Columnists

The year 2016 is the 100^th anniversary of the Irish Easter Rebellion. Throughout the year I will try to revisit some of the lessons of Ireland’s struggle for freedom.

---

Bombs explode in a subway. The victims are everyday people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. What follows is outrage: track down the perpetuators. The people who set off the bombs are monsters and inhuman fanatics, thunder the authorities.

But the year is not 2016, it is 1883 during the “Dynamite War” waged by mainly Irish-American members of the Fenians against the English occupation of Ireland. The Fenian Brotherhood was founded in 1848. The “War” targeted the underground, train stations, city halls, public plazas, and factories in London, Manchester, and Liverpool. The war spanned four years, and in the light of the current terrorist attacks in the Middle East and Europe, it is an instructive comparison. -more-

The public gets dismissive events and sandbox games -- instead of serious discussions that allow meaningful input from the communities impacted by land-use decisions.

---

Tomorrow evening (Wed/30) the [San Francisco] Planning Department will hold a “Community Discussion” of the Railyard Alternatives and I-280 Feasibility Study (RAB) at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House. This is a re-do of the February 23 at the Potrero Hill Recreation Center, where an overflow crowd of more than 200 could not be fully accommodated.

The infrastructural changes under consideration, including a proposal to take down I-280 and re-route the former freeway traffic on a boulevard through the neighborhoods, are massive and controversial. What’s also controversial, but has received far less attention, is the Planning Department’s approach to public engagement. -more-

We can change our attitude, we can change our behavior, and we can change our mood, if we learn how to switch to different thoughts--by intent.

Intentionally changing the content of thoughts can be very powerful. Thoughts determine the meaning assigned to events and emotions. Thoughts are the "software" in our minds, are responsible for who we might think we are, what we think we can accomplish, our agenda in a given moment, and a multitude of other things. -more-

[Bob will be back. He writes: "I went to Disneyland!:). PS: I didn't see Donald Trump but I did see Goofy.] -more-