I often think I should approach writing the Activist’s Diary like plein air painting by picking a .point in time and stopping, but the world and the City keep moving on while I write. -more-
Worth Noting:
The last day for members to join the Sierra Club to be able to vote in the Sierra Club election is October 31st. https://www.sierraclub.org/ways-to-give#renew-maintab
Responsibilities of the persons elected include: local conservation policies, administering programs and activities and endorsing political candidates and ballot initiatives. Please join or if you are already a member check to make sure your membership is current. The election bulletin of candidates and ballot will be sent in the Winter edition of the Sierra Club Yodeler.
Once again there is a lot to cover as I pull the last two weeks on the local scene together. To ease the posting and reading here is Part I. Part 2 will follow on what is coming to us in more proposed zoning changes (housing).
The Tuesday 4 pm City Council Special Meeting on Legislative Systems Redesign was enough to make even attentive eyes glaze over. The mayor and Councilmember Hahn made the point at the meeting that Hahn’s proposal started on page 43 of the 138-page packet.
The meeting was nine minutes shy of two hours, started 42 minutes late and no action was taken. Most glaring in all this foolishness comes on page 95 of the 138-page packet, with the header “state or federal model” which appeared to be the basis for the layers of process.
It evidently did not occur to the team engrossed in the systems redesign (several of whom have left employment with the city of Berkeley) that the state legislative system has 40 state senators and 80 assembly members, and covers around 39,000,000 residents or that the federal system has 100 senators, 435 house members and covers 332,000,000 residents.
Berkeley has a mayor and eight councilmembers for the 123,562 of us living on the 10.5 square miles we call Berkeley. Without UC Berkeley students who now number over 40,000, Berkeley’s population would be well under 100,000.
It is not that what the city manager, city employees and city council do is unimportant, since it can be said that council actions can have a big impact on our daily life. Nor is it that committees aren’t useful, as there are occasions when committees are extremely useful in refining legislation. Nor is it that I am steadfastly opposed to committees in total. But I attend City Council Policy Committee meetings and watch the mayor and councilmembers in action. I have come to the conclusion that to create a complicated system for the few of the nine who actually submit major legislation seems a bit over the top.
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I am a writer with hundreds of credits over a twenty-year span, but I am also schizoaffective, a diagnosis which is downgraded in the past decade, originally schizophrenia, paranoid-type. With this condition, I am more vulnerable to some of the hard things in life. Mentally ill people like me probably have a very hard time wrapping our minds around mindless destruction, murder, and idiocy. And to be specific, I am speaking of the armed conflict going on in the Middle East. -more-
SMITHEREENS: Reflections on Bits & Pieces:Boos&Dues&TheBlues
Spooky Speaking
On my Sunday morning run, I got a great pre-Halloween scan at porches populated with pumpkins and fences covered with fake webs and lobster-sized spiders. But one display on Eunice Street stood out. It consisted of three large figures leaning over a front-yard fence and each holding a sign. Together, their message read: "We really thought/Climate Change/Was a Hoax!" All three figures were life-sized skeletons.
Washington's Debt Spiral
Joe Biden has his hand out for another$100 billion to pay for military assistance to fuel the wars in Ukraine and Gaza (while prepping for a show-down, end-all collision with China and setting aside barrels of cash to secure US interests in Latin America and along the US-Mexico border.) Although the Pentagon famously has not won a war since 1945 (and Russia played a major role in that "win"), belligerent "We're top-dog" US foreign policy continues to call for more weapons, more war, more militarism.
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Being in denial could mean not acknowledging something difficult, and/or, it could mean unrealistic thoughts of getting something, (any impracticable thing you're after). This is not unique to people with psychiatric issues. I know several non-neurodivergent people who are in unhealthy denial about their life situations. And if they could face a few bleak facts, they might be able to take necessary steps to get their situations resolved. -more-
We should all be concerned about the humanitarian consequences of Israel’s constant bombing and siege of Gaza, and its military evacuation order for over a million people in northern Gaza and Gaza City and then the bombing of these fleeing evacuees. If Israeli does invade Gaza, expect many more casualties.
In Gaza, more than 4,000 people have already been killed and another 13,000 injured, and countless have lost their homes. At least 1,400 people have died and 3,400 others have been injured in Israel, mostly on the Oct. 7 initial attack.
While this bloodshed in Gaza is occurring, President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, Secretary of Defense Austin and other White House officials keep repeating the same old mantra — "The United States has Israel’s back.” Their words are supported by two U.S. aircraft carriers with supporting ships standing by off Israel’s coast.
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Stung
A friend who spends time on a boat docked at the Berkeley Marina recently emailed a photo of her badly swollen arm, the result of an insect bite. "I look like Popeye," she lamented.
She had been bitten by a yellow-jacket and theorized the attack was triggered by groundskeepers at the Marina who had been hacking away at the same flowering plants that attract bees and other insects. The looming question seemed to be: were the local wasps driven by hunger or sheer vengeance?
For an answer to that question, I turned to the experts at www.alamedabees.com. ACBA's Ronni Brega responded as follows:
"At this time of year yellow-jackets are foraging for protein, specifically meat of any kind to feed new brood. They are not foraging on plants for nectar or pollen much right now. Wasps and yellow-jackets are omnivores, bees and butterflies are vegetarian. YJ's nest in the ground, typically around plants, it could be that the gardeners (or you) disturbed a nest. They have no barbs on their stingers, so they can sting multiple times, and will. Honeybees do have a barb, and die after stinging."
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I am still experiencing profound grief in the face of the brutal terror attack by Hamas and the immense and ongoing loss of life and trauma of bombings in Gaza. Last weekend, I attended a wedding back east of a dear friend from International House with a guest list that included Muslims and Jews from around the world. As a unified international community, we must condemn both the terror attack and hostage taking by Hamas against Israelis and the unrelenting bombardment, siege, and blockade against civilians in Gaza. Tragically, thousands of humans are dead and traumatized, and there is now unconscionable talk about a broader regional, or even global war. -more-
I read your October 19th email about the Hamas attack on October 7th with a heavy heart. Being one of your Jewish constituents I would have liked to have read a note of consolation, not twelve days after the Hamas attack on Israel and not a high-handed statement that tries to equate a calculated and savage attack with the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza. Your colleagues, particularly Susan and Mark, responded much more quickly and with an authenticity that I find lacking in your email. -more-
An investigation by The Los Angeles Times exposed the massive lies - Palestinians raping women and Palestinians killing themselves in their hospital, intended to inflame passions to deflect the massive bombings in Gaza, war crimes perpetrated against a civilian population. As the saying goes, "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." -more-
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In my review of this opera that was posted on September 29, there were unfortunately many errors, misnamers, and typos. What follows below is the corrected version of this review.
What I’d heard till now of music by Bay Area composer Mason Bates seemed to me glib, light-weight, and of llittle interest. For example, his Piano Concerto, which premiered at San Francisco Symphony in 2022, struck me as meretricious, hardly worth the valiant effort of the brilliant pianist Daniil Trifonov for whom Bates wrote the work and who performed it at its SF premiere. So now, as I attended the Sunday matinee of The (R()evolution of Steve Jobs on October 24, I didn’t expect great things. Well, though I certainly did not experience great things, I must say that, for the most part, Mason Bates’ pop-infused mix of traditional orchestration and computerized soundscapes worked reasonably well in this operatic tale about a Silicon Valley ihigh-tech mogul and ruthless executive.
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