Dear Governor Newsom:

We need you to come to Oakland and support the brave people who are on the 8th day of hunger strike to defend the 16 neighborhood schools that the state-controlled school board has targeted to close or merge. Oakland families have been made to suffer for decades now by the intervention of the state in running their schools. State control has driven the school district further into debt and damaged children's prospects by increasing the average class size to 31, as opposed to 19 in private schools.

But closing neighborhood schools, dubiously justified as cost-saving, does NOT serve the interests of the public. It is especially unjustifiable when the state has a significant budget surplus. A good part of that surplus should go to improving public education in California, especially the primary grades in neighborhood schools. It can allow Oakland schools' debt to be wiped out and release the district from state control back to Oakland residents and the parents of Oakland schoolchildren.

I write as a believer, with Thomas Jefferson, in the importance of public education for effective democracy. Especially for children of low-income families, a small neighborhood primary school can ensure children's development to become responsible, fulfilled adults. We know that children thrive in small school and small classes, where their teachers can work with them individually.

Public education has been under heavy attack by the wealthy and the Republican party for decades, and they have succeeded in denigrating teachers and capping their pay, closing schools, especially in low-income neighborhoods, and diverting funding to charter schools, many of them for-profit. All this harms our children and blights their whole lives and our state and country’s future. -more-

Introduction

Recently, the question of criminal violence in the streets has been raised (once again). Some people, and some police statements, have suggested that we are experiencing "another" crime wave. One might wonder what happened to the earlier one. Did someone just call it off? Or is the notion of a “crime wave” simply a media trick?

Toward the end of last summer, some neighborhood meetings were held, called by councilmembers from allegedly crime-targeted areas, to discuss what people were potentially facing – shootings, gang warfare, low-level theft, etc., were mentioned. It was fairly ordinary stuff for stressed and depressed low income areas. These meetings were also to discuss proposals for increased surveillance technology, as means of preventing crime. There was skepticism about that. Surveillance technology can aid in solving crimes, but only changes in social conditions will be preventative. And the problem with surveillance technology -- license plate readers and lamppost cameras, for instance – is that they will be pointed at all of us, and thus serve to enhance police social control capacities. Lamppost cameras make our daily lives part of a database, recording who we hang out with in parks, when we play chess (if we do), or to whom we pass little pieces of paper. It gets recorded for future use, but by whom?

A usual response to surveillance goes: “I’m not doing anything wrong. I have nothing to fear from it.” But one is powerless over its future use. People have ended up in prison for having been on the wrong street corner at the wrong time, thereby becoming suspects without alibi with respect to a nearby criminal event. In many ways, surveillance pushes the Constitution aside (e.g. violation of privacy without warrants). For example, we know about programs like "Echelon," which records and stores surveillance data collected globally. It reads all electronic communications, including cell phones, Wifi, email, internet pages and podcasts, etc., all without warrants. Electronic communications cross national boundaries (via satellites, etc.), which thus evade the limits of the juridical. In that contra-constitutional sense, surveillance itself sounds like a “crime wave” all its own. -more-

As host of the Beijing Olympics, China has adopted a draconian policy of “lock em up” at the first sign of a Covid outbreak. Just a handful of cases can lead to an entire city being shut down for weeks. The zero COVID policy appears to be a stunning success at first sight. The US has about 150 times the number of deaths as China which is four times our size. But according to one of America's top medical experts, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, this policy may be a ticking time bomb ready to explode. His thesis is as follows: The Zero-Covid policy is based upon the notion that COVID will vanish or somehow won't be a threat going forward. -more-

QAnon's Featured Ghosts

We all witnessed the witless waves of QAnoners gathered in Dallas's Dealey Plaza last November, eagerly awaiting the return of John F. Kennedy—and/or his equally deceased son, JFK Jr. It was daunting to watch their devotion. Many remained on the sidewalks waiting for a Kennedy Moment days after the promised resurrection date had passed. (Granted, a few true believers bailed and decamped to a Rolling Stone concert that evening, buoyed by rumors that the Stone's Keith Richards was actually JFK Jr. in disguise.)

So now: an update on Trump's Reincarnation Nation.

A Trumpster recently interviewed on national TV assured reporters that The Donald would not only win reelection in 2024, but that the entertainment for his victory celebration would feature an appearance by Michael Jackson!

What is it with the Far Right's fetish for wanting to bring-back-the-dead? Is this a faith-based fixation—the belief in the coming of an A-List Neo-Jesus (minus The Rapture)?

But here's the really odd part about these Second Comings of pop-culture icons: why are these "featured ghosts" all celebrities of a "liberal" persuasion? Why are there no forecasts that Trump's Triumph will be visited by the ghastly likes of a ghostly Rush Limbaugh? A not-yet-deceased David Koch? A wide-awake Herman Cain? -more-

Helping mentally ill people recover is often one of the objectives of treatment. Yet it is not the only objective. -more-

e Trump takeover of the Republican Party is complete; it has become just another Trump family business. The Republican National Committee's (RNC) about-face of its position on the January 6, 2021 insurrection is just one example.

THEN:

On January 13, 2021, less than a week after the January 6 insurrection, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel released a statement urging protesters to keep the peace.

“Violence has no place in our politics. Period,” she said. “I wholly condemned last week’s senseless acts of violence, and I strongly reiterate the calls to remain peaceful in the weeks ahead. Those who partook in the assault on our nation’s Capitol and those who continue to threaten violence should be found, held accountable, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“Let me be clear: Anyone who has malicious intent is not welcome in Washington, D.C. or in any other state capitol,” McDaniel continued. “The peaceful transition of power is one of our nation’s founding principles and is necessary for our country to move forward. Now is the time to come together as one nation, united in the peaceful pursuit of our common democratic purpose.”

Ms. McDaniel, how did that “peaceful transition of power” work out? -more-

I can’t ever remember City Council canceling an entire week of meetings for Chinese New Year, but that is what happened this last week.

As promised last week, I watched the January 27^th video of the Council worksession on TOPA (Tenants Opportunity to Purchase Act) which ran the same time as the meetings on redistricting, housing elements, and four others. Mayor Arreguin gave his presentation and then opened public comment.

About halfway in to public comment I lost count of the “for and against.” At that point it was 19 in support and 23 opposed to TOPA. One speaker described supporting TOPA as wishful thinking about what might happen. Each iteration of TOPA carries more exemptions and a heavier footprint of property owners and qualified nonprofits which can become the owners in the TOPA buy, not the tenants.

The first councilmember to speak after public comment was Kesarwani, who expressed her opposition to TOPA. She said she would support requiring a presale notification to tenants. Notification details weren’t spelled out, but something to counter what happens now, when the first notification to tenants of a building for sale is the planting of a sale sign in front, or even that a sale has already happened and a new owner is taking over. -more-

On Saturday evening, February 5, I attended Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorus performing Johann Sebastian Bach’s monumental Mass in B-minor in Berkeley’s First Congregational Church. This was for Richard Egarr, the group’s new music director, his first go at the helm of Philharmonia Baroque in the work universally hailed as Bach’s magnum opus. Compiled in the last years of Bach’s life, The B-minor Mass includes music Bach wrote at different periods of his career. The Sanctus dates from 1724, the Kyrie and Gloria date from 1733, and only the Credo and Agnus Dei were written in 1748-49. Yet in spite of its seeming patchwork montage, the B-minor Mass is without doubt a well thought out work of monumental unity, Indeed, it is a veritable encyclopaedia of all Bach had mastered in his long and illustrious career as a composer. -more-

Worth Noting:

The revised and new redistricting maps are to be posted Thursday, February 10, 2022. The Blue, Maroon and Orange redistricting maps were eliminated by the Independent Redistricting Commission at the last meeting. The Amber map is the basis for the new maps with revision of the border between Districts 3 and 8 in all maps.

Monday – Personnel Board meeting scheduled for only 1 hour starting at 7 pm. Peace and Justice Commission appeared on the calendar late Friday evening but without an agenda or notice on the homepage.

Tuesday – Agenda and Rule is on Tuesday at 2:30 pm not the usual Monday schedule. The Regular City Council meeting is at 6 pm.

Wednesday - A community meeting on disability access is at 6 pm. The Homeless Commission, Police Accountability Board , merged Parks Recreation and Waterfront Commission, and Planning Commission all meet at 7 pm.

Thursday – The Council Budget and Finance Committee meets at 10 am. The biennial budget process for FY 2023-2024 is starting. Reimagining Public Safety Task Force meets to review their draft report, a separate report from the consultants. Both the consultants and Task Force give March 10^th as the date to present to council, however, that date is not listed in the City Council list of scheduled worksessions in the approved calendar or planned worksession in the agenda meeting packet.

Saturday – Berkeley Neighborhoods Council (BNC) meets at 10 am.

-more-