98th ING Bay to Breakers Has Interesting Race Battle

 

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The 98th running of what is now called the ING Bay to Breakers (I have to admit I was used to "The San Francisco Examiner Bay To Breakers" because the name "San Francisco" was in it) kicks off tomorrow (Sunday, May 17th) and for the first time, I'm not running it; I'm covering it. It's a weird feeling but a totally new experience. As media you get to attend a very cool press conference, as I did on Friday at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco.  You also get to talk to the main celebrity runners and the race organizers and sponsors. You also get a lot of great food and drink. But back to the race itself.

I've ran 19th of these events - yes, 19 straight times with my best time 1:04.30 - so I feel qualified to talk about how crazy the day is.  In fact, the day's gotten so out of hand in the recent past, that earlier this year ING's race organizers tried to put a break on some activities by floating the policy of a ban on beer, floats, and nudity.  That decision set in motion a large online protest movement, which after a period of heated exchanges with the race organizers, agreed to a new set of policies.

(But before I show them, I've got to say I think there should be a ban on people who have no business shedding their closthes, going nude!  Hey, if we're serious about physical fitness, let's start with the Bay to Breakers: if you're a hardbody you can go naked, otherwise don't even think about it!)

The Major New Policies:

1 - If you've got a can of beer or a bottle of wine on the race course, or your really toasted, or both, you may get tossed into the whoskow.  Fascinating! Let's see the SFPD enforce that one this year!  There's not enough police to corral the thousands of drinkers blowing off team from losing their jobs and some of them may be former cops too.  Still, it's policy.

2 - Floats must be registered and at the start line at a designated place. 

3 - Start line has a "corral" system so if you're a slow runner, you go in one area; fast runners another.

So folks, you can take your clothes off, and considering how hot it is, there's gonna be a lot of that. But please if you're not in great shape, keep your clothes on and bring a fan with a block of ice!

The Serious B2B Race

A serious race battle starts just before the craziness that is the Bay to Breakers, and in attendance at the press conference Friday were returning men’s winner John Korir (Kenya). Bay Area and Northern California runners are James Nielsen (Palo Alto), Peter Gilmore (San Mateo), Brad Poore (Davis) and Midori Sperandeo (Folsom).

But this year the race features 2004 Olympic Gold Metalist, Deena Kastor in the position, as the race PR specialists wrote "to bring the race title back into the hands of an American since 1993." Kastor takes on the defending women's champion Lineth Chepkurui of Kenya.I talked with both runners at the press event.

While Deena's an Olympic Champion, she lacks the course experience Chepkurui has and frankly, the Bay to Breakers course (called Bay to Breakers because it goes from Downtown San Francisco near the San Francisco "Bay", to the west side of the City and The Great Highway next to the Pacific Ocean, or the "breakers") is not only challenging, featuring the Hayes Street Hill, which is a one-mile incline, to the occasional human walking into the race course and the bands playing along the way.  How Deena deals with all of that will be the key to her performance.  She told me she mapped out the course and went along it earlier in the week, but there's something about race day and all that human energy that one can't simulate.

Kenya v. America (Again)

I also talked to 21-year old Lineth Chepkurui, who's hails from Kenya and is just plain ready.  She's quiet, really kind of shy, but possesses a great smile and energy.  I asked her why Kenya specifically and Africa in general has such a great record of winning Bay to Breakers races, "We have a lot of athletes who train", she explains, and went on to explain that running is for all practical purposes a way of life there.

For the men, the competition is "intra-Africa" with the Kenyans versus the Ethopians where 2008 Bay to Breakers champion John Korir and 2005 and 2006 winner Gilbert Okari - both from Kenya - are the favorites to win but will be challenged by Sammy Kitwara.

I'm looking forward to my video trip and watching the race from the press truck. I've ran the Bay to Breakers fast, slow, walked it, and seen bands and rolling bars, but I've never seen it from the media perspective. I'm excited.


Bay to Breakers on Twitter

If you want to follow the Bay to Breakers on Twitter, you can do so at:

http://twitter.com/INGB2Breakers. It's also on television: ABC TV, Channel 7 at 7:45 AM.

The Elite Runners (list courtesy of Edelman PR):

FEMALE



Bib # Name
1 Lineth Chepkurui (Lih-neth Chep-kuh-ruh-ee)
 Kenya 
 21 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History: 1st 2008
 2009:  1st Cherry Blossom 10 Mile; 1st Crescent City Classic 10K; 1st Kenyan Army
Championships; 4th World Cross Country Championships; 1st Bloomsday 12K
 2008:  1st Cherry Blossom 10 Mile, 1st Bloomsday, 6th World’s Best 10K; 4th National
Championships Cross Country
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 32:07; 10 mile, 53:21; Half Marathon 70:09 
Highlights:  Defending ING Bay to Breakers 12K Champion; fastest 10 mile run in the world for
2009

3 Deena Kastor 
 United States (Mammoth Lakes, Calif.)
 36 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  1st Bupa Great Edinburgh; 1st Shamrock Shuffle 8K
 2008:  Olympic Trials Champion, Marathon; 1st National Championship 15K; 3rd NYC 10K
 Road Personal Bests:  5K 14:54 (former World Record); 10K 31:44; 15K 47:15 (American
Record); Half Marathon 1:07:34 (American Record); Marathon 2:19:36 (American
Record)
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 14:51.62; 10,000m 30:50.32 (former American Record)
Highlights:  2004 Olympic Bronze Medal (Marathon); 2002 World Cross Country Silver Medal;
2003 World Cross Country Silver Medal; winner of Chicago and London Marathons; holds eight
American Records, one World Record, winner of 20 National Titles

4 Edna Kiplagat (Kip-lah-gaht)
 Kenya
 29 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  1st 2007
 2008:  Maternity leave
 2007: 1st Bloomsday 12K; 1st BAA Half Marathon; 1st Virginia Beach Half Marathon; 1st
Bolder Boulder 10K; 1st Bellin Run 10K
 Road Personal Bests:  5K 15:37; 10K 32:02; Half Marathon 1:09:32
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 15:57.3; 10,000m 33:27.0
Highlights:  First woman to win the ING Battle to the Breakers bonus; 1998 World Junior Bronze
Medal (3,000m); 1996 World Junior Silver Medal (3,000m); married to Gilbert Koech

5 Jane Kibii (Kih-BEE)
 Kenya
 24 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  3rd 2008 
 2009:  1st Carlsbad Half Marathon; 5th Crescent City Classic 10K; 5th Carlsbad 5,000m; 9th
Bloomsday
 2008:  1st Woody Wilson 5K, 1st Davis Twilight 5K, 2nd Carlsbad Half Marathon, 3rd
Newport Beach Half Marathon 
 Road Personal Bests: 10K 32:23; Half Marathon 1:12:26 
 Track Personal Bests: 5,000m 16:15.67   
Highlights:  Strong finish at 2008 ING Bay to Breakers 12K to grab 3rd; lives and trains in Davis,
Calif.

6 Mariya Konovalova (Mah-ree-yah Koh-noh-vah-loh-vah)
 Russia
 34 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  1st Moscow Indoor 3,000m; 4th Indoor National Championships (3,000m); 2nd
Galan Indoor 5,000m
 2008:  5th Beijing Olympics 10,000m; 4th BUPA Half Marathon; 2nd & 3rd National
Championships (10,000m & 5,000m)
 Road Personal Bests:  1:10:58 Half Marathon      
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 14:38.09; 10,000m 30:35.84
Highlights:  5th Beijing Olympics 10,000m; fastest 10,000m personal best in the field; 2006
European Cross Country Silver Medal

8 Liliya Shobukhova (Lil-leeh-yah Show-boo-koh-vah)
 Russia
 31 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  3rd London Marathon; 6th Bloomsday
 2008: 6th Beijing Olympics 5,000m; 1st National Championship 5,000m; 1st New Balance
Games Mile; 1st ING Philadelphia Distance Run
 Road Personal Best:  1:10:21 Half Marathon
 Track Personal Bests: 8:27.86 indoor 3,000m (former World Record); 14:23.75 5,000m
(European Record) 
Highlights:  6th Beijing Olympics 5,000m; 2006 World Indoor Silver Medalist (3,000m) and World
Outdoor Silver Medal (5,000m); fastest 5,000m time in the field; one World Record, two
European Records

9 Kiyoko Shimahara (Key-yoh-koh Shim-ah-har-ah)
 Japan
 32 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  1st Osaka Half Marathon; 6th Tokyo Marathon
 2008:  1st Honolulu Marathon; 3rd Chicago Marathon 
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 15:54; 10,000m 32:54
 Road Personal Bests:  Half Marathon 70:16; Marathon 2:26:14
Highlights:  6th place at the 2007 World Championships (Marathon); won the 2008 Honolulu
Marathon

10 Meskerem Legesse (Mehs-kehr-em Leh-geh-see)
 Ethiopia
 22 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  3rd Carlsbad Half Marathon; 7th Cooper River Bridge 10K
 2008:  5th NYC Fifth Ave Mile; 3rd Healthy Kidney 10K; 13th San Jose 5K 
 Road Personal Bests: 5K 15:45; 10K 33:59; Half Marathon 1:15:51
Highlights:  2004 Olympian; World Junior Record holder indoor 800m (2:01.03); three-time
National Champion

11 Tania Fischer
 United States (Santa Monica, Calif.)
 43 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  2008, 2007 1st Masters
 2008:  4th United States National Cross Country Masters Championships; 4th Jim Bush
5,000m
 2007:  5th Santa Monica 5K; 10th Pacific Association Championships
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 15:44; 3,000m 9:03
Highlights:  Coaches track and teaches art at Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, Calif.;
two-time Swiss National 5,000m Champion

12 Michelle Simonaitis (Sih-moh-nih-tis)
 United States (Draper, Utah)
 43 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  21st 2005
 2009:  3rd Master National 15K Championships  
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 35:06; 15K 55:20; Marathon 2:40   
Highlights:  World Championship Marathon Team member 2001

13 Midori Sperandeo (Mih-doh-ree Sper-ahn-deh-oh)
 United States (Folsom, Calif.)
 43 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  2nd Valentine’s Day 4 Mile
 2008: 1st Run to Feed the Hungry 5K;  1st Cowtown Half Marathon; 8th California
International Marathon
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 34:52; Half Marathon 1:18; Marathon 2:41 
Highlights:  Olympic Trials Marathon qualifier 2000, 2004, 2008; 1st in 2008 Southern California
5K Road Race Championships

14 Teyba Naser (Teh-bah Nah-ser)
 Ethiopia
 19 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  2nd Cooper River Bridge 10K; 3rd Cherry Blossom 10 Mile; 4th Azalea Trail Run; 8th
Crescent City Classic 10K
 Road Personal Bests:  5K 15:35; 10K 32:38 Half Marathon 1:13:38
Highlights:  Improved 14 places in Cherry Blossom race from 2008; very consistent in 2009


15 Teyba Erkesso (Teh-bah Ehr-keh-soh)
 Ethiopia
 26 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  1st Houston Marathon; 2nd Bloomsday; 9th Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 31:33; 10 mile 51:44; Half Marathon 1:09:37; Marathon
2:24:18
Highlights:  World Cross Country Bronze Medal 2004 (4K); Houston Marathon course record
holder

16 Katie McGregor
 United States (St. Louis Park, Minn.)
 31 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  2nd National Championship 15K; 2nd Brutus Hamilton (Berkeley) 10,000m; 4th
Carlsbad 5,000m
 2008: 2nd National Championship 8K, 10 mile, and 15K
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 32:17; Half Marathon 1:12:01; Marathon 2:31:14
 Track Personal Bests: 5,000m 15:22.60; 10,000 31:21.20
Highlights: 2007 National Champion 25K; 2005 National Champion 10,000m; 2005 and 2006
National Champion 10K (road); member of nine U.S. National Teams.

17 Emily Bates
 United States (Salt Lake City, Utah)
 32 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  Has run on elite centipede teams
 2009: 1st Moab Half Marathon
 2008: Pacific Association short road race series champion
 Road Personal Bests: 10K 37:03; Half Marathon 1:22:06
Highlights: Invited to participate in the Greatest Race on Earth marathon series in Nairobi,
Kenya, in 2007.

18 Jodi Suter
 United States (Spokane, Wash.)
 37 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  1st Spokane area finisher in Bloomsday 12K
Highlights: Won a spot in ING Bay to Breakers 12K field by finishing first among Spokane, Wash.,
residents in 2009 Bloomsday 12K

MALE

Bib # Name
21  John Korir (Kohr-reer) – Defending ING Bay to Breakers 12K Champion
 Kenya  
 33 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  1st 2008; 1st 2007
 2009: 10th World’s Best 10K
 2008:  3rd Bloomsday, 5th Bolder Boulder 10K; 7th Cherry Blossom 10 Mile, 10th World’s
Best 10K
 2007: 1st ING Bay to Breakers 12K, 1st Bloomsday, 1st Steamboat 4 Mile, 3rd Puerto Rico
 10K
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 27:47; Half Marathon 60:47
Highlights:  23 road racing wins since 2000, 2003, 2005; Road Runner of the Year from Running
Times

23  John Yuda (Yooh-duh)
 Tanzania
 29 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  3rd 2008; 5th, 2007 
 2009:  1st Bloomsday
 2008:  6th Bloomsday; 4th Bolder Boulder 10K; 5th Cherry Blossom 10 Mile
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 28:37; Half Marathon 1:00:39
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 13:03.62; 10,000m 27:06.17
Highlights:  Fastest 5,000m, 10,000m, in the field; two-time World Half Marathon Bronze
Medalist (2001, 2002); 2002 World Cross Country Silver Medal

24  Sammy Kitwara (Kit-wah-rah)
 Kenya
 22 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  1st World’s Best 10K; 1st Fortis Half Marathon; 2nd Kenyan Police Championships
 2008:  1st L’Hu Half Marathon; 1st Rabat Half Marathon; 1st Dam to Dam 10 Mile; 1st
Utrect 10K; 1st Paris 20K
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 27:26; 10 mile 45:17; Half Marathon 59:45
Highlights:  Beat the great Haile Gebrselassie at Fortis Half Marathon, 2009 Fastest 15K in world
and 2nd fastest 10K in the world; brilliant 2008 season concluding with a number two world
ranking at 10 miles (45:17)

26  Feyisa Lelisa (Feh-yee-sah Leh-lee-sah)
 Ethiopia
 19 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  2nd Cherry Blossom 10 Mile; 2nd Crescent City Classic 10K; 12th World Cross
    Country Championships
 2008:  1st Lugano 5,000m; 1st Rovereto 10K; 3rd World Half Marathon Championships; 1st
Agadir Half Marathon
 Road Personal Bests: 10K 27:38; 10 mile 45:58; Half Marathon 1:02:26
 Track Personal Bests: 5,000m 13:34.80; 10,000m 27:46.97
Highlights:  Strong showing in first two races in United States (both 2nd place); great cross
country strength


MALE:

27  Gilbert Okari (Oh-kar-eh)
 Kenya
 30 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  1st 2006; 1st 2005
 2009: 4th Bloomsday; 7th Fortis Half Marathon; 18th World’s Best 10K
 2008: 1st San Jose Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon; 2nd BAA Half Marathon; 12th Bloomsday
12K
 Road Personal Bests:  5K 13:38; 10K 27:28
Highlights:  Undefeated in 2006; back to serious racing after battling an injury in 2007

28  Tilahun Regassa (Til-ah-hoon Reh-gah-sah)
 Ethiopia
 19 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  1st Ukrop 10K; 1st Cooper River Bridge 10K; 8th World’s Best 10K
 2008:  2nd Metropole 5,000m; 2nd Tanger 5,000m; 1st Lille Half Marathon; 4th New Delhi
Half Marathon
 Road Personal Bests: 10K 28:21; Half Marathon 59:36
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 13:12.40; 10,000m 27:23.60
Highlights:  Brilliant blend of speed and strength; fastest Half Marathon in field

29  Josh Moen
 United States (Readlyn, Iowa)
 27 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009: 1st Edison 5K, 14th National Championship 15K
 2008: 3rd National Championship 10K; 8th National Championship 8K; 14th Peachtree 10K
 Road: 15K 44:34; 1:04:37 Half Marathon 
 Track Personal Bests: 5,000m 13:34, 10,000m 28:31
Highlights: Member of three U.S. National Teams; five-time College National Champion
(Wartburg) 

30  Gilbert Koech (Koh-ech)
 Kenya
 28 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2008:  4th Dresden Marathon
 Road Personal Best:  10K 27:32; Half Marathon 1:02:05; Marathon 2:19:09
Highlights:  Married to Edna Kiplagat; back to racing after taking most of 2008 off

31  Linus Maiyo (Mih-yoh)
 Kenya
 26 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History: 6th 2007
 2009:  4th Azalea 10K; 6th Cooper River Bridge 10K; 12th World’s Best 10K
 2008:  5th World’s Best 10K; 6th Azalea 10K; 6th Cooper River Bridge 10K; 9th Healthy
    Kidney 10K 
 Road Personal Bests: 10K 27:36; Half Marathon 1:02:40; Marathon 2:12:53
Highlights:  Veteran of ING Bay to Breakers 12K course; runs in part so he can eat more
chocolate


32  Justin Young
 United States (Boulder, CO)
 29 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History: None
 2009:  8th National Championship (Half Marathon); 23rd Tokyo Marathon
 2008: 1st AFC Half Marathon; 6th Himeji Castle 10 Mile (Japan); 13th Rotterdam Marathon  
 Road Personal Bests: 10K 29:01; Half Marathon 1:03:35; Marathon 2:13:54 
Highlights:  Invited by Japanese officials to compete at both Himeji Castle 10 Mile and Toyko
Marathon - rare for an American

33  James Nielsen
 United States (Palo Alto, Calif.)
 29 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  13th 2006; 14th 2004; 11th 2003; competed four times
as a child 
 2009:  3rd Napa Valley Marathon
 2007:  1st Eugene Marathon; 50th Olympic Trials Marathon   
 Road Personal Bests:  Marathon 2:21:01
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 14:13; 10,000m 29:52.97    
Highlights:  Eugene Marathon Champion; two-time NCAA Div III Champion at 5,000m; Kona
Ironman Finisher; earned PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford

34  Mike Sayenko (Say-ehn-koh)
 United States (Bellevue, Wash.)
 24 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History: None 
 2009:  12th National Championship (3,000m); 12th National Half Marathon
 Championships; 2nd Stanford Invite 10,000m  
 2008:  5th National Marathon Championships; 8th National Mountain Running
Championships
 Road Personal Bests:  Half Marathon 63:52; Marathon 2:18:36
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 13:49.78; 10,000m 28:25.85
Highlights:  Has shown great improvement in last two years and is a great hill runner

37  Brad Poore 
 United States (Davis, Calif.)
 30 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History: None
 2008:  7th Austin Marathon; 2008 Olympic Trials Qualifier
 2007:  Injured (malaria)  
 Road Personal Bests:  5K 14:39; Half Marathon 1:07:06; Marathon 2:21:51;   
Highlights:  3rd Humbolt Half Marathon 2006; dual citizenship with Great Britain – represented
Great Britain at Austin Marathon

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.

Health care isn't the problem - health insurance costs are

Some people who say the government "can't do anything efficiently" also now say a public insurance system competes with private insurers unfairly – these fear it will out-compete big business? CEOs earning tens of millions of dollars per year fear free market competition?

The cost control problem is that the idea of controlling health care costs is contrary to earning insurance company profits - what incentive there is only applies to their own costs of operation. When the cost of health services go up the big insurance companies just make a cut of a larger price-tag.

That's why U.S. health care costs have tripled the rate of inflation for three decades. Insurers have no incentive to moderate health care costs, only how much they profit -- so naturally they insure the healthiest, and make it hard to get help with pre-existing and/or expensive conditions.

Sometimes they even countermand medical decisions. Bureaucrats worrying about their bottom line can over-rule a licensed doctor's prescriptions and treatment orders to protect the corporate profits.

There's no real choice when an individual enters the health insurance market. They bundle in with the group at work, which has a very narrow range of choices - and every insurance company makes about the same markup on the same basic services, so the costs (concealed in overly complex plans) aren't all that different.

The government's role in fixing the system for our mutual benefit is to model efficiency - at least until big insurers learn to deliver their services efficiently - to compete.

read more | digg story

$100 billion in green investment = $160 billion PER YEAR!

The Economic Policy Institute recently showed that a $100 billion in green investment annually would yield $160 billion in additional output for each of the next two years, creating approximately 1.1 million new jobs and resulting in an increase of approximately 100,000 in the number of unionized jobs in the United States.

EPI points out that this would lead to rising median incomes, a reduction in inequality and more access to job-training and mentorship programs.

At a time when outsourcing undermines the middle class, and deregulation has wounded our entire economy, we have a chance to be creating millions of new jobs right here in the U.S.A.

It's time for our leaders to take charge of the economy. Deregulation has helped the wealthy long enough: it's time to reward those who WORK for a living by insuring there are jobs for anybody in the U.S.A. willing to be productive.

Investing in energy independence isn't simply a national defense priority, it makes sense for the environment and our economy - it means jobs right here at home.

In September, 2008, the Blue Green Alliance released a report, in conjunction with the Center for American Progress and authored by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, which showed that significant investments in six global warming solutions - building retrofits, mass transit and freight rail, wind and solar power, next generation biofuels and a smart grid transmission system - would create two million jobs in two years, four times the jobs created with the same investments in expanding our oil supply. That same report also found that these green investments created three times the number of good jobs - paying $16 or more - than the same investment in oil.

learn more | digg story
Read the EPI Issue Brief | Read the Blue Green Alliance Report

American Idol Adam Lambert, Britney Spears Attacked On Stage. Why?

 

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Not too long ago in Western culture it seemed we had this mostly unwritten rule that when a performer was at work, we didn't rush the stage to be with them or follow them around, unless of course they asked us to. Well, in this Internet age the act of rushing the stage and stalking has become all too commonplace, with the latest victim being American Idol star Adam Lambert; pop culture icon Britney Spears faced the same incident just two weeks before.

And the act of stage rushing isn't limited to popular singers on television; a duo named Matt & Kim from Brooklyn were rushed at the annual multimedia event "South by Southwest" (or SXSW) in March.

Who's next, Susan Boyle?

In Spears' case the stage crasher, 20 year-old Kyle King, was a man who was whisked off and arrested by security after Britney let out a scream. By contrast, Lambert laughed the whole deal off - you can hear him - as authorities carried the shirtless woman (not topless as some reports have it) off and away from Lambert. Matt of Matt & Kim said "I don't know if anyone else woke up this morning feeling like they'd been in a brawl," ... "I woke up with a limp!"

I'm sure there are other examples of rushing the stage, but as it seems to be a form of stalking, I wonder if it's not a kind of new reaction by some to the new fame of others. All of the examples have people between the age of 20 and 30 who are doing the stalking, which means they're part of a generation that gets most of its media online -- they're hyper-engaged in media. Moreover, and now I'm spinning a theory as I've not found a study on this behavior in the Internet age, I wonder if those who stalk performers and media content creators in some way feel close to them because of the Internet, and want to complete the desire to "reach out and touch them."

And I'm not claiming their impulse is always harmless. Just ask American Idol host Paula Abdul, who was stalked by a contestant who eventually killed herself outside Abdul's home. Jamie Foxx fought off his stalker last month (what is it with April and March?) as he was in Philadelphia filming a movie.

Some people want to do harm to the simple video-blogger. I use as one example Melissa Compagnucci, a video-blogger who caught Internet fame after CNN discovered her for the CNN / YouTube Democratic Debate in 2007, and even flew her out to be part of the event itself with Anderson Cooper. But after the CNN spotlight, her vlogging attracted a stranger who took to taking pictures of where she lived at the time, just to let her know that he or she knew where she lived!

In Mel's case she just stopped posting vlogs for a few months, which is what I told her not to do. But now, she's back and is working for Ford Motor Company with the very cool gig of driving around the new Ford Fiesta for six months! I'm very happy she's "in the mix" as they say. But as to why people try to scare Melissa (or for that matter me) or any vlogger I don't know. I do know it's more common than it should be , and at least one vlogger was murdered , Asia McGowan last month, and by a nut case who reportedly "scorned Black women, discussed suicide, and decried atheists" and then killed himself.

And I get the same kind of messages she was complaining about; I just don't answer them.

No, I'm not comparing myself to Adam Lambert or Britney Spears, but Asia McGowan, yes. I am writing about those who feel it's necessary to "hate on" someone just because they dare have a media presence. I personally think the local police should have a protection list for entertainers, journalists, bloggers, and vloggers, so they know who we are and we have someone internally to call where we can report someone before its too late. I fear this is getting way out of hand. We've seen the loss of Chauncey Bailey who was gunned down in the line of journalist duty and Asia McGowan for sharing her view on the issues of the day. I don't want to ask who's next and I believe the same mentality that rushes someone like Adam Lambert or Britney Spears would do this to a journalist or a vlogger.

Enough's enough.

American Idol Adam Lambert, Britney Spears Attacked On Stage. Why?

 

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Not too long ago in Western culture it seemed we had this mostly unwritten rule that when a performer was at work, we didn't rush the stage to be with them or follow them around, unless of course they asked us to. Well, in this Internet age the act of rushing the stage and stalking has become all too commonplace, with the latest victim being American Idol star Adam Lambert; pop culture icon Britney Spears faced the same incident just two weeks before.

And the act of stage rushing isn't limited to popular singers on television; a duo named Matt & Kim from Brooklyn were rushed at the annual multimedia event "South by Southwest" (or SXSW) in March.

Who's next, Susan Boyle?

In Spears' case the stage crasher, 20 year-old Kyle King, was a man who was whisked off and arrested by security after Britney let out a scream. By contrast, Lambert laughed the whole deal off - you can hear him - as authorities carried the shirtless woman (not topless as some reports have it) off and away from Lambert. Matt of Matt & Kim said "I don't know if anyone else woke up this morning feeling like they'd been in a brawl," ... "I woke up with a limp!"

I'm sure there are other examples of rushing the stage, but as it seems to be a form of stalking, I wonder if it's not a kind of new reaction by some to the new fame of others. All of the examples have people between the age of 20 and 30 who are doing the stalking, which means they're part of a generation that gets most of its media online -- they're hyper-engaged in media. Moreover, and now I'm spinning a theory as I've not found a study on this behavior in the Internet age, I wonder if those who stalk performers and media content creators in some way feel close to them because of the Internet, and want to complete the desire to "reach out and touch them."

And I'm not claiming their impulse is always harmless. Just ask American Idol host Paula Abdul, who was stalked by a contestant who eventually killed herself outside Abdul's home. Jamie Foxx fought off his stalker last month (what is it with April and March?) as he was in Philadelphia filming a movie.

Some people want to do harm to the simple video-blogger. I use as one example Melissa Compagnucci, a video-blogger who caught Internet fame after CNN discovered her for the CNN / YouTube Democratic Debate in 2007, and even flew her out to be part of the event itself with Anderson Cooper. But after the CNN spotlight, her vlogging attracted a stranger who took to taking pictures of where she lived at the time, just to let her know that he or she knew where she lived!

In Mel's case she just stopped posting vlogs for a few months, which is what I told her not to do. But now, she's back and is working for Ford Motor Company with the very cool gig of driving around the new Ford Fiesta for six months! I'm very happy she's "in the mix" as they say. But as to why people try to scare Melissa (or for that matter me) or any vlogger I don't know. I do know it's more common than it should be , and at least one vlogger was murdered , Asia McGowan last month, and by a nut case who reportedly "scorned Black women, discussed suicide, and decried atheists" and then killed himself.

And I get the same kind of messages she was complaining about; I just don't answer them.

No, I'm not comparing myself to Adam Lambert or Britney Spears, but Asia McGowan, yes. I am writing about those who feel it's necessary to "hate on" someone just because they dare have a media presence. I personally think the local police should have a protection list for entertainers, journalists, bloggers, and vloggers, so they know who we are and we have someone internally to call where we can report someone before its too late. I fear this is getting way out of hand. We've seen the loss of Chauncey Bailey who was gunned down in the line of journalist duty and Asia McGowan for sharing her view on the issues of the day. I don't want to ask who's next and I believe the same mentality that rushes someone like Adam Lambert or Britney Spears would do this to a journalist or a vlogger.

Enough's enough.

Boxer Demands Obama Pick A Woman For Supreme Court

 

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Like other supporters, I received this email letter from U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, but this one was pointed right at one of my favorite subjects: "Who should be Justice David Souter's replacement on the Supreme Court?"

After not much stewing on the matter, I would guess, Senator Boxer wants it officially known: President Obama's choice must be a woman and she's taking to the Internets to make it known. I still favor Kathleen Sullivan for the job so no harm there; this is what Senator Boxer wrote:

Dear Zenophon,

Women make up 51% of our nation's population.

Yet only 17% of the seats in Congress are held by women. Only 3% of corporate CEOs are women. And just one out of nine Supreme Court justices is a woman.

President Obama can change that.

Send an email to the White House now — and urge President Obama to nominate a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court!

Since Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement from the Supreme Court four years ago, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been the sole female Justice.

Now, with Justice Souter's recent retirement announcement, President Obama has a chance to nominate an intelligent, well-qualified person to the Supreme Court — and I believe that person should be a woman.

We need a Supreme Court that is more representative of all Americans, so that its decisions better reflect the diversity of life experiences and points-of-view in America.

Send an email to the White House now — and urge President Obama to nominate a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court!

Many pundits have warned President Obama to make his choice based on merit — and I agree. In fact, there are many highly qualified women to choose from.

When 96 percent of all Supreme Court Justices throughout our history have been men, clearly it is evident that we need another woman on the Court.

Send an email to the White House now — and urge President Obama to nominate a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court!

When asked recently how it felt to be the only woman on the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg simply replied, "Lonely."

It's time to change that.

Thanks for your help.

In Friendship,

Barbara Boxer
U.S. Senator

Did you get that you're supposed to email President Obama?

I think its important to add that in a diverse society we must have a diverse Supreme Court that can make a contemporary set of laws rather than laws from another less diverse time in America. That written, we have the battle between Latinos, African Americans, women, and according to TIME Magazine's Mark Halperin, white men.

So what to do?

Obama should pick the person who has the best set of qualifications and I just can't see anyone better than Kathleen Sullivan. Period.

Ok. Your thoughts?

Miss California Carrie Prejean Keeps Crown; Perez Hilton: Loser

 

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Today, Donald Trump of the Trump Corporation and the owner of the Miss Universe Pageant system (which includes Miss California) briskly walked into a press conference held in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City and announced that Miss California, Carrie Prejean was keeping her crown. Prejean came under fire by uber blogger Perez Hilton for answering his question of her stand on Gay Marriage when she responded - after making it clear she didn't mean to offend anyone - that marriage is between a man and a woman.

That statement sparked Hilton to use his blog and videos to attack Prejean, calling her some really bad names. Here's the video that started it all (warning, language):



Other bloggers took up his voice and within two days after the comment the Internet was abuzz with abusive posts about the beauty queen. Then Prejean was sought out by, and did not refuse to work with, conservative groups working against the passage of Gay Marriage. Then and suddenly file after photo file of a topless Prejean was leaked to the Internet on TheDirty.com and a new charge, that of violation of her contract where she stated she never posed nude, took center stage. Finally, the directors of the Miss California pageant held a firebrand news conference Monday denoucing Prejean, but forgetting that the entire organization was owned by the one person who had final say: Donald Trump.

Carrie Prejean in her own words, in full:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

As "trite" as this entire affair may be to some, it's vitally important in the course of American Culture. Why? Because the issue ignited anti-Gay Marriage activists simply due to the way Prejean was treated by activists, led by Perez Hilton. His behavior - amplified by the Internet - may have set back the progress of change in state laws to allow Gay Marriage by two election periods.

At this point, the song "Money changes everything" comes to my mind, but back to the subject. Trump said the photos were acceptable. Moreover, Trump got the Miss California directors Kevin Smith and Shanna Moakler to come to an agreement with Prejean, who agreed to carry out her duties.

I just hope that Shanna Moakler and Kevin Smith will restore Prejean's photo to the Miss California website. She's no where to be seen as of this writing, anywhere on the site. I guess they expected Trump to remove Prejean. Didn't happen.

For heteros who back Gay Marriage like myself, this episode was a watershed moment in sparking a conversation we as a country need to have. For me, this matter is one of a civil right for a person to marry and man or a woman at any point in their lives. The uncharted conversation is that some women and men move in and out of Gay or Lesbian status and I've been personally impacted by this. As I've stated before, I've had girlfriends who at first said they were Lesbian then slept with me, then married a man. So what, is my response. But it's not the central conversation; it should be.

I think the problem is in order to make the case for "equal rights" Gay activists long ago made the case that being Gay was a genetic presdispostion then compared it to being "of color", which set off the political problems we see today. The fact is people chose to behave a certain way based on who they fall in love with regardless of the sex of the person. Some of us, like myself and Prejean, are used to male-female parings, but where we differ is I don't believe everyone has to live as I do. That written, the real question is "Does a person have the right to marry whom they want to male or female?"

I think the answer's "yes" but Perez Hilton's keeping us from getting to "yes" in the future. Today, he called Prejean "ignorant" and "a stupid woman" on HLN, upsetting the hosts of the show. (And even many of the comments on his own blog are against him.)

His childish behavior is "his thing" as Trump said today. All of us in the media commentary business have "our thing" and regardless of how you feel about it, it draws eyeballs, especially for Hilton. So he's empowered but this time he made a mistake he will not personally feel but will observe politically as time marches on. My prayer for the future is that activists on both sides don't take up arms and attack the other person. I hope Hilton leads the charge in calming the waters, but I doubt it.

TV Show "The Blog Report" Features Oakland's Young Politicos

 

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Last weekend's installment of "The Blog Report with Zennie62" features the 16th District Delegate Election that was held in Alameda in January. The show segment, which is shown here, covers the election process and why its important to the political future of the Democratic Party in the Bay Area.

But the real stars of the show are Oakland's young political activists who are bringing a new energy to the scene here. East Bay Young Democrats President Frieda Edgette, union leader Dan Rush, and Peralta Community College Trustee Abel Guillen are just some of the faces interviewed in the second Episode of "The Blog Report."

Personally, I think Frieda Edgette's the one to watch. The leader of the East Bay Young Dems and "MixitUp East Bay" has a unique combination of energy, intelligence, empathy and direction to rise to the level of congressional representative or senator, and I'm not writing anything here I've not personally told her. In fact, once Frieda learns to ignore the voices that say either directly or indirectly "she can't", she will.

I don't make that statement lightly. The Oakland / East Bay Area political establishment is not known for growing and mentoring future leaders; that happens by the next generation of voters elevating its own officials for the future. In Edgette's case she and others in her organization and many who were former Obama volunteers but not in the East Bay Young Dems have formed new groups of friends and other informal alliances that go out and do everything from raise money for causes to gain votes for delegate candidates like Edgette and Rush; both won the January election.

Take one look at the slate cards made by the organizations aligned with Senator Don Perata last year and one would be hard pressed to find a young political star in the group. Nothing against Senator Perata but it's a wake up call to him that there's a powerful anti-establishment wind blowing and people like Frieda are being carried by it. Perata should get on the right side of it.

Miss California | Trump Will Let Carrie Prejean Keep Crown

 

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This is just my prediction but Donald Trump will let Carrie Prejean keep her Miss California crown, upsetting Perez Hilton and much of Hollywood in the process. They will yell, kick and scream but for Trump it's about regaining control of the message: it's my pageant not yours. And he will effectively say this to the representatives of Miss California, the very ones who on Monday held a press conference that was more activist bickering rant than an event, but I suppose that's an event too.



The Miss California Press Conference

It's not that I disagree with the message of diversity the spokespersons were attempting to communicate, it's just that they staged the event knowing full well Trump could pull the rug out from under them on Tuesday. After all, as they said, it's his call.

Plus all of this isn't over Prejean's so-called nude photos or her contract that she signed stating she didn't pose nude, it's her comment on (drum roll, please) Gay Marriage. Now, if she said "marriage is between a White man and a White woman," I'd have said "Well, I'll give her three years before some brother turns her out." But let's think that through for a moment. Given the number of interracial marriages and famous couples, like Heidi and Seal, Prejean would not have a single group to turn to other than the KKK, and that would bounce her in a second.

And that's the point. Anyone can marry anyone, really. It doesn't have to be state sanctioned but it certainly makes life easier when it is. The point is Prejean is being demonized for stating she likes men and traditional sexual parings - it's an issue of "preferred plumbing" which Prejean confuses with civil rights. Ok. That's it, really. What Prejean will do to keep her crown is grow up and apologize and promise to uphold the ideals and values of Miss California. In other words, she'll eat crow and like it.

As for Trump, he's got to regain the message and save Miss California. He's already said Prejean was "unlucky" and would get "hit regardless of what she said" and that's true. Prejean has been called every name in the book and some blogs have made up stoies that are not true (like the one where she was spotted topless with Michael Phelps). Trump's also said she's a "seriously good looking woman" which anyone can see.

Plus, and I forgot to make this point in the video, Trump's a Republican and you've got to believe he's going to back a young lovely firebrand of a woman (regardless of color) unafraid to share her conservative values but he's going to do it in a way that eases the pain others have felt at a moment in time when we can see a new round of real social change before us such that true civil rights are protected.

Prejean must present herself as respectful of those rights, period. I think with Trump she will. Moreover, if she's a true Christian, she'll express that she was wrong and that she loves people, period.

(OK. So what if I'm wrong? I just can't see it. But if I am, it's only because she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer; eventually the conservative spokesperson dollars will dry up and she'll have door after door closed to her later in life as the country changes. But I can't see her being that stupid that either. We shall see.)

Star Trek Movie Stars On SNL To Address Trekkers

 

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NBC's Saturday Night Live staff does it again with this hilarious segment featuring Star Trek's Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine (Spock and Kirk respectively) making an appearance on SNL's "Weekend Edition" to address the concerns of Trekkers who were upset that the J.J. Abrams-directed blockbuster didn't follow "Star Trek history."

(Ha. Which includes me. Well, I was only mildly concerned, and not so much so that I didn't enjoy the movie. It was excellent!)

At any rate, Pine starts opens with an apology of sorts and Quinto follows up by explaining how they did incorporate some well known Trek lore like the "Vulcan PonFar" ritual. Then Pine stumbles on his words while trying to explain the technology of the "Transporter" and just as all seems lost for the two new megastars, Leonard Nimoy walks in to an ovation and saves the day, expaining "Any Trekker who doesn't like the movie is..." something I can't print here but they can say on live television.

What's so funny are the two "Trekkers" in costume in the audience making "We're watching you" faces at the stars during the segment.

All of this fun causes me to wonder if we will see a "Star Trek Blooper Video" with outtakes from the film, much as we enjoyed the Star Trek Blooper Real of the past with some funny errors caught on tape as the cast of the television show was at work.

Stay tuned!

Hollywood Suprised At "Star Trek" Boxoffice

Meanwhile, Nikke Finke, who's "Deadline Hollywood" blog is the best source for inside information on Hollywood, revealed that not only did Star Trek surprise Hollywood, earning 76.5 million for the weekend, but the audience was 60 percent male, 40 percent female, which surprised me as I expected a 70 percent / 30 percent split based on the demographics for Star Trek videos on YouTube.

Finke writes:

To put that in perspective, a domestic weekend total under $50M would have meant the pic didn't attract a new and younger audience and relied instead on the franchise's older but loyal fanbase of Trekkies. It was risky for Paramount to market the movie as "not your father's Star Trek". But the critical reviews for JJ Abrams' reboot are 96% positive.

Happy Mother's Day!

To all the Mom's out there, I say Happy Mother's Day as I'm waiting to board a flight to Atlanta to see my Mom, and having just landed in Chicago!

Wanda Sykes At White House Correspondents' Dinner

This segment was a total crack-up and worth seeing again!

Star Trek Movie Review With Bill and Lars

 

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Today, I saw Star Trek with my longtime friends Bill Boyd and Lars Frykman at matinee showing at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, thus following through on a plan we formed almost a month ago and I wrote about a few days ago. It was a cool reunion as I'd not seen Lars for just over 30 years and Bill and I get together for lunch maybe twice a year. Regardless of how little you see of each other, there's something about the friends you had when you were a teenager, especially when they last as long as ours has. Star Trek was always a rallying point for us, so today's meetup was a perfect way for the originators of the Bret Harte Star Trek Club to reconnect.

We're all fans of the original series, and consider ourselves experts on it. What we liked about J.J. Abrams version was the attention to detail in referencing certain episodes and music themes.

The scene where Kirk and Spock (Nimoy) enter the outpost on Delta Vega has music that recalls entering the hatchery of the Horta in "The Devil in The Dark" or the discovery of the real "Balok" in "The Corbomite Manuever". And as in the series Captain Pike was alive and bound to a wheel chair before being disfigured in a reactor accident. To kill him would have not been according to Star Trek history.

In fact, that's where we were confused in the loss of Spock's mother. She didn't pass on in the series, so her death here was not understood by us. Also the Enterprise was constructed in Hunter's Point Naval Shipyards in San Francisco, not Riverside, Iowa as in the movie.

The matter of the shipyards leads us to the Enterprise. What a terrific job Industrial Light and Magic did in making the ship look real, especially the daylight scene where Kirk reports for duty. That's the first time we see the giant vessel as if it were really in drydock on Earth. An excellent achievement.

Bill made the observation that because we're from an older generation this movie didn't have enough dialog. I agree but I don't say the movie wasn't well done. Still we're concerned that a society that wants stimulus over substance can be easily duped in a number of ways and this problem is something I will explore more of.

But even with that issue of style, Star Trek was a good, tight, entertaining film. Did it live up to our Trekker seal of approval?

Yes!

YouTube Partner Program: What Is It?

 

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I'm often surprised by the number of people who don't catch on to the fact that for me making videos is much more than a hobby, it's a job I earn a living from. I recently created a video on the Star Trek movie that pointed to its depiction of the San Francisco skyline as unrealistic because of the size of the buildings relative to The City's culture of demanding "a human scale" of structures, and Star Trek's new generation of fanboys coupled with Internet trolls jumped all over me, saying "Get a life" and stop making videos, all the while contributing to the 43,000 times my creation was seen..and to my pocketbook.

That's because I'm a YouTube Partner or "YTP". The YouTube Partner's program was established in late 2007 as a way to For YouTube to share its advertising revenue with its most popular video producers like Renetto and Lisa Nova, as well as frequent contributors like me. At first, YouTube sent invitations to channel vloggers - I received mine on November of 2007 - then opened up the program to an application process. In other words, you too can become a YTP and here's how.

First, you have to make videos and upload them to YouTube on a regular basis. For me I have a schedule of a video a day and a subject mix of the topical, local, and political. Some people like Lisa Nova have shows within their channels like "The Affirmation Girl" that draw micro-audiences for that specific video playlist. What ever the case, do what is comfortable for you to start, but do something and do it often. And don't upload TV content because you don't own the rights to it; make something original.



I explain what video blogging is and how to do it above.

Second, you have to gain subscribers and that's the real meat of viewership and not an easy task at all. Michael Buckley of "What The Buck" has over 400,000 subscribers, Phil DeFranco has over 300,000 subcribers, where's Lisa Nova has 41,000, and I have just 3,000. It takes years and constant work - some people use PC-based YouTube subscriber software services - to get to those levels.

Third, make sure you have a blog to place your videos on. Blogs and websites are the main driver of video views other than subscriptions. The more visits your page gets, the more views your video will have.

Fourth, have an email list of people to send your videos to, or work them into your social networks, as I do. I'm on 41 different social networs, some that allow video embeding and I have a network of blogs, each with my video channel's latest creation in a special view box.

Once you've done all of that, and have reached a subscriber base of 300 people, apply for the program. It's connected to Google AdSense, the Google revenue sharing system, so the check you gain comes from them, but you only get paid when your monthly income reaches over $100. So you're wondering "How much can I make?"

Buckley is perhaps the most successful partner, bringing in a reported "six figure" income annually. I'm certain both De Franco and Lisa Nova are not far behind and I know Renetto's made a healthy living from YouTube but doesn't tell people about it, unlike Buckley. It's possible to clear $10,000 a month from YTP, and no, I'm not any where near that at all, so don't ask me for a loan!

So that's the YTP. Give it a try with the steps I listed and if you have more questions just ask. And if you want to know how to make a video, or how I do it. See the video above.

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 are special interests opposing health care reform?

Single payer is not socialized medicine, it's how Medicare works. Do you know the facts? Medicare runs with between 2-3% overhead - that compares very favorably to private insurance, where overhead by most estimates is over 30% of the cost.

Why don't the big insurance companies want to let everybody have a choice to get affordable coverage? Who has so much influence over Democratic Senators like Max Baucus of Montana that they oppose a choice, as suggested by President Obama? Follow the money.

73% of voters want a choice of a private or public health insurance plan. Have you told your U.S. Representative and/or Senator? It's not about party, folks; this idea has phenomenally broad support, and it's totally congruent with what President Obama and his administration are trying to achieve. It provides coverage to the tens of millions of uninsured Americans without forcing anybody who likes their current system to change.

Broken down by party affiliation, it's:

77% of Democrats
79% of Independents
63% of Republicans

Tell your U.S. Senators and the Congressional Representative from your district what the Chief Economist of the World Bank says:

"...private healthcare insurers do not know how to deliver an efficient way..."

World Bank Chief Economist, Joseph Stiglitz

People who work hard for their money deserve to have a voice in how it's spent. The insurance industry and their lobbyists have been writing rules that boost their profits not protect Americans, and tax-payers are tired of bailing them out while worrying if we'll even have jobs. We need our leaders to take control and look out for our interests, not special interests.

Miss California Nude Photo Scandal Due To Conservative Views

 

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In a short time, Miss California, Carrie Prejean has made herself into a household name first by "outing herself" stating that she believed marriage was between a man and a woman, then by going out and talking about it, then posing with Michael Phelps. But now and I think because of her views, Miss California is going to have her crown taken away.

The cover for this is the discovery of a semi-nude photo of her posing for a lingerie company when she was 17 years old. Personally, my 74-year-old Mom doesn't care about the issue, so why should I? My feeling is yes, she did reportedly sign a disclosure agreement and claimed she didn't do what she was found to have done, but the way all of this came about seems to be based on her views and not on the action itself. Take the way "The Dirty" reported their discovery of the nude photos, using terms like "self proclaimed bible thumper", etc. The point is there's a concerted effort to discredit Prejean because of her conservative views.

I frankly think that's terrible and I'm liberal. But I'm totally tired of these attempts to make someone who has a different point of view "the other" and a bad person. It has to stop. If Carrie wants to make her pointof view known here, why not. I do have concerns with the issue of discriminating against one's civil rights however and I think Prejean should think about what she's doing, but she has the right to say it.

What about the moral issue of the lie about the photos? Look, yes, she lied, but I don't think she should lose her crown over it. She won. OK. I have an issue with her not telling the truth, but it happens in the context of this effort to demonize her so I just can't embrace the view that she should be de-throwned.

Sorry, I can't. Not under the circumstances.

Ecuador Mess: 118 Amazon Oil Spills

 

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At first I wasn't going to weigh in on the Ecuador issue for a bit, especially considering the recent and on balance really interesting 60 minutes segment that aired Sunday of this week. But then I ran across a paragraph that popped up in an Internet search for oil spills and Ecuador that reported this:

In 2006 to date, the country has reported 117 oil spills, which have jointly cost the company more than 27 million U.S. dollars in environmental compensation.

The "country" is Ecuador and the "company" is not Chevron, for who we in America have been almost programmed to think is responsible for all of the oil spills in that country, but Petroecuador, the state-run oil company. Now, from my reading Petroecuador's mentioned by Chevron but the blame for oil spills in the Amazon region doesn't stop there.

The simple sad fact is the government of the country of Ecuador has maintained a cozy relationships with multinational oil companies over the years. For example, in 2003 Ecuador embarked on a plan to expand oil production in the Amazon by constructing a then-new pipeline, the "Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados" or OCP and to the ire of AmazonWatch, which reported:

Set to go online in October 2003, the pipeline will transport heavy crude from the country's Amazon rainforest region to the Pacific Coast, placing fragile ecosystems and dozens of communities along the 300-mile route in jeopardy.


The damaging impacts of the new pipeline will be felt far beyond the immediate pipeline route. To fill the OCP, Ecuador must double current oil production by embarking on an unprecedented wave of new oil exploitation in vast areas of Amazon frontier forest. Plans are already underway for dozens of new oil wells, roads, flow lines, and associated processing plants that will litter some of the country's last remaining old growth rainforests and territories of isolated indigenous peoples.

And the country is trying to gain more oil revenues, called "petrodollars" by eliminating foreign country oil producers like Occidental Petroleum in 2007 and Chevron in 1992, and even the state-run organization in Brazil late last year, and in Canada, and move all production activities toward Petroecuador. And that all companies, not just Chevron and Petroecuador, have been responsible for oil spills and Chevron has not produced oil their since 1992, but again, the spills have been many since their departure.

Ecaudor's grab for money

The problem is the Ecaudor and Petroecuador lack the annual revenues to maintain oil facility production and performance, and so have embarked on a massive campaign to gain such monies by "user fees", the revenue from the new-to-Ecuador petrodollar sources, and the Chevron lawsuit.

There's no indication Ecuador intends to start environmental cleanup actions in the Amazon beyond what Petroecuador has done already. But Petroecuador's work and the large number of oil spills lead me to ask if the oil we saw on the waters in the Amazon shown on 60 Minutes was actually caused by one of these 117 oil spills? It's said that oil spills are almost a way of life in the Amazon today and it has been that way for some time and in the country in general.

For example, In 2001, 144,000 gallons of diesel and "bunker" fuel were spilled near the Galapagos Islands and then made its way to shore. And that same year in the Amazon itself Petroecuador failed to contain oil spilled from "an abandoned exploratory well." And in this year 2009, February, 14,000 gallons of oil were spilled by Petroecuador as the country's second largest pipeline ruptured, causing oil to ooze out onto the banks of the Santa Rosa river. “The river was completely covered with oil from bank to bank,” according to a Reuters' update.

Not all oil production activity in Ecuador has been by American companies. World environmentalists have waged war against a Canadian oil firm called EnCana. In a presentation of a documentary film called Between Midnight and The Rooster’s Crow it was reported that..

The Aguarico and the Napo rivers, which have sustained the native tribes—the Cofan, the Secoya, and the Siona—for thousands of years, have been systematically contaminated since intense oil extraction began in the 1970s. Drost documents crude oil leaking into the now noxious rivers, and interviews locals swearing that eating river fish tastes like eating pure crude. It appears as though while the oil companies have reaped their record profits, skyrocketing cancer, broken promises, miscarriage, and skin disease have been the dividends paid to the local populace...When the Amazonian locals decide to take direct action to ensure that their interests are not overlooked, the military and police step in with an excessive amount of force to ensure that nothing stops corporate profit (oil) from flowing. Drost—giving the viewer a candid glimpse at the seedy underbelly of corporate globalization—interviews a man who, while peacefully protesting at a roadblock with a group of locals who were demanding clean water, sewage, electricity, and jobs, was shot by Ecuadorian soldiers. Given that the soldiers who shot him were flown into EnCana’s private airport, picked up by EnCana trucks who were driven by EnCana drivers, one must wonder how Gwyn Morgan (President and CEO of EnCana—and before that President and CEO of AEC since 1994) keeps a straight face when he comments, at the end of the film: “People fail to understand how little influence companies have on government.”

That was by first-time Canadian filmmaker Nadja Drost who created the movie in 2003, and over ten long years after Chevron's presence in the Amazon region was replaced by Petroecuador, and shows the real truth: with so many companies both foreign and domestic involved in oil production in the region since 1992, the real cost of environmental damage is impossible to pin to just one company. Ecuador itself and many oil companies from various countries from the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Ecuador itself are responsible for the environmental damage caused by oil spills, and which continues through today.

Oh, and considering the level of interest in this by so-called activists, for the record, I'm not paid by Royal Dutch Shell, Occidental Petroleum, Chevron, or their affliates for this post. What bothers me here is the constant insistence that oil production problems here and in the Third World are the fault of rich, White American firms working against the poor people of color in those areas. If one tells the complex truth, where the assignment of blame is more complicated, they're demonized and told to shut up.

{VIDEO} First Full Face Transplant Recipient Speaks

Closing tax loopholes is "robbing Peter to pay Paul"? Hardly!

If paying taxes to support our military, the interstate highway system, the FAA, satellites, and a Medicare system that insures senior citizens can afford health coverage, etc., offends your sense of fair play, you’re living in the wrong country. You want tax havens? Move to Somalia, my friend, while real patriots pay their fair share in the USA!

Closing loopholes that reward wealth instead of work is fine with me. I've had enough of special interests inserting ways to keep big business from paying taxes. Any tax incentives ought to discourage outsourcing, not promote it!

On the other hand, if you like the constitution, and want the government to "provide for the common defense" then a system that makes the rich and the mega corporations contribute their fair share is just basic old-fashioned patriotitism.

I guess that's parallel to what puzzles me about talk of Texas seceding. They wanted the benefits - so, if they go can we bill them for their interstates and the big ol' wall?

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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.