Oakland Shootout and Sideshow - a review

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On YouTube.com

Yesterday I posted a blog entry which contained set of videos from the YouTube channel of "EASTOAKLAND106", and contained scenes that were shocking. One showed two young black men basically exacting an ugly form of "street" justice on a white man in East Oakland. The other videos were created during "The Sideshow", an activity featuring muscle cars revved to full-throttle by their drivers, spinning donuts in the middle of the intersection of 106th and Mac Arthur Blvd. The YouTube channel contained other videos that together gave the viewer a real picture of what was going on (or "going down") in that part of Oakland.

I made the decision to create the blog to get the attention of the normally placid blog reader, tossed a steady diet of texts about celebrities, sports, and Erin Andrews. These videos showing the real life in East Oakland are there, but bloggers generally ignore them. I thought it was time to change that state of affairs, so I did.

The reaction on my blog Oakland Focus was basically normal, one email of concern about what's happening in that part of our city. But on SFGate.com, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle, it was different. At first, some were hostile, angry that I placed such videos up for public view (forgetting that the videos were already up and out in the open on YouTube), others accused me of trying to "glorify" what they saw as "black culture". Still, others said that by installing that blog post I was simply advancing how whites saw blacks. All of these views I take issue with to a degree.

Yes, I know the old saw that "if it bleeds, it leads" but my intent was to poke and prod at a system of local bloggers that has ignored East Oakland. While there's a blog called "Oakland North", which focuses on a part of our town that, considering the Rockridge scene, can be as sexy as it is charming, there's no blog called "Oakland East" or "East Oakland" for that matter, and some of the blogs that certain Oakland Councilmembers read give only one view of Oakland. And SFGate.com and the w Oakland Tribune website only report crimes that happen in East Oakland, but don't give one an idea of what it's like to be there. So, with the help of the SFGate staff, that all changed.

I thank the SFGate's Vlae Kershner for taking the daring leap of giving my post the visibility "above the fold" of the front page and in the face of the visitor. The result - in part because of this and because of Google News and the way I designed the post to trigger it - was 149 comments, and it was gratifying to see the outpouring of emotion, the dissension, and eventually the melding of views and ideas. People who started out far apart were able to find common ground: we agree that some set of policies must be enacted to change East Oakland beyond just "more cops" and even though some don't think anything we try will work, they agree something must be done.

I still favor a return to a manufacturing-based economy in East Oakland. I'm tired of seeing whole states like Alabama work to bring auto plants and steel plants to those areas, while people here who have low-skills struggle to find work while the government tells them to get "retrained" for jobs that others move here to get, and land them. California as a whole has forgotten how to compete for industry, and has become lazy: more willing to build prisons and lock people up than assure the maintenance of a well-funded education system and a great jobs-building economy. The objective should be "a job for everyone" and not "I will arrest you."

All that and we're surprised at what we saw in East Oakland, or for that matter, the riots after the shooting of Oscar Grant? That is us, not the black "us" or the white "us, or the Asian or Latino "us", but us as Americans, or as Oscar Goldman said to "The Six Million Dollar Man", Steve Autin, "This is your arm, Steve." We have to deal with the reality we face and change it.

Some lament the passing of "old media," and I certainly mourn the loss of giants like Walter Cronkite, but new media - open, in your face, connective of everyone, and rapid in motion - is the social mirror we've never had before. We can see who we are, talk about what needs to change, then go out and do it.

Michael Vick - The "Anti-Vick" team list

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After much discussion, polling, and commenting, Michael Vick's back in the NFL. As I mention in my video created two day ago, he has to wait six games (which I called a suspension but as it turns out, it's not). Rather than blast another post about Vick's return, I took a look at the results of my poll (still a small majority favored Vick's return to the NFL this season, including me), and waited for more information. During that time, several NFL teams openly expressed their lack of desire to have the double-threat quarterback join them, but it took my friend Mike Florio of ProFootballtalk.com (the "TMZ.com" of the NFL) to make an "anti-Vick" team list. He updates the list periodically; here's what it looks like as of this writing, and Mike has notes explaining if the teams made their views known before or after Vick was invited back to the NFL by Commissioner Roger Goodell:

Atlanta Falcons
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Pre-reinstatement)
Detroit Lions (Pre-reinstatement)
New York Jets (Pre-reinstatement and last week)
New York Giants (Recently)
San Francisco 49ers (Pre-reinstatement and post-reinstatement)
St. Louis Rams (Pre-reinstatement, and possibly post-reinstatement)
Dallas Cowboys (Pre-reinstatement and recently)
Washington Redskins (Pre-reinstatement and recently)
Houston Texans (Pre-reinstatement)
Indianapolis Colts (Pre-reinstatement)
Seattle Seahawks (Pre-reinstatement)
Buffalo Bills (Post-reinstatement)
Cincinnati Bengals (Post-reinstatement)
Miami Dolphins (Post-reinstatement)
Kansas City Chiefs (Pre-reinstatement and post-reinstatement)
Philadelphia Eagles (Post-reinstatement)

Here are the teams that to my knowledge have not made a statement (if you have new information, please let me know:


Oakland Raiders
Cleveland Browns
Houston Texans
Chicago Bears
Minnesota Vikings (Didn't say "no," but did not say "yes either)
St. Louis Rams

No statement from the Raiders

Now before you scream "The Raiders have said they will pass on Vick", no they didn't say that, a San Francisco Examiner columnist speculated they would do that, and it showed up in Google News. Offically, the Silver and Black have said nothing. Moreover, it's in the Raiders history to give a player like Vick a chance and if he's still able to run as he did two years ago, could give a defense fits in a kind of "Wildcat" formation with running backs Michael Bush and Darren McFadden.

Coach Tony Dungy is Vick's NFL-appointed mentor

Tony Dungy, the legendary Super Bowl-winning former coach of the Indianapolis Colts, is Vick's NFL-appointed mentor. Commissioner Goodell himself asked Dungy to help in this role and he could not have made a better choice. Dungy has taken his time to counsel men in prison and many players and former players look to him for advice. Based on what Dungy wrote, Vick may not be in a hurry to play football In his blog, Dungy explained:

I believe it (allowing Vick to return to the NFL) was the right call and I am glad that Michael is going to get a chance to re-start his football career. But, more than that, I’m happy with the position Michael has taken. I’ve met with him twice and spoken with him on the phone a few other times and I believe he is really focused on putting his life back together. Sure, he would love to play football in the NFL again, but I think he has other priorities. He has missed his family and looks to get those relationships going again, especially with his three children. I think he realizes not only how important they are to him, but also how important he is to their development. He has missed 18 months of that development and he wants his whole family together again.

With that, look for Vick to keep a low public profile and catch up with his family. Football's there but what we all forget is he's been away from society for two long years. He's got a lot of catching up to do. Heck, he's not even on Twitter!

Hands On Gourmet- Tip: How to Cut a Cantaloupe Melon

My friends from the great company Hands on Gourmet talk about the proper way to peel a melon. For more go to http://www.handsongourmet.com

John Edwards has a sex tape?

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In the story that will not die, we now learn that John Edwards, the former North Carolina Senator and VP running mate to John Kerry, now reportedly has a sex tape. According to Rush & Molloy, the gossip columnists of the New York Daily News, Edwards former aide Andrew Young just finished a book proposal that described first, that he is not the father of the child of Rielle Hunter, John Edwards mistress, second, that Young just happened to see a sexually-explicit videotape as he was unpacking after moving to California from the East Coast, where he lived with Rielle Hunter, Edwards' mistress, and Young's wife and family.

The story is known by now: in August of 2008, after the heat of the Democratic Primary had cleared and just before the Democratic National Convention, former Senator Edwards admitted he cheated on his wife Elizabeth starting in 2006, while she was battling breast cancer. The scandal was originally reported by the Enquirer as far back as November of 2007, and just a few blogs, including Zennie62, then called "Zennie's Zeitgeist" followed it.

Rielle Hunter was an amateur film-maker Edwards befriended in New York City in 2006, but the friendship turned into two things: a $200,000 video job for Hunter and an affair for Edwards. Then - aide Andrew Young told the media - or those new media types paying attention - that he was the person who had the affair with Hunter and evntually got her pregnant.

This video I created gives you a look at what Rielle Hunter did for Edwards on the campaign trail:



Now Young's changing his story, claiming there's a sex tape and he has it, stating that he's not the father of Hunter's child and that Edwards is, and throwing Edwards so far under the bus he's going to be ran over by it and have skid marks on his back.

Yikes.

The question is why, after all this time, would Andrew Young do this to his former boss? Loyalty can last forever, can't it? According to the Huffington Post, Young feels "betrayed" by the "once-friendly" Edwards family. That turnabout may have come at the hands of Elizabeth Edwards, as the NY Daily News claims it was she who blamed Young for being an "enabler" of Edwards affair with Hunter, even to the point of arranging cell phone calls between Edwards and Hunter. Reportedly, Ms. Edwards threatened to leak information about Young's criminal past.

Yikes.

And The Enquirer, which rose from tabloid obscurity to gain mainstream media attention by breaking this story, reports that Young expressed displeasure with Edwards after he visited Hunter just after the child was born last year. Then, just after Edwards admitted his affair in August of 2008, Fox News ran a post presenting Young's unfortunate past of arrests. Young, with his image damaged, felt backed into a corner and like any wounded animal, struck back with this new story. The real story.

(Some websites, like the Enquirer claim the story of Young's past came up in The Daily Beast, but that's not true. It was Fox News.)

That the Edwards matter has degenerated to this point is sad to say the least. A once-promising man and family have essentially reduced themselves to the point of slinging mud at former friends and vice versa and who knows who else is next, given that Elizabeth Edwards is writing a book too.

Yikes!

Erin Andrews voted most influential TV reporter

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From the "You've gotta be kidding me" department, we have the news that ESPN's on-air reporter Erin Andrews has been voted "the most influential TV reporter" in a contest established by website Mediaite.com. If you're wondering just who Erin Andrews is and have been under a rock, first consult my video above, then come back here.

To recap, Erin Andrews is the ESPN reporter that was the focus - literally - of someone taking a peephole camcorder video of her in the nude, in a hotel room. The suspect has still not been identified or captured as of this writing, while some believe it may have been a co-worker at ESPN. With that action, Erin Andrews has emerged from unknown to known, and to "most infuential reporter" in two-weeks. Before we look closely at that, let's see who she passed up to gain the lofty title.

The Mediaite Power Grid contains 290 reporters in its selection field for the category of "TV Reporter". Overall, Mediaite ranks 1,500 personalities in 12 categories. Anyone can send an email to be listed, at powergrid@mediaite.com, but once there, Mediaites' system takes over and its not perfect, at least at first. But I argue that it is depending on how the results are used. Let's look at Mediaite's explanation for how it ranks TV reporters, where Erin Andrews is listed, first:

TV Reporters are individuals who report news stories on-air for a television network. Their rankings are determined based on: appearances/mentions on television as compiled by the media monitoring service TVEyes, ratings of that network or program, Online Buzz of proper name, Blogs Buzz of proper name, and Twitter Followers (if applicable). You might at times see an individual ranked higher than any of their individual metric rankings — keep in mind that our algorithm weights some metrics more than others.

And here's the complete list of metrics used, straight from Mediaite's FAQ page:

Metrics

Twitter Followers – This metric is an individual’s total number of Twitter followers, if applicable. (Individuals who do not use Twitter will not be penalized.)

Google Buzz of Name - This metric is the number of relevant hits yielded by a Google search of an individual’s name. Irrelevant hits, such as those for similarly-named individuals, are filtered out. For instance, the Google Buzz metric for James B. Stewart, the writer and reporter, filters out hits for Jimmy Stewart, the actor, and for James Stewart, Jr., the motocross racer.

Google Blog Buzz of Name – This metric is the number of relevant hits yielded by a Google blog search of an individual’s name. Irrelevant hits, such as those for similarly-named individuals, are filtered out. For instance, the Google Blog Buzz metric for James B. Stewart, the writer and editor, filters out hits for Jimmy Stewart, the actor, and for James Stewart, Jr., the motocross racer.

Google Buzz of Affiliation or Title – This metric is the number of relevant hits yielded by a Google search of a television program, print publication, or online publication. Irrelevant hits, such as those for similarly-named titles, are filtered out. For instance, the Google Buzz metric for Vanity Fair, the Condé Nast magazine, filters out hits for the Thackeray novel of the same name.

Google Blog Buzz of Affiliation or Title - This metric is the number of relevant hits yielded by a Google blog search of a television program, print publication, or online publication. Irrelevant hits, such as those for similarly-named titles, are filtered out. For instance, the Google Buzz metric for Vanity Fair, the Condé Nast magazine, filters out hits for the Thackeray novel of the same name.

Ratings of Columns - This metric is the ratings of this individual’s columns published, either exclusively online or through a publication’s website, over the past 180 days as determined by Technorati.

Print Circulation – This metric can be one of two things. For newspapers, this metric is the total average paid circulation per week. For magazines, this metric is the total paid and verified circulation per issue.

Unique Online Visitors – This metric is the estimated number of visitors to an online publication’s website in the past month, as determined by online reporting site Compete.com.

TV Airtime (through TVEyes) -This metric is the total number of times an individual appears or is mentioned on air in the previous week on a selection of U.S. cable channels, local network affiliates, and international television news operations. These statistics are reported by the media monitoring service TVEyes.

Time slot Ratings - This metric is the total viewership of the program, as extrapolated from Nielsen-reported television ratings.Note: in some cases television ratings have been adjusted for individuals who appear on programs that only air once per week, or are part of a larger ensemble cast.

Network Ratings - This metric is the total viewership for all programs managed by a given television executive, as extrapolated from Nielsen-reported television ratings. In the case of broadcast networks, we are using Prime Time network ratings. Cable Networks, however, we are using the average total day rating. Note: in some cases television ratings have been adjusted for individuals who appear on programs that only air once per week, or are part of a larger ensemble cast.

Radio Ratings - This metric is the average total number of listeners for a given radio program as extrapolated from Arbitron’s radio listenership ratings that are publicly available or self-reported.

Company Valuations - This metric is the estimated total valuation of all media companies in which an individual owns a significant stake. Non-media companies owned by an individual are not counted; however, any media company in which the individual holds a partial stake is counted at full value.

Personal Net Worth – This metric is the estimated net worth of an individual, including media, non-media holdings, and other components of personal wealth.

Number of Employees – This metric is the estimated total number of people employed under an individual, whether at an entire media company, a network, an individual publication, or a television show.

Looking at the list, Erin Andrews shares the stage with such luminaries as ABC's Jack Tapper (ranked number 2 today), MSNBC's Chuck Todd (ranked number 3 today), and others like CBS News' Morley Safer and Mike Wallace (number 4 and number 5 respectively). The highest ranking woman other than Andrews is Savannah Guthrie, White House Correspondent for NBC News at number 6 on the list. The reason Andrews is the most powerful on this list is - and Mediaite explains this - directly related to the buzz she's gotten due to this whole peephole video affair.

But does that mean she's not powerful? Well, yes and no. Let's take the hard-to-stomach yes, first. Andrews has a platform that she and ESPN could use to gain ratings or for her to bring attention to a particular concern she has, like how women should be looked at by a different set of "metrics" in media. Regardless of the fact that she would be advocating for an end to the very thing that gave her a platform, she would have it to use for her soapbox. So far, she hasn't done that, and it's a huge error. Erin lacks a Twitter page, for which she could gain millions of new followers overnight to do with whatever she pleases in much the same way that Ellen DeGeneres used her millions of followers to advance an online petition.

That Andrews may not have liked how she got this platform is perhaps the main reason she's not using it, but it's a big error in judgment because given that her network rankings on Mediaite are at number 45, when the buzz dies down, her drop from number one's going to be a big one unless she has a new appearance on TV once during the next two weeks. So, you may ask?

The "So" is in dollar. Buzz equals bucks, my friend, and people want to see and learn about other people. That's what's missing from the recent blog by San Francisco Chronicle Editor-At-Large Phil Bronstein on the new narcisism in media. Hey Phil, it pays the bills, just ask Rush Limbaugh, who's following of 14 million "dittoheads" has him laughing all the way to the bank with a $400 million contract.

If Andrews plays her cards correctly she can build such a following, but she's got to get over the anger of what happened to her to do so. Whomever made the peephole video unwittingly gave her a weapon to change media for herself - it's up to her to use it. Andrews can parlay the attention into a business that uses her name to help other women in media get noticed the right way, not the nude way.

Chevron Richmond issue: new video shows job loss impact

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Apparently someone was paying attention to my call for videos from last week's Richmond City Council meeting where I reported that California Attorney General Jerry Brown visited a packed council hearing room and got passed a resolution to allow him to get involved in the issue of the stopped Chevron plant construction order. A number of comments on my blogs pointed to video links but then out-of-the-blue, Chevron itself stepped forward with their video, and it's a good one:



The video shows the workers impacted telling their stories in much the same way that laid off plant construction electrician Dennis Roos told his story to me. The video was apparently created last Tuesday, at the Richmond City Council hearing. One worker in the video said "I've got a family. I've got four girls. I've got a house payment. A car payment. I was really dependent on this job." In the meeting itself, one woman said "I urge you to put yourselfs in our shoes. I've can't pay my taxes. I can't buy groceries. I can't feed myself and I can't support my family."

For me this is hard to take. Again, I can't understand why Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Barbara Zuniga designed the decision in the way she did when there were so many creative policy roads she could have taken. If one wonders why California has an initiative process, here's an example. The thousands of people harmed by her action have no employment place to go. We're in the worst economy since the Depression and California's feeling the brunt of the pain.

Much of the Federal bailout money goes to new projects, but if they're stopped at the local level, then the jobs that were to be created are erased. In this case, Richmond residents, Judge Zuniga's own people, are harmed. You may call it a "tough, hard nosed decision" but I call it a terrible policy design, and my focus has been policy analysis for most of my life. Good policy works to form a set of laws that work for the best outcome for people on both sides of the equation, not just one side. It takes a level of creativity Judge Zuniga is more than capable of.

But what's done is done; it just needs to be fixed; these people are suffering. As I wrote before, the real little guy didn't win at all.

Again, I'm not questioning environmental concerns at all, just this "winner take all" attitude that comes with these battles of late in a complex system. And that's the point: our socioeconomic system is more complex than the activists - who always simplify these things without an understanding of how to find the main "drivers" in them - get.

A course in system dynamics (which shows how to "connect the dots" between one decision and its impacts) for all concerned - councilmembers, judge, company, workers - would help a lot. But frankly the workers don't need the lesson: they are the ultimate drivers here and have connected those dots. They make the plant run. They build new plans. They vote. They make purchases for families. And they breath the same air, so I know from conversations they're concerned about that too. And if they decide to ban together and take action, they could turn this bad decision around and make it so it doesn't happen again. They need their jobs back as soon as possible.

The overall lesson is for our legal and policy system to "get smart" and start making creative decisions that save California's economy but not at the expense of workers or the environment.

Alexis Cohen's Death caused by 23-year-old New Jersey man

From MTV.com - Police have arrested a 23-year-old New Jersey man in connection with Saturday morning's hit-and-run death of two-time "American Idol" contestant Alexis Cohen. The Asbury Park Journal reports that Daniel Bark was arrested at 6 p.m. on Sunday and charged with causing Cohen's death by reckless driving and then leaving the scene of a collision.