Category: Recommendations Page 1 of 3

One guy’s progressive endorsements

My Ballot
There have been people in the past who have trusted me to give my take on the ballot to help them decide what to do. Things have been so busy this year that I haven’t gotten to this to this point, but, better late than never. I think in future elections I’ll do this a little earlier. (Part of the reason I am not posting this until now is that I am using this blog post, written tonight, as a way to clarify my own thoughts and make my final voting decisions.)

The ones that probably need the most help (in my subjective view) are up top; sorry if the order is confusing since it’s not the same order as the ballot. Ah, well. And, of course, the farther away you live from me, the less likely our ballots will be similar.

Special focus:

BART Director, District 4: Robert Raburn – he is an experienced transportation planner and transit/bike/pedestrian advocate, and a good guy. (He was E.D. of the East Bay Bike Coalition for 15 years, of which I’m a member.) From what I can tell, his opponent the incumbent is a politician with no particular expertise in transit planning. Vote for Robert Raburn.

Yes on Prop 25: This doesn’t go far enough, but it’s worth voting for. The budget should NOT require a 2/3 vote in the legislature.

No on Prop 26: Neither should fees to mitigate pollution! Defeat the initiative funded by Chevron.

While I’m on the subject, No on 23! Beat the Texas oil companies’ profit grab and save California’s climate policy.

Yes on Prop 19. The two main reasons I’d vote for it: Local, state, and federal government “waste valuable resources targeting non-violent cannabis consumers, while thousands of violent crimes go unsolved. And there is $14 billion in marijuana sales every year in California, but our debt-ridden state sees none of the revenue that would come from controlling and taxing it.” (Quote from the Yes on 19 website.) That last reason alone is reason to vote for it. People are going to do it either way (similar to alcohol during Prohibition), so why not maximize the societal benefit?

Also, it’s nowhere near as dangerous as alcohol. Alcohol is (obviously) addictive and can cause death if overused (or, for example, if used before getting behind the wheel), both unlike marijuana. Time Magazine reports on how marijuana is not a gateway drug — but the discredited idea is still used as an excuse to continue a failing policy. Read more info from LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition).

City of Oakland Mayor:

The Ron Dellums era is (thankfully) ending. Let’s just forget about the last four years of Oakland city government, shall we?

Oakland needs a leader who is focused on Oakland, not just an office to hold when termed out of the state legislature. I’ve heard good things about both Rebecca Kaplan and Jean Quan — people I trust have a lot of experience with both of them, and I think they’re running for the right reasons. Luckily, the city has finally implemented the ranked-choice voting (instant runoff!) that voters mandated several years ago, so here’s my recommendation:

  1. Quan or Kaplan
  2. Kaplan or Quan
  3. Anyone else but Don Perata

Perata is the front-runner due to name recognition, I’m guessing. However, even though he represented Oakland in Sacramento, he lived in Alameda. I just worry that he’s going to be similar to Dellums — out of touch with what a mayor should do and just marking time. If you vote the way I suggest, your vote will certainly count for either Kaplan or Quan, since I will be shocked if either of them finish worse than 3rd.

Other state ballot measures:

No on Prop 20. The redistricting commission established by Prop 11 a few years ago was not designed to redraw Congressional districts, and it shouldn’t. There’s a lot at stake in terms of federal funding for California, and Californians should keep our state on a level playing field relative to other states.

Yes on Prop 21: Cars are far too subsidized in California, and State Parks need funding. It’s a modest user fee that saves recreational opportunities and habitat. Easy choice.

Prop 22: I am just not sure. If you support local government and agree with the League of California Cities that the state government shouldn’t borrow from cities to plug holes in the swiss-cheese-like state budget, then vote Yes on 22. If you agree with the California Teachers Association and the California Professional Firefighters (the union that represents the state agency that fights wildfires as well as many local departments) vote No on 22 to protect state funding for things like education. This might fall under the “when in doubt, vote no” strategy, especially since it’s a constitutional amendment.

Yes on Prop 24: It repeals a law that creates corporate tax loopholes. I don’t believe the scare tactics that say businesses are leaving California, because the data says they aren’t.

Yes on Prop 27 (with philosophical reservations). Prop 27 abolishes the aforementioned redistricting commission and returns the responsibility of redistricting to the legislature. On balance, I say vote yes, but I am doing it while holding my nose. Most progressive organizations say that you should vote yes on Prop 27, which seems to be a primarily pragmatic stance.  Passing Prop 27 would undoubtedly result in more liberals/progressives/Democrats in office after the redistricting, because the California legislature is controlled by Democrats, and legislature-run redistricting processes generally favor the party that is currently in power through the creation of gerrymandered districts.

Gerrymandered districts have problems. However, the commission as currently constituted — “balanced” between Dems, Repubs, and “independents” — is no panacea either. It certainly doesn’t reflect California to the extent that the legislature does. The tipping point is this: Prop 11/Prop 20 has a weird clause that requires that districts be homogeneous based on income — read more at http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/no-on-prop-20-yes-on-27-171353.aspx — and for that reason I say No on 20, Yes on 27.

State Candidates:

U.S. Senate: Barbara Boxer

Attorney General: Kamala Harris
Lt. Governor: Gavin Newsom
Insurance Commish: Dave Jones

Governor: Jerry Brown
Sec’y of State: Debra Bowen
Controller: John Chiang
Treasurer: Bill Lockyer
State B.O.E. (District 1): Betty Yee

9th Congressional District: Barbara Lee
16th Assembly District: Sandré Swanson
CA Supreme Court: no idea at this point.

Alameda County/Oakland measures:

I need to do way more research before I say a word about these. More later, maybe… but for now I think this is pretty comprehensive for anyone who’s going to read this. Enjoy! Let me know what you think.

Brainwash Movie festival THIS Saturday (& next weekend)

Yes, the 16th Annual Brainwash Drive-in Bike-in Walk-in Movie Festival is almost upon us!

I’ll bet you didn’t know that the New York Times says the Brainwash Movie Festival is “pirating a piece of that old Hollywood magic and challenging conventions on the role of public space in the process.”

Funny, because Brainwash organizers say, “We project movies onto a tarp in a parking lot in Oakland.”

Brainwash features a great mix of new movies from the Bay Area and all over the world, featuring dark humor, animation, mockumentaries, and much more. See http://www.brainwashm.com/festival/2010-festival/ for this year’s full program.

What’s a Drive-in Bike-in Walk-in Movie Festival? It’s set up like a traditional drive-in with FM sound as well as two big amps. Arrive however you choose: drive, bike, or walk in, perhaps with your favorite chair or blanket. West Oakland BART is one block away.

The festival will be held Saturday, August 7th, Friday, August 13th, and Saturday, August 14th (9:00 p.m. each night) at the Mandela Village Arts Center at 1357 5th St in Oakland.

Admission is just $10, or a $40 Festival Pass gets two people into all three nights of the festival. Tickets are available at http://www.ticketweb.com/snl/EventListings.action?orgId=16986 or at the gate. More about Brainwash.

Also, I’d be glad if you wanted to post one of these lovely banner ads (below and in the sidebar) on your own site. Somehow that seems unlikely, but you never know.

brainwash 2010 program
Brainwash Movie Festival

danger + opportunity ≠ crisis

We’ve all heard the New Age-y proverb about the Chinese word for “crisis” being a combination of the characters for “danger” and “opportunity.” (I just ran across the canard in the 2001 CLCV Scorecard [good luck finding it online; it seems to be long gone] and my skepticism was immediately piqued.)

According to a Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, it’s pretty much bullshit.

On his web page entitled “danger + opportunity ≠ crisis,” Professor Victor H. Mair writes:

The explication of the Chinese word for crisis as made up of two components signifying danger and opportunity is due partly to wishful thinking, but mainly to a fundamental misunderstanding about how terms are formed in Mandarin and other Sinitic languages. For example, one of the most popular websites centered on this mistaken notion about the Chinese word for crisis explains: “The top part of the Chinese Ideogram for ‘Crisis’ is the symbol for ‘Danger’: The bottom symbol represents ‘Opportunity’.”

He goes on to explain the three fatal errors in this misconception:

Censuszeit!

Census 2010: Es liegt in unseren Händen.

Seriously, it is important to fill out your Census form. Or, if you need a job, work for them.

I happened to like the fact that they have logos available that feature a variety of languages, including German. I guess there are still some people that natively speak a form of German in the US, but not many.

Brainwash Trailer & Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – July 18, 2009

Contacts: Dave Krzysik, 415-273-1545
Jason Gohlke, 510-684-6100

Brainwash Movie Festival to show 25 shorts, 1 feature

15th Annual Drive-in Bike-in Walk-in Festival starts tonight in Oakland, continues 7/31 & 8/1

The New York Times says the Brainwash Movie Festival “pirat[es] a piece of that old Hollywood magic and challeng[es] conventions on the role of public space in the process.” (Now Playing, a Digital Brigadoon, 7/29/04, Chris Thompson)

“We project movies onto a tarp in West Oakland,” counters festival director Shelby Toland.

The sometimes thought-provoking, often wacky, but always original Brainwash Movie Festival returns in the summer of 2009 for what could be the best festival ever.

“These are movies that know they’re movies,” claims festival judge Jason Gohlke. “If you like the art of storytelling, if you care about the suspension of disbelief, or if you just like watching moving pictures on a screen, you don’t want to miss Brainwash this year.”

Attendees to the festival are encouraged to either drive, bike, walk, or take public transit to the venue, where movies are screened in traditional drive-in movie theater fashion, complete with FM transmission and a full-service concession stand.

The fully juried festival will screen 23 original shorts in two separate programs (see http://www.brainwashm.com/2009/07/2009-brainwash-program/). There will also be a Premiere Party — Brainwash Zombie Night — on July 18th at 9 pm at 1357 5th Street in Oakland, which will be the West Coast Premiere of the feature film “Doctor S Battles the Sex Crazed Reefer Zombies: The Movie.” Filmmaker Bryan Ortiz of San Antonio, Texas, will be in attendance for Q & A.

The 2009 15th Annual Brainwash Movie Festival will be held July 31st and August 1st at 9:00 p.m. in Oakland — check BrainwashM.com for location details. (Tentative location is the Steel Building at 1960 Mandela Parkway @ 18th; backup location is 1357 5th Street.) Moviemakers to attend include Mark Thimijan, creator of “Mister Coffey.”

Admission is $9 per person per night OR $30 for a Double Brain Pass, which gets two people into the entire festival including a special exclusive preview night. Buy tickets at http://www.ticketweb.com/snl/EventListings.action?orgId=16986 or at the gate.

For more info, see http://brainwashm.com/.

WordCamp SF 2009 – what I learned from Tim Ferriss

I figured I should break each session into its own blog entry. It’s going to take a little time to finish all of them since some of my notes are on the iPhone (since emailed to self) and the rest are on paper (starting the moment the phone died).

Here’s a random sampling of what I learned during Tim Ferriss‘s session at WordCamp San Francisco 2009, today at UCSF Mission Bay.

Tim Ferriss’s tips on blogging and SEO:

  • Don’t call your categories “Categories.” Call them “Topics.” They’ll get clicked on a lot more.
  • Don’t put your all-time most popular posts on your home page, because they will just stay your all-time more popular posts. Show your most popular posts from the last 30 days (rolling).
  • Publishing your twitter feed with a link to twitter results in a mass exodus, especially for new users.
  • If you are monetizing, RSS is less and less relevant especially with microblogging tools.
  • if you come from an outside link to his site, the date on older posts is de-emphasized, because new users are biased towards fresher content. I think that’s what he said.
  • Consider including “total read time” on each of your posts (using 250 words per minute as the standard for estimating)
  • Being a good writer is less important than finding your own voice. Tim says that Mark Cuban says to write about what you’re passionate about.
  • People are bad at predicting what they’re going to like.
  • Figure out when your best synthesis time is, and write then. Tim (a Princeton man) has a glass of wine and some yerba mate. YMMV. My Wisconsin roots make my approximation of that a beer and a cup of coffee.
  • For important posts, edit by hand. Cut 20% of the word count each time.
  • Ignore SEO in the first draft of any blog posts. (I do this mainly because I ignore SEO all the time). Use the Google keyword tool to find out what other phrases you should be including in your post.
  • Ensure that posts can only be described one way (that is, keep each post on one topic). Why? So that when people link to any given post, they are using the same words to describe it. Bingo.
  • When you’re making video for the web, the amount of time you spend on it is NOT proportional to its future success. Sometimes the quickest, most spontaneous stuff gets the most attention. Alongside the video, include “bonus” content (so that it’s indexable). This is some brilliant stuff that should be obvious.
  • Stumbleupon is a cheap source of high quality traffic.
  • Don’t be too topical. Don’t chase the news. That’s boring.
  • Tim blogs in short, long, and micro form. Different sites for different forms.
  • This was probably the most important thing he said: “Think big but play often. Take fun seriously!” Your blog should not be a source of stress.
  • “Trying to please every stranger in the world is the path to misery.”-Tim Ferriss
  • “If you’re having fun, you’re not wasting time — you’re not being productive, but you’re not wasting time.”

There’s a lot there.

Going to WordCamp

I’m going on Saturday… are you?

WordCamp SF 2009

(WordCamp, a day devoted to free open-source blogging software that runs really great sites, and sites like this one.)

5 more things President Obama can do right away

President Obama has been in office a good five days now, and he’s taken several important steps to signal his willingness to reverse some of the worst mistakes of prior administrations. Of course, followup is the most important part, but he has:

  • Pledged to close the illegal prison at Guantanamo Bay. Wretched legal reasoning from Alberto Gonzalez and John Yoo aside, the United States shouldn’t be torturing people and ignoring the right of habeas corpus.
  • Pledged to make government more transparent and accountable. From launching a White House blog to blocking the two-way street between lobbying and regulating, Obama seems determined to finally finish and cross the bridge to the 21st century Bill Clinton liked to talk about.

Sure, there are more, but you get the idea. Here are some of the next things I think he should do — with varying degrees of difficulty, but that probably will be received largely favorably — that will help this country get back on track as a place of freedom, innovation, equality, and opportunity:

  1. End the prohibition on shampoo, toothpaste, and beverages for travelers. Letting people take liquids and gels of any size through security at airports is long overdue. That particular security procedure isn’t making us any safer, it’s just irritating us and making us spend money in the airport. And here’s a perfect way to counteract that loss of revenue by airports —
  2. Restore the right of non-passengers to accompany their friends and family into concourses at airports after passing through the same security procedures passengers do. Remember those days, long ago, when you could have a drink or dinner with whoever took you to the airport while you waited for your plane? I barely do. Again, this won’t make us any less safe, but it will more than make up for airport vendors’ lost revenue from item 1 above.
  3. End the war in Iraq and pledge to spend money on the states. The states? You know, the ones that are united together, here in America? Restore funding to the state and local governments that the Bush administration cut. The money comes from us; it should go to us.
  4. Re-regulate the economy. The de-regulation in vogue during the Clinton and Bush administrations simply didn’t work. There’s a reason anti-trust laws exist. Make corporations accountable to society — the commons — not just their shareholders. I mean, if a corporation is a person, it should be liable for the harm it does to all of us, right?
  5. Invest in green jobs. The WPA and the CCC worked, right? How about investing money in building a new, environmentally friendly energy infrastructure? Create good jobs for Americans that won’t go overseas and will put us back in the lead when it comes to the pioneering, entrepreneurial spirit our country was founded upon.

That’s just a few, off the top of my head. Can you think of any more?

Thank God for Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald is doing some incredibly important reporting on Salon.com — keeping the federal government accountable in a way that more reporters should be doing.

Guess what? What a surprise: The feds have been eavesdropping on (from the article) “American citizens who had absolutely nothing to do with terrorism.”

If you need any more incentive to give to Barack Obama

Miranda and Carrie
Miranda July and Carrie Brownstein have thoughtfully compiled a (mildly humorous) range of choices for how to contribute to Barack Obama, including the option of purchasing up to three videos produced eight years ago for $10 a piece (which will then be contributed directly back to Obama).

I say, right on.

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