Public Comment

Signs of Life

On my Sunday run, I noticed a couple of signs that stopped me in my tracks. Outside the unmarked Bar Method site on Rose Street, the sounds of an exercise class were clearly audible. In case passersby were wondering what all the clamor was about, a poster in a window offered a clue with the following statement: "Tears are what happens when muscles cry."

Next door, a hand-drawn sign outside the office of an insurance company sported the following warning: "No Whiring!"

I was puzzled. Was that a request not to gun your car engine or try to spin donuts in the parking lot? At this point, my inner-editor spoke up: "Shouldn't whiring be spelled with two, not one, rs?"

That's when I realized the message was actually supposed to read: "Now Hiring!"

UC's Plan for Peoples Park Is a Crime

The dedicated legal team that has been challenging UC Berkeley's plans to demolish the historic Peoples Park and erect housing for ever-increasing numbers of tuition-paying students, has recently filed a 70-page brief. (Question: If a legal document runs 70 pages, can it still be called a "brief"?)

The lawyers (who work is supported by voluntary public donations) have done a good job exposing how UC has ignored other housing alternatives—including the nearby University-owned Ellsworth Parking Structure.

The park's defense team also demolishes the false meme that Peoples' Park has become a magnet for crime.

As People's Park defender Harvey Smith points out in a recent People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group email:
"Campus messages portraying People’s Park as an area of frequent crime on the Southside is quickly countered by facts. A review of data from the Crimemapping website over a six-month period from January through June, 2022 for a 20-block area surrounding the park revealed that 94% of crime occurred outside of People’s Park. Crimes do occur there, but at a lower rate than the surrounding neighborhood. Keep in mind that the promoter of the image of the park as 'crime-ridden' is the same institution that was fined $2.35 million in 2020 for underreporting campus crime."  

What's Wrong with This Sentence? 

The most recent issue of TIME salutes NASA for successfully crashing a 1,200-pound mini-spacecraft into a 2,500-foot-wide asteroid at 14,000 mph in an attempt to show such an intervention could deflect an incoming space rock heading for a collision with planet Earth. 

At this time, we still don't know if the deflection strategy was successful. If not, no worry: space rock Dimorphos was not headed towards our planet. But then, TIME writes: "Doing the same to an asteroid headed toward Earth could allow the planet time to move out of the way before a collision." 

Hold your jet-packs, TIMEsters! Getting the planet to jump out of the path of an oncoming asteroid wasn't the plan! 

What kind of planet-poking intervention does TIME have in mind? 

One vision: An asteroid is racing towards an Earth encounter so the 6.4 billion inhabitants of the Northern Hemisphere are all told to go outside, stand on a chair or ladder and—at the count of three—jump for a hard landing that could briefly alter Earth's orbit and "move [the planet] out of the way before a collision." 

Another scenario: A nuclear exchange between Washington and Moscow manages to push the planet out of the way of an oncoming "killer asteroid." Upside: planet saved. Downside: life on Earth destroyed. 

Chisel This One on Stone 

In a recent article on the importance of negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine (instead of ending the world in a nuclear finale), Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone reflected on the dire legacies of "global strategists" in the West and concluded: 

"A think tank is an institution wherein academics are paid by the worst people in the world to convince everyone that good things are bad and bad things are good." 

Fashion Plates (Banned Edition) 

Every year the DMV receives tens of thousands of requests for personalized license plates and turns down around 10 percent for being "inappropriate" and/or "offensive." Here's a selection of DMV NOGOs in a news video from -way back in 2014. 

And here are a few more plates that the DMV would likely DNI:
4NIK8
DVNT 

PRNSTR
FUHQ
SHTHPPNS 

The GOP's Odd Anti-war Animus 

What has happened to the Democrats? They all—including the "progressives"—voted to promote the war in Ukraine by diverting billions of US dollars to feed a costly (and potentially nuclear) proxy war with Russia. 

Meanwhile, it seems that the peace movement's only allies are the Odd Fellows of the GOP. 

Donald Trump referred to America's honored war dead as "suckers" and "losers." He correctly called the Vietnam conflict "a stupid war" and characterized the 20-year US occupation of Afghanistan "unfortunate" and "ridiculous." 

And now we've got Arizona Senator-wannabe Blake Masters, a GOP extremist candidate who calls abortions "demonic and like a religious sacrifice," insists that "women are not paid less than men," warns that immigrants are being brought into the US "to dilute your vote," opposes Social Security and argues that US gun violence "boils down to Black people, frankly." 

But Masters also proclaims a truth that has yet to be uttered by Democratic lips: "in the 140 years since America's birth, we've never conducted a just war." 

The Match Before the Match 

On September 23, a climate activist set his arm on fire in front of hundreds of tennis fans gathered to watch Roger Federer's final doubles match in London. Images of the protester (with his right arm briefly aflame) went viral but—despite the universal coverage of the incident—there was precious little coverage of what prompted the bizarre protest. 

No reporters appear to have interviewed the demonstrator, a fellow named "Kai." The only clue to Kai's motive was his T-shirt, which read: "End UK Private Jets Now" (EUKPJN). 

Some online sleuthing reveals EUKPJN's cause for concern. To wit: an average private UK-to-US jet jaunt by a wealthy celebrity, official, mogul, or corporate honcho carries a crew-customer ratio of 2.3 while emitting nine times as much carbon as a regular passenger-packed commercial flight. 

A YouTube search turned up the following video of Kai explaining his concern over environmental collapse and the role "Private Jets" play by typically transporting only a single pilot and passenger on long, fuel-gobbling, air-polluting intercontinental flights. 

According to a tweet from End UK Private Jets, "The liveable climate of our planet is collapsing. No one is taking it seriously. Is humanity not worth saving? Let's get into resistance against this death machine." 

The eco-group Extinction Rebellion (ER) is also aghast at the exhaust exuded by the august super-rich and has resorted to a number of media-enticing stunts to press its cause. Last October, ER parked a limousine at the entrance to Britain's Farnborough Airport—with one protester inside chained to the steering wheel and another protester glued to the top of the vehicle. 

One demonstrator, a former airline pilot named Todd Smith, explained his concerns to Sky News. "The term 'sustainable aviation fuel' was coined by the aviation and fossil fuel industry to deceive the public and greenwash the utterly destructive notion of biofuels. Biofuels result in land-grabs, deforestation, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, rising food prices and land-use emissions which can be worse than the fossil fuel they are replacing." 

Support Assange 

At noon on October 8, free speech advocates will congregate in front of San Francisco's Ferry Building Plaza and form a "human chain" in solidarity with Wikileaks editor Julian Assange who faces deportation to the US and life in prison for exposing secret documents that reveal how the Pentagon routinely murders innocent civilians in conflict zones around the world. 

"Hands Around Parliament," a parallel demonstration in London, had more than 3,000 people registered as of last week. Another gathering in Washington, DC—"Hands Around the DOJ"—will publically petition US Atty. General Merrick Garland to drop the charges against Assange and squelch his extradition. 

A Big Win Against Big Oil 

Food & Water Watch's message was jubilant: "Together, we beat Joe Manchin!" 

True! Senator Joe Manchin’s dirty pipeline deal was stripped from Washington's must-pass budget bill. The oil-slick “side deal” was designed to fast-track oil and gas infrastructure—including the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline that would carry fracked gas through Virginia and West Virginia. 

It was a major loss for Big Carbon but Manchin has vowed to keep pushing for “permitting reform” that will expand oil, gas, and coal extraction. 

Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the work FWW undertook to secure this victory: 

• Generated 10,000-plus calls to Congress members. 

• Organized civil disobedience actions in New York, Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. Organizers were arrested in New York and San Francisco. FWW's executive director Winonah Hauter was arrested in DC. 

• Held dozens of office visits, lobby meetings and rallies with volunteers and organizers 

• FWW's policy experts met with over 60 members of Congress. 

• Mobilized more than 700 organizations and over 400 scientists and health professionals to oppose the deal. 

While this grassroots-versus-bigshots struggle is far from over, FWW see this as "an incredible victory against the overwhelming financial and political might of the fossil fuel industry and its Senate enablers." 

Rep. Raskin Rakes Republican Rivals 

With the return of the House Select Committee hearings into the January 6 Trumpist coup attempt delayed by the advent and aftermath of Hurricane Ian, here's a nourishing video tidbit of Jan. 6 panelist Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) digging his teeth into the hindquarters of his GOP brethren. This September 22 encounter has been posted on YouTube under the propitious title: RASKIN BLOWS THE ROOF OFF THE HOUSE. 

Head of ADL Defames Rashida Tlaib 

The act of defamation is defined as communicating to a third party false statements about a person that result in harm to that individual's reputation. So the free speech question of the week becomes: "When one of the most prominent engagers in defamation is the Anti-Defamation League, whom does one complain to?" 

Here's the issue: Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League recently tweeted a defamatory statement about Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. It read:
“In one sentence, @RepRashida simultaneously tells American Jews that they need to pass an anti-Zionist litmus test to participate in progressive spaces even as she doubles down on her #antisemitism by slandering Israel as an apartheid state.” 

Here's Tlaib actually statement:
"I want you all to know that among progressives, it becomes clear that you cannot claim to hold progressive values yet back Israel‘s apartheid government."
Problem is (as the Tlaib's defenders pointed out): the tweet was not addressed specifically to American Jews, it didn't propose a litmus test, it didn't say anything anti-Semitic, and "it didn't slander Israel as an apartheid state, because Israel is an apartheid state—according to in-depth research by, among others, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem." 

Let's Win the Civil War: Berkeley Book Party on October 12 

Author-activist Steve Phillips is prepping for the October 18 release of his new book, "How We Win the Civil War," which focuses on the "American democracy and the upcoming midterm election." Phillips is embarking on a cross-country tour to tout his tome and the promotional itinerary includes a launch on October 12, 7PM at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley. The KPFA-hosted event will also feature PolicyLink founder Angela Glover Blackwell. You can register for the event here. 

Phillips will discuss the state of our democracy and "why a race-conscious lens is key to understanding how to win in the upcoming midterm elections and beyond." 

If you want to build a multiracial democracy by becoming a member of the launch team, you can join here: https://democracyincolor.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=7946cf8ec7a6f4ce2d4a15ab9&id=1f9b7b01fb. 

There will be a Virtual Town Hall follow-up event on October 19 at 3 PM PT. Phillips will be joined live by Senator Cory Booker and MoveOn Executive Director Rahna Epting to discuss how to promote a "justice agenda" in the face of widespread voter suppression and the promotion of white racial resentment and fear. The list of progressive organizations participating in this Virtual Event includes MoveOn, Community Change, Netroots Nation, Working Families Party, Voto Latino, and Justice Democrats. RSVP for the livestream here.