Oct 05
I’ve written here previously about the smell of corruption arising from the cozy relationship between the Postmaster, the Richard Blum real estate octopus CBRE, and Sen. Feinstein, centering on the sale of historic US Post Office properties into private hands. Now comes investigative reporter Peter Byrne in a recent issue of the East Bay Express …
Oct 05
Wednesday this week, Oct. 2, I celebrated 21 years clean and sober. Well, I didn’t exactly celebrate. I went to a legal education program at the San Francisco Federal Building in the late afternoon, then walked over to the Mission district to see what I thought was a film about German postwar radicalism, but turned …
Oct 01
Andy Borowitz scores again with his satire, “Millions Flee Obamacare,” in the online edition of The New Yorker, here. Almost equally good is his prequel, “Boehner Advises Americans to Delay Getting Cancer for a Year,” here. Borowitz’s humor highlights the cynicism and contempt behind the right-wing Republican attack on Obamacare. These attacks are particularly …
Sep 27
Three cheers for Gayle McLaughlin, the mayor of neighboring Richmond, CA, the site of a leaky, creaky Chevron petroleum refinery. Last year she brought suit against Chevron on account of its failure to maintain the plant, which led to a huge fire that sent thousands to hospitals. This month she traveled to Ecuador to view …
Sep 27
On my 72nd birthday a couple of days ago I ate dinner at the Zatar restaurant in downtown Berkeley and then watched the Welcome to Hebron movie at the Berkeley Community College. Zatar is well known locally and I join the many customers who sing its praises. The fare is an eclectic mix of Mediterranean …
Sep 17
This video, from a TED talk by primatologist Frans de Waal on “Moral Behavior in Animals,” shows what happens when two monkeys get unequal pay for equal work. The shorted monkey wastes no time expressing protest at the inequity. Humans, by contrast, may need decades or centuries of putting up with unfairness before reacting…. Thanks to …
Sep 10
Frustrated by the absence of any organized big protest against the proposed war on Syria, I accepted an emailed invitation from MoveOn.org on Friday evening to organize a neighborhood candlelight vigil on Monday night Sept. 9. I figured that maybe 10-15 people would show up, and so I situated the event down at the corner where …
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