"You want it to be one way. But it's the other way."
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
–Sinclair Lewis, “It Cant Happen Here,” (1935)
On the marquee of Oakland’s Grand Lake Theatre, whose owners are given to displaying extracurricular messages. Kate spotted it during the past week, and we drove over after midnight this morning to take a picture.
Technorati Tags: berkeley, california, democracy
An Oakland landmark: A long line of palms running north along 9th Avenue from East 24th Street (I’ve never felt totally comfortable in cities that let numbered streets cross). I have no idea who planted the trees, when, or why exactly, since you don’t see many palms planted along residential streets. Since 9th Avenue is near the top of a ridge, you can see the trees for miles. Took the picture Friday on my way back to Berkeley from running an errand out to Kate’s school.
Ron Dellums, who used to represent Berkeley and parts of Oakland and other East Bay locales in Congress, announced last month he’s coming out of political retirement to run for mayor of Oakland. Dellums says the decision surprised even him: He arrived at the event where he declared his candidacy uncertain whether he would run. He said he made up his mind when he took the podium and saw the yearning in the audience’s eyes. “If Ron Dellums running for mayor gives you hope, then let’s get on with it,” he said. The Chronicle quoted a supporter as saying that Oakland was “finally getting the progressive leadership it deserves.”
The campaign issues Dellums talked about in his announcement sermon were universal health care, ending poverty, and inspiring young people. About more mundane problems — the kind a mayor might actually be expected to do something about — he told reporters later: “Potholes are important, but that’s not why people asked Ron Dellums to run.”
Leaving aside the question of why he referred to himself in the third person — maybe it’s just important to keep repeating the brand name — I don’t fault him for reaching above the gritty concerns of urban life to project a lofty vision for his followers. But at some point, governing a city comes back to potholes, or at least what’s happening on the streets.
Yesterday, Dellums gave another talk, to Oakland’s African American Chamber of Commerce. He spent some time ridiculing suggestions that his experience in Congress has not prepared him to lead a city. He talked some more about universal health care, but mentioned that as mayor he’d also be concerned with education, public safety and economic matters. “We can become a model city and grapple with every problem,” Dellums said. And: “I come not to tinker at the margins, but to ask you to join me in an effort to do big things — great things.”
From the stories and TV pictures, the crowd loved what they were hearing (with the possible exception of Ignacio De La Fuente, a City Council member who was the front-runner in the mayor’s race until Dellums’ experienced his podium impulse). And what’s not to like. He’s an extraordiinary speaker. Still, the specifics?
One of the local TV stations, KTVU, ran a clip in which one of its reporters asked Dellums what distinguishes him from the other candidates in the race. Dellums called the question “grossly premature.”
OK, maybe a guy just needs time to think. But five weeks after he declared his candidacy, and just seven months before the election, it’s fair to wonder what Dellums has in mind for the city he wants to lead. Oakland’s a real place with real needs and problems, not a city on a hill. It’s wonderful to expound on ideals and possibilities, but no amount of impassioned oratory will fix them without a plan that grapples with the city as it is.
I’ve never been a big fan of Jerry Brown during his tenure in Oakland. I’ve always felt that his approach to governing the city was a little imperious and arrogant. He took office as a major leaguer who came to show the bushers a thing or two about how to get things done; he was a big thinker who was going to broaden the horizons of poor, petty Oakland; and if the locals didn’t understand how smart and wise his vision was, he’d just run over them until they got it.
But if you listen to Brown now, he at least suggests he’s learned something about the real nature of leading a city. Last month, he described being mayor as a “much more in-your-face, concrete, down-to-earth reality than what you’re faced with at the level of governor or congressman, where you’re dealing with the great issues of the day, but dealing with them at a high level of abstraction. … Instead of an omnibus crime bill, you have to deal with shootings in Ghosttown in West Oakland and sideshows in East Oakland.”
So maybe Dellums can start out by learning something from his fellow superstar and talk about what he’d actually try to do, aside from being a symbol of uplifting ideals, if he becomes mayor. In fact, the most inspirational thing he could do for the city would be to lay out a pragmatic plan for turning his progressive faith into on-the-street reality.
Here’s a pointless exercise I spend time on nearly every morning. The Chronicle has a weather page. Not up to the standard of the Chicago Tribune’s page, which is the best I’ve seen; its overseer, Tom Skilling of WGN, has apparently worked with people at the paper to give the page real dimension and depth; they actually make an effort to tell readers something meaningful about the science of weather, they pore over the record books to put the current weather in some sort of meaningful context, and they highlight interesting weather happenings outside the Chicago metro area.
But back to the Chronicle’s weather page. It’s full of numbers, and it features a giant Bay Area map. But it’s really narrow and dull when you get down to it. One feature it has presented presented since I started reading the paper regularly, back in 1976, is a list of a dozen California cities and their current seasonal rainfall. From Crescent City in the north to San Diego in the south, the list reports precipitation in the last 24 hours, how much rain has fallen since the start of the current season (which runs from July 1 through June 30), how much fell in the same period last year, the “normal” seasonal rainfall to date (an average taken over the last 30 years), and the “normal” total for the entire season. Doesn’t that all sound interesting?
I have a daily habit of checking the precipitation numbers if it’s been raining. I have a minor, ongoing fixation about one particular fact: how Oakland’s rainfall stacks up against San Francisco’s. As a resident of the East Bay, it’s a source of pride that humble Oakland has been, on average, a little more rainy than its vainglorious cousin across the Bay Bridge — Oakland’s season normal is 22.94 inches versus San Francisco’s 22.28. But a worrying trend has developed: In several recent years, San Francisco has wound up ahead in the rain race; this year, Oakland is nearly two full inches behind, 25.22 to 27.21.
It makes you wonder whether the fix is in — maybe West Bay meteorologists are doctoring the results to claim Bay Area Rain Capital honors. It makes you wonder what the penalty is for tampering with an Official Government Rain-Measuring Instrument.
My friend Ted Shelton did something pretty cool a couple months back: He got in touch with Jerry Brown — mayor of Oakland, former California governor and presidential candidate, aspiring state attorney general — and talked to him about how to use the Net to speak to the people. The result is that Brown started his own blog. It exhibits everything I like and dislike about Brown, who is well into his fourth decade as an elected official. The part I like: The guy’s smart and quick and communicates ideas beautifully. The part I dislike? Well, I said it in a response (below) to a recent post he wrote on all he’s done for the Oakland schools: Brown’s got a razor-sharp sense for telling the story that casts him in the most glowing light. As to the unhappy scene that may lie just outside the frame of his self-portrait — that’s someone else’s problem. But that’s another thing I like about the blog — I can tell him just that, and there’s some evidence he’s actually reading what his audience has to say.
My comments to Mayor Brown:
Jerry, any public education success story is to be applauded, and the Oakland School for the Arts is no exception. It’s also refreshing to hear someone in a position of responsibility say the schools need both innovation AND money; cash isn’t a panacea for our public schools’ problems, but used wisely it’s a crucial part of the solution. You also mentioned "freedom" as a necessary ingredient for success; I’ll get to that in a minute.
But I have to say that your post is full of the kind of attitude and omission that long ago led me to conclude that while your intellect is a couple cuts above the average pol’s and you occasionally seem to be moved by the most noble motives, you’re at bottom a self-promoter and opportunist. …
The war on terror: It’s as far away as some country you can’t even pronounce or find on the map, and as close as your local ferry terminal.
I was over in San Francisco today and decided to take the ferry home. No matter how many times I ride the boat, the trip is fun and the scene on the bay is always engrossing. But getting on the ferry isn’t the same as it used to be. Until sometime in the last year or so, when you wanted to take the ferry, you just walked onto the dock and waited for the boat to come in. Now, as part of our new anti-terror reality, the company that runs the ferry keeps the access doors to the dock locked until the boats are moored and ready to board. Not a big deal, I guess. But here’s something else: There’s an official posting at the dock entrance announcing the current Coast Guard "MARSEC" (Maritime Security) level. Right now, we’re at MARSEC Level 1, "the level for which minimum appropriate security measures shall be maintained at all times. MARSEC 1 generally applies when HSAS Threat Condition Green, Blue, or Yellow are set" (that seems to mean that we’re always at MARSEC 1; just like the global war on terrorism, the threat never ends).
Beyond conveying the news we’re at MARSEC 1, the sign also advises that "boarding the vessel or entering this area is deemed valid consent to screening or inspection …. failure to consent or submit to screening or inspection will in denial or revocation of authorization to board or enter." That declaration is followed by a couple of citations from the Code of Federal Regulations, including: 33CFR104.265 (e)(2), that specify security measures to be taken under various threat levels..
It’s true that these security precautions, as implemented, are quite mild; I’ve never seen anybody searched on the Oakland ferry, and as far as I know, no one ever has been. It’s also true I have no desire to see someone set off a bomb on a ferry or in any other public place. Still, there it is: If someone else says so, you have to submit to a search to ride the boat. It’s just another place where we surrender just a little bit of our right to be left alone, where the presumption about citizens in public spaces is that they’re potential threats until they show otherwise.
If the ride wasn’t so beautiful, I’d probably find another way to get home.