Criminalizing homelessness is the most expensive, least effective way to address homelessness. Studies prove it, reporters note it, and common sense suggests it since paying for a year of low-income housing or even a college education costs a lot less than a year in jail. So why does it sell like crazy? -more-

The Streets Are for Everyone Coalition (SAFE), is calling for an emergency march and rally on March 17 to protest efforts to get the Berkeley City Council to pass new laws targeting homeless people on the streets of the city.

The protest will precede a meeting of the Council at which it will consider a proposal by Councilmember Linda Maio for a raft of new ordinances, which would criminalize such innocuous activities as “lying on planter walls” and “deployment” of bedding on sidewalks and plazas during the day.

“Taken together with existing laws, these ordinances would essentially make it illegal for people who are homeless to have a presence on our streets and sidewalks,” said Osha Neumann an attorney with the East Bay Community Law Center. He has represented many homeless people who have received citations for, he says, “activities they engage in as part of their effort to survive.” -more-

In the news there was a recent story of two Dallas policemen encountering a mentally ill man, Jason Harrison, holding a screwdriver. The officers commanded Jason to drop the screwdriver, and within a few seconds of that, shot the mentally ill man five times. There are many more examples of police killing mentally ill people without provocation. There are also numerous examples of police brutality in which excessive force is used to apprehend a mentally ill person. -more-

Alarmist rhetoric theme has long been a staple of Mr. Netanyahu’s career. In an interview with the BBC in 1997, he warned that Iran was “building a formidable arsenal of ballistic missiles,” and urged nations to join him to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear capability, stressing that “time is running out.” Earlier, as a Member of Parliament, in 1992, he predicted that Iran would be able to produce a nuclear weapon within three to five years. His speech last Tuesday, bore a strong resemblance to his testimony before the House government affairs committee in 2002 warning of Iraq’s possession of Centrifuges “the size of washing machines.” His own intelligence service, the Mossad, categorically rejected Netanyahu’s dire warnings. So where is Netanyahu obtaining his information? He seems to be using President George Bush’s playbook in injecting massive doses of fear to rally feckless Congressional members behind his bogus claims. His speech was pure theatre designed to scuttle Obama’s effort to reach a peaceful accord with Iran, forestall further conflict and offer a workable paradigm to degrade ISIS’s reign of terror. -more-

On March 17th the Berkeley City Council will consider expanding the authority and practice of police, especially in downtown Berkeley. The council will consider authorizing the police to treat the down and out even more harshly than they are already treated.

Jesse Arreguin and Linda Maio have brought this authoritarian measure before council.

Here is one good description of the proposals, via Copwatch: -more-

Secretary of State Kerry was right to condemn the action of 46 Senators who sent a letter to Iran attempting to scare their leaders from reaching an agreement with the US, warning that the next President could invalidate such an agreement with the stroke of a pen. It was yet another clumsy effort to undercut the president on a grave national security issue. War hawk Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton spearheaded the effort after receiving nearly $1 million in donations from The Emergency Committee for Israel and conducting a secretive meeting with weapons contractors. By their actions these senators have sent a dangerous message that the signature of a US president is not legally binding and is therefore meaningless. -more-

20 months before the 2016 presidential election, the Republican Party is floundering. Unlike the Democrats, where Hillary Clinton is the clear presidential favorite, there’s no frontrunner for the GOP nomination. More important, it’s unclear what Republicans stand for – other than hatred of President Obama. -more-

In the past twenty-five years, programs to help high functioning mentally ill persons have evaporated. A lot of this is attributable to funding cuts. Yet when funding is restored, helping those who do a bit better hasn't been a priority. -more-

Last year, my wife and I visited for the first time the sights in Philadelphia, which included an informative exhibit "Distant Echoes: Black Farmers in America" at the African American Museum there. The exhibit featured the poignant, award-winning photographs of John Francis Ficara. The photographs depict what Ficara considers the last decade of black agriculture in the United States. Ficara spent several years documenting the experience of black farmers, which for many years has been in crisis after decades of prejudice and discrimination. According to the exhibit, Black farmers are losing their property at approximately 1,000 acres a day. -more-

"It never occurred to you that living with our mother--our mother!--might turn somebody against America!"

With that would-be wake-up call, Margaret Mary Mahoney (Central Works co-founder and co-director Jan Zvaifler in an often-funny yet harrowing turn) confronts her sisters Bridgett (Maura Halloran) and Kathleen (Danielle Thys) in their mother's home over the presence of a young Somali woman in hijab, their mother's caregiver Siara (Desirée Rogers), and what to her is the mystery of their terminally-ill mother's very recent and sudden demise without pronouncement or death certificate in the midst of the action of Patricia Milton's telling new play, 'Enemies: Foreign and Domestic.' -more-

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, led by Rachel Podger—who the BBC Music Magazine has called "Britain's finest period violinist"—will play an all-Vivaldi concert of nine violin concerti, for one, two and three violins, Saturday, March 14 at 8, Sunday, March 15 at 7:30, at the First Congregational Church, 245 Channing Way at Dana. $25-$100. philharmonia.org -more-

"What people don't realize is that war against occupation in South Africa began when the first Dutch settlers came in 1652, and it didn't stop till 1994. I don't consider myself a political musician; a consider myself a person who learned music from people who were resisting an oppression." -more-