I grew up in Port Jervis, New York, a country town (pop. 9000) in the upper Delaware Valley during the years following World War II and spent a good deal of my childhood on my great uncles’ chicken farm, which has since been developed into a swanky equestrian estate. Its 80 acres are about the same size as Cesar Chavez Park, which might explain why I feel so at home there. 

Chavez Park, however, is not the country, even though the former landfill on the Bay gives visitors a fleeting sense of bucolic escape. Claudia Kawczynska, editor of the Bark magazine and a spokesperson for the dog guardians described its interior 17 acre off-leash area as land “set aside for humans and off leash dogs to exercise and enjoy nature together.” 

Chavez Park is a man-made environment, not exactly what nature intended, and its ecology is seriously out of whack. A city park—especially one newly created from landfill—needs investment and care, and this one has been neglected for many reasons, which I intend to explore in this and other articles on its history and current dilemmas. 

At present, public attention is focused on the foxtail infestation, a problem since the trash heap was capped, sealed and planted in the early 80’s, but one that has gotten increasingly worse. Foxtails, mostly barley grasses, are endemic to disturbed grasslands and anathema to dogs, because the arrow like seed heads can get stuck in their orifices and become infected. 

In the 1980’s Kawczynska, Cameron Woo, and others led a determined effort to get an off-leash area established in the center of the park’s newly seeded meadows, only to find decades later that their pastures of heaven have turned into a kind of hell, the foxtails making the dog park dangerous for months at a time, casting a dark shadow on the success of their grass roots victory. 

Nature has a way of biting back, and the last time I looked, it was still “red in tooth and claw” as Tennyson put it. On April 27, Chavez Park blogger Martin Nicolaus photographed a dead rabbit at the northwest corner, outside the off-leash area, its hind end injuries consistent with an attack by a chasing dog. There are no other predators and no fast moving machinery that could rend the flesh of a small mammal that way. Nobody even reported turkey vultures or other raptors feeding on the carrion. 

The picture that Marty sent me was a close up of a post on his website, and he cautioned that it was gruesome. But I used to see much worse kill on our country roads as well as fresh deer carcasses splayed on vehicles and strung up in backyards. Men in green or camouflage, a rifle and a retriever in their trucks, were a common sight in the fall. 

There has always been hunting in the mountains around Port Jervis, and we weren’t allowed into the woods during the season, even on the protected Appalachian Trail, which passes just miles outside town. Nobody talked about animal rights, and hunting dogs and their puppies were prized, although rarely sold: no classified newspaper ads, no local dog industry. The best of a litter was kept and the others given away. Our rural economy was still depressed. Most people couldn’t afford “dog food.” Dogs ate kitchen and garden leftovers, venison scraps from garage freezers, or giveaways from the butchers at the A & P. 

As country folk migrated to the cities and suburbs, many former work breeds have been further domesticated into urban companions. The Encyclopedia of the Dog, an illustrated overview by Bruce Fogle, describes each canine breed by former and current uses, and most of the original functions for which the breeds were created are now anachronistic, replaced by “companion.” 

As a result, some urban dogs pose problems other than their bark and poop. These irritations can be fixed by training and community pressure. Since many breeds are relatively new to the city and the suburbs, their function has changed before their genes have had time to adjust 

Some breeds were developed to be companion dogs, like the poodle, bulldog, and bichon, to name a few. But the ancestors of most of the larger dogs, now kept in houses and apartments, were bred to be hunters, herders, haulers, and guards, and their genetic dispositions can be mastered but not fundamentally altered. It takes generations of breeding to do that. Let a natural born tracker loose in grasslands full of gophers, squirrels, and rabbits, and nature will take its course. 

Advocates for canine access to park lands argue that dogs are not a threat to wildlife, and that denial has not been helpful, leading to unnecessary rancor with conservationists, many of whom are dog owners themselves. Even in larger regional and national parks, rules restrict dogs to certain trails and areas, not only because of their hunting instincts but because their scent and habit of urinating to mark territory can disturb the wildlife habitat. 

We need a deeper understanding of canine breeds and their training as well as the variety of birds, mammals, and other animals and how they interact in specific ecologies. We have to become more informed in our understanding, and we – dog owners and conservationists—need to listen to each other with greater respect. 

An aggressive dog that has attacked is likely to chase or charge again, and it’s not just rabbits that are at risk but children and small dogs. Last year the Parks and Waterfront Commission heard from a mother whose child was knocked down and straddled by a dog that was off-leash in the wrong place. Luckily, the dog was just overly friendly, but the parents were terrified. My neighbor lost one of her little pets in a fatal attack by a larger dog on the street, and another one of her darlings was bitten just days ago. 

I was walking in Aquatic Park last year and intervened when I saw a spaniel terrier mix harassing a mallard and her ducklings. This canine combination can be so cute, but they are hard wired for hunting. I told the young couple that the park was on-leash and they shouldn’t allow their dog to chase birds. “But she’s having so much fun!” they exclaimed. “Yes, but the duck isn’t,” I replied and tried to make light of the situation. They put their dog on-leash, and we parted amicably. They seemed to be innocent urbanites with scant understanding of other species including the tendencies of their own dog. 

When we were kids, my brother and I raised a puppy that ended up as a ratter on the chicken farm. Most terriers will hunt vermin without training, and our Rummy was no exception. We wanted to keep him at our house, but he was so much happier out on the farm with the other dogs, guarding the coops and rousting rodents who were then picked off by Uncle Sid, an infantry veteran of two world wars and a crack shot. 

Our family business kept us in touch with the rural population, and we regularly attended grange dinners; most farmers had rifles in their trucks and kept at least two dogs as guards and ratters. Nobody thought ill of such killing, but our society has since grown squeamish. In New York City, some dog owners have organized rat packs, which the animal rights group PETA called “a twisted blood sport masquerading as rodent control." How ironic that people can love animals that hunt but hate hunting itself.
Like many of my high school classmates, I became a city dweller, first in Albany, New York; then in Ann Arbor, Michigan; New York City, San Francisco, and Berkeley, where I’ve lived for 43 years, and never again had a dog, despite some yearnings in that direction. I can do without because they are so plentiful. I like well-trained, groomed and socialized dogs because I’m a sucker for affection. A pretty head to stroke, two big loving eyes, and a wagging tail will perk up any day. 

My prejudice, based on where I grew up, is that I prefer to see dogs in a country setting on large properties and off-leash. These days my favorite country dog is Sally, who lives on my friend Alice’s ten acre organic farm and B&B Casa de la Pradera in Fiddletown. Sally is a mix of Catahoula Leopard Dog and Irish setter with the former’s dappled coloring and the latter’s head and tail. Both breeds are hunters, and if Sally is outside barking, she’s tracking a tree squirrel. Rescued from the Sacramento pound, Sally has been trained as an excellent guard dog and companion, and when Alice is away, I find great comfort having her around. 

Alice says that dogs are people, just not human. They have distinctive personalities, and the bond between owner and dog runs deep. My favorite city dog is my friend Barbara’s Yorkie Puck, who has visited the Cesar Chavez dog run and loved every minute. 

Given their need for exercise and the country origins of most breeds, both dogs and their owners gravitate towards park open space. I support off-leash playgrounds and have advocated in favor of establishing a permanent dog park on the southern section of the Santa Fe right-of-way, perhaps one block for large dogs and another for small. 

Berkeley has been a leader in establishing off-leash dog parks. Ohlone Dog Park on Hearst was one of the first, and the off-leash area in Cesar Chavez is beloved by many and their pets. Both parks have problems, and the Parks, Recreation, and Waterfront Department is addressing them, including the need for better rules and design standards like the ones recommended by the ASPCA, American Kennel Club, and experts like Susan Stecchi. 

Money has been set aside to plan and design Cesar Chavez Park, but the main problem is inadequate funding. The entire 90 acre park falls under the Marina Fund, which is supported by boat berthing fees and rents from restaurants and other businesses, not by the parks tax. There is no income whatsoever from any park use, and as a result, nothing has been planted there in 30 years, which robs the birds and other animals of habitat and visitors of beautiful greenery. 

Chavez Park is not the country. Whatever nature out there needs a lot of nurture. Better habitat needs to be developed. Besides improvements to make the off-leash area safer and more enjoyable, other users like cyclists, walkers, and picnicking families deserve enhancements and protections to increase their outdoor pleasure. The one-mile peripheral trail is used daily by many retirees because the trail is level, paved, and features great maritime views and fresh breezes. 

Berkeley has an excellent animal care facility at the Dona Spring Animal Shelter. The Director of Animal Services is Kate O’Connor (koconnor@cityofberkeley.info) who also serves as secretary to the Animal Care Commission. Questions about adoptions and registrations and complaints or issues concerning dogs and other animals should be directed to her, and if it concerns a park, the email should be copied to Scott Ferris, the Director of Parks, Recreation, and Waterfront or Roger Miller, the acting Waterfront Manager and secretary of the Parks and Waterfront Commission (rmiller@cityofberkeley.info). Such documentation will be important in the planning process. 

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Toni Mester is a resident of West Berkeley.

On Tuesday night the Berkeley City Council devoted more than two hours to listening to residents speculate on what "significant community benefits" must be provided by the lucky winners of the up-zoning variances which might be granted for a smallish number of extra-tall buildings downtown. This indecision left the Landmarks Preservation Commission in the dark about exactly what project at 2211 Harold Way they were supposed to be commenting on, so they chose to leave the question on the table for this month.

The distinction between mitigating detriments which such buildings create and providing new and better amenities for Berkeleyans as recompense for increased value was frequently blurred at the Council meeting. For example the very popular children's center Habitot, which would be demolished to make way for luxury apartments marketed as the “Residences at Berkeley Plaza" (RatBP), appealed for a $250,000 "benefit" as compensation for an expected $3,000,000 cost of replacement. Of the 87 people who spoke, perhaps 5 showed any real enthusiasm for the kind of projects under discussion. RatBP proponent (and ex-planner for the city of Berkeley) Mark Rhoades didn't say anything at the mike, but chatted with a couple of supporters in a back corner and at least one councilmember in the hall.

After the public comment period the councilmembers spent a half-hour discussing options. Councilmember Jesse Arreguin presented a full-blown roadmap for defining significant community benefits, complete with flow chart, which was praised by Councilmember Worthington as better than work the council usually gets from staff.

Worthington pointed out that the Council was not obligated to approve the first buildings which vied for the extra stories. He emphasized the need for accurate financial information from the would-be developer, verified by an independent consultant, since benefits by law must be proportional to the cost of the building. His own ballpark estimate was "tens of millions" to be spent for the public good, at least.

Max Anderson had stressed the same need at an earlier meeting. On Tuesday night he delivered one of his signature populist exhortations, highlighting his discomfort with the fact that men formerly employed by the city to make the zoning rules [Rhoades and Matt Taecker, who is promoting a hotel downtown and was present on Tuesday] were now trying to exploit those same rules on behalf of paying clients. He compared the situation to the often criticized "revolving door" in Washington, where retiring members of Congress and federal officials often re-emerge as corporate lobbyists. 

Councilmember Droste, responding to public comments from those who wanted to be sure that the Shattuck Cinemas would be rebuilt if destroyed on behalf of the RatBP, expressed apprehension that movie theaters might be on their way out. This elicited a skeptical grimace from Councilmember Wengraf, whose husband has won four Oscars for film sound work. 

An anonymous visitor snapped Wengraf chatting in the hall with Rhoades during the meeting, and also observed him going a couple of times into the councilmembers' back room through a (non-revolving) door clearly marked “authorized personnel only: members of the City Council and authorized employees only beyond this point”. 

Presumably this was just a flashback to his staffer past? 

This schedule for approval of the RatBP (2211 Harold Way) project has been provided to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which must make recommendations regarding demolition of the historic buildings on the site: 

 

 

• May 7, 2015 - LPC Preliminary Design Recommendation
• May 14, 2015 - ZAB Final EIR certification - continued
• June 4, 2015 - LPC hearing on SAP
• June 11, 2015 - ZAB hearing on Use Permit

 

However with the Council still so far from being able to define what “significant community benefits” might mean, that schedule seems roughly impossible to carry out, since the Zoning Adjustment Board is required to decide that adequate benefits are being provided by the applicant before approving the variances for the project’s use permit. 

And even before that, the supplied Environmental Impact Report must be certified as providing enough information to guide a decision. Given the fact that construction impacts on Berkeley High, only 400 feet away, were essentially ignored in the EIR, that seems even more unlikely. Even if the ZAB were to approve the EIR, it could still be appealed to the Council. 

There will surely be more to come. 

Friday Update: Last night, following the example set by the Zoning Adjustment Board, the Landmarks Preservation Commission declined to follow the fast-tracking script urged on them by the Berkeley Planning Department staff. They unanimously refused to approve the preliminary design recommendations on the sensible grounds that the design for the RatBP kept shifting so that they couldn't yet be sure exactly what they were approving. They asked to see a number of additional items, including materials and floor plans, which are usually part of standard submissions for projects which require LPC approval. As has become standard, public commenters did a thorough job of pointing out deficiencies in the current proposal, including in this case inadequate evaluation of the effect on neighboring landmarks, including the abutting historic Shattuck Hotel. 

Op-ed: Berkeley deserves better than 2211 Harold Way

Joseph Young

 

Kaiser Permanente is retaliating against the whistleblowers who brought much-needed scrutiny to the HMO's severely understaffed mental health services.  

Last month, the Oakland-based healthcare provider fired a respected psychologist, Dr. Alex Wang, who had reported to state regulators a pattern of illegal and unnecessary delays in providing mental health care.  

Kaiser is also retaliating more broadly against whistleblowers by withholding from its mental health clinicians the standard annual wage increases it has given to 90,000 other employees.  

This week, clinicians have been picketing and leafleting at Kaiser facilities throughout the state to call on Kaiser to reinstate Dr. Wang. They are also calling on Kaiser to settle a contract with its mental health clinicians that addresses the severe understaffing that has caused lengthy and illegal delays for Kaiser patients and that does not punish caregivers for meeting the ethical obligations of their professions and exercising the clinical judgment for which Kaiser hired them.  

Clinicians will picket in Richmond and Oakland Wednesday and in San Francisco on Thursday.  

"We have worked without a contract for three years while Kaiser has fought us tooth-and-nail on these patient care issues," said Clement Papazian, a psychiatric social worker at Kaiser's Oakland Medical Center. "By refusing to address our concerns through internal channels, they pushed us into the role of whistleblowers. Now they want to punish us for going public." 

"We don't want to reward employees for the behavior of the last three years," Kaiser officials told clinicians in a recent meeting.  

In 2013, Dr. Wang, a psychologist at Kaiser's Fremont clinic, noted in a patient's chart, "Patient should be seen sooner" after discovering the patient would wait more than three weeks for a first-time appointment, which is a violation of state law. Kaiser disciplined Dr. Wang, claiming his clinical note was "political speech," and for the next two years targeted Dr. Wang for a series of performance reviews that questioned his clinical judgment in advocating for more timely appointments for his patients. 

"The firing of Dr. Wang is like a punch to the face," said Dr. Andris Skuja, a psychologist at Kaiser's Oakland Medical Center. "This multi-billion-dollar corporation has pounced on a thoughtful, dedicated therapist because he dared to stand up for patients who needed help. Kaiser managers and executives are scapegoating caregivers for management’s casual disregard of the well-being of Kaiser patients. It's a calculated move designed to silence caregivers. What kind of care will Kaiser members get if their care providers are too scared to report violations? These delays and denials of care can have tragic consequences. Some patients have committed suicide while facing long waits for therapy appointments." 

The National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents Dr. Wang, has filed a whistleblower complaint with the California Attorney General.  

Three years ago, after Kaiser failed to act on its clinicians' documented claims, clinicians took their case to state's Department of Managed Health Care. The DMHC conducted its own investigation and in 2013 the agency not only affirmed the clinicians’ allegations, but also fined Kaiser $4 million — the second-largest fine in the DMHC's history — for "systemic" violations of state laws governing timely access to care and issued a "Cease and Desist Order" that demanded that Kaiser stop breaking the law. For the next two years, Kaiser claimed to have fixed all the problems, but in February 2015, a second DMHC survey affirmed clinicians' allegations that Kaiser's violations persist. Meanwhile, the "nonprofit" HMO is enjoying record profits — $1 billion in the first quarter of 2015 and more than $15 billion since 2010.

Discussions of development in Berkeley involve a lot of complicated jargon. It is easy to become confused. As a public service, I've assembled some definitions for a few commonly used terms:

"Smart Growth": The proposal to build 1960s housing projects for a 1990s economy along streets where the 1950s imagined there'd be great public transportation by the 1970s. (See also, "real estate swindle".)

"Urban Density": The confinement of low wage workers to small ghettos and the restriction their regional travel options to those offered by anemic public transportation systems.

"Green Building": Building probably does not contain a coal or oil burning furnace in the basement.

"2020": The target year of many regional public policy initiatives, each of which will be clearly visible as terrible mistakes in hindsight from the perspective of the year 2020.

"Vibrant": An environment carefully arranged to hide any indication that poverty exists. Any environment purged of all social challenges the 1% might encounter.

"Mayor's Office": Winking name for a high-priced "escort" service serving UC Regents and other clients in the real estate speculation sector.

"West and South Berkeley": staging area for forced emigration of colored people.

"Real estate swindle": See "City Executive Staff".

"City Executive Staff": co-owner/overseers of "Mayor's Office" (c.f.)

A new report by investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, reveals that the Obama administration made a false account of the details surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden. Contrary to public assertions that Pakistan was unaware of the whereabouts of Bin Laden, top Pakistani military officials had full knowledge of his whereabouts and held him as a virtual prisoner at the Abbottabad compound since 2006. 

Hersh reports that the US military paid a $25 million bounty to a former Pakistan intelligence officer who provided the location of Bin Laden’s whereabouts. Numerous reports of a firefight inside the compound were completely untrue. A retired American official mocked the false assertion of US military claims of finding a trove of useful information from Bin Laden’s computers and documents stating that he was operationally irrelevant. Finally, the claim that Bin Laden was buried at sea also appears to be untrue. The false narrative was hyped up for propaganda purposes and denigrates Pakistan as ‘uncooperative’. 

As luxury high-rise towers are proposed in Downtown Berkeley, it’s sensible to ask who will live there. Who are they being built to house?

The developer of 2211 Harold Way spoke to this question one of the first times he appeared at a Berkeley city meeting, around February of 2013. This was at the Design Review Committee.

A member of the Committee, a retired San Francisco planner, asked him who his market was? Who was he building these units to house? It wasn’t a confrontational question, just a genuinely curious one.

The developer replied, if I remember correctly, “People like you, and people who want to live in San Francisco but can't afford to."

This was a refreshing level of candor.

But let’s look at both those “markets”, whether they’re tenable, and what the impact would be on Berkeley if they are.

The “Empty Nester” Idea

By "people like you" the developer apparently meant prosperous empty nesters with houses in the Berkeley hills who might, as they age, want to sell a large home and move to a more manageable condo or apartment near BART.

For literally thirty years I’ve heard people predict this as a big coming housing market for Downtown Berkeley. In all that time, I have known or heard of only one person who actually did this—sold her house in the hills and moved to a downtown apartment.

She moved to “Library Gardens”. After some time she decided she didn’t like it. It was noisy, most of the other units were occupied by students who were too preoccupied and transient to be real neighbors, and the apartments weren’t as nice as she wanted. So she moved again, to flatlands El Cerrito.

Still, the empty nesters are at least a theoretical potential market. But there's another factor to consider here.  

The old paradigm used to be that a house in the Berkeley Hills was more valuable than a house in the Berkeley flatlands, and certainly more valuable than a flatlands condominium.  

So, the real estate calculus went, empty nesters could sell their hill house for, say, a million dollars, downsize to a $500,000 condo near Downtown, and live comfortably on the residual from their house sale. 

But it may not work that way any more. The condos intended for Downtown are likely to be more expensive than many single family homes in Berkeley, especially if they capture the high-rise views developers covet. It’s not unrealistic to imagine small condos being marketed for well over a million dollars, or even considerably more, in this market. 

So, goodbye to the nest egg from the house sale. How many people would sell an expensive house, and buy an even more expensive, but much smaller, condo, in the same town? Only those with considerable additional wealth to live on. And I’m not sure that has been happening or is likely to happen to a degree to merit large amounts of “empty nester” housing Downtown. 

But what if, instead of buying, those empty nesters decide to bank the money from the house sale and downsize by renting in Downtown near all that culture, shopping, restaurants, and transportation?  

That probably would prove to be financially unpalatable either for those interested in living only one or two to a unit.  

We know that the 2211 Harold Way developer forecasts rents of nearly $4,000 a month for an average sized unit. Similar new units will probably try for that sort of target as well.

This is a market for the rich, those who can afford upwards of $50,000 a year in rent.  

Or it’s a market for those willing to live three, four, or five to a unit, doubling or tripling up with each paying ten or fifteen thousand a year. And in downtown Berkeley there is a seemingly inexhaustible supply of people willing to do just that, because of the 36,000 students attending the UC campus next door.  

So the empty nesters will continue to face considerable competition from those willing to pay per bedroom, rather than per unit.  

Four students who can pay $1,000 or more each a month for a share in a two bedroom apartment means that very few apartments, luxury or otherwise, will be offered to empty nesters at $2,000 / month. 

So I’ll remain skeptical of the “empty nesters will flock to the new housing Downtown” argument for the time being. 

Housing Those Who Don’t Want to Be Here 

On the issue of "people who want to live in San Francisco but can't afford to", I’ll share this observation. 

Historically, ever since the ferry and streetcar system from the East Bay to San Francisco was developed in the late 19th century, there have been many people who have lived in Berkeley and worked in San Francisco. That's part of our history. We have been, at least in part, a “commuter town”, although much traffic has also flowed the other way and Berkeley also has a large homegrown jobs base. 

But from reading a lot of Berkeley history, I am relatively convinced that most of those commuters of the past chose to live in Berkeley. They weren’t forced to by economics. They wanted to be in an East Bay “suburb” with a milder climate, lower buildings, more green space. They wanted to raise their families here, and be part of the community life of this town. 

They could have lived in San Francisco where they worked. A hundred, or even fifty, years ago San Francisco wasn’t considerably more expensive than Berkeley as a place to live. So having a work commute to San Francisco as a trade off for a home in Berkeley was a cultural and personal choice, not an economic one. 

Today, for the first time, we are being told we should promote high rise housing development specifically for people who don’t really want to live in Berkeley but are willing to come here—as a second, or maybe third, choice—since it’s cheaper than living in San Francisco or Silicon Valley. 

This is a new paradigm for Berkeley, and it bears some scrutiny. 

If new housing is being specifically built to provide bedrooms for people who would rather be living elsewhere, what does that mean about our future demographics and community life? 

Will Berkeley end up with a substantial number of residents who didn’t necessarily want to come here in the first place and will leave as soon as there’s an affordable housing choice for them elsewhere? 

I actually encountered someone like this a few years ago. As the tech wave began, he arrived in Berkeley, a recent Ivy League graduate who had rented an apartment near south Telegraph Avenue, sight unseen. He said he had signed a lease in which he guaranteed to stay for three years, or pay the rent difference if he moved out.  

His main contact with the surrounding neighborhood, where I live, was through his vehicles. He was constantly searching for a place on the street to park a Maserati he’d purchased. Then an expensive motorcycle appeared. These appeared to be toys. All the while, he was commuting by BART to a tech job in San Francisco that paid him a five-figure salary a month. 

He didn’t dislike living in Berkeley, but it was simply a place he’d picked on line because he couldn’t find something he liked and could afford in San Francisco nearer his job.  

Then he did find something. I think his already considerable income rose, or he got lucky in the San Francisco housing market. So he moved, apparently paying the rent penalty for leaving his Berkeley apartment early.  

He never got to figure out Berkeley—other than where the less crowded streets were to store his car—because his mind was on working and living elsewhere. San Francisco was his real goal. 

Is that the new Berkeleyan of the future? Only here because there’s “cheap” housing, then gone as soon as another opportunity presents itself? 

If so, it has serious implications for our community life. If a big part of Berkeley becomes just a place to sleep, there’s no reason for those residents to really engage in local life. As long as there’s a BART station nearby, a grocery store, and good takeout, they don’t need to. They will work and live elsewhere, merely sleeping in Berkeley. 

This may become an especially acute attitude among those who live high in the sky, ten or fifteen floors above the rest of Berkeley. In that sort of environment you can both literally and figuratively live apart from the community—you don’t really need to worry about anything taking place down there. 

It’s the opposite of the conditions that prevailed for decades where people who happened to work out of town still wanted to be Berkeley residents, had front doors that opened to Berkeley streets rather than high-rise elevator lobbies and doormen, and were invested in the town in ways other than financial. 

Now I don’t want to sell the allure of Berkeley too short. It’s quite likely that some of the people who initially move here only because they “want to live in San Francisco but can't afford to”, will actually end up liking it here, and become active and long term residents. 

But promoting high-rise buildings specifically intended to be marketed to those who either won’t be able, or who wouldn’t initially want to, live here? That’s probably not a good, or sensible, choice for this community.

The “Berkeley Cares” voucher program was launched in 1992. The vouchers came in designations of $.25 and theoretically could be used for grocery, laundry and transportation expenses. The purchase of alcohol and cigarettes was prohibited. The public was supposed to buy them at participating merchant stores or the Health and Human Services department and hand them to panhandlers instead of real money.

Except that lots of stores wouldn’t take them, redeeming them through the city was a pain, cash drawers and counters had no space for them or their explanatory displays, the vouchers themselves were flimsier than real money, tore easily, and were hard to manage since each one was only worth a quarter. Cities that adopted “Berkeley Cares” vouchers as a model have all ended their programs for the same reason Berkeley did; it didn’t work. 

My favorite “Berkeley Cares” moment came when the University of California’s Milton Fuji arranged a presentation on the “Berkeley Cares” program for a southside neighborhood coalition and asked a local homeless woman to explain the program to the group. The woman was gracious, clear in her presentation, and thorough enough to mention that she couldn’t seem to get stores to honor the vouchers for diapers for her child, or formula, and as she listed the many things she couldn’t use vouchers for which any mother might need Fuji’s face went bright red. 

What she unintentionally made clear in her presentation that day was what everybody eventually and quietly agreed by ending the program: nothing works like money. Voucher programs get brassy New York Times coverage until they fail, and when they fail the big brass band has gone home. 

The Downtown Berkeley Association is still reeling from the viral video of one of its “ambassadors” beating up a homeless man while another “ambassador” offered no objection. But it apparently still thinks it is the best steward of four cash boxes planted around downtown the keys to which will no doubt be in the pockets of the same “ambassadors” whose training video didn’t manage to clarify to them that they can’t just beat people up. 

The Downtown Berkeley Association’s Chief Executive Officer, John Caner, neglected to mention in his press release that San Diego, one of the cities mentioned in his press release as also having “Positive Change” boxes, has committed to Housing First as a strategy: 

“Housing First – San Diego – SDHC’s Homelessness Action Plan, November 12, 2014"

Housing First–San Diego, the San Diego Housing Commission’s (SDHC) three-year homelessness action plan to create additional affordable housing with supportive services, will impact the lives of as many as 1,500 homeless San Diegans. Developed by SDHC and in collaboration with partners, Housing First–San Diego:  

1. Renovates the historical Hotel Churchill to create 72 affordable studios for homeless veterans and youth aging out of the foster care system;
2. Awards up to $30 million over the next three years to create Permanent Supportive Housing that will remain affordable for 55 years;
3. Commits up to 1,500 federal rental housing vouchers to provide housing to homeless individuals and families;
4. Invests up to $15 million from the federal “Moving to Work” rental assistance program to acquire a property that will set aside 20 percent of its units for Permanent Supportive Housing for homeless San Diegans; and
5. Dedicates 25 of SDHC’s own affordable units to temporarily provide furnished apartments for homeless individuals and families. SDHC is one of the first public housing agencies in the nation to commit affordable rental housing that it owns for this purpose. Email us at: HousingFirstSanDiego@sdhc.org”

 

The success of San Diego’s commitment to ending homelessness, if it comes, may have a little more to do with the programs listed above than the spare change from “Positive Change” cash boxes as filtered through the dubious hands of the Downtown Berkeley Association. 

Israel has elected the most right wing government in its history. This will surely accelerate the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The decades of peace efforts have been tossed into the dustbin of history. The government, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, rejected Palestinian statehood. His key ally, Jewish Home, openly advocates creating South African style, Palestinian Bantustans, which is sure to accelerate its global isolation and put it on a collision course with the United States.  

Consider what is already happening; American star Lauryn Hill’s recent cancellation of a concert near Tel Aviv followed an earlier boycott of 1,000 artists in the U.K and a growing number of U.S. academic associations; Dutch and Norwegian pension funds have divested from Israeli banks. More significantly, a recent poll reveals a growing number of Jewish Americans favor boycotting products from Israel and oppose settlement expansions. Former Mossad chief, Shabtai Shavit, expressed grave concern that the growing BDS movement is a grave threat to Israel’s survival, a view shared by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

All companies give their employees vacation time so they can take a break from their daily routine. Why don't households give a similar break to mothers? Mother's day is every day. Buying mothers flowers or taking them to a restaurant is no substitute for helping lighten their chores every day. 

Their work never stops. Even when they sleep, they dream of ways of making their children thrive. They want their children to develop their physical, intellectual and mental abilities in a secure environment. I want to point out the predicament of working mothers who lack means and family support to get their young children into high quality early education facilities. They need quality schools free of cost so that the US can become a more egalitarian society. Those who lack money for private high quality early schooling for children should not be trapped. They should be able to fulfill their dream of giving their children the best chance possible. Access to quality early schooling for their children would be a great Mother's Day gift for those who don't already have everything.

Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world, bereft of resources, fractured by tribal divisions and religious sectarianism, and plagued by civil war. And yet this small country tucked into the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula is shattering old alliances and spurring new and surprising ones. As Saudi Arabia continues its air assault on Houthis insurgents, supporters and opponents of the Riyadh monarchy are reconfiguring the political landscape in a way that is unlikely to vanish once the fighting is over. 

The Saudi version of the war is that Shiite Iran is trying to take over Sunni Yemen using proxies—the Houthis—to threaten the Kingdom’s southern border and assert control over the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait into the Red Sea. The Iranians claim they have no control over the Houthis, no designs on the Straits, and that the war is an internal matter for the Yeminis to resolve. 

The Saudis have constructed what at first glance seems a formidable coalition consisting of the Arab League, the monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Turkey and the U.S. Except that the “coalition” is not as solid as it looks and is more interesting in whom it doesn’t include than whom it does. 

Egypt and Turkey are the powerhouses in the alliance, but there is more sound and fury than substance in their support. 

Initially, Egypt made noises about sending ground troops—the Saudi army can’t handle the Houthis and their allies—but pressed by Al-Monitor, Cairo’s ambassador to Yemen, Youssef al-Sharqawy, turned opaque: “I am not the one who will decide about a ground intervention in Yemen. This goes back to the estimate of the supreme authority in the country and Egyptian national security.” 

Since Saudi Arabia supported the Egyptian military coup against the Muslim Brotherhood government and is propping up the regime with torrents of cash, Riyadh may eventually squeeze Cairo to put troops into the Yemen war. But the last time Egypt fought the Houthis it suffered thousands of casualties, and Egypt has its hands full with an Islamic insurrection in Sinai. 

While Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also pledged Ankara’s support for “Saudi Arabia’s intervention,” and demanded that “Iran and the terrorist groups” withdraw, Erdogan was careful to say that it “may consider” offering “logistical support based on the evolution of the situation.” 

Erdogan wants to punish Iran for its support of the Assad regime in Syria and its military presence in Iraq, where Teheran is aiding the Baghdad government against the Islamic Front. He is also looking to tap into Saudi money. The Turkish economy is in trouble, its public debt is the highest it has been in a decade and borrowing costs are rising worldwide. With an important election coming in June, Erdogan is hoping the Saudis will step in to help out. 

But actually getting involved is another matter. The Turks think the Saudis are in a pickle—Yemen is a dreadfully difficult place to win a war and an air assault without ground troops has zero chance of success. 

When the Iranians reacted sharply to Erdogan’s comments, the President backpeddled. Iran is a major trading partner for the Turks, and, with the possibility that international sanctions against Teheran will soon end, Turkey wants in on the gold rush that is certain to follow. During Erdogan’s recent trip to Teheran, the Turkish President and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif issued a joint statement calling for an end to the war in Yemen, and a “political solution.” It was a far cry from Erdogan’s initial belligerence. 

The Arab League supports the war, but only to varying degrees. Iraq opposes the Saudi attacks, and Algeria is keeping its distance by calling for an end to “all foreign intervention.” Even the normally compliant GCC, representing the oil monarchs of the Gulf, has a defector. Oman abuts Yemen, and its ruler, Sultan Qaboos, is worried the chaos will spread across its border. And while the United Arab Emirates have flown missions over Yemen, the UAE is also preparing to cash in if sanctions are removed from Teheran. “Iran is on our doorstep, we have to be there,” Marwan Shehadeh, a developer in Dubai told the Financial Times. “It could be a great game changer.” 

The most conspicuous absence in the Saudi coalition, however, is Pakistan, a country that has received billions in aid from Saudi Arabia and whose current Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, was sheltered by Riyadh from the wrath of Pakistan’s military in 1999. 

When the Saudi’s initially announced their intention to attack Yemen, they included Pakistan in the reported coalition, an act of hubris that backfired badly. Pakistan’s Parliament demanded a debate on the issue and then voted unanimously to remain neutral. While Islamabad declared its intention to “defend Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty,” no one thinks the Houthis are about to march on Jiddah. 

The Yemen war is deeply unpopular in Pakistan, and the Parliament’s actions were widely supported, one editorial writer calling for rejecting “GCC diktat.” Only the extremist Lashkar-e-Taiba organization, which planned the 2008 Mumbai massacre in India, supported the Saudis. 

Pakistan has indeed relied on Saudi largesse and, in turn, provided security for Riyadh, but the relationship is wearing thin. 

First, there is widespread outrage for the Saudi support of extremist Islamic groups, some of which are at war with Pakistan’s government. Last year one such organization, the Tehrik-i-Taliban, massacred 145 people, including 132 students, in Peshawar. Fighting these groups in North Waziristan has taxed the Pakistani Army, which must also pay attention to its southern neighbor, India. 

The Saudis, with their support for the rigid Wahabi interpretation of Islam, are also blamed for growing Sunni-Shiite tensions in Pakistan. 

Second, Islamabad is deepening its relationship with China. In mid-April, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised to invest $46 billion to finance Beijing’s new “Silk Road” from Western China to the Persian Gulf. Part of this will include a huge expansion of the port at Gwadar in Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan province, a port that Bruce Riedel says will “rival Dubai or Doha as a regional economic hub,” 

Riedel is a South Asia security expert, a senior fellow at the conservative Brookings Institute, and a professor at Johns Hopkins. Dubai is in the United Arab Emirates and Doha in Qatar. Both are members of the GCC. 

China is concerned about security in Baluchistan, with its long-running insurgency against the central government, as well as the ongoing resistance by the Turkic-speaking, largely Muslim, Uyghur people in western China’s Xinjiang Province. Uyghurs, who number a little over 10 million, are being marginalized by an influx of Han Chinese, China’s dominant ethnic group. 

Wealthy Saudis have helped finance some of these groups and neither Beijing or Islamabad is happy about it. Pakistan has pledged to create a 10,000-man “Special Security Division” to protect China’s investments. According to Riedel, the Chinese told the Pakistanis that Beijing would “stand by Pakistan if its ties with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates unravel.” 

The U.S. has played an important, if somewhat uncomfortable, role in the Yemen War. It is feeding Saudi Arabia intelligence and targeting information and re-fueling Saudi warplanes in mid-air. It also intercepted an Iranian flotilla headed for Yemen that Washington claimed was carrying arms for the Houthis. Iran denies it and there is little hard evidence that Teheran is providing arms to the insurgents. 

But while Washington supports the Saudis, it has also urged Riyadh to dial back the air attacks and look for a political solution. The U.S. is worried that the war-induced anarchy is allowing Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to florish. The embattled Houthis were the terrorist group’s principal opponents.  

The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is growing critical. More than a 1,000 people, many of them civilians, have been killed, and the bombing and fighting has generated 300,000 refugees. The Saudi-U.S. naval blockade and the recent destruction of Yemen’s international airport has shut down the delivery of food, water and medical supplies in a country that is largely dependent on imported food. 

However, the Obama administration is unlikely to alienate the Saudis, who are already angry with Washington for negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran. Besides aiding the Saudi attacks, the U.S. has opened the arms spigot to Riyadh. 

The Iran nuclear agreement has led to what has to be one of the oddest alliances in the region: Israel and Saudi Arabia. Riyadh is on the same wavelength as the Netanyahu government when it comes to Iran, and the two are cooperating in trying to torpedo the agreement. According to investigative journalist Robert Perry, the alliance between Tel Aviv and Riyadh was sealed by a secret $16 billion gift from Riyadh to an Israeli “development” account in Europe, some of which has been used to build illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories. 

The Saudis and the Israelis are on the same side in the Syrian civil war as well, and, for all Riyadh’s talk about supporting the Palestinians, the only members of the GCC that have given money to help rebuild Gaza after last summer’s Israeli attack on Gaza are Qatar and Kuwait. 

How this all falls out in the end is hard to predict, except that it is clear that, for all their financial firepower, the Saudis can’t get the major regional players—Israel excepted—on board. And an alliance with Israel—a country that is more isolated today because of its occupation policies than it has been in its history—is not likely to be very stable. 

Long-time Middle East correspondent for the Independent Robert Fisk says the Saudis live in “fear” of the Iranians, the Shiia, the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, U.S. betrayal, Israeli plots, even “themselves, for where else will the revolution start in Sunni Muslim Saudi but among its own royal family?” 

That “fear” is driving the war in Yemen. It argues for why the U.S. should stop feeding the flames and instead join with the European Union and demand an immediate cease-fire, humanitarian aid, and a political solution among the Yemenis themselves.  

 

---

Conn Hallian can be read at https://dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and https://middleempireseries.wordpress.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On April 29th, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders announced he’ll compete with Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. Although anything can happen between now and the late July 2016 Democratic convention, it appears that Sanders’ intent is not to win the nomination but to influence Clinton on critical domestic policy issues – to move Hillary to the left. 

74-year-old Sanders has a solid liberal pedigree. In 1963 he was active in the civil rights movement as an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In 1971 entered politics. In 1981 he was elected Mayor of Burlington and in 1991 became Vermont’s at-large representative to the US House of Representatives. In 2007 Sanders moved to the US Senate where he has been a prominent member of the progressive caucus. 

Bernie Sanders is a self-proclaimed “Democratic Socialist,” officially an independent member of the Senate, although he caucuses with the Democrats. While he’s well known on the left, Sanders has limited national name recognition. A recent Huffington Post poll found that he had 7.1 percent support among Democrats, compared with Hillary Clinton’s 61 percent support. 

When asked about his candidacy, Sanders explained, “I'm not running to attack Hillary Clinton. I'm running to talk about the issues that impact the working class of this country and the middle class." Two issues will illuminate the elemental differences between Clinton and Sanders: taxes and Wall Street reform. 

Sanders has a strong liberal position on taxes: 

At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, we need a progressive tax system in this country which is based on ability to pay. It is not acceptable that major profitable corporations have paid nothing in federal income taxes, and that corporate CEOs in this country often enjoy an effective tax rate which is lower than their secretaries.

In her announcement video Hillary Clinton said: “Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times. But the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top… Everyday Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion.” While Clinton recognizes that income inequality is limiting the US economy, she has been short on specific remedies. (Although, in an Iowa campaign speech she noted, “Hedge-fund managers pay lower taxes than do most middle-class Americans.”) In the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign, candidate Clinton agreed with Barack Obama that taxes rates for those making more than $250,000 a year should revert to the 1990’s rates. 

Bernie Sanders also has a liberal position on Wall Street reform: 

Today, six huge Wall Street financial institutions have assets equivalent to 61 percent of our gross domestic product – over $9.8 trillion. These institutions underwrite more than half the mortgages in this country and more than two-thirds of the credit cards. The greed, recklessness and illegal behavior of major Wall Street firms plunged this country into the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. They are too powerful to be reformed. They must be broken up.

Wall Street reform is a problem issue for Clinton. It’s unlikely that she will support breaking up the big banks. A recent CNN report observed that Hillary and Bill Clinton have a longstanding positive relationship with Wall Street: 

As a New York senator for almost a decade, she represented Wall Street and courted the industry aggressively during her last presidential campaign. And there is a certain degree of nostalgia within the industry for her husband's two-term presidency, marked by the 1990s bull market and broad financial deregulation, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial banking from riskier investing activities.

Nonetheless, in January, Clinton defended the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act: “Attacking financial reform is risky and wrong. Better for Congress to focus on jobs and wages for middle class families.” 

There are two other issues that could differentiate Sanders and Clinton. One is the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Sanders is against it: “The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a disastrous trade agreement designed to protect the interests of the largest multi-national corporations at the expense of workers, consumers, the environment and the foundations of American democracy.” 

The Hill observed: “As secretary of State, [Clinton] was a chief advocate as talks commenced surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership.” Recently Clinton has tempered her support for TPP. In New Hampshire she cautioned: “Any trade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase prosperity and protect our security.” 

Another issue is the Keystone XL pipeline. Bernie Sanders is opposed to the Pipeline. While Secretary of State Clinton said she was “inclined” to sign off on the project.” Most recently she has declined to take a position: “You won’t get me to talk about Keystone because I have steadily made clear that I’m not going to express an opinion. It is in our process and that’s where it belongs.” 

Bernie Sanders is doing Democrats a favor by running against Hillary Clinton. His candidacy may not move her to the left, but it will draw her out and clarify her positions on key issues. 

---

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer. He can be reached at bburnett@sonic.net

--from The Daffodils. William Wordsworth (1909-14.)

A new study suggests social isolation may harm physical health, even hasten death. People who lived alone were found to have a 32% higher risk of an early death than those who lived with another person. (What is meant by early is not defined, however.)

Lisa Jaremka, University of Delaware in Newark assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences, agrees. People have a very basic and fundamental need to feel connected to and cared for by other people… lonely people are lacking in this area. They aren't fulfilling this basic need, and thus, negative things happen as a result. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 59.2% of women and 21.6% of men over age 75 are widowed. Many older adults are geographically isolated from their relatives. Others may not have had any children or have actually outlived them. Starting in one’s seventies, friends will die faster than new ones can be made. Still others will move out of town to be with family or to go to a nursing home. Finding new interests is tough for people who have poor hearing and vision, arthritis, urinary incontinence, no car, and or a limited budget. 

Yet another new study contends that loneliness may be as much a threat to longevity as obesity. These findings are based on a review of data from studies involving more than 3 million people, co-authored by Timothy B. Smith, a professor in the department of psychology at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. "We think of things like exercise, blood pressure and taking cholesterol medication. But it turns out that social isolation is actually more predictive of death than any of those three things." Smith and his colleagues’ findings are published in Perspectives on Psychological Science. Specifically, their team calculated that social isolation -- having few or no social contacts or activities -- upped the risk for dying sooner by 29%. (What is meant by sooner is not defined, however.) 

Even if you live alone but don't feel lonely, these researchers contend that you may still experience a negative impact on your health… that we are wired to be social beings, and our immune system and our stress response just function better when we are in a collective. We are basically healthier when we are social. 

Filmmakers and reviewers often see comedy in the lives of lonely old people. In her review of In the Courtyard, New York Times (April 10, 2015) reviewer Jeannette Catsoulis, labels “a neurotic retiree.” Dans la cour is a 2014 awards-winning, French comedy-drama film written and directed by Pierre Salvadori. It stars Catherine Deneuve (would you believe 72 years old?) and Gustave Kervern age 53.  

Antoine, played by Kervern, is too depressed to go on playing in his rock band. After wandering in the streets, he decides to seek an occupation. Unskilled as he is, he is lucky to be hired as the caretaker of an old Parisian apartment building. He soon proves good at his job, even if he performs it a little eccentrically. Everybody grows fond of him. He also develops a friendship with Mathilde, a recently retired woman who lives in the block and whose mental balance is deteriorating, played by Deneuve.  

OK, these guys and gals have made their point (conclusion) about (some) old people vis a vis loneliness. This is where the geriatricians and gerontologists should look over their respective fences, at least ask, so what? What’s next? Are there do-able solutions? What do they have to offer Ms and Mr Aged Lonely? Senior center conviviality, hearing aids and eye glasses, PC technology, transportation (taxi scrip), volunteer “opportunities,” holiday food “baskets,” pets… 

I recommend The Real Truth about Aging (2009) by Neil Shulman, MD., et al. They declare, and I agree: Books that highlight ‘healthy aging’ focus on older adults who are healthy and active… the real truth is that for millions, the ‘golden years’ are a time of loneliness. Depression can be a real bummer.  

xxxx 

My primary care physician (PCP) has retired. Good for her. Not good for me though. I had been her patient since she began her practice. Her buoyant youth and long flowing hair hadn’t been off-putting. She was an internist and later, sub-specialized in geriatrics as well. Thirty plus years on, and my choice is limited for several reasons. Actually, it’s restricted-- I’m back at square one.  

For Medi-Medi senior citizens, “not accepting new patients” is an almost automatic response. It’s. Medi-Medi is a term that refers to Medicare as the primary insurer with Medicaid as the secondary insurer. California’s Medicaid is called Medi-Cal. (Related reading: Harry Brill’s Public Comment, “No birthday celebration for Medicaid?” in April 14^th’s Planet.) 

For powerless seniors, it has become very difficult, often impossible, to identify a physician who accepts new patients and Medicaid. Many turn to non-specialists when they need a specialist, or attempt to get help at Over 60 or a hospital Emergency Department.  

Physicians who in the past may have accepted Medi-Medi patients now eschew both them and Medi-Medi. Their chirpy interceptors may explain “Medi-Cal cancels out Medicare”! This is especially true of medical specialists, dermatologists and orthopedists, for examples, who are turning away long-time Medi-Medi patients. Medicare’s website lists physicians who accept Medicare, which does not mean that they accept Medicare’s payment as payment in full (called Medicare Assignment.) It means that they accept Medicare provided the patient has a secondary insurer other than Medi-Cal. Medicare’s website provider information is based on physician-input. Numerous physicians apparently report that they currently accept new patients and or Medicare Assignment.  

What can one do? Very little, but in behalf of yourself and other senior citizens, you should try to effectuate change locally. Start at the top while working your senior powerful way down. Urge your city council, senior services department, commission on aging (in Berkeley, charged with “identifying the needs of the aging, creating awareness of these needs, and encouraging improved standards of services to the aging”), and community senior center management and advisors to survey physicians (other than pediatricians) doing business in the community, and share the results.  

Or, suggest a safe alternative— volunteers compile a list of physicians who accept new patients and Medi-Medi, and make available the free (predictably, one page or less) list at community senior centers. Here are a few simple yes/no survey questions: 

Is Dr. Xyz currently accepting new patients? 

Does Dr. Xyz accept new patients without referral from another physician? 

Does Dr. Xyz currently accept Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid) as all or part payment? 

Does Dr. Yyz accept so-called Medi-Medi as payment?
Has Dr. Xyz ever accepted Medi-Cal as payment? 

Does Dr. Xyz ever turn away a patient who has Medicare with no acceptable secondary insurer? 

Has Dr. Xyz instructed her/his office staff to respond negatively (turn away) to patients whose 

Medi-Medi has in the past sufficed? 

 

xxxx 

NEWS 

"State, L.A. County set to overhaul nursing home oversight procedure," by Abby Sewell (Los Angeles Times, April 28, 2015).  

Older Adult Services of the Alameda County Library has announced Fabulous Fashion for Women Over 50, a free program at the Albany branch library, 1247 Marin Avenue, on Wednesday, May 13, 2015, from 1:30 to 2:30 P.M.. Telephone: 510-745-1474. TTY: 888-663-0660. seniors@aclibrary.org 

CALIFORNIA NEWS: "Crisis line for seniors struggling for survival as grant ends," by Steve Rubenstein (San Francisco Chronicle, May 3, 2015). 

 

Persons with mental illness are likely to have more visits with a general practitioner compared to mainstream people. The medications we have to take cause complications to physical health. Zyprexa and a number of other medications cause extreme weight gain and diabetes.  

I take Zyprexa because without it I become psychotic and verbally aggressive. I have tried to switch to something else, but this did not work out. Meanwhile, I am controlling the diabetes with diet. However, I am still about fifty pounds or more overweight.  

{To get a bit tangential: Type-two diabetes is a heck of a trap to end up in, and it creates a lot of revenue for the medical establishment. Taking metformin, glyburide, or insulin do lower blood sugar and may minimize the damage to the body from this disease. However, diabetes meds cause more weight gain. Diabetes medications increase the efficiency of sugar absorption by the cells in the body, and this is how the sugar in the bloodstream is lowered. When the medications make you gain additional weight, it means that in the future, an increase in diabetes medication will be needed. This in turn causes even more weight gain, and this continues indefinitely.  

{The level of Hemoglobin A 1 C is an indicator of longer-term blood sugar. When I was diagnosed with type II diabetes, I eliminated most of the refined sugar in my diet, and I increased my intake of fruits and vegetables (but not too many bananas--very high in sugar). This worked. For this strategy to work, the patient must catch it early and must not be excessively far into the diabetes trap.}  

Other than medical issues, persons with mental illness, if renting under Section 8, must deal with the Housing Authority every year, sometimes several times in a year. Their unit inspections require setting aside an entire day to wait for the inspector to show up. Often the unit inspector comes up with surprising little defects in the unit, necessitating another inspection a month later.  

In a recent instance of this, the inspector, who was a very big man and very ill-mannered, failed me on the first inspection and then was a no-show for the re-inspection. I phoned housing about this, and the head of the unit was willing to do the re-inspection right away, which was helpful.  

The presumption of HUD is that you do not have a job and thus are available whenever they want to inspect. The income certifications of late have been done by mail. Prior to this, we were put in a booth that could be locked from the outside.  

{On another tangential note: Intimidation seems to be part of the agenda of Housing. I am grateful for having housing that I otherwise would not be able to have on what little I get from Social Security. However, I would appreciate it if the inspection people would be a bit nicer.} 

If a person is mentally ill and has a history of being uncivil, it is important that we show up for our weekly therapy sessions so that we can show we are not going off the deep end, are taking our medication, and are not causing trouble.  

Going to the pharmacy for refills is continuous. Pharmacy staff may do part of the job of keeping mentally ill people monitored.  

The appointments and obligations to which we must constantly go, combined with other complications, cause mental illness to be the dominating factor in how we live.  

The agenda of those who are the architects of society is that they do not want disabled people to have excessive time, money and energy on our hands, for fear that we could do something that is a nuisance, and which could interfere with the lives of the good working people.  

Persons with mental illness, due to the huge number of appointments, might want to opt for a weekend job, or some type of independent employment in which the hours are up to oneself. Also, self-employment could be an option, although it is difficult to make this profitable. 

{When I tried self-employment, I structured the companies very simply, with no employees, I worked out of my home, and I set up the businesses to accommodate my disability and my idiosyncrasies. I would be doing something of that sort now had I not chosen to devote my time to writing.}  

The thing to remember is that there is always hope. Despite the restrictions and time suckage to which mentally ill people are subject, we can always try to do something to make our lives better.

Opens May 8 at the Elmwood

Note: Director Jon Pirozzi will be appearing at the 7:15PM screening on Saturday, May 9.

If, like most Americans, you remember Cambodia mostly as a sad land of civil war and mass-genocide, John Pirozzi's award-winning documentary, Don't Think I've Forgotten, will forever change that assessment. Pirozzi has resurrected some surprising history—but it wasn't easy. The task of finding evidence of "life before Pol Pot" was complicated by the Khmer Rouge's campaign to destroy every vestige of the popular culture that flourished before the advent of the Maoist-inspired "revolution."

In addition to killing an estimated 2 million Cambodians (starting with the artists and the intellectuals), Pol Pot did such a good job of eradicating the country's pop music remains that few people in the West would suspect that Cambodia once produced a rock-and-roll generation that included scores of popular singers who recorded scores of cassettes and vinyl albums.

 

 

 

When Pirozzi first decided to tackle this film in 2004, he found there were "no books, no magazine articles, no primary research material. Nothing." He spent ten years tracking down the few musicians and singers who managed to escape Pol Pol's purges. The search took him to four countries where he conducted 75 interviews and amassed 150 hours of recorded memories. 

And here is what Pirozzi's extraordinary research reveals: 

Before the coup that toppled the "popular if erratic" leader Prince Norodom Sihanouk (who used to entertain his people with songs during national broadcasts), Cambodia was one of the hippist and most music-loving countries in all of Asia. 

"We played electric guitars in the countryside and danced barefoot in the dirt," musician Ouk Sam Art remembers. 

Looking at these rare film clips from Cambodia's Sixties is a lot like watching American home movies from the "Summer of Love." Cambodian musicians had started picking up on American music in the early 60s and, by mid-decade, the kids were starting to grow their hair long and had taken to wearing colorful, trippy duds. 

Things really took off after the US war in Vietnam. That's when Cambodian kids started picking up broadcasts of American music wafting over from the 7^th Fleet, floating in the waters of the South China Sea. 

Suddenly, US culture was everywhere in Phnom Penh. "Hippies were from SF," recalls one of the few musicians to have survived Pol Pot's Killing Fields. "We were like hippies. Long hair, beads, having fun!" (One thing must be said: While the local folks quickly mastered rock's musical licks, they never quite managed the dance moves. My guess is they got their ideas watching white people dance on American Bandstand.) 

The local bands started playing the Beatles and the Stones. Santana was huge and local singers were even channeling James Taylor (in English and Khmer). 

Cambodia produced a number of Phnomenal superstars, beginning with Sinn Sisamouth, an older crooner who managed to segue into a new youth-oriented career with an album of Go-Go music. The film also celebrates a number female pop stars with grand voices, including Ros Serey Sothea, Huoy Meas and Pen Ran. 

Unfortunately, US imperial meddling came along and messed it all up. 

Sihanouk had tried to keep his country neutral as US wars raged along his eastern and southern borders. But he fell victim to a coup organized by a military officer, Gen. Lon Nol. The general was soon getting lots of US money and US bombs were not far behind. 

Losing ground in Vietnam, President Nixon sent B-52s to drop bombs on Cambodia. As Nixon's former Ambassador to Cambodia admits in the film: "We did get involved in bombing a neutral country." 

"And suddenly it was all gone," one of the surviving rockers recalls. "They dropped bombs constantly. For 200 days." Cows were killed, homes and people destroyed. "All we knew was it was the Americans who were dropping the bombs and our people were the victims." Estimates are that Nixon's bombs killed at least half a million Cambodians. 

The bombs (as they often do) alienated the people on the ground, driving them into the arms of the Khmer insurgency, which had sworn to defeat the government that had allied itself with the foreign invaders. With China's prodding, Sihanouk joined forces with his former enemies, the Khymer Rouge. 

On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh. Instead of liberation, however, they seized the National Radio and cut off the transmission. Henceforth, every day at 4AM, the National Anthem boomed people from their beds with reminders of "bright red blood" spilled for the Motherland and "the blood of our good workers . . . revolutionary soldiers . . . men and women…." 

Soon, all the beauty of young people resplendent in smiles and colorful clothes was gone, replaced by regiments of grim-faced citizens, all dressed in the same uniforms, wearing Mao caps and giving identical salutes of collective loyalty. School, religion and money were abolished. Nearly everyone was sent into the fields to work as farmers. And all those old cassettes and records were confiscated and burned. Sisamouth was ordered back to capital and told to write patriotic songs. Other musicians were forced to join the army. Ros Serey Sothea was drafted and trained to become a paratrooper. 

"At this time there was a great change in the songs. There were no more loves songs, only nationalistic songs." National Radio ordered a ban on all music from the 60s and, instead, blared tunes with lyrics like: "My friends, don't be afraid to kill. Chase and slaughter; pick up a weapon now." 

People with long hair were threatened with death, or just killed outright. Artists who did survive the initial culling had to hide their faces as they worked in the fields. 

Meas Samon, a singer of popular comic songs was assigned to work on a dam. During a break, he picked up an instrument and started to strum it "just for fun." He was ordered to stop because he was "distracting the workers." The next day, he picked up the instrument again and began to sing. He was abruptly hauled away and was never seen again. 

"They didn't need orders to kill you," one singer recalled. 

A middle-aged woman who had been a singing sensation in her youth, confesses to the camera how she saved her life by telling authorities she had been "a banana seller" before the revolution. 

One haunting section of Pirozzi's film slowly scans photos of young women and men arrested and killed by the Khmer Rouge. (It was uncomfortably reminiscent of the photos of young Chileans murdered after the US-backed coup that replaced Allende's socialist democracy with Pinochet's military dictatorship.) 

Finally, on January 7, 1979, Heng Samrin stormed into Cambodia (backed by Vietnamese troops) to declare himself the country's new leader. It was the beginning of the end of the Khmer Rouge's three-year reign. 

When things settled down, people were invited to return to Phnom Penh and other cities evacuated in 1975. It would turn out that few artists had survived Pol Pot. Sinn Sinamouth, Huoy Meas and Pen Ran were killed. A radical young singer named Yol Aularong left the city with his mother and was never seen again. "He never would have been dictated to," a friend recalls. "He was too independent. The Khmer Rough would have spotted him instantly. 

While the first half of Don't Forget is a quirky and charming film, the last half serves up a bloody slice of historical horror, enacted on a grand scale, with a quarter of Cambodia's population sent to an early grave. 

The film ends on a bright note, however. Cambodia today, is once more a welcoming place for young people. They appear in the closing shots enjoying freedom and urban prosperity, shopping, drinking and dancing. But given the grim history lesson spelled out by Pirozzi's film, it may be difficult to leave the theatre assuming that the Good Life is anything more than an ephemeral moment in a world trending toward disaster.

Susan Lamb Cook, cello, and Gayle Blankenberg, piano--the Cook-Blankenberg Duo--will play four pieces in a program at 8 p. m. Tuesday May 12 at the Berkeley City Club: Beethoven's 1796 Sonata in G minor for Piano and Cello, Opus 5 no. 2; Manuel de Falla's Suite Populaire Espanole, seven folkloric "miniatures" originally for voice and piano; Ross Bauer's Five Pieces for Cello and Piano (2013; Bauer teaches composition at UC Davis) and Rachmaninoff's four movement Sonata in G minor, Opus 19.  

A complimentary wine and cheese reception will follow the concert, which is the final one for BerkeleyChamber Performances' 22nd season. 2315 Durant, near Dana. Tickets: $25. High school students, free; post-high school students: $12.50. 525-5211; berkeleychamberperform.org

Berkeley's Inferno Theatre, which has staged their own productions locally and collaborated with Actors Ensemble for the summer shows in John Hinkle Park in the hills, will stage their second annual Diasporas Festival this weekend, May 8-10, starting tonight (Friday) at 8, continuing afternoons and evenings through Sunday in the historic South Berkeley Community Church, featuring a broad selection of little companies and independent performers working in all manner of physical and gestural theater in the Bay Area. Last year's inaugural festival proved one of the most interesting, diverting weekends in Bay Area theater. 

Participating companies and performers include the Deborah Slater Dance Theater, the Black Cat Shadow Theater, the Five Deadly Improvisers (who improvise a Kung Fu movie from audience suggestions), Rudradeep Chakrabarti, Blue Monkey Works, Phil Freihofner, Julia Ellis, Jubilith Moore (former artistic director of Theatre of Yugen) with Ryan Hill--and more ... 

Plus two filmmakers, Scott Heath and Eli Zaturianski, as well as two afternoon performance labs led by Stephen Golux which introduce participants to Inferno Theatre's mode of experimentation and First Blush, a Tango Primer, led by Robert Fields and Susan Walters. (Inferno will also present portions of a work in progress, Quantum Love, written and directed by Inferno founder Giulio Cesare Perrone. 

Friday, 8 p. m.; Saturday and Sunday, 7 p. m. at 1802 Fairview (near Adeline and Ashby BART). $20 (some sliding scale tickets at door). www.infernotheatre.org

Over the weekend of May 1-3, Opera Parallèle offered four performances at San Francisco’s Z Space of Tarik O’Regan’s Heart of Darkness, which premiered in 2011 at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Based on the novella by Joseph Conrad, this opera, like its source, explores the inner darkness at the heart of western man, especially when he is confronted, as in Central Africa, with another realm of darkness, namely, the teeming life of the jungle and its natives. Around this set of issues, composer Tarik O’Regan weaves a florid orchestral score, dominated by piano, celesta, harpsichord, organ, harp, and both an acoustic guitar and an electric bass guitar.  

In this Opera Parallèle production, the looming presence of the jungle is emphasized through color video projections of abstract swirling greens and yellows, based on illustrations by Matt Kish, as well as through dozens of imitation ivory tusks which line the theatre’s passageway into the auditorium and are piled up onstage or held aloft by the portion of the audience who are seated onstage. (Were these latter really audience members, and if so, why were they seated onstage; or were they choristers? In the darkness surrounding this production of Heart of Darkness, it was impossible to tell.) 

After a brief orchestral prelude led by conductor Nicole Paiement, the opera gets under way with Marlow aboard a boat anchored on the Thames in London. He begins to recount his adventures of many years earlier when he led an expedition on one of Central Africa’s great rivers (presumably, the Congo). The opera’s narrative shifts back and forth between these two time-periods in its opening minutes. Meanwhile, the only ‘action’ is the random taking off and putting on of Marlow’s long coat, which happens repeatedly. Why this is done is not at all clear. One would have to ask director Brian Staufenbiel; and I’m not sure he could give a satisfactory answer. Marlow is sung by tenor Isaiah Bell, who, at the outset, is asked to sing the words “A remarkable man” over and over, obsessively. That Marlow is referring to Kurtz becomes clear when Kurtz’s fiancée, sung by soprano Heidi Moss, begins a conversation with Marlow, the outcome of which only becomes clear at the end of this one-act opera. Following his brief, truncated conversation with Kurtz’s fiancée, Marlow resumes his reminiscences in speaking with the captain of the Thames boat, sung by tenor Daniel Cilli. Before embarking on his expedition to Central Africa, Marlow receives instructions from a secretary, sung by tenor Jonathan Smucker, and undergoes a perfunctory medical examination, which concludes with a warning from the doctor, sung by baritone Aleksey Bogdanov, that tropical heat can induce strange mental disorders.  

In Africa, Captain Marlow arrives at the Downriver Station where an accountant, sung by Michael Belle, mentions Kurtz in enigmatic terms. Next Marlow proceeds upriver to the Central Trading Station, where he learns a bit more about Kurtz, who is rumored to be on the brink of a mental breakdown. A Company Manager, sung by tenor Jonatham Smucker, joins Marlow for the final voyage upriver to Kurtz’s Inner Station. Meanwhile, however, Marlow and a boilermaker, sung by baritone Aleksey Bogdanov, await the arrival of a load of rivets needed to repair their boat. The rivets finally arrive, and the expedition proceeds upriver. Now the video projections include numerous eyes peering out from the thick jungle foliage along the banks of the great river. Suddenly, masks resembling African ritual objects appear amid the foliage; and soon arrows (laser- like bolts of light) fly across the stage backdrop. Marlow and his boat are attacked by unseen natives. Unlike in Conrad’s novella, no one here is killed or injured. 

A blast from the steamboat’s whistle causes the natives to flee in fear, and Marlow arrives at Kurtz’s Inner Station. The Manager hastily brings onboard Kurtz’s enormous hoard of ivory tusks. At last Kurtz, sung by bass-baritone Philip Skinner, appears, gaunt, ill, and crawling on all fours. He silently gives Marlow a letter, then sings the words, “I am glad” over and over, obsessively. A mysterious River Woman, sung by soprano Shawnette Sulker, sings a haunting, wailing lament. Video projections suggest she represents either a female fertility figure of the natives or a hyper-sexualized projection of Kurtz’s notions about the dark female fecundity of African women. Or perhaps both. 

At the Inner Station, alongside Kurtz is a European adventurer identified here as Harlequin, although in the Conrad novella he is called the Russian. Sung by tenor Thomas Glenn, Harlequin sings of his admiration and awe for the remarkable Kurtz, whom he has nursed through several serious bouts of illness. Harlequin also tells of Kurtz’s frequent mysterious disappearances into the interior, of his use of firepower and strange rites to appear before the natives as a godlike figure, and of his return to the Inner Station with huge loads of ivory. Kurtz himself deliriously rambles about his imperious plans to rule forever in this fiefdom he has carved out of the jungle. He dies muttering the famous words, “The horror! The horror!”  

The narrative now shifts back to London and the conversation between Marlow and Kurtz’s fiancée. Once again, it is stated that Kurtz was “a remarkable man.” Marlow gives her the letter entrusted to him by Kurtz. After reading the letter, Kurtz’s fiancée asks what were his final words. Marlow, unable to tell her the truth, says Kurtz’s last words were of her. She says, “I knew it,” and departs happy. Once more aboard the Thames boat, Marlow reflects on the “vast grave of unspeak-able secrets” in which he feels “buried.” Ultimately, he sings, “We live, as we dream, alone.”  

In the demanding role of Marlow, tenor Isaiah Bell was excellent. His character is onstage almost throughout the entire one-act opera; and as in Conrad’s novella, Marlow is the central figure, for what little information we get about the mysterious figure of Kurtz is processed through Marlow’s psyche. As for Kurtz’s “unspeakable rites,” about which so much literary criticism has speculated, they are here only hinted at enigmatically. On the question of Conrad’s depiction of the native Africans, Tarik O’Regan’s opera offers nothing, for, with one exception, we never encounter native Africans, who are depicted as mere eyes peering out of the jungle. The single exception is the mysterious River Woman, who is depicted in a video projection as a hyper-sexualized fertility fetish. Her wailing lament could be taken as either personal grief at her imminent loss of a sexual partner in Kurtz, or as the embodiment of her people’s grief at the imminent loss of a man, Kurtz, they believe is a god who is responsible for maintaining their prosperity. If one wishes to know why a great African writer considered Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness to be eminently racist, read Chinua Achebe’s powerful essay on this subject in his other-wise uneven book of essays, Hopes and Impediments.