Public Comment

What a week that was. A 3.3 quake hit Berkeley and the moon eclipsed the sun!

With the stores sold out of Eclipse Spectacles, I fashioned a crude cardboard shadow-box to cast an image of the sun onto a piece of blank, white paper. The result was far from spectacular.

It looked like I would have to be satisfied with watching the clever eclipse-day animation on Google's homepage. (It's not every day that you can use the phrase "Google Goggles.")

But I got lucky. When I made a cash-and-coffee stop at the 7-Eleven on University Avenue, I found the store's manager and staff all outside in the parking lot with a half-dozen customers who were sharing a single pair of "eclipse eyewear." Everyone was gasping, whooping, chuckling, and gaping at the full-color, real-time event taking place overhead. Much better than Google Goggles. 

What's Up (on the Screen), Doc?
The New York documentary film festival known as DOC NYC includes the following description of an entry submitted by Spanish filmmaker Oskar Alegria: "In this gem of minimalist and poetic magnetism, filmmaker Oskar Alegría and adorable donkey Paolo embark on a journey to bring provisions to the last shepherd of the Andia Mountains." What really got me interested was the film's title: "Zinzindurrunkarratz." 

Gaza Gains a Tile on Berkeley's "Peace Wall"
April 7 marked the 35th anniversary of the dedication of Berkeley's Peace Wall, which covers a broad stretch of cement wall in the large park adjacent to City Hall. The day before the anniversary, a band of local activists rounded up 75 signatures on a petition asking for the City Council to mark the spirit of the Peace Wall by approving a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Israel. 

Among those signing on were former Council members Max Anderson and Cheryl Davila and former School Board member Judy Appel. 

The Peace Wall is decorated with hand-painted tiles covered with anti-war sentiments including "Increase the Peace!," "Peace is the way to the Future," and "Peace is a Verb." And the wall now includes a tile that displays the words "Peace for the Children of Palestine." 

Greg Jan offers the following guidance for locating the tile: "It's on the north side (toward the Veteran's Building and Center St.). In the last (east) panel there, slightly to the left of center are 4 tiles that make up a single image, of a man in green clothes and a woman in purple/blue clothes. And then, just 2 tiles down and one tile to the left, is the 'Peace for the Children of Palestine' tile." 

Are Ants the Weirdest Creatures on Earth?
Andi Sjogren-Briganti has posted the following checklist online. 

1. Ants do not have lungs.
2. Ants do not have ears.
3. Ants are farmers.
4. Ants have two stomachs.
5. Ants can swim.
6. Ants are slave owners.
7. Ants are older than dinosaurs.
8. There are more than 12,000 species of ants worldwide.
9. An ant can lift 20 times its body weight.
10. Some queen ants can live for several years and have millions of offspring.
11. When ants fight, they usually fight to the death.
12. When the colony's queen dies, the colony can only survive for a few months.
13. Ants can live for up to two hours without oxygen.
14. Ants have no blood. 

The Question: What's the weirdest animal on Earth?
The Answer: The ants, sir. 

Fashion Plates
GRAYGOO
LEGONUT
TRSTHIM (Trust Him)
CO81FO (Suggestions?)
OSLP2BK (Zero Sleep to Book?)
SNOOPNK (Snoop Inc? Snoop Pink?)
DELVRY (On a wine company delivery van) 

Bumper Snickers
Bleak Lives Matter 

Make Art Not War
United Not Divided
Born OK The First Time
Life's like a movie. Write your own ending 

Public Citizen Tramples Trump's Plots
On April 8, Public Citizen filed a brief in Trump v. United States, the Supreme Court case in which Donald Trump asserts absolute immunity from prosecution for criminal charges over his attempts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election. 

Here are some excerpts from that brief:
Even if the Court were to entertain the possibility of some form of immunity from prosecution for actions within the scope of a President’s authority, the Court should not accept the premise that an attempt by a President to overturn the constitutional order by resisting the lawful and peaceful transfer of power constitutes an exercise of presidential authority. 

Any assertion that a President’s authority empowers him to conspire to overturn the result of a valid election and retain power beyond his term in office would be absurd…. A ruling that presidents are free to do illegal things to remain in power is a ruling to replace democracy with dictatorship. 

If you agree, Public Citizen has a petition they'd like you to sign: You can click here to add your name.  

The ABCs of Broadcast Discourse
The major evening newscasts in the US are remarkably uniform. On any given night, ABC, CBS, and NBC all carry redundant round-ups of coverage. Typical reports begin with the latest mass-shooting, followed by extended weather reports from correspondents standing up to their knees in floodwater or trying to stand upright in gale-force winds. But there's a peculiar anomaly that has recently popped up on ABC World News. 

For some time now, when the weather-map updates occur, they are introduced by the anchor's announcement that a reporter will "time it out" for viewers. After the wrap-up, the storm-ravaged correspondent will be thanked for "timing it all out." 

(I suspect a Deep State experiment to see how easy it is to fill a viewer's vocabulary with traceable "speech marker" phrases capable of "going viral." Keep your ears peeled.) 

What You Don't See on the Network News
It has become commonplace to see real-life videos of confrontations between police officers and civilians on the evening news. With the corporate media's obvious appetite for extreme "news fodder" you might think ABC, CBS, NBC and the rest would find it difficult to resist video footage that captured American activists confronting US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and a brace of the Pentagon big wigs during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Think again! 

A large cohort of peace activists (including CODEPINK founder Medea Benjamin) managed to disrupt the scheduled hearings 25 times! And they added an eye-catching visual to underscore their concern about the on-going US/Israel genocide in Gaza—they held aloft hands dripping with blood-red paint. 

For some reason, the corporate media did not see fit to air even a second of the video showing anti-war activists openly challenging the Military Industrial Complex. 

To see what Active Pacifism looks like, click on this 4-minute video-link. 

Tinder Garden
Comcast Xfinity appears to be grooming pre-teen kids for 5G addiction. One prominent TV spot shows three boys huddled in a dark bedroom, illuminated only by the glowing screens of their "smart" phones. They are facing one another in a semi-circle but are each focused on their personal downloads. A slightly older girl in pajamas appears in the doorway to mock her brother and his friends. "You have no idea how good you have it," she says. "Back in MY day, we only had flashlights and scary stories." 

In another TV spot, two brothers are sitting on an urban porch talking about the wonder of having a wireless service that "covers every room in the house. Even the basement." 

"Even the basement?" the younger boy says as he conjures up a day-dream in which he sees himself in the basement, slow-dancing with a preteen girl. 

And on a radio spot, Xfinity features a conversation between two underage screen-freaks that involves praising their digital devices and 5G coverage as "performance enhancers." 

Fighting for the US Arms Industry—to the Last Ukrainian
Walt Zlotow sends a dispatch from West Suburban Peace Coalition in Glen Ellyn Illinois—a compendium of congressional cryptolect. Or, as Walt puts it: "Out of the unfiltered mouths of US political leaders—enabling the destruction of Ukraine." 

“Four months into this thing, I like the structural path we're on here. As long as we help Ukraine with the weapons they need and the economic support, they will fight to the last person. The best money we’ve ever spent.” —Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) 

“It is a relatively modest amount that we are contributing without being asked to risk life and limb. The Ukrainians are willing to fight the fight for us if the West will give them the provisions. It’s a pretty good deal.” —Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) 

“No Americans are getting killed in Ukraine. We’re rebuilding our industrial base. The Ukrainians are destroying the army of one of our biggest rivals. I have a hard time finding anything wrong with that.” —US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 

“Americans should be satisfied that we’re getting our money’s worth on our Ukraine investment, because for less than 3 percent of our nation’s military budget, we’ve enabled Ukraine to degrade Russia’s military strength by half, and all without a single American service woman or man injured or lost.” —Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) 

“I call that a bargain.” —Governor Doug Burgum (R-ND) referring to US war-funding damaging Russia's military—without mentioning the catastrophic Ukrainian military damage.