-play, students are safer "at school than in their own homes." 

Is Donald Trump Really a Fascist?

 

Televise Trump's Insurrection Trial 

Robert Reich's Inequality Media Civic Action organization is part of a nine-member coalition that has launched an online petition asking that Donald Trump's insurrection trial—"The Most Consequential Trial in US History"—be carried live on television. 

"Public transparency is our best defense against corruption and disinformation," Reich writes. "As the case against Donald Trump goes to court for his illegal actions around January 6—including conspiracy to violate civil rights, conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding—the American public must have full access to the unprecedented trial. 

You can register a click for transparency by hitting this link. 

For decades, long before I was able to get material published, I had a constant activity of writing notes to myself on paper tablets. I would gain a better mood and therapeutic benefit through this activity. It was a way of checking in with myself, "grounding" myself, and learning more about the internal workings of my consciousness. This doesn't fix everything, but it can bring better feelings.

Just asking myself, "How are you doing?" can bring some level of relief, especially when the answer I write down is, "I feel like crap." Additionally, writing down thoughts can be a tool for the mind--if you want to focus on one or more ideas.

In writing notes to myself, I am in good company, since Albert Einstein was known for jotting down a lot of notes, including letters to family, if I understand correctly.

By notating steps in a meditation exercise, I could keep track of step-by-step methods I had invented, for purposes of changing and bettering how my mind would work. Sometimes it was a diary and sometimes it was self-satisfaction. But doing journaling for so many years probably made a huge difference for me. Journaling in the way I approached it allowed me to become a better person. 

It seems to me that I spent many years getting all the garbage out of my head and onto paper. And only after I got all the gunk out, was I able to write for publication. 

I can get pain relief from journaling. If I write about what hurts, it is a method of releasing pain. Writing to myself can be a method of self-expression and venting, including and especially when not intended to be read by anyone but me. 

A shredder is essential because you should not let anyone read your material that you intend for your own eyes without your knowledge. Some may obtain depraved edification from it. 

An ignorant man criticized my journaling. Others have read what I've written without permission and concluded that I'm stupid for writing stupid notes to myself. It shows they need to feel superior, or that they gain something by putting down another person. This is why shredding your notes matters. 

Journaling can happen after establishing a basic sense of safety. This seems to be in short supply in today's world. 

Journaling won't cure any physical or mental diseases. Journaling won't make you a genius. It is a tool. And it could be analogous to adding an extra area of memory for a microcomputer. A microcomputer, I discovered in my past studies, has "cache memory." This is storage a step apart from the main area of computer memory. A tablet of paper for a human could resemble that. 

With journaling, if you keep any of it in a place where others can't access it, you can look at what you wrote yesterday or last year. This allows you to review where you once were and how you once thought. Sometimes this can yield a valuable picture. 

In short, writing down your thoughts has uses, and it can help you reflect. 

A final word: never, ever do journaling on a computer, where it could potentially be read by billions of people on the internet. If you don't want to use a pen, consider buying a typewriter. A typewriter doesn't make a data version of what you write that could find its way to the internet. Typewriters continue to be sold, and there will always be a use for them. 

---

Jack Bragen lives and writes in Martinez, California.  

Worth Noting:

Very light week. City Council is on summer recess through September 11, 2023 and most boards and commissions do not meet in August.

• Monday: From 6 – 7 pm online Speaking Up for Point Molate on species that live in eelgrass
• Thursday: At 7 pm in person DRC meets on 600 Addison, 1652 University and 2538 Durant
• Saturday: From 9 – 11 am is shoreline cleanup

The Rent Board meeting for August 17 is cancelled. The Fair Campaign Practices/Open Government Commissions and the Transportation Commission usually meet the 3rd Thursday. There are no meeting announcements. There are no posts that these meetings are cancelled nor is there any notice that they do not meet in August. Check later in the week at https://berkeleyca.gov/

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BERKELEY PUBLIC MEETINGS AND CIVIC EVENTS 

Sunday, August 13, 2023 - no city meetings or events listed 

Monday, August 14, 2023 

SPEAKING UP for POINT MOLATE from 6 – 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82326950370?pwd=cnRvejFTWFkrZzVqcGJ4RExrSVRYUT09 

Meeting ID: 823 2695 0370 Passcode: 941160 

AGENDA: Dr. Hughes Sonoma State Ecologist will speak on species that inhabit Point Molate eelgrass. 

More about the speaker: https://www.kqed.org/science/1970711/sea-hares-scrub-seagrass-by-the-seashore 

Tuesday, August 15, 2023 - no city meetings or events listed 

Wednesday, August 16, 2023 - no city meetings or events listed 

Thursday, August 17, 2023 

 

DESIGN REVIEW COMMITTEE at 7 pm 

In-Person: 1901 Hearst, North Berkeley senior Center, Gooseberry Room 

AGENDA: 1. 600 Addison – Coordinated Sign Program – exterior building signage, two buildings, 943 parking spaces 

2. 1652 University at Jefferson (former Radio Shack location) – Preliminary Design Review – to demolish a 2-story 6232 sq ft commercial building and construct a 24,732 sq ft 5-story mixed-use building with 2264 sq ft of commercial space including 2 live-work units, 22,468 sq ft for 26 dwelling units, no parking, height 59 ft 10 in on 7,480 sq ft lot 

3. 2538 Durant (between Telegraph and Bowditch) – Final Design Review - to demolish existing 4-story residential building including 12 dwelling units and construct 80,829 sq ft 8-story mixed-use building with 1641 sq ft of ground floor commercial space and 83 dwellings including 5 very low income units. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/design-review-committee 

Friday, August 18, 2023 - no city meetings or events listed 

Saturday, August 19, 2023 

SHORELINE CLEANUP from 9 – 11 am 

Meetup: At 160 University, Shorebird Park Nature Center 

https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/events/3rd-saturday-shoreline-cleanup-0 

Sunday, August 20, 2023 - no city meetings or events listed 

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LAND USE CALENDAR PUBLIC HEARINGS: 

• 705 Euclid Avenue (new single family dwelling) 9/26/2023
• 3000 Shattuck Avenue (Construct 10-story mixed-use building) – 9/26/2023
• 1598 University Avenue (Construct 8-story mixed-use building) 10/3/2023

WORK SESSIONS & SPECIAL MEETINGS: 

• Fire Department Standards of Coverage & Community Risk Assessment to be scheduled
• Dispatch Needs Assessment Presentation to be rescheduled
• Draft Waterfront Specific Plan – rescheduled to fall

PAST MEETINGS with reports worth reading: 

• May 16 - Fire Facilities Study Report, Wildfire Prevention Plan https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/city-council-agendas
• June 20 (WS) - Climate Action Plan & Resilience Update, Berkeley Economic Dashboards Update reports available https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/city-council-agendas

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* * * * * 

Kelly Hammargren’s summary on what happened the preceding week can be found in the Berkeley Daily Planet under Activist’s Diary at: www.berkeleydailyplanet.com 

 

This meeting list is also posted at: https://www.sustainableberkeleycoalition.com/whats-ahead.html 

 

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 want to receive the Activist’s Diary send an email to kellyhammargren@gmail.com. 

 

If you wish to stop receiving the weekly calendar of city meetings please forward the email you received to- kellyhammargren@gmail.com -with the request to be removed from the email list. 

 

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For Online Public Meetings 

CLOSED CAPTIONING, SAVE TRANSCRIPT OVERVIEW, DIRECTIONS and ZOOM SUPPORT LINKS:
.
ZOOM has as part of the program -(for no extra cost)- Closed Captioning (CC). It turns computer voice recognition into a text transcript. Accuracy of the Closed Captioning is affected by background noise and other factors, The CC transcript will not be perfect, but most of the time reading through it the few odd words, can be deciphered--for example "Shattuck" was transcribed as Shadow in one recent transcript. 

 

For the us, the online attendee, the full transcript is only available from the time the attendee activates Closed Captioning. But if Closed Captioning is activated and you sit through a meeting and then remember 10 minutes before it is over to click on CC then go to the arrow/carrot next to CC for the menu and click on Show Full Transcript you will only get the last 10 minutes, not the full transcript – So click often on both Save Transcript and on Save to Folder during the meeting for best results. 

 

When you click on Show Full Transcript it will allow you to scroll up and down, so if want to go back and see what was said earlier you can do that during the meeting while the transcript is running. 

 

At the bottom of the transcript when we as attendees are allowed to save there will be a button for, "Save Transcript," you can click on the button repeatedly throughout the meeting and it will just overwrite and update the full transcript. Clicking on the Save Transcript repeatedly as the meeting is coming to an end is important because once the host ends the meeting, the transcript is gone if you didn't save it. 

 

Near the end of the meeting, after you click on "Save Transcript," click on "Save to Folder." The meeting transcript will show up (as a download to your desktop) in a separate box as a text file. (These text files are not large.) After you have done your last Save Transcript and Save to Folder (after the meeting is over) you can rename the new transcript folder on your computer, and save it (re-read or send or share it). 

 

Remember, allowing us attendees to save the meeting transcript does not require the public meeting host to save the transcript (for public record.) 

 

Here is the link to ZOOM Support for how to set up Closed Captioning for a meeting or webinar:
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/8158738379917#h_01GHWATNVPW5FR304S2SVGXN2X 

 

Here is the link to ZOOM Support for attendees in how to save Closed Captions: 

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360060958752-Using-save-captions#h_01F5XW3BGWJAKJFWCHPPZGBD70