2023 NFL Draft At Kansas City Union Station & WWI Museum and Memorial April 27-29th

2023 NFL Draft At Kansas City Union Station & WWI Museum and Memorial April 27-29th

2023 NFL Draft At Kansas City Union Station & WWI Museum and Memorial April 27-29th
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtVF1vhg1s8

Tiger Woods Masters Cut: Tiger Woods Makes Cut At 2023 Masters And For 23rd Straight Time

Tiger Woods Masters Cut: Tiger Woods Makes Cut At 2023 Masters And For 23rd Straight Time

Tiger Woods Masters Cut: Tiger Woods Makes Cut At 2023 Masters And For 23rd Straight Time
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2Xy1-wYZqQ

Fans Catch CAT Plummeting from Stadium

Fans Catch CAT Plummeting from Stadium

'Fans Catch CAT Plummeting from Stadium' Fans watched in terror, as a cat clung to the upper tier of a stadium. The cat hung from a single claw as people frantically prepared a soft landing. All eyes turned from the game to the tense situation in the stalls. As the cat plummeted to the seats below, fans caught it in an American flag. Subscribe here: http://bit.ly/ODNsubs Twitter: https://twitter.com/ODN Facebook: https://ift.tt/vktZO3R If you wish to purchase any of our clips for commercial use, please visit: https://ift.tt/Uz1b3XA #Shorts #Cat #Animals #Football #Americanfootball #Cats
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxRGRFKBVLg

Las Vegas Has A Government Culture Friendlier To Professionals Than Oakland’s

Las Vegas Has A Government Culture Friendlier To Professionals Than Oakland’s

Las Vegas Has A Government Culture Friendlier To Professionals Than Oakland’s
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIRswYo3PKU

C J Stroud Interview: 2023 NFL Draft: Ohio State QB C J Stroud Meets Press At NFL Combine

C J Stroud Interview: 2023 NFL Draft: Ohio State QB C J Stroud Meets Press At NFL Combine

C J Stroud Interview: 2023 NFL Draft: Ohio State QB C J Stroud Meets Press At NFL Combine Zennie62Media NFL Draft Expert ...
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYLZV_5OCN4

C J Stroud Interview: 2023 NFL Draft: Ohio State QB C J Stroud Meets Press At NFL Combine

C J Stroud Interview: 2023 NFL Draft: Ohio State QB C J Stroud Meets Press At NFL Combine

C J Stroud Interview: 2023 NFL Draft: Ohio State QB C J Stroud Meets Press At NFL Combine Zennie62Media NFL Draft Expert Bill Carroll on the scene at the NFL Combine, where Ohio State QB C J Stroud steps up to the podium. C J Stroud is expected to be the first player picked at the 2023 NFL Draft in Kansas City. Zennie Abraham is executive producer and event producer, and the background voice directing the livestream. Join Zennie62 YouTube channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqtc118chzxCUJExjeWbeEA/join A Zennie62 Oakland News Now YouTube vlog SUBSCRIBE TO ZENNIE62 YOUTUBE HERE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqtc118chzxCUJExjeWbeEA?sub_confirmation=1
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYLZV_5OCN4

2023 NFL Draft Mock Draft With Bill Carroll & Zennie Abraham For April 4th 2023

2023 NFL Draft Mock Draft With Bill Carroll & Zennie Abraham For April 4th 2023

2023 NFL Draft Mock Draft With Bill Carroll & Zennie Abraham For April 4th 2023 1. Carolina Panthers (from Chicago Bears) 2. Houston Texans 3. Arizona Cardinals 4. Indianapolis Colts 5. Seattle Seahawks (from Denver Broncos) 6. Detroit Lions (from Los Angeles Rams) 7. Las Vegas Raiders 8. Atlanta Falcons 9. Chicago Bears (from Carolina Panthers) 10. Philadelphia Eagles (from New Orleans Saints) 11. Tennessee Titans 12. Houston Texans (from Cleveland Browns) 13. New York Jets 14. New England Patriots 15. Green Bay Packers 16. Washington Commanders 17. Pittsburgh Steelers 18. Detroit Lions 19. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20. Seattle Seahawks XX. Miami Dolphins (pick forfeited) 21. Los Angeles Chargers 22. Baltimore Ravens 23. Minnesota Vikings 24. Jacksonville Jaguars 25. New York Giants 26. Dallas Cowboys 27. Buffalo Bills 28. Cincinnati Bengals 29. New Orleans Saints (from San Francisco 49ers through Miami Dolphins and Denver Broncos) 30. Philadelphia Eagles 31. Kansas City Chiefs
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swc6e1hIQcw

Phil Williams Of NC5 Needs Lesson In Fair Use Legal Rights For News Re: Tennessee House Melee

Phil Williams Of NC5 Needs Lesson In Fair Use Legal Rights For News Re: Tennessee House Melee

Phil Williams Of NC5 Needs Lesson In Fair Use Legal Rights For News Re: Tennessee House Melee Not sure who Phil Williams thinks he is but you can’t run afoul of Fair Use Legal Rights for News Commentary by posting a newsworthy video but then tell other media they can’t show it. Learn the Stanford Four Factors Test for news. As to what happened that’s in the video from Mondsy, three Tennessee House Democrats were being expelled for engagement in a peaceful protest on the floor during last Thursday’s session. Then Rep. Justin Jones was making a video and then Rep. Lafferty (R-Knox) pushes him and grabs his phone. That started the melee captured in the video that Phil Williams posted on Twitter. The real question is why were they protesting in the first place last Thursday? Well, gun reform in the wake of the recent mass shooting. It completely wild that Republicans don’t want to have common-sense gun reform even as we’re faced with a rash of mass shootings. Crazy. And also crazy is trying to block Fair Use Legal News Commentary, which is what this is. That Stanford Four Factors Test is: The four factors judges consider are: the purpose and character of your use the nature of the copyrighted work the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and the effect of the use upon the potential market. Or: purpose was educational, nature of the work was non-fiction news, amount used was a fraction, and effect was to promote Phil’s video. There you go. Stay tuned.
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Ma7c3RtzM

Why Oakland Is Behind With Howard Terminal Ballpark

Why Oakland Is Behind With Howard Terminal Ballpark

Ok, here's the totally, completely, unvarnished, hard, difficult truth why the City of Oakland is so far behind where it should be in helping the Oakland Athletics build a ballpark at Howard Terminal. The simple set of reasons I am about to roll out can be summed up in one word: over-politicization. That's right: over-politicization. Robert Bobb's Downtown Ballpark Dream Dashed By Jerry Brown The fact is the structure for Oakland's bureaucratic slowness was formed with the passage of “Measure X”, then-Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown's version of a long-sought-after form of government called Strong Mayor. Passed in 1998, it took effect in 1999, and matted Brown with a person who was every-bit his match on the city administrative side: then-City Manager Robert Bobb. Mr. Bobb, who was trained in the traditional fashion of city managers, to, well, run a city, including it's public-private-partnerships, and who wanted Oakland to “Host Super Bowls and build ballparks” as he said at an early February 1999 city staff meeting I attended (as the new city consultant who was Economic Advisor to the previous Mayor Elihu Harris) to plan for Oakland's then-annual trip to Las Vegas for the International Council of Shopping Center's Spring Convention. As it turned out, Bobb's dreams for Oakland clashed head-long with Brown's in Bobb's pursuit of a downtown ballpark for the Oakland A's in 2002 (and after Bobb hired me to form a bid for Oakland to host the 2005 Super Bowl). Brown fired Bobb, who then was almost immediately snatched up by Washington DC, and successfully brought Major League Baseball there, along with a downtown ballpark. In short, Oakland's version of strong mayor pushed out many a trained city-builder, and left in its place an organizational habit of elected officials using big projects to burnish their own images, and accomplish nothing in return by completing those big projects. The Oakland A's quest for a ballpark home has been victimized by it. Indeed, Oakland's version of strong mayor is why Oakland has lost all of its professional sports teams, and has done nothing to try and replace any of them. Ron Dellums Plays Political Games With Oakland's Ballpark Dreams In the case of the now-late Ron Dellums, the great congressman had the sad habit of playing ballpark advocates against each other, with one wanting a building at the Coliseum and the other at Howard Terminal, and both coming up short. Rather than one giant task force to determine what should be done, and one that should have been led by Oakland's Economic Development Department, and a person who was trained at implementing large-scale projects, Dellums allowed many task forces to form, even one by the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, who's job is to help the City of Oakland, and not lead it in a direction of its own making. But, to be sure, the person who's face was on the entire affair was Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, and no one else. Oakland Councilmember Larry Reid worked to try and carve out a larger role, but again, it was an example of an elected official's hand being in the pot, and not a city-building city official. Then came Oakland Mayor Jean Quan. Mayor Quan Doesn't Let Fred Blackwell Be The Face of Oakland Sports Business Retention Unlike Brown and Dellums, Mayor Quan smartly put Oakland Eonomic Development Director Fred Blackwell in charge of projects, including a new arena for the Warriors, a new stadium for the Raiders, and a new arena for the Warriors. Unfortunately, Quan and the Oakland City Council's insistance on having themselves as the face of the efforts, led to bungled lease negotiations with the A's and Alameda County, and the embarassing idea that the financing fortunes of the planned Coliseum City were in the hands of the Prince of Dubai, rather than a complex financing plan typical of such large scale public-private partnerships. Then came Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf. Libby Schaaf's Jerry Brown Playbook Fails As Raiders Leave Oakland Continued here at Zennie62Media's Oakland News Online: https://ift.tt/aFyvNWb
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0OaJOBgQnM

What Trump Getting Indicted Means For America By Vinny Lospinuso

What Trump Getting Indicted Means For America By Vinny Lospinuso

Join Zennie62 YouTube channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqtc118chzxCUJExjeWbeEA/join A ...
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD6UkUJCHWc

Ending Oakland Eviction Moratoriums In A Pandemic-Weakened Recession-Bound Economy Is Crazy

Ending Oakland Eviction Moratoriums In A Pandemic-Weakened Recession-Bound Economy Is Crazy

Ending Oakland Eviction Moratoriums In A Pandemic-Weakened Recession-Bound Economy Is Crazy The main problem here is simple: overall, Government (using a big G) has forgotten that its duty is economic development and not poor-people creation. One would think that decades of government policy around Keynesian Economics would have burned that idea into the American culture. But it appears decades of development of the idea that what government pays for is someone else's problem has overtaken what people supposedly elect politicians to do. This is true now in California, and Oakland seems to be getting the fever. So, absent California, Alameda County, or Oakland government stepping in and paying to provide assistance to both landlords and renters on anything more than a piecemeal basis has yielded this giant problem: the massive insanity of California seeking to push out many who can't afford rent because the job market crashed and making up the idea that rents not paid by those who are working. The sad truth is worse: scores of businesses forced to close due to Government Pandemic policy have taken money from many small business workers, and at a time when Government could have paid the businesses to close, but did not. There's only one word for this state of affairs: crazy. Another word is immoral. And yet another word is inhuman. This will officially plunge America into the place of a third-world country. A failed nation resting on the democratic ideal of a recent time. America has forgotten one truth: democracy works best in a non-class-system, where there's no permanent group of poor, and homelessness is a fantasy rather than a reality. When I grew up the idea of anyone being in such terrible conditions they would sleep on the streets was not even heard of. But here we are, 60 years later, and we find an America where homelessness is normalized. And we have done this under both Democrat and Republican regimes. And in Oakland and California, where legislation using tax increment financing is available, it's not used to form zones collecting property tax for bonds issues that could get assistance money to landlords and renters, and small business owners. In closing, we're in a terrible place: a place where government has failed its people. Where we go from here is a matter of political will. Stay tuned.
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H0HfMnE8t4

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao To Hire Robert Bobb As Chief Administrative Officer

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao To Hire Robert Bobb As Chief Administrative Officer

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao hiring Robert Bobb for CAO! Site a desire to have an experienced, steady hand to run the City of ...
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JChnN92vsb4

Katie Couric: 4 out of 5? Not bad, Katie, not bad. But where's the love?

What does YouTube bring to journalism?

Katie Couric offered an overview in a video celebrating 5 years of YouTube without referring to us here at Zennie's

"I commend all the citizen journalists who are showing us their realities and proving that even Burma, China, or Africa can be just a click away."

~Katie Couric

OK, I'll take that, even though I put a lot less on YouTube than Zennie does. We've been commended, but we didn't make her list. Well, what I mean is, he didn't make it. I'm not surprised that I didn't make it, I use YouTube as a sort of incidental tool.

Zennie, though? Zennie has been partnering with YouTube and attracting the kind of discussions in the reply area that built traffic from the start.

"Raising awareness of human rights abuses and providing first hand accounts of conflicts and catastrophes moments after they strike."

~Katie Couric

She came up with a list of five pieces she thinks are demonstrative of how YouTube can be a catalyst for change.

Actually, it's a pretty good list. Who in the U.S. can forget Virginia Senator George Allen's infamous "Macaca" comment? That certainly put politicians on notice. She included the 2007 anti-government protests in Burma, the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province in China, and the murder of Neda Agha-Soltan during the Iranian election protests in 2009.

Four entirely exemplary videos.

But footage of a lion attacking a water buffalo on the Africa plain? Is that really more important to the story of YouTube than, say, interviews with Cornell West and Tavis Smiley, or footage from Obama's campaign and the convention that nominated him?

Come on, Ms. Couric - where's the love?

What does YouTube bring to your view of the world?

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, journalist, political staffer, and photographer who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community. He's been contributing here at Zennie's since prior to the Democrat's National Convention in Denver that nominated our current President in August of 2008, and hereby officially totally apologizes to Zennie for not doing more video -- for real :)

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Michael Jackson's 911 call: what did the doctor do?

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TMZ has a quicktime download of the 911 call made from Michael Jackson's home after he fell to cardiac arrest yesterday. According to TMZ, the doctor, a Dr. Conrad Murray , was the only witness. The LA police are searching for Dr. Murray, who's whereabouts are unknown.

Wild.

Here's my record of the 911 call, which you can hear at the link above as well:

Fire Paramedic33: Fire Paramedic 33, what's your emergency?

Michael Jackson's Caller: Yes sir, I need to, uh, uh I need an ambulance as soon as possible, sir.

Fire Paramedic33: Ok, Sir what's your adress?

Michael Jackson's Caller: Los Angeles, California, 90077

Fire Paramedic33: Say Carowood?

Michael Jackson's Caller: Carowood Drive, yes.

Fire Paramedic33: Ok Sir, what's the phone number you're calling from, and (unintelligible)

Michael Jackson's Caller: Uh, sir we have a gentleman here that needs help; he's not breathing. He's not breathing and we're trying to pump him..

Fire Paramedic33: OK, how old?

Michael Jackson's Caller: He's ah, 50 years old.

Fire Paramedic33: 50? Ok. He's unconcious. He's not breathing?

Michael Jackson's Caller: Yes. He's not breathing sir.

Fire Paramedic33: Ok. Where's he at right now?

Michael Jackson's Caller: He's on the bed.

Fire Paramedic33: Let's get him on the floor.

Michael Jackson's Caller: OK.

Fire Paramedic33: Ok. Let's get him on the floor. I'm going to help you with CPR ok? Just...We're on our way. We're on our way. I'm going to do as much as I can over the phone. We're on the way. Did anybody see him?

Michael Jackson's Caller: Yes, we have a personal doctor here with him, sir.

Fire Paramedic33: Oh, you have a doctor there?

Michael Jackson's Caller: Yes, but he (Jackson) is not responding to CPR, anything.

Fire Paramedic33: Oh. Ok. We're on our way there. If you have a doctor he's a high authority than me and he's on the scene. Uh, did anybody witness what happened?

Michael Jackson's Caller: No, just the doctor sir. The doctor is the only one here.

Fire Paramedic33: Oh, did the doctor see what happened?

Michael Jackson's Caller: (Over to doctor) Did you see what happened? Sir, if you just, if you please...

Fire Paramedic33: We're on our way. We're on our way. I'll pass these question on to our paramedics. We're on our way.

Michael Jackson's Caller: Thank you sir. He's pumping , he's pumping his chest but he's not responding to anything, sir, please.

Fire Paramedic33: OK. We're on our way; we're less than a mile away.

What did the doctor do? Well, it's believed that Jackson passed from a painkiller drug called Demerol according to the Telegraph UK. That medicine reportedly has a side effect of possible cardiac arrest if it's not taken properly. The house Jackson rented is marked as a crime scene.

My God.

(UPDATE: Fox News reports that a house dweller claims Dr. Murray never lived at Jackson's home and no one picked up the phone at Murray's Nevada office. The office is at 2110 E Flamingo Rd Las Vegas, NV 89119-5190 (702) 866-6802 according to a Google search. He's listed as a cardiologist. On the Internet website RateMd's.com , Dr. Murray has a good rating of 5.0.


I talked to people on their views of Michael Jackson's passing:

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New Moon | Why Is Twillight / New Moon So Popular?

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YouTube, MySpace, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Sclipo and Viddler

Maybe you all can help me with this. Ok? Here goes. Why is the Twillight Saga so popular? The official trailer for the movie "New Moon" is out and it looks interesting this Trekker's just not feeling it. Especially since the one person who appears to be the baddy is a rastafarian black guy who's about to get it by a guy, "Jake" who turns into a wolf in mid run.

What's that you say? I've got to read the book series Twillight? I guess so; there's four of em. Look, I've seen the book all over the place: on the BART Train, at the gym, in the hand of a passer by. Almost always a woman between the age of 20 and 50; mostly white or Asian in the Bay Area - seldom black. Just an observation. I've only once seen a guy reading the book. Just an observation.

I have to admit I became more interested in this because the author of the Twillight Saga, Stephanie Meyer, came up with this four-book marvel of success out of a crazy dream she had in 2003 about a 17-year-old girl and a studly vampire who loves her but wants to kill her and suck her blood. Moreover, Meyer, reportedly expecting a $10,000 book advance just to pay off her minivan, got a $750,000 deal, and the book series has sold 17 million copies worldwide, has made her a new millionaire, and...wow.

That's great. For that alone, I'm proud of Stephanie. Hugely so.

But why the heck is it so popular?

Last year, Gawker's Alex Carnevale explained that Vanity Fair's James Wolcott "pulled out the stops" in trying to pull together all of the pop-culture referrences that seem to have found their way into Twillight:

"Here's the full list of cultural references from Wolcott's piece: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dracula, Vampire Academy, Gossip Girl, The Morganville Vampires, Vampire Kisses, The Vampire Diaries, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, Into the Wild, Mary-Louise Parker, Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries, Six Feet Under, Harry Potter, Debussy, Rudolf Nureyev, Chris Isaak, Michelangelo, Chopin, Superman, the gays, Sarah Palin, James Dean, David Lynch, Bob Dylan, Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction, and Brideshead Revisited. An impressive array, to say the least."

Ok. But that's not necessarily a receipe for success as the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So I'm using new media to take the question to you: why is the Twillight Saga so popular? Also, when I look at the Vanity Fair photo here:

All I see is the common picture of white American youth plus one African American and one other person of color out of 12 people. Interesting. It's a photo so common it implies anyone who's not "that" need not be at the party for the most part, except as a token. And therein lies the problem for me, specifically.

Why does the Twillight Saga have to be an almost totally white picture of a fantasy? Because Meyer's Mormon and it's her dream? I'm not comfortable with that notion only because I don't know Meyer and admire what she's done. Since I want to like her, I'm afraid to go that route of thinking.

I'm just being honest. I'm just thinking, which I do too much of perhaps. But I just can't accept what's tossed at me chapter and verse. Sorry.

That feeling of racial isolation is a bit bothersome to me, especially as our society becomes ever more integrated. I don't think for a moment most readers of Twillight think about the story in this way as presented in the book. But the movies -- the movies give a different take because they paint the picture for us.

See? Our ability to create a fantasy and install ourselves within it, skin color and all, is taken away. Then here comes Vanity Fair to cement the deal.

The real wildly popular story of an interracial set of as President Obama would say "folks" has yet to be told. But I have the feeling one can't achieve success by setting out to write that story. I suppose some guy, somewhere, will have a dream about a 20-year old African American boy and a space alien in the form of a hot-for-teacher, 40-year old hardbody Asian woman who wants to kill him and take his bones back to some home planet in Orion's Belt, but is so in love with him she winds up...

You get the idea.

Hmmm....

The Blog Report TV Show: Josh Wolf; Parkway Theater's Last Day

 

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YouTube, Blip.tv and Sclipo

Wow, sorry I was away, but I spent all of Thursday traveling from Atlanta to San Francisco, then covering Bay to Breakers events, and finally just taking time off. Pretty fried, frankly. But the World turns on.

Each Saturday, my new television show is on. It's called The Blog Report With Zennie62 and features the use of my video blogs in a weekly 30-minute format broadcast and co-produced by CoLoursTV in Denver. The start time is 3:30 PM Pacific Time, 6:30 PM Eastern Time and the show is replayed at 11:30 PM and 2:30 PM respecfully. Then it is replayed on Sunday at 12 noon pacific and 3 PM eastern.

The third installment of The Blog Report with Zennie62 features the introduction of a new documentary film made by Sierra Choi and about SF Bay Area journalist Josh Wolf. I met Josh and Sierra in 2006 when both was working for The Peralta Community College District's "Peralta TV" network in different capacities and I was trying to establish something called The Monte Poole Show. Sierra's now a segment producer for The Blog Report with Zennie62.

Josh Wolf was the longest jailed journalist in history

Wolf's story is an interesting one to say the least: he was jailed for 226 days for defying a judges order to give up a video tape he created at the scene of a crime. Josh kept the video because he believed the FBI was actually trying to determine who "subversives" were and develop a list of them and to surpress American journalism. A large number of organizations called for his release:

Tom Hayden
Committee to Protect Journalists
American Civil Liberties Union
Society of Professional Journalists
National Press Club
The Newspaper Guild/Communications Workers of America
National Lawyer’s Guild
Northern California Media Workers Guild
California Newspaper Publishers Association
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Center for Media and Democracy
Reporters Without Borders
National Writers Union
First Amendment Project
Washington Independent Writers
National Press Photographers Association
Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc.
League of Young Voters
Grand Jury Resistance Project
San Francisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris
San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee
San Francisco Labor Council
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Daniel Ellsberg
California State Assemblyman Mark Leno
California State Senator Carole Migden
Steal this Wiki
COA News
San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Bay Guardian
Contra Costa Times
Charles Cooper, Executive Editor, CNET News
Keene Free Press
Peter Laufer, Huffington Post

Eventually, he was released from Jail on April 3, 2007 but the case affirmed how the media is able to protect its sources in the State of California, but not from the Federal Government; that is still an issue.

Some, including the San Francisco Chronicle's Debra Saunders in one of her worst moments, argued that Wolf was not a journalist, but the appeals court in the case of Apple lawsuit against bloggers leaking product information actually protects Wolf and other bloggers because the holding was that the California Shield Law, which protects journalists from revealing their sources, also applies to "web publishers" which include bloggers.

In part as a result of Wolf's ordeal, a move to craft a new Federal Shield Law protecting bloggers was established in 2007 and a new bill was presented this year. The portion that bloggers are interested in reads:

“COVERED PERSON- The term `covered person' means a person who regularly gathers, prepares, collects, photographs, records, writes, edits, reports, or publishes news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public for a substantial portion of the person's livelihood or for substantial financial gain and includes a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such covered person.”

It looks like this bill's going to pass, even with its flaws it has 40 sponsors and does protect journalists in those states that don't have sheild laws. For example many bloggers who work for free would not be covered by this Federal Law, but video-bloggers who are YouTube Partners and are compensated by Google AdSense by generating views from their work would be.

Interestingly, Wolf was just accepted into the U.C. Berkeley journalism school. He starts this fall. If I were a professor there, I'd have an entire class based around Josh's experience.

Choi is seeking partners to help finance the documentary. You can reach her through me via email.

Save The Parkway

The second video on the show is the story of the close of the famous Parkway Theater and why its important beyond Oakland's boarders. This was done before I knew about the "Save The Parkway Effort" which is underway, but it's good to look back and see what happened. Only this time, the last day of the popular facility will be in shown in 17 million homes. Be sure to watch it on DISH Network.

The show also features my take on the story of Terrell Owens' separation from the Dallas Cowboys, and why newspaper managers don't get new media.

No. I didn't bury the lead.

Star Trek Formed My Longtime Friendships

 

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Today the long awaited Star Trek movie is out and like any nerdy Trekker, I'm excited. I got our tickets 10 days ago and didn't have to stand in line, contrary to what you might think. But the real story here is that on Saturday, May 9th, I'm going to see Star Trek with my long time friends Bill Boyd and Lars Frykman.

This is an Oakland Trekker story in brief.

Bill, Lars, and I met in Oakland in 1976 when we were 14 years old at what was then called Bret Harte Junior High School, now Bret Harte Middle School. I was new to Oakland, having moved with my mom to the city from Chicago as my mom was in search of better schools for me. How times have changed!

The Bret Harte Star Trek Club

I was a big Star Trek fan and wanted to start a club at Bret Harte. I had no clue how to do this, so my friends said "You should talk to Bill Boyd or Lars Frykman!" So I was introduced to Bill, who at 14 had the deepest voice I've ever heard in my life, and has the same voice today! Then there was Lars, who's just unique and uses terms like "GROK" the meaning of which I've forgotten.

At any rate, Bill and Lars are white; I'm black. But in Star Trek, as Doctor McCoy once said, "People are different. You get used to those things." We formed a diverse set of people, all interested in science and led by Craig Pryor who famously worked through all of the problem sets in our calculus book before the end of the semester. But whom I bested in a massive debate on American versus foreign cars - I took American and won!

But we were and to this day are great friends. At Bret Harte in 1976 we made the most money of any club at our carnival taking in $104.76. We did it with a game Craig came up with where you throw a set of "Tribbles" (from the Star Trek episode "Trouble With The Tribbles") our moms made from fur and stuffing at a ping pong ball suspended from the air from a vacuum cleaner.

You laugh.

But Star Trek was the show that brought all of us together and caused us to work conventions in Oakland and have parties and get girlfriends. And it was because Star Trek continues to show a positive view of the future and how we relate to each other.

I can't wait for Bill, Lars, and Craig to see this and I can't wait to see Star Trek, even if the movie messes up the San Francisco Skyline.

Why Oakland A's Owner Guy Saperstein Is Just Wrong!

 

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Ok. On the A's stadium issue I've read a lot of stuff from a lot of different people, sat in on my last Mayor's Office Sports and Entertainment Task Force Meeting (I quit), read and published John Russo's letter, and now I'm going to give the "once over" to Oakland A's Co-Owner Guy T. Saperstein's letters (plural) that have been bouncing around the Internet.

I'm starting a plain old bare knuckles brawl here, as I'm throwing another set of punches to add to John Russo's Ali-like jabs of last week, only my punches are not jabs; I'm going for the knockout. A lot of people aren't going to like what I'm about to write, but others are going to be happy someone said it.

Before I turn my anger to Mr. Saperstein, I have to give a tongue-lashing to three people: Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, Oakland Planning Commisssioner Doug Boxer, and Oakland Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Joe Haraburda. But before I do, I want to thank Haraburda for coming to the Sports and Entertainment Task Force last week. Regardless of my view of how Haraburda handles sports issues in Oakland, I was happy to see him there.

Now, no more Mr. Nice Guy.

What bothers me is I've been involved in policy formation regarding sports issues in Oakland in one way or another since 1987, first as the intern who worked on the Coliseum Redevelopment Area when it was just a "study area" and created the tax increment estimates that formed the basis of the plans created by the agency (I even created something called "The Area Redevelopment Economic Model" or AREM); second, as the writer for the Montclarion from 1993 to 1996, and who broke the story that the Raiders were returning to Oakland and weighed in on a number of redevelopment issues even so forcefully challenging then-City Manger Craig Kocian's Redevelopment Budget that he took out a special agenda item to address my assertions before the Oakland City Council; third in 1995 when Elihu Harris hired me as first his economic consultant, then hired me as his adviser in 1996; forth to 1999-2001, when I came to within eight NFL owner votes of bringing the 2005 Super Bowl to Oakland, and in the face of terrible behavior on the part of then-Mayor Jerry Brown, who once told a group of business people visiting Oakland that "we didn't have enough hotel rooms for the Super Bowl" (he was misinformed) and according to a source at the NFL at the time, was working to undermine my work by having his aides call the NFL to ask questions I'd already addressed and told him the answer to.

(Jerry didn't even show up for the rehersal meeting I called the night before our presentation at the 2000 NFL Fall Owner's Meeting in Atlanta,, leaving Jennifer Gonsalzes and Sue Robachez of the NFL to say "Zennie, we feel for ya" upon observing first hand how Oakland was treating me. Memo to Jerry Brown: the NFL's has been very, very good to me in part because they saw how crappy you treated me and because I'm one of the ambassadors for its key event product, the Super Bowl.)

And Haraburda? After I went to him with the idea of housing the Super Bowl effort within the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, I had to wait for him to act and all that time Jim Steeg, then the NFL's Senior Vice President for Special Events ("Mr. Super Bowl") and now the President of the San Diego Chargers, was calling to remind me of the NFL's timetable, not Oakland's timetable. So I broke from the Chamber and created, from scratch, the non-profit Oakland Alameda County Sports Commission and got IRS approval two years before then-Oakland-City-Attorney Jane Williams said I could do it. What did Haraburda do? Instead of joining my commission, he wrote me a letter explaining that he could not join it. Our Oakland Super Bowl Bid Book has no - not one - letter of support from the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and I've got the bid book today if you want to see it.

So you can see that I've had so much experience with Oakland and the matter of sports, politics and economics, I know what's coming before it happens. Hey, I'm not bald for nothing. Oakland will do that to you if you care about it. I told Oakland A's Ownership Group member emeritus Jon Fisher (at his "Project Red" Party) that crazy land-buying spree they went on down in the Fremont area wouldn't work almost two years before they had to go hat-in-hand to the City of Fremont asking for public money they knew they weren't going to get.

But they didn't listen.

In fact, only Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley listened to me and he thanked me for the free advise. I told him to wait the A's out because the deal was going to flop and I wrote down a detailed list of reasons why and actions he should take, because their arrogance was going to get the best of them in this economic climate and they would spend a lot of money on land they couldn't get rid of and still remain in Oakland.

How ya like me now? (And Guy Saperstein, I've not got to you in this blast, so don't even think of relaxing, pal. As LL Cool J would say in Mama Said Knock You Out, "I'm just gettin' warm!")

So it's that wealth of experience at seeing Oakland stumble all over itself with secret meetings between people who think they know when they can't even crunch fiscal data let alone craft a decent set of planning scenarios that's got me riled up. And it's the fact that we have as of this writing four committees and groups - The Oakland Mayor's Sports and Entertainment Task Force, Doug Boxer's MLB Task Force, and the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce's Land Use Committee, and the Oakland Alameda County Joint Powers Authority - looking at the A's stadium issue and yet never having met as one to talk about this matter and trade information in the objective of presenting a united front that really has been the last straw for me.

Look, Mayor Dellums, you should have and still can bring all of us together as one. I don't know who's giving you advise in your office, but it's not good at this point. As former City Manager Robert Bobb would say "We need all hands on deck" on this issue, not some hands. Doug Boxer, with all due respect, is too inexperienced in the matter of the history, politics, and economics associated with this stadium issue in Oakland to go and handle it as he's done. He's about to reinvent the wheel and get ran over by it by the crafty Mr. Wolff. Doug, one of your first phone calls should have been to me.

(And to be fair, when I took over the Oakland Super Bowl effort, I too was young and inexperienced, but intellectually determined and well-schooled by the Oakland Raiders. The reason Robert Bobb put me in charge of the Super Bowl effort was because in a pivotal meeting against SMG's Sally Roach, who was in charge of management of the Coliseum at the time (1999), Bobb had originally asked to be in charge of the effort, I proved that I knew how the bid process worked, and who the players were and why, and Roach didn't. And that knowledge I have thanks to now-former Oakland Raiders Executive Assistant Al LoCasale, who in a series of lunches from 1997 to 1999 instructed me on how to work with the NFL and NFL politics; it was from LoCasale that I came to know then-NFL Executive Vice President Roger Goodell, who's now the Commissioner.)

And that leads me to the Oakland A's and Mr. Guy Saperstein's laughable communications. Guy, let's take your claims one by one for the letters you've written. This is going to be fun. First you write that during the 70s, the A's "drew less than a million fans per year and that number dwindled to 306,000 in 1979" - as they say on the street, dude, you're so wrong. During the glory years of 1971, 72, 73, 74, and 75, the A's topped 900,000 fans each year save for one and went over one million twice. Then attendance did dip, but it was because the A's weren't winning! Why you didn't check this is a wonder to me.

Your statement that the "Haas family was losing money" was nothing more than a cheap shot at a fine group of people. As the A's have demonstrated with the genius of General Manager Billy Beane, a team can win with a lower than normal payroll and that could have happened with the Haas Family, but they chose a different way. To bring them out the way you did was just terrible and you should apologize for writing a paragraph that makes them look less than favorable to the uninformed. You know they're loved in Oakland and for good reason; making them look bad is just bad form when you know it was their decision and not a function of a problem with Oakland. Billy Beane proved that.

Your comparison of the A's and Giants ticket prices and sales is wrong-headed. Why? Well, Guy, the Giants' play in what? A new stadium! During the 70s, when the Giants shared Candlestick Park with the San Francisco 49ers, they only drew a million more fans than the A's over the entire decade, and that's counting the A's dramatic fan from World Series grace. A new stadium is a game-changer, but to use it to then say "See. Oakland's just not working economically" is just plain wrong.

(As a side note, I'm the developer of the simulation game called The Oakland Baseball Simworld that's used in colleges. It's a 15-year-simulation of the business of your organization that I update annually, so I will dare say that I know your organization's business dynamics better than you do. I even offered Lew Wolff the chance to use it for free to run some stadium scenarios. His response? "Free. I like free." Geez.)

Then, Guy, you point to Oakland's population of 400,000 as being less than San Jose's population of almost 1 million people. That's the most terrible comparison I've ever seen. Everyone knows that Oakland's at the center of an East Bay Area that's almost 3 million people in size and all freeways come through Oakland. For you to leave that out proved to me you were either playing games with numbers or just plain didn't know what you were doing.

You then called Oakland's political leadership "inept" but here's where I attack you and the A's ownership for being the same. Look, you're part of this mess, and the political establishment, so pointing a finger at us has the same finger coming right back at you, you just fail to see it. The A's have consistently failed to be steady political leaders in development of a stadium that Oakland can be proud of. Instead of fist-pounding on Jerry Brown's desk to get him to build a downtown stadium, you sat back and waited for John Russo and Robert Bobb the fans involved to bring plans to you; when it didn't work, you just weren't around to help them lick their wounds. If you care about Oakland, you dive in, take your lumps, and comeback swinging again and again and again. You don't give up. The Oakland A's never really took a good at bat for Oakland for anyone who really honestly knows to talk about. If you're really tough, you fight for Oakland, so let's see how tough you are!

Regarding the Coliseum Authority, and your claims of lack of long-range planning..I'll let ya have that one. The JPA burned me on the Super Bowl with their behind-my-back manuevering and I'll never forget that as long as I live or until someone over there personally apologizes to me for it. See Guy, I'm not so angry I can't see straight. Under Robert Quintella and George Vukasin, the Coliseum Complex did have the long-range planning activities well in place; not so with this organization. The overall problem is with Oakland's political culture, which tends to avoid the development of an "institutional memory" where people who had past experience are called on; instead many like myself and former Oakland Assistant City Manager Ezra Rapport are demonized for the silliest of reasons.

In Ezra's case, he created the Raiders Deal which didn't work, but he also crafted the financing plan for the Oracle Arena, which did work. Ezra also wrote a classic must-read document, the business plan for the Oakland Coliseum (Have you read it?). (I'll never forget Ezra sitting down with then-Aide To Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente Lewis Cohen and myself in 1996 and explaining that we should know the Raiders Master Lease Agreement and Oakland A's Coliseum lease "chapter and verse," and I did.) But is he called on by Oakland's political structure? No. Or what about former Mayor and my boss Elihu Harris or for that matter Vukasin, they should be involved here too.

What we have in Oakland is a "throw them away because we're new and know better" culture that then goes off and makes the same mistakes! Hilarious! But Guy, don't think for a moment that doesn't include you and the Oakland A's. It does.

The A's unrealistic Oakland stadium plan

Regarding the plan the A's developed that called for the removal of 80 to 100 businesses, the problem was you were talking to San Jose as you all were planning the A's stadium "baseball village concept" with the housing nearby in Oakland. Plus Wolff was so in love with this baseball village concept (which by its nature calls for the purchase of a lot of land) he refused to see any other alternative. And on top of that, what's normally a three year predevelopment period for a new stadium, Wolff tried for some reason to fast track to one year. I said and wrote then and say again now, if you were really interested in doing a stadium in Oakland, you and Lew would have not been so bull-headed as to stick with just one concept and a tight and unrealistic timetable. You could have taken your time, focused, and established a kind of design-build competition and gotten the fans involved, but nope. Nothing.

The A's need to present a range of development plans for Oakland, some calling for public money and others not - give us an honest picture ;it's really not Oakland's job to do that on its own because with the exception of people like me who has a device to use, Boxer and his people don't really know baseball business dynamics enough to come up with a plan you will like right off the bat. You all need to get up, roll up your sleeves, help Doug, and prove you're committed to this great city of Oakland and stop mentioning San Jose.

Guy, you should not have "serious reservations" about Oakland. Give up the baseball village concept; for God's Sake, it's a looser in this economic climate. Doug Boxer, don't even walk into that meeting with that idea in mind, someone will lose their shirt -- again.

The solution is simple: all of us need to talk and work together and place these petty differences aside, and that includes you Guy. You're as much part of the problem - and part of the solution - as the rest of us.