Public Comment

Honorifics in Overdrive

If you access online petition drives, you're familiar with the screen request to select a "prefix." Most options are fairly simple and range from Mr. and Mrs. to Dr. and Prof. But the League of Conservation Voters has gone a bit beyond what's normal.

The LCV's prefix list contains 61 options. These include: Ambassador, Bishop, Brother, Captain, Chaplain, Colonel, Gov, Honorable, Imam, Judge, Maj Gen, Master, Miss, Rabbi, Rector, Rep, Rev, Senator, Sister, The Rt. Rev and The Very Reverent. With so many choices, it's hard to see how the LCV's list (which is widely used to contact political leaders) includes the option of "Congressman" but fails to offer the choice of "Congresswoman." 

Did That Car Just Bat Its Eyes at Me? 

I recently spotted a white vehicle parked outside Copy World on University. It was covered with a collection of enticing phrases: "BigSexxy" on the hood. "ThickGirl" on the side. "Local-10 LongShoreWoman" on the rear. But the most outstanding feature wasn't the lettering but the long metal eyelashes installed over the front headlamps! 

Turns out these flashy add-ons are commercially available and, if lashes aren't sexy enough, car owners can also purchase a variety of adhesive adornments resembling pursed lips that can be slapped in the middle of the front hood to complete the auto-erotic effect. 

Shooting Stars and Climate Change 

Climate change has brought many new and troubling signs—from unprecedented wildfires to historic floods and hurricanes. Could it be that our warming planet is now fated to see its night skies increasingly lit up by flaming meteorites? 

Since 2010, scientists noticed, the frequency of fireballs has been increasing each year "in exponential fashion." 

Meteorologists have noted that the appearance of fireballs-from-space are less frequent during the winter months of the Northern Hemisphere and rise during the summer months. This suggests a link with global warming. In the cold, winter months, the atmosphere would tend to consolidate lower and closer to the surface of the Earth. This would create a denser atmosphere that would serve as a buffer against plunging space rocks. Could it be that, as the atmosphere warms, it rises and become less dense. Were that the case, a thinner atmosphere might be more easily penetrated by incoming meteors. 

Trump Gold Bars? 

Yes, there is such a thing, according to the "Official Website" of the one-and-only Donald Trump Gold Bar! 

What better way to pledge allegiance to the fraud who promised to "bring back the golden age of America and make it great again" than by handing over a fistful of cash for "a gold bar that's worth more than its weight in gold!" And how much do these Trumpish trinkets cost? It varies. One website lists the price at a high $349.99 while another offers the same trophy for just $149.99. (There's even a video that offers to send out "gift" Trump Bars for free: you only have to pay for postage and shipping,) 

"Think of the perks you'll get by having this piece of Trump's legacy," gushes another "Official Website" while yet another "Official Website" chimes in with a promise that "the golden brilliance of this 24k gold plated bar will amazed [sic] anyone who receives it." 

"The Majority Report" offers further background on Trump's gold-plated, fund-raising ego-toy. 

And Speaking of the Menace of Mar-a-Lago 

Would you believe Donald Trump as a Man of Peace?? When the ever-truculent Trump haunted the White House, he made news (and sent alarmed jitters around the world) when he threatened to attack North Korea with a nuclear strike featuring "fire and fury like the world has never seen.” 

Now the Ochre Ogre wants to be known as a man of peace who opposes wars and criticizes the "National Security Industrialist Complex" and "warmongers"—in the Pentagon, in the arms industry, and in Congress—who profit off provocations. 

Public Comment on Public Comment 

An alert from the Hopkins/California neighborhood association challenging the "bikefication" of a stretch of commercial blocks running from Gilman to Hopkins, recently called for community action regarding the fate of a proposal (Reforms to Public Comment Procedures at meetings of the Berkeley City Council) that was on the Berkeley City Council's February 28 agenda but was postponed to the Council's March 14 meeting. 

The proposal, which critics fear would restrict public comments at Council meetings, is coming up for review at the Council's Tuesday meeting. The "SaveHopkins" website (SaveHopkins.org) invites folks to "read up about this awful measure, see the links to the agenda and the Zoom meeting, and plan to participate in any way you can (attending in person, attending by Zoom and maybe speaking, or writing a letter in opposition to Item 20.… We do not want this terrible policy to slip by us!" For a look at the contentious issue, check out the City Council Agenda and look for item 20, the first matter on the Action Calendar — Old Business. 

Names in the News 

Two names hopped off the printed page this week and became lodged in my brain. The first appeared in a front-page photo on the March 9 Chronicle that showed an East Bay adult and child cleaning up the flood damage at the Paradise Skate roller rink. The child's name was: Finan Tesamicael. 

The other memorable name popped off the first page of the California Driver's Handbook. It identified the Secretary of California's State Transportation Agency as one Toks Omishakin, whose surname, I imagined, might be pronounced: "O am I shakin'" (as in "Watch my dance moves on Tik Toks"). 

The Brady Body Count 

According to the Brady Pac (bradypac.org) and the Gun Violence Archive's Database, gun violence killed more than 6,278 people in the first two months of 2023. Some 263 of these victims were teenagers and children. Mass shootings totaled 64. "That's more shootings than days in this year so far,"the Brady bunch notes. 

Today, in the Divided States of Warmerica, we are now averaging 116 gun deaths per day. That means (assuming the situation doesn't get worse) the number of citizens gunned down by year's end could top 42,340. More than 58,000 American soldiers died in the US war on Vietnam—but that was over the course of 20 years. So, on an annual basis, a civilian living in the US today is nearly fifteen times more likely to be killed by gunfire that a US combat soldier serving in Vietnam. 

Tax Time is Coming: Time for a WarStrike? 

During the US war on Vietnam, I liked to pay my IRS tax with checks made out to the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). I wanted to signal that the Pentagon was a branch of the government that was not on my Fave List. The checks were routinelly claimed and cashed by the Treasury Department. 

I've generally tried to live a simple, not-too-profitable-not-too-taxable life but in 2011, I wound up owing taxes and paid with a check made out to the DHHS/US Treasury/IRS along with two messages scrawled across the check: "Healthcare Not Warfare" and "Human Needs Not Private Greed." 

Now I'm wondering if this simple act of protest could become part of a larger WarStrike action in which taxpayers are encouraged to write protest notes on their IRS checks. Taxpayers could also address these "WarStrike" checks to a favorite branch of the federal government—Health, Education, Environment—just not the Pentagon. 

I don't know if there are any risks for staging this kind of protest in 2023 but there were no repercussions in my earlier adventures. The Feds just seized my check and made off with the money. 

It can feel empowering to use the IRS to "send a message" to Washington that taxpayers favor government funding that addresses human needs—not foreign military bases, over-priced-and-under-performing fighter jets, and a hegemonic foreign policy of endless provocations, threats, and invasions. 

A Quick Click-list for Online Reformers 

Progressive Democrats of America knows it's not enough to give the political establishment the finger. PDA knows you have to go all in and give the grifters all TEN fingers! With that in mind, here's the PDA's latest to-do list for the critical core of political front-runners known as "Clicktivists": 

• Sign the petition to support the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
  Tell Congress to Protect 80,000 Afghan refugees. Pass the Afghan Adjustment Act;
  Tell President Biden to sign only a clean debt ceiling bill with no cuts to the social safety net. Then contact your House Member and Senators;
  Demand Congress act to pass the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax;
• Ban members of Congress from buying and selling individual stocks;
  Demand that Congress kick corrupt George Santos out;
  Get Congress to secure needed funding for the IRS.

More than a million US viewers will have an opportunity to experience the power of protest to confront a "madman" (in this case, President Richard Nixon), when Public Broadcasting's "American Experiences" airs a 90-minute documentary created by a team of Bay Area activists including director Stephen Talbot and producers Robert Levering and Steve Ladd. The PBS broadcast is set for Tuesday, March 28, at 9PM. 

From the American Experiences press release (full text here) 

"The Movement and the “Madman” shows how two antiwar protests in the fall of 1969 — the largest the country had ever seen — pressured President Nixon to cancel what he called his “madman” plans for a massive escalation of the US war in Vietnam, including a threat to use nuclear weapons. At the time, protestors had no idea how influential they could be and how many lives they may have saved. Told through remarkable archival footage and firsthand accounts from movement leaders, Nixon administration officials, historians, and others, the film explores how the leaders of the antiwar movement mobilized disparate groups from coast to coast to create two massive protests that changed history."  

The film website here offers background on the film and resource links.