Public Comment

The Berkeley Art Center in Live Oak Park has a new piece of art on display but it's not inside the building's art gallery—it's outside, on the fence overlooking the site. Somehow, a couple of months ago, the long wooden fence alongside a paved walking path was painted over with a long graffiti-art banner-statement bracketed by the image of two wild-looking squirrels squinting happily, paws filled with acorns.

The sassiest-looking of the two rodents—on the eastern end of the artwork—clutches a prized nut and sports a wild smirk. In a nice, painterly touch, the squirrel's two buckteeth are aligned on two parallel wooden fence planks leaving a space between the critter's front teeth that could be flossed by a Number 2 pencil.

According to Google, "Man One Art" the painting's perpetrator, is an LA-based artist "who has been involved with the graffiti art movement since 1987. His artwork has been exhibited in major museums around the world and his murals and street art can be seen in many cities around the globe." That global list now includes Berkeley.

Let's Start a Conspiracy Theory 

Exxon and its petro-pals knew carbon pollution was warming the planet but they covered up their crimes for decades. So we know that corporate conspiracies exist. 

So how about the companies that make pain pills, flu shots, and COVID vaccines? They profit off illness. The sicker a society is, the more profits these companies make. Could it be that the firms whose labs cook up the annual vaccines for the newest variants of "seasonal flu" might actually be covertly spreading the virus among the public in order to profit off the yearly "cure"? 

That's one conspiracy. Now how about the fentanyl frenzy? 

The prevailing narrative makes no sense. We're warned that fentanyl is being manufactured to look like colored candy to attract children. But the drug kills kids that innocently pop the pills so how do the fentanyl pushers profit? 

Kids are not winding up with costly addictions: they're winding up dead. Kids munch one pill and die. Where's the long-term market strength in that kind of merchandising plan? 

The one thing the "fentanyl-for-kids" scenario does is create widespread fear that any innocent child could be killed without knowing about random and spreading dangers. This doesn't create a growing market of young users. It creates a dying landscape of victims and a growing market for frightened parents and teachers whose only recourse is to buy copious stockpiles of Narcan (Naloxone) nasal spray. 

Here's the conspiracy meme for the moment: Could it be that the Narcon makers are working in cahoots with Mexican drug cartels who are tricking out killer opiods to look like candy? It's conspiracy gold: Mexican drug cartels are intentionally poisoning children to create a panic-driven market for Narcan. 

Turns out there is only one company that manufactures Narcan—Amphaster Pharmaceuticals. Seven years ago, this Massachusetts-based company was selling its Narcan kits for $22 each. Today, these same kits are selling for $42 owing to "increased demand." 

Conspiracy Theory Option Two: If you don't like the Mexican drug cartel scenario, you might want to substitute the home-baked thugs behind Massachusetts' Winter Hill Gang which, according to Google, "was considered the top Irish Mob syndicate on the East Coast. Many considered them to be more threatening than the Boston faction of the mafia." 

The Chronicle's Chronic Gaffs 

The SF Chronicle is shrinking in our hands. The traditional four sections—World and National News, Bay Area News, Entertainment, and Sports—are now reduced to a slim, two-section format. The editorial oversight is also slipping. Some recent dings follow. 

• A front-page report on a locally staged computergame Superbowl continually referred to the e-sport phenomena as an "esport." 

• A column by sports-chronicler Scott Ostler recently dissed the corruption behind the decision to hold soccer's World Cup in the authoritarian nation of Qatar. Ostler started the column by coining the word "sportswashing." The term—an echo of Big Oil's corporate "greenwashing"—subsequently appeared in the story with the hyphen misplaced, thereby minting a new coined word: "sport-swashing." 

• In the Chron's November 2 edition, the first sentence in the first story at very top of the front page contained a grievous error. It read: "David DePape, the suspect accused in the wildly politicized hammer attack of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi…." 

Describing the violence as "the attack of Pelosi," not "the attack on Pelosi," made it look like Mr. Pelosi was the aggressor. 

• And then there was this monumental flub: In the November 5 edition, the daily comics two-page spread was entirely missing—from Blondie to Zits. The Sunday issue carried a correction that pages B11 and B12 were missing due to a "technical error" and could be found online on the Chron's webpage. But a check of the paper's online "Corrections" page found that the last (and most recent) entry was posted on August 31, 2021. 

Fashion Plates 

Range Rover: DOGGONE ("Yes: my missing dog is also named Rover") 

Honda: 8KCAO58 (Ate Cacao: It's my "FiverAte" snack?) 

Honda: BYLIGHT ("Watch me highlight it through the next orange light"?) 

Bumper Snickers 

"If Abortion Is Murder Is Masturbation Genocide?" 

"Witches Parking: All Others Will Be Toad." 

"If You Cut Off My Reproductive Choice, Can I Cut Off Yours?" 

"If Your Vote Didn't Count, They Wouldn't Work So Hard to Take It Away." 

Worth Remembering 

Armistice/Remembrance/Memorial/Veterans Day started out as an event intended to commemorate the peace treaty that put an end to World War 1. Following the Korean War, the US renamed the holiday "Veterans Day." But it isn't a date to honor all vets. The fact that members of Veterans for Peace are not allowed to march in the November 11 parades makes it clear that the real purpose of the holiday is to celebrate war, the "service" of those who enlisted, and the "sacrifice" of those who were killed while doing their best to kill the "enemy." 

It is well known that the Armistice agreement ending the war went into force at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 but there's a "fourth eleven" that is less-well-known. As David Swanson pointed out in a November 11 essay posted by World BEYOND War, the death toll included "an extra 11,000 people dead, wounded, or missing after the decision to end the war had been reached early in the morning." 

Ripostes Reposted 

On November 2, Lee Goodman posted an opinion piece on Buzzfeed with the title: "Clarence Thomas Is Only on Supreme Court Because of Affirmative Action." The first sentence read: "During oral arguments on a case challenging affirmative action, Justice Thomas said he didn't 'have a clue' what 'diversity' means." Goodman went on to point out that Donald Trump doesn't know what "decency" means, neo-Twitter Lord and Chief Twit Elon Musk "has no idea what 'responsibility' is all about," and the GOP apparently doesn't know what "civilization" entails. 

Behind the Beating Drums of War: Online War-bots! 

A team of researchers at the University of Adelaide have found that as many as 80 percent of tweets about the 2022 Russia-Ukraine invasion in its early weeks were part of a covert propaganda campaign originating from automated fake “bot” accounts. 

An anti-Russia propaganda campaign originating from a “bot army” of phony automated Twitter accounts flooded the Internet at the start of the war, driving up tensions and making the conflict more likely. 

Wasn't Elon Musk, at one point, concerned about the number of fake bots in the Twitterverse? 

What are the chances we'll see the testy Tesla guy take out these war-bot frauds with his flame-throwing Elongated Musket? 

Updating Our Colorblind Senate Maps 

We've seen them on endless display: maps of our divided Senate with competing swaths of red seats lapping up against an equally sized surge of blue seats. In the quest for control, partisan passions are triggered by this symbolic eye-candy of "red wave" versus "blue tsunami." But the image is fundamentally false. 

Senator Bernie Sanders is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. He is an Independent. Nonetheless, the Mainstream Media conflates Bernie's status with the blue majority. 

It's time to demand a color revolution in the presentation of our national political maps. In addition to the red seats and the blue seats, let's demand that the media run a color-correction on their maps of the Senate. Sanders' seat should stand out apart from the two majority corporate parties. Instead of red or blue, let the Sanders' Seat be green—as in "Green New Deal." 

Hey. Kids! You, Too, Can Be a War Criminal 

Step right up, little warrior. Thanks to modern computer art (and prehistoric reptilian brains) any tot or tween now has the power to drop imaginary bombs and rockets from life-like death-machines—tanks, naval vessels, and jet fighters, you choose! In addition to blowing enemy troops to blazes you can also use your extraordinary destructive super powers to demolish world-class landmarks—like the Golden Gate Bridge! It's all possible thanks to the creators of "War Thunder." The ads for this appalling product promise players will be able to use killer drones to "hunt down your enemies from the skies" and "wreak havoc on the coasts of a picturesque city." (The target city on display appears to be San Francisco.) 

The sales pitch ends with this promise: "Top-of-the-line graphics, destructibility and realistic sounds provide the fullest immersion possible in the genre and truly bring battles to life." 

And Now, an Antidote to War 

Killer Drones 

Despite his war-like moniker, Mistahi Corkill is a singer-composer on a mission of peace. He recently sent of a collection of links to some of his anti-war songs, past and present. He writes: "Here is my new song and video opposing US military drone warfare. It's called 'Killer Drones.' I hope you find it useful and inspiring. All the best! 

Mistahi Corkill <mistahi@music-change.com>." 

Killer Drones 

And here are links to some of Mistahi Corkill's other anti-warcries:
• No to NATO 

• Rome is Burning - Written and recorded for the mass movement that erupted after George Floyd was killed. 

• Move On - A poetic rendering on the epoch of our time.