Meet the Candidates forums begin on Monday September 12 from 7-9 pm at the Berkeley Community Media Studio, 2239 Martin Luther King Way near Allston Way. Sponsored by the local chapter of the League of Women Voters, these free and informative panels are open to the public, but because of the limited space in the studio, attendees are asked to get their tickets through Eventbrite.

At the Eventbrite website, register if you don’t already have an account, which will allow you to print up tickets to all the forums you wish to attend. If the website shows that tickets are available, the League encourages people to just show up. The forums held at the studio will be videotaped and broadcast on cable channel 28. At this time, we don’t know if the forums will be simulcast live, but on the day of the each forum at the BCM studio, you can check the Channel 28 daily schedule. -more-

I just witnessed, tonight, what appears to be a "socially conscious" event of something called a Critical Mass Bike Ride on Gilman Street Berkeley. Could someone PLEASE explain, to me, the logic of people attempting to deliberately cause deadly accidents on the road ways? Out of the hundreds of bicyclists, at least 25 percent of these superior minded individuals swerved deliberately into on-coming traffic. -more-

Sometimes the difference between incompetence and conspiracy is a timeline and just one last puzzle piece. I can explain why the City Council meeting on 8/11 was aborted, and why Capitelli and Droste were most likely asked to make sure that that meeting didn't happen. It all starts with the fact that the City of Berkeley hates ballot initiatives and will go to any length to keep them from the voters. This is because ballot initiatives actually become law, while a City Council generated Ordinance can be adopted, changed, or eliminated with a simple majority at a hastily called special meeting, even when they are officially "closed for business" (I'm sure that even Saturdays, Sundays and Monday holidays are not safe from such a special request). Heck, unless a proposed Ordinance held some meaning for John Caner and the DBA, the rest of us would probably never hear about it. -more-

On September 7, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump appeared on the same stage in a broadcast NBC dubbed the "Commander-in-Chief Forum," an event devoted to "national security, military affairs and veterans issues."

For an event that marked the beginning of one of the most critical presidential debates in US history, NBC produced a disturbing preamble -- two back-to-back interviews conducted on a mothballed aircraft carrier. Instead of focusing on the full range of domestic issues that are roiling the electorate -- lack of good jobs, declining wages, rising housing costs, failing schools, crumbling infrastructure, mass incarceration, and the tandem proliferations of gun possession and police violence -- the theme selected by the National Broadcasting Corporation was focused on a narrower target: preparing for and fighting wars.

Under NBC's marching orders, the two candidates vied for the allegiance of "an audience consisting mainly of military veterans and active service members."

The evening was sponsored by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, an organization that has received a respectable 86% Charity Navigator rating and whose mission is to "connect, unite and empower post-9/11 veterans."
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Former Mayor Art Agnos's idea of putting hundreds of people on a ship offshore is overdue. Just make sure the people on board are the failed leadership robbing poor people of tents and blankets while the city builds luxury hotels and condos. -more-

In television ads, oil and energy companies are beginning to promote the idea of capturing greenhouse gases as opposed to abandoning use of fossil fuels. I saw an article on the Greenpeace website opposed to this, stating that the idea is essentially bogus and that we need to simply switch to renewable energy. -more-

The Wannabe Bully-in-Chief said "we should take Iraq's oil" during the Commander-In-Chief Forum. It's a terrible, dangerous, and immoral idea. It says our nation should be a thief. How would we look to the entire Muslim world? It's is a call for enmity and disaster. And the logistic difficulty and cost, in human life and treasure, of such a nasty endeavor reveals the Nasty Narcissist's profound ignorance. The Combover Candidate's statement was a much more serious disqualification than his stated admiration for Vladimir Putin. He is making us out to be a nation of thieves. Hillary, and the legitimate news media, must call the Shifty Huckster to account for his thoughtless bluster. -more-

As the 2016 presidential election enters its final phase, Hillary Clinton has a slight lead over Donald Trump. While it’s still possible for Trump to win, this is unlikely to happen because of four traps he has set for himself. -more-

Some of the fiascos and foibles of mentally ill people, that twenty or thirty years ago wouldn't have many repercussions, in today's climate we could no longer produce without serious consequences. Society has become more tightly restricted concerning what is acceptable and what isn't. -more-

Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier premiered at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala on March 28, 1896 and enjoyed a smashing popular success. Ever since, however, Andrea Chénier has received far more critical barbs than accolades. Giordano’s music has been skewered as “a score of the third class – music of shreds and patches, bombastic and crude, fueled by hot air.” I would have to agree with this evaluation. Nonetheless, Andrea Chénier does contain a few lovely musical numbers, and these were splendidly sung by San Francisco Opera’s Opening Night cast. All told, this Andre Chénier offered a first rate cast in a third rate opera. -more-

Marion Fay's excellent, highly participatory Theater Explorations classes for theatergoers & theater lovers is about to start for the Fall. Two sections: Mondays & Thursdays, both 1-3 p. m., starting this coming week--Monday the 12th, Thursday the 15th--at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda (just south of Solano, the end of the shopping district & the tunnel). -more-

Opening Night Galas are not my thing. I find something cloyingly self-congratulatory about these events, a trait that was markedly evident on Wednesday, September 7, in Michael Tilson Thomas’s opening remarks in which he shamelessly fished for applause from the opening night audience, which predictably gave him what he so gracelessly asked for. Then MTT led the orchestra in The Star-Spangled Banner.” Do we really need to hear this patriotic pap before every single sports event and opening night musical event, as if we needed to wrap ourselves in the American flag in order to give ourselves a veneer of self-righteousness? I found myself longing for a Colin Kapernick to refuse to stand for the National Anthem in protest against all that is wrong and needing reform in our nation.

As for the Opening Night musical program, the first half was wonderful. The second half was dreadful, but we’ll deal with that later. To open the concert, MTT conducted Gioachino Rossini’s overture to Guillaume Tell/William Tell. This, of course, is a well-worn chestnut, familiar to everyone from commercials using this overture’s famous last section. However, few people are familiar with this overture’s soft, solemn opening music for five solo cellos, accompanied very discreetly by the basses and contrabasses. Nor are they familiar with the pastoral music that follows, with a poignant melody played on English horn while a flute solo soars ravishingly above. In this music, Principal Horn player Robert Ward and Principal Flutist Tim Day performed admirably. Following the last dying note of the English horn, trumpets enter with a fanfare that precedes the well-known final section’s impetuous and all-too rhythmically repetitive theme. Despite the rather vulgar insistence of the bass drum, this final section brings the William Tell Overture to a resounding and ultimately satisfying climax. -more-