Public Comment

San Francisco Chronicle reporter Joe Garofoli recently published an article with the disturbing headline: "Survey Finds Half of Americans Expect a Civil War." According to Garofoli, "A study asked Americans if they could support political violence. Half said they think a civil war is coming."

I passed the article on to David Swanson, executive director of World BEYOND War. He replied by noting there is "no such thing as a 'civil' war" and offered three other examples of contradictory phrases. To wit: "Army Intelligence says bring your Diet Coke and some Lethal Aid."

I responded by musing whether there might be a word for such self-contradictory phrases. Idionyms? Stuponyms? Contradictoryms?

Swanson's reply reminded me that a term for such internally contradictory phrases already exists: "oxy Morons." 

Fashion Plates 

Seen on the streets. 

Grey Volvo: IMANTON (Hi, Anton!) 

Red Nissan Frontier: 8B80800 (Eleven Circles?) 

Silver Torrent: AIR H2O (Only the essentials) 

Black Jeep: MALNTNT (Caution advised: Cops might be drawn to a vehicle being driven by someone with the nickname "Mal Intent") 

Filmmaker and Art Car Honcho Harold Blank's Prius can be seen around town festooned with hand-painted images of storks, robins, crows, owls, and parrots. Not surprising that the car's plate reads: FORBRDS. 

Rally 'Round People's Park 

The going-on-53-year struggle to preserve the legacy and landscape of People’s Park is reaching a peak. The team of volunteers working to protect the Park through legal challenges has won a court order that prohibits UC Berkeley from fencing off the park and constructing high-rise apartment buildings on the site. 

According to the Park's defenders, on July 29, a "very formidable team of lawyers" will call for invalidating UCB's Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for Housing Project #2. A legal win on July 29 would block UCB's construction plans and require a new EIR. This could convince UCB to abandon its plans for the Park and pursue building student housing on alternative sites. 

"We’ve held off UC’s insatiable land grabbing," the Park's defenders state. "Preserving People’s Park is now much more than a distant possibility—if we can pay our lawyers!" 

The activists defending People's Park currently owe their legal team $79,000! "Our history, our park, our open green space are invaluable," they note. With all that in mind, here is a link for making donations. And, some rare good news: "All donations are tax-deductible and would be returned if our case is won." 

People's Park Sparks a Quirky Documentary 

On July 21, Senor Gigio posted a new documentary about People's Park on his YouTube channel. Here's the trailer for "Random Acts of Nonconformity." 

And here is a link to Gigio's complete hour-long video happening. 

Not Up-in-Arms, Today's Democrats Are Up For Arms 

In response to the recent rancor over Pentagon spending, Massachusetts Peace Action (MAPA) offered some useful stats in a war-budget meme: 

Congress approved a $839 billion Pentagon FY 2023 budget on a 329-101 vote. That marked a $67 billion increase over 2022—and included $37 billion more than President Joe Biden asked for. That increase alone is greater than the entire budget to address climate change ($44.9 billion). 

180 Democrats voted for bloat—blatantly ignoring the party's platform promise to cut military spending. Instead of being up-in-arms over arms spending, only 39 Dems had the courage to vote against pandering to the Pentagon. More than four times that number of Dems (180) voted for the handout. On the other side of the aisle, 145 Republicans voted for the hike while 54 GOPers voted against. 

"There's something seriously wrong with both major political parties," MAPA noted. "We live in a rich country with crumbling infrastructure, no universal healthcare, lackluster education, climate catastrophe, and food insecurity. This is why." 

Pentagon Gets Billions While Veterans Depend on Charity? 

The Wounded Warrior Project proclaims its motto is: "We never leave a wounded warrior behind. Ever." WWP clams to have spent $1 billion to help 1 million of "our nation's most severely wounded veterans." But it just occurred to me that WWP and its motto would only need to exist if the Pentagon and the Armed Forces have failed in their duty to secure the return America's wounded soldiers. You'd think, if the Pentagon were doing its job, there would be no need for a civilian charity to oversee a fund-raising operation to safeguard the country's battle-scared vets. Why is it the Pentagon (with a pending record-sized $839 billion budget) can't afford to care for its own sick, wounded, and missing? 

When Provocation Becomes a National Vocation 

The script for ABC News anchor Whit Johnson's report that the Pentagon was considering sending US-made fighter jets to Ukraine was worrisome in its ambivalence. Johnson told viewers the escalation "would be seen as a further provocation by Russia." Russian leader Putin has warned that sending US jets could be seen as an attempt to create a "no-fly zone" in Ukraine. Such an escalation, Russia has warned, could be answered by a direct attack on US targets—attacks that could potentially escalate to include nuclear weapons. 

The critical message should have been that Russia had warned Washington against this escalation. Instead of facing the terrifying possibility that the US was risking a nuclear war with Russia, many listeners just heard the phrase "a further provocation by Russia." 

Whether by clumsiness or design, these words could have enforced the idea that the only provocateur in this confrontation was a guy named Putin in a place named Moscow. 

More Provocations 

The questions of "provocation" revolving around the Russia-Ukraine conflict have divided the anti-war community. Critics who blame NATO and the US for provoking Putin—by encroaching on Russia's borders, inviting former Soviet states to join NATO, staging destabilizing military exercises and installing nuclear weapons in Belgium, German, Italy, The Netherlands, and Turkey—have been criticized for being "pro-Russian." The fact is, even though Putin was intentionally provoked, his "special military operation" still constitutes an act of aggression under international law. 

American linguist, philosopher, and social critic Noam Chomsky notes that, while it is "de rigueur" to condemn Putin’s criminal aggression as an “unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” there appears to be a double-standard at work—one that ignores US history. While a Google search for "unprovoked invasion of Ukraine" finds “about 2,430,000 results” tagged to Russia's Ukraine intrusion, a similar search for Washington's “unprovoked invasion of Iraq” yields only “about 11,700 results.” 

We Don't Like IKE 

IKE Smart City electronic billboards (now being installed on sidewalks across town) look like oversized, eight-foot-tall Smartphones. According to volunteer neighborhood Kiosk Kops, nine of 26 planned kiosks have been installed so far—including three on Telegraph and five on Shattuck. I recently checked out the one in Berkeley's Lorin District—on the Northwest corner of Alcatraz and Adeline. 

The door-sized screen was slow to respond to finger pokes. I had to resort to palm slaps and, eventually, knuckle-punches. Checking the entertainment options (which included Berkeley Rep, Freight and Salvage, and BAMPFA) I was given only short, boilerplate descriptions. There was no information on who would be performing, when they would be performing, or how much tickets would cost. 

Most of the destinations were downtown locations requiring a 1-2 mile walk from this South Berkeley kiosk. (Not much appeared to be happening in the Lorin neighborhood.) The kiosk presented a map that showed how to walk to each destination. But, if you get lost, you're out of luck: IKE's kiosks don't give you a print-out of a map you can carry. 

Of course, if you have a smartphone, you really don't need a printed map. Nor do you need a kiosk. The only thing IKE provides on its screens that you can't get on your personal phone is the paid ads from big-budget corporate advertisers like Amazon, Twitter and H&M. That's the main reason the kiosks exist: to impose unwanted, distracting digital ads on passing pedestrians. 

But there's a second, more worrisome issue: privacy. These kiosks are designed to track and record personal information from passing cell phones, information that can be "monetized by IKE." (An IKE representative has admitted the kiosks include Wi-fi systems that "ping" on passing electronic devices but insists: "We don't store data. We don't sell data.") 

IKE's plans to include TV surveillance cameras, to capture videos of each and every passing cellphone owner, were scotched by Councilmember Sophie Hahn who objected to the hidden camera option. Under the franchise agreement with IKE, the cameras will remain but they will be "turned off." Hahn is also opposing the installation of these sidewalk-blocking kiosks in Berkeley's Solano and North Shattuck shopping corridors. 

Sign the Petition To Save Chavez Park 

A consultant hired by the city to create a Berkeley Marina Area Specific Plan (BMASP) has come up with a pro-development horror-show that would wreak havoc on the Berkeley Marina. 

The proposed Disneyfication of Berkeley's prized waterfront nature areas calls for the destruction of the park's vast Native Plants Area, dictates the removal and paving of the much-loved Adventure Playground, and the construction of a massive "events pavilion"—a huge clamshell outdoor concert venue for swarming rockband crowds to replace the large open spaces that currently invite long walks and inspiring views from Chavez Park. 

The city's Parks, Recreation, and Waterfront Commission was inundated with letters, calls, and emails from park-lovers scandalized by the prospect that the open roaming spaces linking the hills and gullies of Chavez Park could be demolished in an act of desecration masquerading as an "improvement." 

Fortunately, the PRW Commission responded with a unanimous NO and the recommendation now heads to the City Council, the Mayor, and the City Manager. 

Meanwhile, a group of park lovers has created a petition to preserve these natural spaces, explaining: "We still need to put the pressure on to save Cesar Chavez Park as open space with native plantings that contribute to a healthy ecosystem which is enjoyed by birds and wildlife and hundreds of people." 

ACTION: Please sign the petition here, and encourage others to sign on. 

For more information about the proposals, read “Let’s Stop the Plan that Would Destroy Our Park.” And for a collection of letters and reports in opposition to the BMASP plans, click here.  

A Chilean Protest Song that Became a Feminist Anthem