Columns

Six Months Left?

The Chronicle's biggest story of the week (if not the Millennium) was buried at the bottom of the Sporting Green.

The lead item in the June 28 edition of the Earthweek column read: "The International Energy Agency in Paris has warned that world leaders have only six months to take measures to control carbon emissions before a post-shutdown recovery brings a surge in greenhouse gasses that may be impossible to curb."

With wildfires (fed by 100-plus-degree temperatures) devouring Siberia, we're running out of time. Al Gore once asked: "Can't you hear what Mother Nature is screaming at you?" Well, today, Mother Nature isn't just screaming, she's shrieking in terror. We need a Green New Deal to replace the Grim Old Deal and its unsustainable addictions to carbon combustion, resource consumption, poisonous pollution, and endless war.

A 'Green Stimulus' Bill: Pelosi to the Rescue

According to a Pew Research Center poll, two-thirds of Americans want the government to do more to address the climate catastrophe. A Data for Progress poll in May found that 58% of Americans want to abandon coal, gas, and oil for 100% clean energy. (The breakdown is 76% of Democrats, 59% of Independents, and $38% of Republicans.)

The Democrats are listening—and it's no longer just the Green New Deal Democrats. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has unveiled a 500-page proposal that has been called the "most detailed climate plan in US political history." A letter signed by 59 House Democrats is calling for a host of Green Deal provisions in a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill and Pelosi has committed to eliminating all planet-cooking emissions by 2050.

City Scofflaws Unmasked 

On a recent morning run around the MLK Jr. Middle School track, I noticed three City workers preparing to spread a truckload of fertilizer across the fenced-off field. None of them were wearing facemasks. 

One stood on the track near an open section of the fence awaiting the truck and, as joggers and walkers moved past, he was openly coughing. 

Making haste to leave the track, I continued my run up to the Berkeley Rose Garden. When I arrived, I noticed a work crew busily dismantling large planks from a wooden structure adjacent to the tennis courts on the north side of the garden. There was the usual amount of yelling and heavy-breathing going on but no one was wearing a facemask. 

Meanwhile, a supervisor with a clipboard had taken up a perch on one of the entryway benches that provide a scenic overview of the garden. He was busy marking notes while several runners assembled nearby, pausing to catch their breath after an uphill run. 

I couldn't help but notice: he was sitting next to one of the City's "Do Your Part" signs but he was not wearing a facemask. 

Suggestion: Could the City require that its workers and contractors wear facemasks on the job—especially when they are away from the worksite and sharing air with local residents? (One of the trucks loaded with the remains of weathered planks belonged to Ghilotte Contractors.) 

AC Transit's Coronavirus-Commuter Survey = A Month of Free Travel 

In a rich example of poor timing, AC Transits has posted a "Dear Community Stakeholder" letter based on the expectation that Bay Area residents are about to "relax their shelter-in-place orders and reopen more of their economies." (If only!) 

"AC Transit is sensitive to people’s concerns during the current pandemic," the agency writes. That's why AC Transit has prepared "a survey that will help us assess the priorities of riders as they begin to get back on the service. While we are still not charging to ride, all riders who complete the survey can enter to win an AC Transit 31-day pass (great for when fare collection resumes)." Caveat: "enter to win" may mean there's only one winner. 

A New Video: Noam Chomsky and other Authorities on Authoritarianism 

One highlight of the past week was participating in a live mid-day, online Zoomchat with Noam Chomsky, Van Gosse, and Ty dePass for a discussion on authoritarianism and dictatorship (code words for "Trump"). The three-person "Authoritarianism or Democracy" roundtable was hosted by Massachusetts Peace Action and can be seen here. 

Chomsky is hardly recognizable these days. Like many of us guys, he hasn't had a haircut (or a shave) since the pandemic kicked in and he's starting to look like Gandalf from Lord of the Rings—or a really weathered lawn gnome. 

I'm thinking of dubbing him, "Gnome Chomsky." 

An Utterly Strange Internet Oddity 

On June 27, while doing a Yahoo Image Search to illustrate a report on Trump's expressed desire to resume nuclear testing, I discovered that a host of familiar images had been removed from the site. Specifically, no more images of Trump scowling in the foreground with a mushroom cloud exploding in the background. 

Also, a page that previously showed scores of images of nuclear explosions—real and fabricated—now showed only one. Instead, the search page included four adjacent frames on the top row that were completely empty—just rectangular blue placeholders suggesting that the images had been recently and hastily removed and had not yet been replaced. 

Also missing: the usual gallery of hundreds of photos of Trump looking menacing or making goofy expressions. Now, Yahoo provided nothing but mellow, empty, emotionless images of DJT. 

Yahoo's top search page for "Donald trump angry" displayed only one photo of Trump—along with six cartoons and Trump as a poop emoji. The first two images in the search weren't even Trump. One was a photo of Don Junior; the second was a portrait of Mitt Romney. 

On the other hand: A Google image search showed no change: All the old, familiar Trump grimaces were still on display, along with many images of Trump presiding over nuclear blasts. 

I checked back on June 30 and discovered that the missing images had all been restored to Yahoo's Image Search site. There were even some new images of a grimacing Trump that hadn't appeared before. 

Anyone in the reading audience have any clues/explanations for Yahoo's brief disinfection of its Trump/Nukes image bin? 

Trump's View of Term Two: Days of Whine and Neurosis 

On June 25, Fox News' Sean Hannity invited our incumbent leader to answer one of those ultimate "softball" questions: "What are your top priority items for a second term?" 

This, alas, was Trump's response. 

"Well, one of the things that will be really great, you know, the word experience is still good. I always say talent is more important than experience. I’ve always said that. But the word experience is a very important word. It’s a very important meaning.  

I never did this before—I never slept over in Washington. I was in Washington I think 17 times, all of the sudden, I’m the president of the United States.  

You know the story, I’m riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with our first lady and I say, ‘This is great.’ But I didn’t know very many people in Washington, it wasn’t my thing. I was from Manhattan, from New York. Now I know everybody. And I have great people in the administration. You make some mistakes, like you know an idiot like Bolton, all he wanted to do was drop bombs on everybody. You don’t have to kill people." 

Even Hannity could be seen rolling his eyes in disbelief. 

Hannity, Sanity and Covid Insanity 

Speaking of Sean Hannity, new evidence (from the National Bureau of Economic Research, the University of Chicago, and others) has found a strong correlation between areas inhabited by Hannity's fan base and infections and deaths from COVID-19. How so? Well, a leading cause behind the spread of coronavirus in the US has been media misinformation that masked or dismissed the dangers. As The Washington Post notes, when it comes to spreading false information about the virus, one of the worst offenders is Fox News and Sean Hannity. 

As The Daily Kos laments: "This is, sadly, the inevitable and disastrous consequence of Fox News and misinformation-spreading social media coming to dominate our national news consumption. When people receive bad information in dangerous situations, they will make bad decisions." 

According to Kos, over the past 18 months, "a combination of Big Tech eating up the online ad market and the economic crash caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the loss of over 40,000 full-time [media] jobs, and tens of thousands of freelance jobs, at news media outlets. Meanwhile, the information gap created by this 'media extinction event' is filled by Fox News, which is experiencing record ratings . . . and Facebook. 

"The ever-increasing dominance of Big Tech over the online advertising market caused the loss of 7,800 jobs in news media companies in 2019. The coronavirus pandemic resulted in the loss of at least 36,000 media jobs—at Buzzfeed, HuffPost, Vice, and Vox. In late 2019, long-time progressive powerhouse Think Progress closed up shop entirely." 

Yahoo Uncovers a 9/11 Cover-up 

While the Mainstream Media obsess over a leaked (and disputed) story that Russian agents handed out "firing bonuses" to encourage Taliban fighters to target US soldiers in Afghanistan, another story of even greater significance (national security-wise) passed almost unnoticed. 

It wasn't the NYT or WaPo that broke the story. It was Yahoo News that exposed the chilling revelation with the headline: "EXCLUSIVE: In court filing, FBI accidentally reveals name of Saudi official suspected of directing support for 9/11 hijackers." 

Yahoo's Chief Investigative Correspondent, Michael Isikoff (a former Washington Post, Newsweek and NBC News reporter) happened to catch a rare FBI slip-up in a disclosure related to a lawsuit by survivors of the 9/11 attacks. An unredacted document accidently revealed the hidden identity of a key figure in the terrorist conspiracy to attack targets in New York and Washington, DC. According to Yahoo's exclusive, the disclosure "represents a major breakthrough in the long-running case, providing for the first time an apparent confirmation that FBI agents investigating the attacks believed they had uncovered a link between the hijackers and the Saudi Embassy in Washington." 

According to Yahoo's news report, the FBI flub "shines a light on the extraordinary efforts by top Trump administration officials in recent months to prevent internal documents about the issue from ever becoming public." Trump's Personal Attorney General, William Barr, acted quickly to declare the information naming the Saudi diplomat a "state secret" that would "harm national security" were it ever to be disclosed. 

And kudos to Fox News (yes, you read that right) for airing a follow-up to Yahoo's scoop. [Note: I can't share the video. Sometime in the past 24 hours, it has been removed from the Internet.] 

In another video, Isikoff discusses the ramifications of the discovery and names the Saudi official who, according to the FBI's court statement, "tasked al-Thumairy and al-Bagoumi with assisting the hijackers." 

I have the diplomat's name but, since Bill Barr might have me arrested if I printed it, just check out Isikoff's video below and listen closely. 

Teachers Vie for Zuck's Bucks 

Thanks to California's teachers unions, there will be a special measure on the November ballot. The Schools and Communities First Act (better known among activists as 'the billionaires tax') would assure that California's public schools and institutions of higher education (community colleges, CSUs and UCs) will receive an infusion of revenue (estimated at $12 billion per year) to reverse a history of budget reductions and related tuition increases. The measure would also "close commercial property tax loopholes that corporations and wealthy investors use to avoid paying their fair share of property taxes." 

Clicking the online link for details reveals that one of the hundreds of education, health, environmental, and business organizations listed as campaign supporters is The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative. So, if the measure is successful, Mark Zuckerberg will have to pay between 1%-1.5% of his billions in taxes to benefit public education. What are the chances San Francisco's Francis Scott Key Elementary might someday be renamed Chan-Zuckerberg Elementary? 

UN Call for a 'Global Ceasefire' Displeases D. Trump 

On July 1, the UN Security Council finally agreed to back UN chief Antonio Guterres' March 23 call for a Global Ceasefire that would halt all wars and redirect military and economic resources to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. The resolution—drafted by France and Tunisia—calls for "all parties to armed conflicts to engage immediately in a durable humanitarian pause for at least 90 consecutive days" to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid. 

Adopting a ceasefire resolution came only after months of talks, largely focused on securing a compromise between two world powers—the United States and China. 

The US wanted language blaming China for the coronavirus outbreak. The "exceptionalists" in the Trump administration and also insisted on language clarifying that the 90-day global ceasefire didn’t apply to US wars. That bid for "special treatment" flew in the face of the UN's goal and was soundly rejected, leaving the Trump administration to settle for a "signing statement" in which Trump was allowed to complain about the unfair way the US was treated by the world community. 

It's Not Easy Being a Public Citizen These Days 

Public Citizen, the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization founded by Ralph Nader, has been targeted by a sudden and disturbing barrage of emailed animosity. "We get a lot of hate mail at Public Citizen," PC president Robert Weissman admits but the recent rash of irrational bile has been off-the-charts. Weissman provided "a sampler of recent tirades "(with the expletives edited out)."
• “You are killers and criminals. F*** you.”
• “I can’t wait to see you crying in November after Trump is reelected. F*** off and die!”
• “TRY TO F*** WITH OUR FREEDOMS & THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.......and ALL HELL WILL BREAK LOOSE!!! WE, THE PEOPLE have been preparing for this for YEARS!!!! BRING IT ON MOTHERF***ERS!!!!! FKN GLOBALIST PIGS!!!! You DELUSIONAL PSYCHOPATHS!!!!! THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION will SOON commence!!” 

Trump Should Be Mulling a Mulligan 

In 2014, Donald Trump, as a phone-in guest on Fox News, spoke disapprovingly about then-president Barack Obama for playing golf during an Ebola outbreak. But, at the time, CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski points out, there were only two Ebola cases in the entire US. 

Trump assured Fox News things would be different if he were running things: 

“When you’re president, you sorta say, ‘I’m gonna give [golf] up for a couple of years and really focus on the job. It sends the wrong signal.'” 

In 2016, then-candidate Trump again pledged: “I’m going to be working for you. I’m not going to have time to go play golf.” 

According to The Guardian, Trump has hit the links "more than 200 times" since becoming president and he continues to slice, hook, and shank his way across the green, even with 130,000 Americans dead from Covid-19. 

GOP & Trump v. Apple, People and Privacy 

Republicans have introduced a new bill called the EARN IT Act that will give the Trump Administration the authority to breach essential computer and phone encryption services, increasing the risk of government surveillance and censorship. Under the bill, the Justice Department would be able to force Apple, Facebook and other companies to collaborate in subjecting customers to state surveillance. The GOP bill would also permit government agents to silence dissent by changing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to empower the Executive Branch to dictate the content that would be allowed on websites. 

US law enforcement and intelligence agencies already use their surveillance powers to spy on journalists and political activists. Encrypting personal communications to protect privacy will no longer be possible if the EARN IT Act becomes law. Meanwhile, critics charge, the bill would be "leaving hackers and predators free to develop their own encrypted communications." 

If Nuclear Warheads Were BBs 

We hardly think about how many nuclear weapons now exist on our planet. It's just too hard (and unsettling) to envision. So Ben Cohen (the Ben of "Ben and Jerry") thought he'd address this inconceivable threat by using a jar of pellet-gun BBs. 

Here's Ben's True Majority Nuclear Demo. Bare in mind: this only shows how many nuclear weapons the US has. It doesn't depict Russia's equally large nuclear arsenal. Nor does it answer the question: "How many BBs does Bibi have?"