Columnists

On November 4th, after it became apparent that Donald Trump had lost the 2020 presidential election, I suspected that he would not be a gracious loser. Therefore, I haven't been surprised that Trump has taken the position that the election was "stolen" by Joe Biden. What has shocked me is that Donald has stopped doing his day job. In the midst of four crises, Trump has abandoned any semblance of operating as President of the United States. -more-

The lives of most mentally ill people are not filled with glitz and glamor, nor do we live lives of ease and abundance. This is unless we have one or more benefactors in the family willing to shower wealth on us.

Unfortunately, many persons with mental illness fall through the cracks of a broken treatment system, they may become incarcerated or homeless, and/or they could die prematurely from any of numerous causes. This has become normalized, and it should not be normalized.

Persons with mental illness have a shortened expectancy due to the health risks of psychiatric treatment. Some have shorter lives due to poor self-care, and some fall prey to suicide. Thus, a long, happy, and healthy life is often the exception and not the rule.

The above describes the reality that mentally ill people have it hard enough. When disabled and accepting treatment, many of us can not perform well enough at a job to last at one. The expectations of a job are often too steep. It is harder for us to show up for work every day than it is for someone who does not have the limitations of a disability and of mind-restricting drugs.

The expectation that we should be employed should be non-applicable for many of us--those of us whose cases are severe enough that we must be heavily medicated. Yet, if we are capable of employment, we should be encouraged in this. It is a fine line between trying to be encouraging, versus applying undue pressure. -more-

Using a blizzard of misleading appeals to his gullible supporters about the integrity of the election, Trump has raised roughly $250 million since Election Day. The contributions from thousands of duped donors across the country are deposited into several accounts, including Save America, which is loosely regulated and could be used to personally benefit the president after he leaves the White House.

More than $60 million of that sum has gone to a new political action committee, which Mr. Trump will control after he leaves office. This is about as much money as he spent to win his party’s presidential nomination in 2016.

Email and text solicitations have also solicited Trump supporters to give to a “Georgia Election Fund,” even though no funds go directly to either GOP Senator David Perdue or GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler. Instead, the fine print shows 75% of the donations to the Georgia fund go to Mr. Trump’s Save America PAC, with 25% to the Republican National Committee.

Who knew that losing an election would be so lucrative? Clearly, our shameless grifter-in-chief knew. -more-

A Glow of Hope in a Dark Time

During a weekly visit to the Chavez-Huerta Memorial—perched atop a summit at the Berkeley Marina—Santiago Casal found a votive candle left in front of the site's iconic "HOPE" stone.

A hand-written message taped to the outside of the container read: "For those who have lost, are suffering, and in memory of 300,000 people who died of covid-19. We remember you. Love."

Have an Xfinity Xmas

For the holidays, Xfinity has hired Steve Carrell to play an "overbearing, stress-eating, stay-at-home Santa" in a TV ad called "The Greatest Gift." In the video, Santa's elves save the day by filling empty gift boxes with "The Little Things" that count — "the smell of grandma's cooking," "grandpa's same old stories," and "family snowball fights."

But Xfinity's radio spots are not so jolly. They begin by conjuring familiar images of families gathering to share holiday memories but then listeners are warned that they'd better be prepared to increase their Internet speeds so that everyone can watch the day's football broadcasts and download their favorite holiday movie classics. And, of course, if your extended family includes children "who are gamers," make sure to expand your bandwidth so the young ones can go online and gun down avatars "to their hearts' content."

What a strange, isolating message: Gather everyone together under one roof so that each individual can feed their addiction to computer games, sports events, and social messaging. Not a word was heard about sharing thoughts in actual human conversation. Instead, the holiday becomes a hollow day with everyone in the family masking themselves behind glowing screens while practicing "anti-social distancing."

Karmic Strips

Covid-19 seems to be everywhere these days—except in the nation's comic strips.

Peanuts and the weekly Doonesbury strips can be excused—they're re-runs. But most panels still feature lots of unmasked characters crammed inside lots of tiny, crowded panels. So, here's a salute to the few who have set a good example. In recent weeks, masks have popped up in the panels of Foxtrot, Lio, and Candorville.

Politics in Strange Places

A special elbow bump goes out to Darrin Bell's Candorville comic strip for daring to wade into the turbulent waters of post-election politics. -more-

The week of December 13 City meetings started with the Council Budget and Finance Committee review of financial reports and Mayor Arreguin’s proposed annual appropriations, which include a $5 million additional allocation to the Police Department overtime budget. Hearing about this figure, I couldn’t stop thinking about the incident I wrote about last week, seeing 10 uniformed officers, 5 patrol cars and 5 meter-maid traffic vehicles all hanging out at McGee and Hearst with an empty dented meter-maid vehicle by the light post. I wondered: Is there nothing else to do in a city of over 100,000? My walk partner said it out loud.

Councilmember Kate Harrison suggested an allocation of $2.5 million and holding $1 million in reserve pending review of police overtime staffing at the end of the next quarter. The final proposal passed at Council on Tuesday evening was $3.5 million to police overtime and $1 million in reserve, as submitted by Teresa Berkeley-Simmons, Budget Manager.

This week was a lesson in how just a couple of words can dramatically change accountability, both as regards policing policy and to remove protections to preserve manufacturing space in West Berkeley.

Police Chief Greenwood sought an amendment to the Use of Force Policy passed by City Council on July 23, 2020, inserting the words “strive to” so the Use of Force Standard would read, “…officers shall strive to use the minimum amount of force…” The Police Review Commission (PRC) had rejected this insertion, determining it would water down the use of force policy to a semblance of effort, making it difficult to hold a police officer accountable for excessive use of force.

On Tuesday evening, after much discussion that pushed the Council meeting until 12:30 a.m., the final solution adopted by Council to 300.1.2 Use of Force Standard substituted “a” for “the” and added “within a range” in the definition of “minimal” amount of force. The final wording, “…In all cases where physical force is used, officers shall use a minimum amount of force…”

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At the Planning Commission on Wednesday evening, Item 10, Business Support Zoning Amendment Referrals-Research and Development, did not look like much, a change of adding a word here and there, expanding the definition of what qualified as Research and Development, until Rick Auerbach, a longtime activist on behalf of West Berkeley’s artists and industries, spoke about the West Berkeley Plan. -more-