Public Comment

One of the Great Radio Bloopers

On February 12, 2023, a KCBS reporter's weather update went awry causing her to dissolve into a pot of on-air giggles. "Sorry," she said. "I meant to say we can expect good weather for hiking and cycling. Did I really say 'Good weather for hikeling and psyching'?" Yes, she did!

Pass the 28^th Amendment

On March 2, the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) thanked the Senate Committee on the Judiciary for holding a historic hearing on S.J.Res.4, a "bipartisan resolution affirming that Congress views the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) as valid, having been duly ratified by 38 states, (three-fourths of the 50 states, as required by Article V of the U.S. Constitution)." 

PDA collaborated with the National Organization for Women to support Sen. Benjamin Cardin’s initial introduction of S.J.Res.4, and worked to persuade other Senators to cosponsor and support the Joint Resolution by organizing in Illinois, Nevada, and Virginia to win the support of 38 qualifying states. 

Voting to enact S.J.Res.4 (and H.J.Res.25, the corresponding House version) will direct the Archivist of the United States to include the ERA as the Twenty-Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution. 

Unfortunately, the DC Federal Circuit Court ruled against the request of Illinois and Nevada to direct the US Archivist to accept the passage of the ERA because of an arbitrary deadline—a deadline the resolutions would directly supersede. 

If this hurdle can be hopped, PDA's Alan Minsky says, "the two steps forward we achieved this week will far outdistance this setback. We had a trailblazing hearing in the Senate, and public momentum is back on the side of the ERA." 

Fashion Plates 

Personalized license plates spotted around town. 

Honda: JAZZTIN (Beat those cymbals, jazz-man)
Honda: I AM OK 2 (Nice to get some good news)
Tesla: FAB FIVE (A happy couple with three kids?) 

Bumper Snickers 

I Brake for Worms 

Dirt-hugging Tree-Worshipper
Please Forgive Me I Was Raised by Wolves
Goin' Broke Paying for War
I'm Retired. Drive Around 

The Unseamly Story of the Tube-Shirt 

While loading up the backyard clothesline on a rare sunny day, I noticed something odd about my tee-shirts. While some had been constructed by stitching together a front and back—with seams running down the sides, most of the shirts had no side stitches—they appeared to have been constructed from floppy cloth tubes. How could that be? 

I typed a query onto my laptop and asked Google for info on "side-seamed tees and tubular tees." To my surprise, I immediately got a list of pages devoted to precisely that phrase! 

Here's an explanatory video from Bella+Canvas, a major T-shirt company: 

But that still leaves me trying to envision a machine that can turn cotton balls into tube shirts. Google has an answer to that question, too. Here's a video peek at the thousands of robot machines that are busily churning out tees in vast warehouses scattered around the world. 

Our War Tax Dollars at Work 

A couple of recent headlines from Air Force Times caught my eye. First:
Pentagon orders engine vibration fix for entire F-35 fleet worldwide
On March 3, AFT reported: "F-35 deliveries were halted in mid-December after a mishap involving a new F-35B in Fort Worth, Texas. That F-35B, which was undergoing a quality check flight, was videotaped bouncing, tipping forward, and spinning around on the ground before its pilot ejected safely." 

Meanwhile, owing to what the Joint Program Office (JPO) called "a potential engine vibration problem," the JPO ordered that all of these Lockheed Martin jets undergo a "fleet-wide retrofit—globally, not just American aircraft—over the next three months." (Further fiscal note: The cost of a single F-35 tops $80 million.) 

And second:
Another Air Force fleet grounded over fears plane tails may fall off
On March 2, AFT reported: "The big search for a tiny component that could cause an airplane’s tail to fall off has uncovered the problem on at least two dozen Air Force jets across at least five aircraft fleets. But the Air Force won’t say exactly how many planes have turned up with potentially dangerous parts." Rest assured, the Air Combat Command replied: "The E-3 Sentry aerial target tracking planes on Wednesday became the latest to undergo inspection for subpar tail pins." 

And third:
Six leaders fired from Air Force nuclear base in North Dakota
On February 27, AFT reported that Col. Gregory Mayer—joined by a second commander and four subordinates—had been summarily fired. While the Air Force "declined to say what led to their ousters," AFT did note that "Mayer oversaw 1,900 airmen across six squadrons and a base portfolio worth $4.3 billion... Minot is the Air Force’s only installation that houses two legs of the nuclear triad... Mayer’s group supports daily operations of the base’s B-52H Stratofortress nuclear-capable bombers, Minuteman III nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles and launch control centers.” 

Why were these actions taken? All AFT reveals is: “These personnel actions were necessary to maintain the very high standards we demand of those units entrusted with supporting our nation’s nuclear mission.”  

Balloon Baloney 

Could it be that the political kerfuffle surrounding the shoot-down of the alleged "Chinese Spy Balloon" was concocted to draw attention away from a much larger and troubling news report—i.e., Sy Hersh's exposé about the US role in the attack on Russia's Nord Stream gas pipelines. 

It remains to be seen (while awaiting the remains of the "Spy Balloon" to be fully recovered and assessed) whether China's wayward aircraft was on an actual spy mission. Meanwhile, the Pentagon busied itself shooting down a host of smaller unidentified aircraft that were ultimately identified as "benign." (One of these fighter-jet-versus-balloon encounters cost taxpayers an estimated cost of $2 million.) 

In retrospect, President Biden confessed, most of the odd floaters appeared to have been released by researchers or hobbyists. 

So the Pentagon's warplanes apparently operate under the same rules as America's "rogue cops"—i.e., even if a suspect (human or mechanical) is unarmed and poses no threat, they can be shot in the back while "in flight." 

In the Classroom with Bettina Aptheker 

Berkeley grad and FSM ringleader Bettina Aptheker once made local news in the 1960's when she revealed her membership in the US Communist Party. The next day's edition of the Hearst-owned Examiner carried a headline that read: "Aptheker Admits She's a Red!" 

Aptheker, now a Distinguished Professor at UC Santa Cruz, returned to the UCB campus on February 15, at the invitation of Brooke Lorber who teaches in Gender and Women’s Studies. Aptheker is the author of a scintillating new book titled "Communists in the Closet: Queering the History 1930s-1990s"—a history of US activists who were banned from the party for decades owing to their "non-conforming" sexual identities. 

"The instructor is doing a class on interpreting queer history and so invited me to give a talk," Aptheker texted friends, "and she opened it up to anyone who wants to come." 

The invitation was well received: Room 126 in the Social Sciences building was packed with 70-75 people listening and applauding Aptheker's colorful observations. 

At one point, Aptheker mentioned discovering that her politics had gifted her with "my own personal FBI agent." The agent was named Don Jones and he spent a good part of his time shadowing and harassing Aptheker. 

On one occasion, when she was addressing a crowd of students in front of Sproul Hall, a fellow activist spotted Jones in the back of the crowd and whispered the news to Aptheker who interrupted her speech to announce: "We have a special guest in the audience. I'd like to introduce my own personal FBI agent, Don Jones." The fellow activist (who had by now taken up a position next to Jones) raised his hand and pointed to the flummoxed Fed, who left in a huff and a hurry. 

¡Bruce Barthol, Presente! 

Reposted from the Free Speech Movement Archives.
Born at Alta Bates, Bruce Barthol was one of the six juvenile participants in the Sproul Hall sit-in, but he left before the arrests (when minors were told to because only their parents would be able to bail them out of juvenile hall.) A couple of years later, he became one of the founding members of Country Joe and the Fish (Bruce played bass guitar on the 1967 studio album I’m Fixing to Die.)  

For 30 years, Bruce was the composer/lyricist/music director for the San Francisco Mime Troupe from 1976 to his retirement in 2009. He wrote the songs for many of the Mime Troupe’s greatest hits, including Factwino and Steel Town and he co-wrote (along with Mario’s son Daniel) the words and music to FSM: The Musical, which was presented at a special performance at Berkeley Rep during the FSM's 50th reunion. 

You can watch a long interview with Bruce and Mime Trouper Michael Gene Sullivan at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TT_9fg0aB0 

A Note from Daniel Ellsberg 

Pentagon Papers whistleblower, author, and anti-war activist Daniel Ellsberg recently released a public statement concerning a personal health emergency. It began: 

"Dear friends and supporters, 

"I have difficult news to impart. On February 17, without much warning, I was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer on the basis of a CT scan and an MRI. (As is usual with pancreatic cancer — which has no early symptoms — it was found while looking for something else, relatively minor). I'm sorry to report to you that my doctors have given me three to six months to live. Of course, they emphasize that everyone's case is individual; it might be more, or less. 

"I have chosen not to do chemotherapy (which offers no promise) and I have assurance of great hospice care when needed. Please know: right now, I am not in any physical pain, and in fact, after my hip replacement surgery in late 2021, I feel better physically than I have in years! …" 

The full message can be read online at this link. And here are two videos of Dan addressing the motivations behind the US arms race and warning of the consequences of promoting the use of suicidal nuclear weapons. 

Who Really Benefits from War? 

Daniel Ellsberg / Al Jazeera UpFront (2022) 

The Doomsday Machine 

Daniel Ellsberg / The Commonwealth Club of California (2017) 

Remembering David Harris 

The headline for the February 22 New York Time obit was brief but comprehensive: "David Harris, Leader of Vietnam Draft Resistance Movement, Dies at 76: An activist who went to jail for refusing to serve in the military, he teamed with and married Joan Baez and later became a journalist." 

Local documentary filmmaker Judith Ehrlich (who directed "The Most Dangerous Man in America," an acclaimed profile of Kensington's Daniel Ellsberg) is also the artist behind "The Boys Who Said 'No'!", a documentary about draft resistance featuring David Harris. The film will be screened by the Santa Cruz Resource Center for Nonviolence on March 11, 2:00 - 5:00 p.m. along with a panel discussion featuring Mandy Carter, Winter Dellenbach, Bob Zaugh and Joe Williams. The film is also set to stream on Vimeo fromMarch 8 -11. 

A celebration of David Harris’s life will be held at Stanford University on a date to be announced. You can register here.