Columnists

New: California: Blue State, Boom State

Bob Burnett
Saturday June 20, 2015 - 11:57:00 PM

In January, it was widely reported that California had become the world’s seventh largest economy. Among the top ten economies the Golden State (with an estimated 2013 GDP of $2.20 trillion) surpassed Brazil, Italy, and Russia and trailed only the U.S., China, Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Many factors contribute to California’s preeminence; one being its liberalism. -more-


THE PUBLIC EYE:Searching for Intelligent Life in the Republican Party

Bob Burnett
Thursday June 11, 2015 - 03:00:00 PM

As a Berkeley liberal, I’m convinced that whomever the Democrats nominate as their 2016 presidential candidate will soundly defeat the GOP nominee. Nonetheless, I’d like to see a sensible Republican candidate, one that agrees with me (and most voters) on the important national issues. Unfortunately, we’ve yet to see signs of intelligence in this set of GOP candidates. -more-


ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Meaningful Activities and Goals

Jack Bragen
Thursday June 11, 2015 - 07:50:00 PM

Struggles with employment are nearly universal among persons with a diagnosis of severe mental illness. Employment is the gold standard of self-worth for many persons with a psychiatric condition. Some of us are able to maintain employment, sometimes at a professional level, while some of us are unable to work. Symptoms of mental illness and medication side effects are both obstacles to working competitively.

For those of us unable to hold employment, we are left with the question of what we are to do with our time. Most people have a desire for meaning in their lives. However, some people just want to get the maximum amount of jollies, while still others just want to get through to the end with the least possible amount of discomfort. -more-


DISPATCHES FROM THE EDGE:Turkish Election

Conn Hallinan
Thursday June 11, 2015 - 07:37:00 PM

Among the many things behind the storm that staggered Turkey’s ruling party in last week’s elections, a disastrous foreign policy looms large. But a major factor behind the fall of the previously invincible Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was a grassroots revolt against rising poverty, growing inequality and the AKP’s war on trade unions.

On the eve of the election, the government’s Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) found that 22.4 percent of Turkish households fell below the official poverty line of $1,626 a month for a family of four. The country’s largest trade union organization, TURK-IS, which uses a different formula for calculating poverty levels based on incomes below the minimum monthly wage—$118—argues that nearly 50 percent of the population is at, or near, the poverty line.

Figures show that while national income has, indeed, risen over the past decade, much of it has gone to the wealthy and well connected. When the AKP came to power in 2002, the top 1 percent accounted for 39 percent of the nation’s wealth. Today that figure is 54 percent. In the meantime, credit card debt has increased 25 fold, from 222 million liras in 2002 to 5.8 billion liras today -more-


DISPATCHES FROM THE EDGE:Middle East: Dark Plots Afoot?

Conn Hallinan
Monday June 08, 2015 - 07:43:00 PM

A quiet meeting this past March in Saudi Arabia, and a recent anonymous leak from the Israeli military, set the stage for what may be a new and wider war in the Middle East. -more-


SENIOR POWER: How does your garden grow?

Helen Rippier Wheeler, pen136@dslextreme.com
Saturday June 20, 2015 - 11:46:00 PM

This Senior Power column concerns an innovative aging in place project being undertaken jointly by several local agencies -- the Area Agency on Aging (AAA), Alameda County Public Health, City Slicker Farms and Satellite Affordable Housing (SAHA.) Low-income senior citizen residents in 5 Berkeley and Oakland housing projects have the opportunity to participate in community gardening and nutrition workshops. I focus on one -- Berkeley’s Lawrence Moore Manor, with its group and individual roof gardening and nutrition workshops enabled by a Public Health Department grant. -more-


New: ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Times When We Should Get People's Help

Jack Bragen
Sunday June 14, 2015 - 07:49:00 AM

A severe psychiatric illness can bring crises, and in some instances, we may need someone's help. Whether we are dealing with an impending relapse of symptoms, or if we have some other problem that we can't solve entirely on our own, refusing help if it is offered could be a mistake. In some instances, communicating to those who might help us is a brave and prudent action. -more-