Opinion

OK, I admit it, I finally cracked. What put me over the edge Thursday morning was this letter, similar in vocabulary, grammar and spelling to many we’ve gotten in the past few weeks: -more-

“I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky. -more-

-more-

Thank you for printing the article “Assembly Resolutions Attack Moth Spraying” by Judith Scherr. Shocked and outraged at the proposed plan by the California Department of Food and Agriculture to conduct aerial spraying of the pesticide CheckMate on Bay Area communities beginning Aug. 1, I felt compelled to attend the Berkeley City Council meeting last night to find out for myself what is really going on. -more-

The United States can be compared to a powerful, but immature and egotistic child, imposing its will without discretion on the world. Consider what lengths the child may go to in order to obtain a delicious cookie: case one, if the cookie was rightfully earned, then he shall taut the “fairness” and “justice” of obtaining the cookie. Otherwise, seeing that there is no logical explanation for legal acquisition of said cookie, he may throw a tantrum, saying things like “but I want it!” Finally, when it is agreed that someone else should get the cookie, the child may just walk in and take it anyways. In the end, the child gets the cookie whether or not it was due. -more-

In the Jan. 11 issue of the Daily Planet, Fred Massell disparaged Berkeley’s Luddites, and claimed, “While I too wanted to believe the worst about cell phone radiation, it appears that there is no real evidence to show that it causes any actual harm.” -more-

These days, a lot of usually “progressive” people seem to be just saying no to a lot of traditionally progressive ideas. -more-

Pedestrians have the right of way. That’s a good thing since the law protects us from large, dangerous machinery, operated by caffeine-fueled drivers with nasty dispositions. -more-

-more-

I awoke this morning feeling hung over from another evening of verbal mayhem. The venue: another meeting of the public with officials of Children’s Hospital Oakland. I dread these events because they are stressful and worse, seemingly completely unproductive: residents of the neighborhood voices sharp, hands gesticulating, hospital officials trying to look concerned and sincere, nodding and taking notes. -more-

Every four years we are subjected to a barrage of visual and aural assaults by the mainstream media—abuzz with news about the presidential campaign and the candidates. This time around the primaries have been particularly irritating, considering it started about a year ago, and the actual election is still nine months away! As far as a year or so ago, you started to hear such mundane questions as, if Hillary will run for the office or how Giuliani will fare against Hillary? This at a time, when much more important national issues were at hand regarding war and constitutional dalliances by the current administration? The amount of watered downed, insipid, corporate agenda-laced, shallow coverage of our political process has only been exacerbated by cable news and the new corporate owners. We have only Ted Turner to thank for it. The cable news media’s self professed, expert political talking heads (usually qualified by a caption), spout their biased, non-independent, political drivel as infallible commandments that we are to accept like believers. The worst part of all this is that there isn’t any other single authoritative source available to us as an alternative. -more-

On Feb. 28, the Economic and Technology Advancement Advisory Committee (ETAAC) will make its final report to the California Air Resources Board (CARB), giving its ideas on how California can reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As a 21-person committee comprised primarily of academic and business interests, the ETAAC has been charged to be the “big-picture” think tank on what California people, governments, and businesses need to do to stop the threat of global warming. (Climate change is now no longer au courant; GW is straight up; CC is a weasel word.) -more-

There is much to praise in Berkeley’s new draft Climate Action Plan. The goal of reducing our climate-warming greenhouse gases by 80 percent before 2050 is a bold and needed one, as 81 percent of voting Berkeleyans agreed via Measure G in 2006. The vision presented is attractive and inspiring: Berkeley as a greener city with a more sustainable economy. A Berkeley less dependent on the private gasoline-powered automobile and more supportive of walkable full-service neighborhoods, housing more of our own workers. A Berkeley using more regionally-produced food and more locally-produced renewable energy, and no longer sending our waste to landfills. And a Berkeley more lively and prosperous as an inspiring urban place. -more-

The Feb. 22 plea agreement reached between myself and the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office reflects the reality that since my 2002 election, I complied with the City of Berkeley’s residency requirement to hold public office as a Rent Stabilization Board commissioner—with the exception of a period of time during parts of 2006 and 2007 when I involuntarily lost my Berkeley home. The original and potentially very serious counts and allegations filed against me have been dismissed, and a single, technical violation of the California election code was agreed to. -more-