Opinion

President Bush increasingly inhabits a parallel universe. His Thursday press conference displayed a remarkable disconnect from the current thinking of most Americans and even of many elected officials in his own Republican party. Most Americans, from all parties, now understand that our main, our only, goal in Iraq is to get out, though there are still some differences of opinion as to the manner of our going. There has been approximately no progress toward the subsidiary goal of helping the indigenous Iraqis establish a civil society based on what in this country we call democratic values. Staying there longer won’t change much. It’s possible that immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces would exacerbate the factional war among Iraqis, but even that is not certain. -more-

A visit from our friend the journalism professor prompted many “whither newspapers” conversations around dinner tables last week. These were a continuation of earlier similar discussions with local friends about recent developments in what used to be called the corporate mass media. I say “used to be called” because as newspapers are increasingly the playthings of large corporate empires their influence on the masses seems to be diminishing. -more-

OPINION AND NEWS -more-

Those of us who advocate “smart growth”—siting new and denser housing near jobs, academic centers, services, etc., and on transit corridors—have a responsibility to help ensure that such developments are assets, not detriments, to their neighborhoods. -more-

Anything that helps “Save Iceland” and specifically reopen it ASAP, including its landmarking, is on the mark and hopefully neither a day late nor a penny short. -more-

It comes with a $400 million dollar bill -more-

Some mornings my 18-year-old son tells me his dreams. “I dreamt I got some new multi-vitamins, and that I was locked up in a glass deli case,” he says matter-of-factly. He unscrews the cap from one of his orange prescription pill bottles while he talks. His eyes look guarded. He looks tired. -more-

AUG. 6 -more-

The U.S. Supreme Court, likely to be controlled by reactionaries for a generation, will be one of George Bush’s many unfortunate lingering legacies. The Oakland City Planning Commission will be Jerry Brown’s. While Brown has been yanked by the chain of his ambition back to Sacramento, all of Brown’s appointees, nearly a year into the Dellums’ mayorship, still run the Planning Commission. (Planet readers may be unfamiliar with the Oakland model, where—unlike Berkeley—the mayor makes all the appointments to the planning commission and landmarks board.) -more-

Thousands of Palestinians are stranded in Egypt, waiting to return home to the Gaza Strip. Among them is Husam El Nounou, who has been there three weeks, unable to join his wife and three children and return to his work at the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP), the Strip’s principal provider of mental health services. -more-

The story goes something like this: While discussing his living will, the man tells his wife that he prefers not to exist in a vegetative state, dependent on a machine and taking fluids from a bottle. His wife moves from her chair, unplugs the television, and throws out all of his beer. -more-