Monday, June 06, 2011

Tech News - Code For Oakland App Competition: Redirectory Wins!




In this tech news, the first annual (hopefully) Code For Oakland hackathon is history. The event drew 102 people, complete with Oakland and San Francisco geeks, and notable non-geeks like AC Transit Board Member and long-time Oakland Piedmont Avenue Activist Chris Peeples, resulted in a number of fascinating and promising applications, all designed with the needs of Oakland's low-income residents and those who aren't well "connected" in mind.


The Saturday, June 4th meetup at Kaiser Center was sparked via the efforts of Oakland Local Founder and Editor Susan Mernitt, and "about 20 people," as Susan explained in the video, who contributed to getting Code For Oakland off the ground.


What's Code For Oakland?


Code For Oakland's mission was simply to have a "one day workshop to build an awesome mobile app." As one of the judges involved in the selection of the winning teams, I can share the criteria we were given to work under, and which were adopted from the Knight Foundation's "Apps For Communities" competition:



1. Make local public information more personalized, useable, and accessible for all.

2. Promote broadband adoption, particularly among Americans who are least likely to be regular Internet users (including low-income, rural, seniors, people with disabilties, and the low-digital, English literacy communities.)

3. Create better links between Americans and services provided by local, State, Tribal, and Federal Governments.

There were a number of interesting and fascinating apps created. Here's the winner's list below, from the Code For Oakland website:



$1500 Ramsell prize:Txt2work, mobile app to allow re-entering prisoners and parolees to search and apply for jobs via their feature phone. Team led by Elise Ackerman and David Chiu.



$500 Ramsell prize for youth,: Betta Stop, mobile app to allow tagging and commenting on quality of bus rides and schedule in Oakland. Team led by Krys Freeman.



$1000 Mozilla prize: Redirectory, platform for allowing mobile feature phone, web and smart phone access to local social services data, focus particularly on parolee and reentry data. Team led by Randall Leeds.



$1000 Pandora prize: OakWatch, mobile/web project to allow real time neighborhood reporting via mobile systems. Team lead by Robbie Trencheny.



$500 Urban Strategies Council–for work with Re-entry Data API prize: Redirectory, platform for allowing mobile feature phone, web and smart phone access to local social services data, focus particularly on parolee and reentry data. Team led by Randall Leeds.



$500 City of Oakland, for work with Oakland files prize: OaklandPM, schema to use social sharing and city & OUSD calendar information to build a mobile tool to let teens find out what after-school activities are available and which friends are going. Team led by Jed Parsons.



$250 Full Court Communications prize: Contxt, mobile service focuses on SMS text messaging: broadcast messaging to community organizers. Team led by Tim Sheiner.



$250 Full Court Communications prize: Oakland Food Finder, mobile/web service for allowing Oakland low-income shoppers (and others) to find out where healthy foods are available in their area and for food supplies (farmers markets, etc.) to broadcast what they have available. Team led by Michael Bernstein.



Addtionally, an in-kind prize from Citizen Space for three months of workspace was provided as a gift for the winners to share.


In the next blog post on Code For Oakland, we'll take a closer look at the winning apps. Meanwhile, Oakland should thank Susan Mernitt and her team.

Friday, June 03, 2011

T-Mobile Samsung Loss Leads To Bad Oakland Service


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The loss of my T-Mobile Samgung Galaxy Variant in a taxi cab has led to bad service encounters at T-Mobile's Oakland, California store at 3201 Lakeshore Avenue.

The obvious point aside, which is specifically to watch what pocket you place your phone in, that's no reason this blogger should get the minimum level of service at a T-Mobile story.

Three visits to the T-Mobile Oakland Lakeshore store this week have resulted in being told that the store did not have a hotspot-capable (even with a file download) 3G phone, when I knew damn well it did.

And who told me that? A T-Mobile sales person by the name of Grace.

And that was just the highlight of a period of bad treatment. 

Grace simply did not want to help me. She basically told me that the 4G phone I wanted to buy was $500, but in a way that implied I could not afford it because I didn't want to pay that amount all at once. Then, she failed to even try to call T-Mobile and arrange for a discounted upgrade for me, saying that I was two months before my upgrade period.

That's not a big deal; T-Mobile has actually waved that in the past, when a sales person bothered to call them.  

But the kicker for me was Grace's statement that I could not get a 3G phone with a hotspot so I could access the Internet. That bad information, for which I asked Grace if she was sure of what she was saying twice, caused the T-Mobile customer service person I talked to, to say "That's just wrong. I'm sorry you had to go through that."

See, the last time I was in a similar situation to today was last fall, in October, and a different crew worked at the T-Mobile Oakland, Lakeshore store. A much more helpful one. So much so that I made this video to talk about the G2 Phone versus the Samsung Variant Galaxy, using the live-stream video upload system called Qik.com, which sends a copy of the video to my YouTube channel:



No such luck getting a sales person who was that helpful this week, and Grace was a disgrace at the job. It's not that she wasn't nice, she was but superficially so; she did not take any initiative at all, seemed eager to do at little work as possible, and was happy when I left.

The fellow in the video did take the initiative. He called customer service himself and arranged a discounted upgrade for me.

And he worked at the same T-Mobile Oakland store location.

T-Mobile should not allow this imbalance in service to continue.

James Arness Passes At 88 Years Old - Legendary Star Of Gumsmoke



Gunsmoke, a favorite television show of this blogger when he was little, and a program that seemingly would never die until it's last episode aired in 1975, was the place where the name Marshal Matt Dillon became a household word.

Matt Dillon was expertly played by James Arness, who passed away at the age of 88 today, of natural causes, according to his website.

James Arness was a man's man, and comes from a time when we expected actors to be taller than we were; he stood 6-foot-seven-inches in height. Arness, and his character Marshal Dillon, also stood tall in character.

"He had to specifically obey the letter of the law, no matter what else was going on," Arness said to the Archives of American Television. "He, number one, which I think was a totally different approach to other westers, even western movies, is he hated violence, particularly shooting. He hated to kill a man. And I tried to get that across, in the early going. I tried to get that across... It's something that not had been done, up to that point."

Here's a scene from Gunsmoke:



Arness also starred in the iconic science-fiction films Them and The Thing From Another World. Arness played the Thing because of his 6'7" height.

His website's message concludes with this:

Jim will be deeply missed by his family and friends. In lieu of flowers the family asks that donation be made to United Cerebral Palsy in Jim’s name.

Jim is survived by his wife Janet, 2 sons and six Grand kids. The services will be private for family only.

Here's an interview with Mr. Arness with an introduction by John Wayne:



Stay tuned.



Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, Dogwood Bar, Mark Uptown Oakland



Last night this vlogger trekked down over to the Uptown District in Oakland to just check out how the scene was changing. The result? The video you see above.

It started with a walk over to the Fox Theater, with a look at how the much-anticipated Oakland version of Emeryville's Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe was coming along. As it turns out the owners were hosting what California Capital Group's Mark McClure called a "soft launch," but considering the tweets we've exchanged, like this one...

@RudyCantFailCaf Rudy'sCan'tFailCafe
@zennie62 not quite yet...a couple more weeks...we'll keep you posted! Check out the RCFC-Oakland FB page for the deets!!!

You figure they'd have invited me to the damn thing, right?

Oh well.

But that aside, the Oakland Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, which occupies a space that was once an adult book store, officially opens this coming Monday from 7 PM to 1 AM, and just as I'm leaving town. Reportedly you will be able to eat late every night there, which is good news for Oakland's growing list of Uptown bars, like Dogwood.

According to Lexy, the owner of the three-month old establishment at the corner of Telegraph and 17th Street, a late night eatery was the missing link connecting all of the establishments. "It's much needed," she said.

She's right. With The Fox Theater, Cafe Van Kleef, The Den At The Fox, The Uptown, and other bars, the only food place to this writing was Flora, and that closes at 10 PM. Meanwhile, what's a patron who just groved to a band supposed to do for late night food? Well, the on-street cart serving the hog dogs was one answer, and there's a small closet-sixed eatery that was open just a few doors down from Cafe Van Kleef, but that was it.

Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe will change all that.  But the bet here is you're going to have to compete with the other bartenders for a seat at the place.

Stay tuned. 


Yemen President Injured In Palace Attack, Civil War Looms

Yemen's president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has taken up what seems to be a kind of fever in the Mid East of late, attacking one's own people, was injured in an attack by soldiers for the opposition movement on the Presidential Palace, according to the New York Times.

Saleh's spokesman said he was in the middle of starting Friday prayers just before noon. But according to CNN, Saleh had it coming.

The Yemen President's decision to attack what CNN calls "a key tribal chief has brought the country to the precipice of a civil war."

CNN claims that all U.S. President Barack Obama can do is sit back and watch, as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) "extend their influence in tribal regions," but the question is, where is there actual proof that this is happening outside of what its author Barak Barfi writes?

The reason the question's raised by this blogger is the entire CNN article is based on the assertion that al-Qaeda is involved here in Yemen, but there's no clear proof of this. Mr. Barfi writes:


The violence and the instability it has engendered have allowed Islamist militants with possible ties to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to overrun key towns in southern provinces where a secessionist movement has been agitating against Saleh since 2007.


Note "possible ties to Al Qaeda" in the paragraph. In other words, Barak Barfi isn't sure, and CNN's basing the promotion of an entire article on something that's not proven, and a fear of Al Qaeda in America.

But given the side these Islamist militants are on, against the Yemen President, could it be that they're fighting on the right side of the equation? In this case, perhaps having a good relationship with Islamist militants in Yemen's not so bad a thing?

Just saying.

Economy Is The Problem

What's the real cause of this?  Yemen's terrible economy and public sector.  With oil production far less than necessary and the government's reportedly bloated public sector, coupled with corruption and "bad management," Yemen's public corporation's not able to effectively care for its people.  

Yemen has an unemployment rate that stood at 42 percent last year, up from 35 percent in 2003 according to the CIA World Record and Fact Book.   

The numbers are all over the place, but still high. Yemen itself reports an unemployment rate of 16.2 percent for the period of 2004 to 2008.  But those unemployed also have an education problem: a 30 percent illiteracy rate. 

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Spamming For Public Health

Spam, public health, Doc Gurley, Reporting on Health, health journalismI have decided to spam for public health.

Phone calls, text messaging, and even apps have been shown to help improve health and sustain behavior change, even in people suffering from profound mental illness. But when it comes to using these tools for public health, there are two problems. The first is that each message (whether via phone call or text) costs money. The second is that it’s quite hard to use those platforms for blasting messages to a whole population.

That’s how I ended up in what is probably a community of spammers. I registered at Black Hat World in order to get access to its forum on uploading bulk tweets, and didn’t realize what company I was keeping until I saw user names like popzzz and images of a neon green skull and crossbones and rolling lines of HTML.

I am now poised at the unique intersection of spamming and homelessness. Suffice it to say, there aren’t a lot of people stampeding to spam the homeless.

So how did I, a suburban soccer mom, former Shoney’s-waitress-turned-Harvard-trained-doc, end up in this precarious position?

A lot of people are wondering if Twitter, or other similar Web-based messaging applications, could be a way to deliver health improvement messages. One big advantage of messaging systems like Twitter is that messages can be delivered either to the public at large or one-to-one. The classic example is when a celebrity direct-messages a fan (“OMG!!! Ashton just DM-ed me!!”)

Read more...

Disclaimer: Identifiable patients mentioned in this post were not served by R. Jan Gurley in her capacity as a physician at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, nor were they encountered through her position there. The views and opinions expressed by R. Jan Gurley are her own and do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the City and County of San Francisco; nor does mention of the San Francisco Department of Public Health imply its endorsement.

Photo credit: Arnold Gatilao via Flickr

John Russo On Oakland A's, Raiders, "Donated Alameda Politicians" Issue



On May 17th, this blogger interviewed now former Oakland City Attorney John Russo on video, as you can see. There have been three blog post written in this space, referring to that 38-minute interview.

But even with that, comes the usual San Francisco Bay Area journalist that has to tell you they got an "exclusive" with Mr. Russo, and after the interview. Enter the website Oakland North this week.

So, the initial plan was to run this new blog post next week, but considering Oakland North's hubris or error in claiming they had an "exclusive" interview, I figured "Why not today," so here it is.

John Russo Recaps Sports In Oakland

When John Russo gave his video interview for this blogger, he talked about how proud he was that he settled a number of legal issues with Oakland's sports teams, the Oakland A's, Golden State Warriors, and the Oakland Raiders. But, as John leaves for Alameda to become its new city manager, he says there are new issues.

"We've talked before about the (Oakland) A's. The A's still want to go away (leave Oakland), the economy is not cooperating with their plans. Nobody knows where Major League Baseball is (after the creation of the "blue ribbon" commission that was to evaluate Oakland as a home for a baseball team). They..I don't know maybe the Blue Ribbon Commission.. I just don't know.

John continued "Maybe the Blue Ribbon Commission came up with the wrong answer? I don't know. All we can do is speculate. Maybe the Blue Ribbon Commission didn't give the right answer?" I pressed John on this, because over the years of knowing him, I can generally tell when he's hiding part of what he knows, but he insists otherwise, saying "I truly just don't know (what happened to the MLB Blue Ribbon Commission or what Major League Baseball plans to do with the Oakland A's).

The "right answer" would have been for the MLB Commission to say that the Oakland A's would be better off in San Jose than in Oakland, but that view has not been expressed via the much-anticipated report.

And while other reports last fall have now-former City Administrator Dan Lindheim as stating that the commission looked at the fiscal health of Oakland's Redevelopment Agency and at its plans for a baseball stadium at Victory Court were sound, MLB has not released a final report. So, Russo is correct, it seems, that MLB did not find Oakland to be the bad baseball bet they probably assumed it was.

On the Oakland Raiders, "they say they want a new ballpark - a new stadium. It's understandable. They also seem to understand there's no appetite for public finance. And, uh, I think the Raiders are trying very hard" to come up with solutions that are workable in getting the new stadium they desire and need given changes in the industry that have left the Coliseum a relic - again. (I will explain in another post.)

"The Raiders are a different deal than the A's," Russo said. "The A's, I've felt, for a long time just did not want to cultivate their fan base here, because they wanted to prove a point 'We don't have a fan base here in Oakland, so we're not going to cultivate a fan base that had over 2 million people come here in 1981."

I personally think the A's don't get how their brand can fit with Oakland, and said so, but Russo actually does like their commercials and approach, and so had nothing negative to say on that more detailed issue of marketing, which is related to the overall picture of "not cultivating the Oakland fan base."

His issues with the Oakland A's were "tarpping up the upper deck to create (ticket) scarcity," which means no walkup ticket purchases for games, the constant changes in radio stations, making it harder for fans to find the games, and the rapid roster changes that "make it harder for fans to get to know the players."

Russo says he's never talked to MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, and he's never been part of the City of Oakland team that's worked on the Oakland A's project.

On NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's statement that he wants the Oakland Raiders to team up and build a stadium in the Bay Area, Russo says he's never talked to Goodell, doesn't think the Niners will get their stadium deal done in Santa Clara, and isn't sure "the teams want to share. You have to want to share a stadium" to get such a deal done.

John says that because the NFL doesn't have baseball's anti-trust exemption, Goodell could not force the Raiders and The Niners to team up, even if he wanted to.

Here, a digression is in order.

If the NFL had such legal power, it could move teams around as it wished, or prevent a team from moving. But the idea that the NFL could do that was effectively killed in court by Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders in 1982.

The point was that the NFL doesn't have monopoly power, thus a team trying to move from one city to another should be allowed in the spirit of business competition, and the NFL Bylaws that then prohibited such actions were said to be illegal after the Raiders challenged the NFL. The Silver and Black won the right to move to Los Angeles from Oakland in 1982, only to return to Oakland in 1995.

I skipped over the Golden State Warriors, which Russo later said he had "no comment on" and mainly because the long-standing litigation between the City of Oakland and the NBA Oakland team had been discussed in closed session, to come to ask how the Oakland Coliseum Joint Powers Authority could sign a cheap $7 million naming rights agreement with Overstock.com, while at the same time being sued by the County of Alameda.

Russo said that was a JPA issue that didn't come across his desk, but that the JPA itself, with a board of eight members, thus insuring the chance of deadlock on votes, should but restructured to have some kind of "tie-breaking method."

On Alameda, The City Of, and Russo

We finally shifted gears to talk about his new occupational home, Alameda. On the question of what's first on his agenda, Russo blew and his eyes widened by a factor of two before he answered the question. "Well, there's number of things that need to be done in Alameda. Firs there are a number of people in interim positions in Alameda, so the team needs to be made permanent."

Russo says that he will be the seventh city manager in six years, and Alameda has an interim fire chief, interim police chief, and a "vacancy at economic development," as well as an interim city attorney, so Russo's job is to make a city executive team that's permanent. But if you think about it from another perspective, it's a great opportunity for John to populate the City of Alameda with the kind of public executives he thinks can't help him get the job done there over his five-year contract, and "bring stability."

Second, Russo says that the City of Alameda will work to secure the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory expansion, and says there is public support for the effort to place them at Alameda Point, for which Alameda is "short listed." He says that Alameda will work to get it, "like no other city in The Bay Area."

"I don't think it's an accident that the reuse of bases has been held up. There must be structural impediments," Russo said. He wants to "re-engage the Federal Government" to determine how best to speed up the base reuse process because it "shouldn't take 25 to 30 years to get the bases back into reuse."

Changing The City Of Alameda

"The City of Alameda needs to adopt these three words: accountability, responsiveness, and transparency. By those I mean if you look at Alameda's budget and you look at performance measures that are adopted for each department, they are in significant number input based, not output based. What I mean by that is, they'll say 'Your job is to make sure you've gone to 12 League Of City Meetings each year' if your the intergovernmental person there - who cares? Your job should be how many millions in grants have you gotten for the City." Russo says that his job will be to install a more output-based, results-oriented, performance evaluation system for the City of Alameda, as a starting point over the next year.

On "responsiveness," Russo says that too many Alamedans write or email city hall and never get a response from it "That will change," he says.

Regarding "transparency," Russo says that Alameda's tag as the least transparent city in the Bay Area will change. By September, the City will put out its city council agenda two weeks ahead of schedule, so that "everybody can see what their government will be voting on."

Russo will also stress public comment on what Alameda is "doing on their behalf." Overall the changes he will install are really basic to the operation of a good urban municipal government.

John says that, at 700 people, Alameda's not too big for him to manage and get to know. He's always wanted to be the chief exective of a city, and was looking for a city that had significant problems but also had significant opportunities."

On The Idea That Russo Donations Got Him The Job

We turned to the charge that John's donations to several Alameda City Council members essentially got him the job as City Manager. I was particularly eager to talk about this on camera, because the East Bay news organization that raised the issue has a bad habit of not contacting the people it writes negatively about while in the process of creating a story.

When I asked, directly, about the claim, John laughed in that funny "hehehe" he gives when he thinks something's stupid, and said "I love that. I also wanted to go to El Cerrito, Richmond, San Francisco, Piedmont, Emeryville, and every other city where I've given money to candidates. It's just silly. People say some really foolish things in politics."

Russo continued "I gave Marie Gilmore I think a thousand dollars for her mayoral campaign. I think I gave three thousand or thirty-five hundred dollars (to her) in 2004, when she ran for council. So does that mean I like her a third as much? I gave money to Lena Tam when she ran for hospital board in 2004. Understand something. As (Oakland) City Attorney, I gave a strong position that I should not give money to local (Oakland political) candidates."

And because Russo, as Oakland City Attorney, was essentially an Oakland department head. So what Russo did was to spread that money around the Bay Area, helping people he liked and had good relationships with over the years. But by not giving money in Oakland, Russo says that decision has hurt him politically.

He said the idea that he bought his way into Alameda is "ignorant of how the World works" -  the "job for donations" charge by the news organization that is the East Bay Express. Moreover, Russo says that it was presented as an isolated incident, rather than looking at the range of donations he's made over the years, and to people who are his associates and friends and represent Alameda.

But the biggest kicker is that no one at the East Bay Express bothered to call John, and yet the publication went with running the story under the guise of journalism. Next thing you know, because it's in print, the Bay Area pseudo-intelligencia that follows that publication quote it without investigation, and so it unfairlty tarnishes Russo's image.

This is no the first time the East Bay Express has done this, and it's really a sad practice. It happened during the 2010 Oakland Mayor's Race, when the target was mayoral candidate Marcie Hodge, who was first said to be a plant of Don Perata, getting money from him, and then that her whole candidacy was illegal. Marcie says she was never contacted about those claims before the stories ran, and eventually went to court to sue the East Bay Express.

I want to think the best about the East Bay Express and myself have a long history with them as both author and subject that's worth a series of blog posts, so this is not personal. They have a long standing history in Bay Area media and are a valuable resource. But the EBX must make sure that it's not using the paper to take out personal agendas against people. I'm not saying that it it, but many people around town think it looks that way.

But I digress.

Stay tuned. One more topic to come, on SunCal.










Shaq O'Neal Retires Via Tout; Congrats To Michael Downing



On Wednesday, Shaq - or Shaquille O'Neal - retired via Twitter and Tout, but really, the big story is that the legendary NBA Center and most of all LA Laker, did it via Tout.

This blogger's introduction to Tout came in an email from a friend: Michael Downing. Michael's a serial entrepreneur best known for GoFish and for TransMedia Capital.

Until now.

I met Michael one late Thursday night four years ago at the Balboa Cafe in San Francisco's Marina District, and as many frequent readers of my blogs know, one of my favorite hangs.

Our conversation started with him asking me what business I was in, and my reply was "Internet." We proceeded to a talk so long we left after the Balboa closed.

Yep. After.

We stayed in touch, and then, on March 30th of 2010, I received an email from the man who's now "Entrepreneur in Residence at Stanford Research Institute." This one:


Zennie


I hope you are well – and my apologies for the random email coming end-of-day, but I wanted to reach out and personally invite you to a brief sneak-peek of Tout – the new company I co-founded in partnership with SRI (Stanford Research Institute) this last year.


Tout is all about delivering a new kind of social-communications-experience enabling people to share their unique perspective on life through simple, short video updates from their smartphones.


We are launching Tout.com to the world in less than 1 week, and in advance of that date, I am personally inviting about 100 of the most interesting people I know in technology, media and entertainment to give it a test-drive.


If you want to be a part of the Sneak-Peek before launch, here’s what you need to do:


1. You need an iPhone 3GS or 4… if your on Android or BlackBerry we will be launching those versions shortly


2. Go to (My Tracking URL) hit Sign-Up-Now in upper right of page


3. Once your register with an email address and password, you will get a verification email – be sure to click “confirm your account” link to verify


4. On your iPhone, go to the APP Store and get the TOUT application (from Tout Industries)


My problem was I had not an iPhone, but a Samsung Galaxy Variant Smartphone. Just the perfect Android phone that Tout wasn't yet ready for at the time. But, and this is a big "but," I could add a link from my YouTube videos, and, at 1,470 videos and counting, I've got a lot of them.

Michael wrote:


Zennie


We gotta get you going
let's talk tomorrow - we got some great blogger/celebrities prepping now, you would be perfect
'555-555-5555.'


Let me know when u can chat tomorrow


So I tried to track Michael down via phone, and in the interim joined, created a channel, and actually posted a Tout from my Georgia Down YouTube video.

Which for some reason that may be related to the slick new website design, isn't there any more; so I had to install new YouTube video links.   

But the Shaq announcement explains why I'd not got a call from Downing after the emails.

I was tossed for Shaq.

Wait. I was tossed FOR Shaq?!

Cool!

Nice work Michael!

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Oakland Sideshow Still The Happening In East Oakland

Unless you've had some doubt, let this blog post put to rest the idea that the Oakland Sideshow is dead. It's not. It's alive and well on International Boulevard, as this video, made during the East Bay Dragons event, and uploaded today on YouTube by wbr510, shows:



The East Bay Dragons are the same group linked to sideshow activity, and were the focus of the murder of a San Leandro man on Sunday night. But But Phil Baker, the East Bay Dragons vice president, told the San Jose Mercury News that "the clubhouse was closed early in the evening and all their members had gone home or elsewhere."

That would seem to exonerate the Dragons from the Sunday night shooting, but the video above points to the Dragons as the producer of this sideshow.  And care must be taken not to associate that video with that incident simply because the SJ Mercury News account points to a night-time sideshow - the one captured in this video below.

Second Video Shows Dragons Sideshow at Night





The third video, below, uploaded May 31st, which would be Tuesday, shows the East Bay Dragons Party, which appears to have occurred indoors, in a large room, and by association connected with the sideshows of that Sunday.




The videos point to a sideshow that did occur on the East Bay Dragons watch.  Oakland Sideshows are associated with the rash of murders and violence in East Oakland, even though there have been fewer of them than in the past.

Stay tuned.








Springfield, MA Tornado Hampers Boston Weather In Year Of Deadly Twisters

Whatever the reason, it seems America's facing a number of lethal tornados in 2011, the latest in Springfield, MA, which is hampering weather conditions in Boston.

Here are two videos which shows the tornado itself as it makes its way through Springfield.



And in this video below, the camcorder operator, recording the action from his office window on Bridge Street in downtown Springfield, says "it's frikin' tearin shit apart. Oh my God."



According to a new Wikipedia page specifically created to track tornados, there have been 1,415 such events in the United States in 2011, and 1,007 of them confirmed.

Moreover, this year was described as an "exceptionally destructive and deadly" one for tornados, as 519 fatalities have been recorded in America alone. That's the largest number of deaths since 1936.

Springfield Tornado Causes "A Lot Of Damage"

This latest tornado struck at 4:30 EST this afternoon, and has, according to WTNH News 8 of New Haven, Connecticut, caused "extensive damage," with windows blown of out of cars and buildings.

An eyewitness, Carlos Alamo, explained to News 8's Sara Welch, that "strong winds started shaking the house." So he told his wife that they should "get into the bathroom" because there was no shelter. Here's the video from WTNH's YouTube page:



Stay tuned.



Paladinette’s Jobless Talk Takes June Hiatus - 99er EXLAX Attack Building Momentum

Last month it was announced that Paladinette’s Blog Talk Radio show “Jobless Talk” will take a June hiatus after this Friday’s broadcast, meanwhile the 99er EXLAX Attack is building momentum on the social networks.


Unfortunately, it is unlikely any real MOVEMENT will take place in Congress (re: Unemployment issues, benefits or jobs) during June anyway. Hopefully, the unemployed masses will hop on the band wagon and flood Washington DC with tons of laxatives, coupons, emails and post cards in the 99ers “EX-LAX ATTACK, sending Congress and Obama a clear message.”


We have a Facebook Event created PLEASE RSVP: EX-LAX ATTACK on Washington DC


You can find printable post cards at: http://twitpic.com/549is6 and http://t.co/8Ra7oy8


TWEET THESE:

#99ers: EX-LAX ATTACK - Print on card stock and mail to Washington http://t.co/RQPrEpK

#99ers: Mail EXLAX 2 Congress. GET THEM MOVING on HR 589! http://exm.nr/j4Q98N

Post cards you can print and send to congress for the Ex-LAX attack: http://t.co/8Ra7oy8

It is suggested that the emails, faxes, post cards, laxative mailers, etc. begin on June 6, 2011 [D-Day] and continue through Father’s Day or even the July 4th Holiday. The important thing is that as many people as possible participate. You do not need to be unemployed or even a 99er to help Washington GET THE MESSAGE: Get your constipated butts moving on HR 589 and a REAL Jobs Bill NOW! We cannot wait!


I suggest you Twitter bugs out there tweet these to all your media & Political contacts lists, celebrities and activists. Post all this information on your social networking sites and try to get as many folks as possible to join in this important effort.


By now we should have a willing army of advocates to step in and overwhelm Washington with tons of messages whenever the need arises. This would be proof of our political clout - but even with an estimated 7 million or more UI exhaustees out there, sadly the dedicated “show of force in numbers” has been sorely lacking during most of the past year. Exactly HOW BAD do YOU want to SURVIVE?


It is time to step things up Nation! August is right around the corner (and you know every August Congress takes the entire month off). July has yet another recess for a holiday and with Labor Day approaching - after this month (June) Washington DC will be in session maybe 15 days between mid-July and mid-September. Do you really want to go another winter with NOTHING?


It is really up to you. ‘You have NOT because you demand NOT.’ If you would only visibly and vocally swarm Washington by constantly pestering them to demand better - even from your own home town streets - we’d have had our solution by now and could be benefiting from that new job, paid training program, or benefits extension instead of dying a slow, painful desperation as we wait in limbo for poverty to consume our dreams as Congress lives the “GOOD LIFE” on the American Tax Payers’ money.


[Please donate so I can keep on fighting for the 99ers! Thank You!]



NBA Finals - Lebron James Was Right About The Miami Heat



Game One of the 2011 NBA Finals is history,  the Miami Heat prevailed 92 to 84, and this blogger's still shocked the Heat are even there, let alone winning over The Dallas Mavericks.

Look, the decision in this space was to root for LeBron James, because last year, when Mr. James was making a big media show of his decision to leave the Cleveland Cavs, the word here was to go to the Chicago Bulls.

James selected the Miami Heat, saying he was going to South Beach, and making it sound like a vacation in the making. I wrote off LeBron at that point, figuring he was more interested in the honeys in the sand than getting a ring.

And LRMR Marketing's clients list potential in Miami? I really wrote that off. Chicago, with its incredible list of major corporations and marketing talent, is a hot bed for marketing companies - a perfect place for LRMR Marketing.

But what did I know? LRMR Marketing remained in Cleveland, not moving to Miami. And while LRMR exists, James, needing more fire-power, is with CAA.

Meanwhile instead of chlling on South Beach, LeBron put in hard work on the court. The result is not just the 2011 NBA Finals, but today's win. I'm rooting for him.

There's nothing wrong with wanting the best for yourself, and that's all James wanted for himself. James had the right idea in making a show of his decision to leave Cleveland, failing only at capturing the resultant web traffic revenue from the occurrence. Then James and the Heat caught hell for a flashy, smoky party to celebrate the merger of The Big Three.

I saw nothing wrong with it.

Then, Miami started out 9 wins and 8 losses, and this corner wrote them off for dead. But that's where the team found itself and its character, eventually playing better, and ultimately vanquishing the bully on the block, The Boston Celtics.

Anyone who can't like this story has something wrong with them.

Still, it's too early to crown the Heat. It's just Game One. But win or lose, at least applaud LeBron James for a job well done this year.