Opinion

A recent issue of the snarky British magazine New Scientist discusses a concept we must have missed, one which clearly is a good description of the web-wired political landscape. The writer notes that some large entities, an oil company in the particular example, are starting fake grass-roots political campaigns to promote ideas advantageous to the promulgators, for example touting the environmental soundness of running cars on corn. (Where have we heard that one recently?) They generate email letters to the editor which seem to be from real people, but aren’t. This kind of faux-grass-roots politicizing is coming to be known as “astroturf,” after the simulated grass now seen on many an American football field. -more-

One of my favorite cartoons of all time—I think it was in the New Yorker—shows a stream of little men in stovepipe hats and knee britches hurtling off a cliff. An observer off to one side says to another, “Flemings…” The message? (Do cartoons have messages?) Even Flemings, the sober inhabitants of Flanders, what is now the northern part of Belgium, pictured in britches in late Gothic and early Renaissance paintings, could be gripped by the kind of mass hysteria that sometimes causes little animals (lemmings) to jump off cliffs during frantic migrations. Never mind the natural historians who say that lemmings have gotten a bad rap in this story, that they’re not committing suicide but just fall by accident—the image is compelling, and it certainly applies to human behavior all too often. -more-

UC CORRUPTION -more-

There’s been so much spin about the “Brower Center” that I assumed most people in Berkeley had heard about it. Those of us who watch local land use in stunned dismay certainly have. -more-

There is no need for divisiveness about the North Shattuck Plaza at Shattuck and Vine. We’re going to build anyway, so why should there be rancor about it? There is no need for you to worry about it, talk about it or disturb yourselves. We have already obtained the approval of the City Council for its development. For the good of the community. We got the council’s approval based on your approval. If you don’t remember approving, trust us. You did. Your failure to object loudly will be deemed further approval. -more-

Sometimes the writings of the far end of the political spectrums, both on the right and on the left, are so bizarre, one is left shaking one’s head in near disbelief. Joanna Graham’s strange conflation of unprovoked personal attacks; justification for and rationalization of what she characterizes as “the rise in anger against Jews” (what I would call anti-Semitism); and cryptic allegations of conspiracies between a local developer, the “Israel lobby machine,” and the rabbis of Congre-gation Beth El is one such example. -more-

LT. WATADA -more-

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one in a series of columns submitted in response to the Daily Planet’s call for tributes to Molly Ivins. -more-

In her Jan. 30 article, “ZAB Rejects Cell Phone Antennas on UC Storage,” Riya Bhattacharjee writes: -more-

Matthew Taylor’s recent op-ed blaming Israel for just about everything is filled with every manner of distortion, falsehood, reliance on dubious and partisan sources, and a very selective reading of history. Here are just a few examples: -more-

Since, with respect to Mideast policy, the United States and Israel are inseparable, it is not surprising that, with the disastrous collapse of the Iraq project, for the first time in a long time criticism of Israel’s policies is being heard in this country. Not only political realists like James Baker, Jimmy Carter, and professors Mearsheimer and Walt, but also the anti-war left have been almost forced, despite their reluctance, into looking anew at the occupation of Palestine. Many American Jews, liberal and anti-war by inclination, have been experiencing some discomfort from this turn of events. This discomfort has been deliberately aggravated by a Zionist campaign, mounted for several years now both here and in Europe, to convince Jews that they are experiencing a huge new wave of anti-Semitism, coming, against all expectations, from the left. -more-