According to reports in the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, at 9:30 tonight , the Coastal Commission by a vote of 7-5 fired Executive Director Charles Lester, despite receiving more than 14,000 letters supporting him and hearing from hundreds of environmentalists at the Commission's meeting today in Morro Bay. -more-

Some people (OK, some older, white Republican men) have been complaining that Beyonce "injected politics into a sports event." (Actually the message seemed to be less about politics and more about social repression, government indifference and in-your-face racial pride. Consider the lyrics: "I like my baby hair, with baby hair and Afros. I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils.") -more-

Jeb Bush, in a recent Republican debate, asserted that the President should not rule out a "preemptive first strike" by the US, clearly indicating that nuclear weapons would be involved, and that we would bomb a country if our intelligence told us an attack by such country was imminent. What intelligence? The intelligence that told us Iraq had WMD's? All I can say is, we are fortunate that Jeb's chances of winning are close to nil. -more-

An evening of melodious music by Franz Schubert, including his famous Trout Quintet and an early string trio. Featuring guest star Kay Stern, concertmaster of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, pianist Frank Levy and a team of SFCO All-Stars including Robert Howard, Michel Taddei, and Ben Simon. -more-

First, let’s get this out of the way: I voted for Eldridge Cleaver for President, in, what was it, 1968?

That was when I was living in Ann Arbor, and had been hard at work for at least 4 years trying to end the war in Vietnam.

I was one of the many who worked to dump Lyndon Johnson for being a despicable war-monger, and we were gleeful when he announced that he wouldn’t run again.

I also, however, despised Hubert Humphrey for being a war-monger, which he was, like many good Democratic liberals in those days, though I also despised Nixon for that reason and many others.

I wasn’t properly conscious of what Johnson had accomplished for civil rights. (What have you done for me lately?)

In those days Michigan, thanks to a powerful United Auto Workers union, was a reliably Democratic state, and the polls predicted that Humphrey would take its electoral votes, so I knew my vote for Peace and Freedom candidate Cleaver was a safe protest.

But as it happened in later years, the dashing Mr. Cleaver turned out even worse than either Humphrey or Nixon—at least neither of them became a conservative Republican or even a Mormon.

After that I was one of the early organizers of the Michigan campaign for Shirley Chisholm, running in the Democratic primary against George McGovern in 1972 as both the first woman and the first African-American to be a candidate for a major party nomination. I though he was a wuss, and she was a heroine with powerful appeal to both my feminist and my civil rights activist instincts.

We did a respectable job in that race, getting 5% of the primary vote statewide ( more in Ann Arbor), and she never did anything later to embarrass us. I was proud of her then and I’m proud of her now.

The next year I worked on the campaign of Ann Arbor mayoral candidate Benita Kaimowitz, the standard-bearer for the newly-minted Human Rights Party, a left alternative to the Democrats and Republicans, who also got about 5% of the vote. The HRP eventually had a fair amount of success in Michigan electoral offices and changed its name to Socialist, but by that time I’d moved to Berkeley, where every candidate claimed to be an authentic progressive, and I lost interest in electoral politics. I could no longer be a five-percenter.

I only rejoined the fray when “progressive” elected officials promoted a ballot measure criminalizing spare-changing by homeless people, an outrageous violation of the First Amendment. We stopped that one in court, but I decided it was time to pay attention to what the progressive label had become.

I recite all of these tedious creds to prove that my reluctance to jump on the Bernie bandwagon is not because I’m afraid to stick my neck out. -more-

I want you to imagine eight years from now: -more-

You feel sorry for the Police Review Commission. They discuss police policy while sitting in the same room with the police—who wear guns. They sit behind their name tags so there’s no hiding place at the Police Review Commission (PRC) meetings; people enter the room and realize their beat cop, who is sitting right there, doesn’t enjoy hearing his or her behavior criticized and might remember a complainant's name.

So it’s perhaps no wonder the PRC discovered they had a lot of agreement with the Berkeley Police Department’s (BPD) own assessment of the police response to the Black Lives Matter march on December 6, 2014. What many saw as a police riot was acknowledged by both the PRC and BPD as a carnival of idiocy.

Marchers were beaten, shot with beanbags, and gassed for failing to disperse in places where they couldn’t disperse thanks to being blocked on all sides by police. Orders to disperse from one location were somehow supposed to magically apply to locations blocks away with entirely different groups of people. The very few incidents of vandalism and violence were allowed to proceed unhindered by the police while people trying to non-violently express opposition to police misconduct were obstructed and even injured. Press officers were injured. Religious leaders were injured. People trying to help the injured were injured. -more-

We talk up our American values.

In theory, we may not be prejudiced against people of color, but in our everyday life we seem to like only our own race or color. I am fed up reading silly comments about President Obama and his policy decisions. The Republicans hate him because he is black in color and has the Presidential power to veto bills. -more-

We cannot allow landlords and developers to change the character of Berkeley by raising rents and building market-rate only housing.

Many, probably most, kids who grow up in Berkeley cannot, as adults, afford to live in their hometown. This is unacceptable—they are the victims of unregulated capitalism and Berkeley needs to start regulating windfall profits.

We CAN deal with this urgent problem. -more-

Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations (UNSG), in an ‘op ed’ in the New York Times, vented his frustration at Israel’s messianic zeal to displace more Palestinians, demolish their homes and build more and more settlements. Palestinians are living in appalling segregated conditions increasingly reminiscent of White apartheid South Africa. -more-

Out of the chaos of the Republican race emerged a probable centrist candidate. No, not Cruz and certainly not the loud, egotistical, bombastic bully, Donald Trump. The disaffected Republicans seem to have coalesced around Marco Rubio who adroitly wrapped himself in the mantle of God and the Bible thrilling the evangelicals which is altogether perplexing because none of the candidates have expressed concerns for the poor, a central theme of Jesus’s teaching. On the plus side Rubio is young, energetic, photogenic, highly articulate and Latino. Furthermore, Rubio polls well against the putative, Hillary Clinton. -more-

Today, the Department of Labor announced that unemployment had fallen to 4.9 percent and 151,000 U.S. jobs were added in January. This growth marks the 71st consecutive month of private sector job growth. -more-

In this article Bob Burnett writes that George W. Bush beat Al Gore in "1992" because he was more likable than Gore. Although I am not certain that is why George W. beat Gore—it may have been related to the U.S. Supreme Court awarding the presidency to Bush even though Gore won more votes—I am quite certain George W. and Al Gore ran against one another in 2000. -more-

I.

Enough ale the color of

Leaded water in Flint to

Flood the Lower Ninth Ward -more-

Self-affinity, in which we feel comfortable within our own skin, and in which we value and appreciate ourselves, can be hard to achieve. I am not entirely there yet. -more-

“They sent forth men to battle.

But no such men return;

And home, to claim their

welcome.

Comes ashes in an urn.”

Ode from “Agamemnon”, in the Greek tragedy The Oresteia by Aeschylus

Aeschylus—who had actually fought at Marathon in 490 BC, the battle that defeated the first Persian invasion of Greece—had few illusions about the consequences of war. His ode is one that the candidates for the U.S. presidency might consider, though one doubts that many of them would think to find wisdom in a 2,500 year-old Greek play.

And that, in itself, is a tragedy.

Historical blindness has been much on display in the run-up to the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. On the Republican side candidates were going to “kick ass” in Iraq, make the “sand glow” in Syria, and face down the Russians in Europe. But while the Democratic aspirants were more measured, there is a pervasive ideology than binds together all but cranks like Ron Paul: America has the right, indeed, the duty to order the world’s affairs. -more-

It’s Super Bowl week on the Left Coast but the number one topic of conversation is not the Broncos or the Panthers, it’s Hillary versus Bernie. That’s a big change from three months ago, when we talked about the Warriors and the awfulness of Donald Trump. But now we have a real contest for the Democratic nomination. -more-

With all the hoopla surrounding Super Bowl 50, news that the late Kenny Stabler suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), shines light on the health dangers of playing American football. -more-

A team of Bay Area filmmakers has produced a gripping animated tale of human courage and loss that has garnered a great deal of praise—including awards at 15 international film festivals and an Oscar nomination (Best Documentary Short) from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

Last Day of Freedom is a 31-minute animated collaboration by British-born UC Santa Cruz art professor Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman, a freelance editor and animator born in Israel.

Last Day of Freedom offers an unusual and visually arresting film experience. Using the simplest of pen lines (covering more than 32,000 hand-drawn frames) the filmmakers sketch their story with faultless economy and surprising depth.

Anyone who is a fan of the Moth Radio Hour and National Public Radio's StoryCorps will relish this film.
-more-

This coming Saturday night the Verismo Opera company brings its performance of Verdi’s Otello to the intimate performance space of the Hillside Club in Berkeley, with Fred Winthrop as Otello, Eliza O'Malley as Desdemona and Michael Moran conducting. -more-

Berkeley Symphony’s Music Director Joana Carneiro was unable to conduct this program due to illness, so Tito Muñoz, Music Director of The Phoenix Symphony, was called in to replace her at the last minute. Muñoz arrived in time to conduct the first rehearsal on Tuesday, and the performance itself took place Thursday evening in Zellerbach Hall. Featured on the program were Witold Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra (1954) and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, “Emperor,” with Conrad Tao as soloist. -more-