The Opinion Pages

“After all I’ve seen, I still have joy.” Those words are from a gospel song, or perhaps a spiritual, that I heard once sung by the choir in an African-American church, and I’ve typed them out and posted them over my desk, just in case. They remind me that life has lots of unpleasant stuff in it, but joy is always an option. And on Sunday night Barbara Dane gave a packed house at Freight and Salvage a beautiful demonstration of how to live with joy all your life. -more-

Anybody who is unsure about the concept of social engineering should take note: there is an excellent opportunity to see it in action tonight (Tuesday) at the so-called “Community Workshop” on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), sponsored by our city’s Transportation Commission. The announcement for the event states that the commission “welcomes [our] participation,” and then instructs us to “come prepared to engage in a respectful, consensus-building process about the future of Bus Rapid Transit in Southside area of Berkeley.” That all sounds pretty good—after all, who could be against respectful dialog and consensus-building? Well, the members of the Transportation Commission, for starters. It turns out that they do not want any dialog about the most important issue regarding BRT: Do we think it is worth the tremendous disruption to our streets, homes, and businesses to have it here at all? Nor are they interested in the true nature of consensus-building, which involves an honest assessment of the range of community opinion at the very start of the process. -more-

To Mayor Tom Bates: -more-

For the past two years, I have expressed strong objections about the contractual relationship between the City of Berkeley (City of Berkeley) and the Berkeley YMCA. This has occurred in numerous e-mails and phone messages to Mayor Tom Bates, City Manager Phil Kamlarz and my council district representative, Linda Maio. Despite my creating a lengthy paper trail of objections to this contract, and aggressively following up to request involvement, the mayor, city manager and Ms. Maio chose not to inform me that the matter was up for discussion and renewal last June 30. I felt that was a deliberate effort to prevent my objections from being heard in a City Council meeting. Throughout the year since that time, I re-stated my objections in writing and phone calls to Bates, Kamlarz, Maio and the city clerk’s office. None of them informed me that this issue was scheduled for the agenda last week. In recent weeks, I specifically asked a Bates assistant, named Arianna, to inform me when the item was going to be discussed this year. She rudely told me that was not in her job description, and that finding out what was on the council agenda was my “problem” (as she phrased it). -more-

My mom was a nurse with a great disdain for doctors. All she wanted us to be was “healthy, happy children.” She reinforced that by feeding us carrots and broccoli—a few cinnamon sticks thrown in—instead of candy for snacks. -more-