“Think Globally, Lease Locally,”
Bottom Feeder 11/30
Gas hog, hypocrite
I had to write to say I got a chuckle out of Mayor Brown leasing a gas-hog luxury car for almost $1,000 per month from a dealer in Vallejo. As Bottom Feeder pointed out, this is contrary to Brown’s stated concern with CO2 emission, AND his “Buy Oakland” campaign. The icing on the cake was the lame excuses from his staff that he would have leased it here, but the dealer went out of business. Does this mean we won’t have to see any more of those annoying commercials? We can only hope.
Steve White, Berkeley
“Fishy Business,” Cityside, 12/7
For the fish
As the steward of 36,000 acres of protected watershed lands around Alameda Creek, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has a tremendous interest and a significant role in restoring steelhead populations in Alameda Creek. In fact, the SFPUC has taken concrete steps for fish both above and below Calaveras Dam, which Robert Gammon chose not to include in his article.
Above the Calaveras Dam, the SFPUC recently completed a project that injects oxygen into Calaveras Reservoir, which improves water quality and benefits resident fish in the reservoir while water levels are kept low due to seismic vulnerability. Further downstream, the SFPUC is set to remove two smaller dams on the creek next year, eliminating existing barriers to fish migration. And the SFPUC will spend $50 million over the next ten years on watershed improvement and protection, with a significant portion of these funds going to improve conditions along Alameda Creek.
Alameda Creek fishery issues are complicated and involve three different water agencies, including the SFPUC, multiple state and federal regulatory and resource agencies, a local flood control district, the Regional Park District, and other numerous interests, including the Alameda Creek Alliance. The SFPUC is committed to work with all of these stakeholders to develop practical, long-term, and sustainable solutions to fisheries health and restoration on Alameda Creek.
Michael Carlin, assistant general manager for water, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, San Francisco
Robert Gammon responds
It’s true that the commission plans to remove two smaller dams that are no longer in use below Calaveras Dam, thereby improving the steelhead’s migratory habitat. But Carlin acknowledged to me during our interview that the removal of the dams is not for the benefit of the fish, but for legal liability reasons. A swimmer drowned at one of the dams a few years ago.
“Endangered Species,” Feature, 11/30
Eating meat is fatal too
In response to the biggest Really Scary Imminent Epidemic since mad cow disease, Carol Cardona, poultry health and food safety specialist, states in support of confinement of egg-laying chickens in large industrial operations that “in my opinion, we have the obligation to protect our birds from a virus that kills 100 percent of them.”
Animal agriculture as an industry is, inherently, 100 percent fatal. On factory farms, even the animals whose flesh we don’t eat — like egg-laying hens — live and die based on their profit potential, not based on what well-meaning people might do to protect their interests. And let’s not forget about the male chicks born for the egg industry — “useless” as egg-producers, industry practice is to kill them immediately after hatching, often by simply tying them up in plastic bags and tossing them, literally, in the trash. How does 50 percent infant mortality strike you as something we might have an obligation to protect our birds from?
Is it our goal to allow our bucolic ideas about “millennia-old traditions” of farming to be the Band-Aid with which we cover over our feelings of vague discomfort at the moral ambiguities brought up by the practice of raising and killing animals for food? Or is our goal to come to reasonable terms with the facts underlying that discomfort? We can’t logically accommodate a belief that animals have a right to be free from unnecessary suffering — whether brought on by an avian flu pandemic or by the horrific conditions in which they live and die as a matter of course in commercial egg-laying facilities — while simultaneously dance-stepping around the fact that we continue to eat them. Industry scaremongering aside, the onus is on consumers to confront that cognitive disconnect. No wonder we’d rather focus on hypothetical crises over which we have no real control.
Lisa Franzetta, Oakland
Inhumane treatment
I have just begun to read your article on free-range chicken eggs and the Humane Society of the United States’ urging of stores to sell only free-range eggs. I’m always in favor of treating animals better, but to be honest, I don’t really have an opinion on chickens.
The reason I’m writing is to ask that you consider referring to the Humane Society of the United States either by its full name or by its acronym, HSUS. By simply referring to the “Humane Society,” it gives people the impression that those shelters where many have adopted dogs and cats as pets is also out harassing big business and working to eliminate hunting, fishing, and most other outdoor sports. The two organizations couldn’t be more different and people should be aware that they are not one and the same.
I know the “anti” activities I refer to don’t pertain to your article, but the point I make is that the HSUS hides behind the Humane Society name when they basically have nothing to do with shelters and spend most of their annual budget on lobbying and litigation … not directly helping animals.
Tristan Scott, Merriam, Kansas
Editor’s note
Point noted.
Close, but no organic
Thank you for your interesting and informative article on poultry farming and avian flu. I did want to correct one detail. Art Davis’ eggs are not certified organic. I have visited his farm and have the feeling that he does produce “good stuff, clean stuff.” Kaki Farm also brings eggs on a regular basis. We used to have B&B Farm coming fairly regularly to just our Saturday Berkeley Farmers’ Market, and they have been the only certified organic egg producer that we’ve ever had.
Kirk Lumpkin, special events & promotions coordinator, Berkeley Farmers’ Market
Editor’s note
Lumpkin is correct; Davis’ eggs are not certified organic.
Gilles Peterson, BBC Sessions [Live], Hearsay, 11/23
Acid prose
In response to Rachel Swan’s review of Gilles Peterson’s BBC Sessions (Live) in your Nov 23 issue, in which she writes “most of these sounds remain within the purview of acid jazz — not in the psychedelic, sprawling, Miles Davis sense of the term, but rather the watered-down, conventional version popularized by Om Records and its UK-based spiritual cousins,” I felt compelled to make a note of Eric Arnold’s review of our new album from Colossus in your best records of 2005 cover story in which he writes, “Acid jazz made an official comeback in 2005, perhaps best symbolized by this double CD that stacked up a mountain of press clippings faster than you can say ‘Bring it, mate.'”
I find it funny that in a review of quite arguably the biggest tastemaker in independent music today, Gilles Peterson, that not only does Rachel unfairly slander Om (for no apparent reason) but also threatens to find Gilles and shoot him? I know Rachel probably isn’t that [worried] about a man from England taking offense to her comments, or a local independent electronic label getting too pissed off at her; I just felt her comments were unfounded and a bit ridiculous. She obviously doesn’t know the scope of the music that Om has released in our ten years (over two hundred releases in multiple genres) or the history of Gilles Peterson’s contribution to music. Hopefully this e-mail will make her think twice before she makes generalized slanderous comments about another artist/label in the future.
Gunnar Hissam, Om Records, San Francisco
“Sticks and Stones,” Bottom Feeder 11/30
Reporter run wild
Your article describing the South Berkeley dispute as between “self-righteous lefty activists and a group of fed-up neighbors” over Lenora Moore glosses over the complicated nature of this case. For one thing, stating that “she allows her kids to run wild” sounds sensationalist given that she has put restraining orders for elder abuse on several of her grandchildren and children, in effect for over six months now. The power to enforce these orders is with anyone who should see the children in the neighborhood, yet Rauber and the other plaintiffs in the suit who have admitted seeing the offenders in the neighborhood have not alerted the police or talked with Mrs. Moore directly about the violations.
Paul Rauber, as the spokesperson for the Sierra Club, seems to me to be self-righteous in his approach to his very own neighbors in this lawsuit. An organization which lists working committees on “social justice” and “sustainability” should be opposed to the tactics being used by the South Berkeley Improvement Association resorting immediately to a letter threatening a lawsuit without first consulting Moore and her family. I believe the complicated nature of the interests involved in this case deserves a more considerate and serious treatment than you have offered in this article.
Joel Schor, Oakland
“Teachin’ Tookie,” East Side Story, 11/23
The worst of it
Wanting to send a hard copy of “Teachin’ Tookie” to Stefanie Faucher, Bill O’Reilly, Thomas Sowell, and every educator in the Bay Area, professors included. Thank you so much for writing such an article. Perhaps some version will make its way to The New York Times, The New Yorker, or New York Magazine. Berkeley and Oakland may be home to the worst of it, but this article is relevant all round, unfortunately.
Helen Miller, Oakland
“Thanks for Nothing,” Cityside, 11/30
Why is Ron running?
As a left-leaning West Oakland resident, I read with great interest your article about the Nancy Nadel, Ron Dellums, Ignacio De La Fuente mayoral triangle. I guess what gets me about all this is Ron Dellums. Why is he running? What does he stand for? What is he going to do for Oakland? Does he have any ideas at all? Does he plan on telling any of these ideas to the voting public?
Nancy Nadel has made her views very clear about what Oakland needs; so has De La Fuente. Mr. Dellums is the frontrunner, and I’ve read nothing about what he wants to do or plans to do.
I believe that Mr. Dellums was a brilliant politician and did many great things in his career, but I certainly wouldn’t vote for him because of that. Oakland needs a leader with a clear vision. Mr. Dellums may indeed be that person; I hope he tells us if he is prior to the election.
Peter Williams, Oakland
A friend of small business
Robert Gammon reports that Oakland Councilmember Nadel “has not been able to shake her antibusiness reputation.” While that’s a familiar cri de coeur straight from what little is left of the business community’s heart in the afterglow of the Enron era, those of us who are at the table in West Oakland are more than thankful to Nancy for convening and cochairing the West Oakland Economic Development Working Group. Admittedly, there’s not as much participation from some of the bigger cheeses around town who don’t have even a second to spare away from their executive suites, but those of us who work with the small businesses upon which West Oakland depends are grateful indeed that we can work with someone more interested in the long-term benefits of environmental justice than short-term gain.
Nancy was the only councilmember who voted not to approve the Arcadia Park project in East Oakland, not because she’s “antibusiness,” but because she listened carefully to both sides of the industrial land use debate that’s been ongoing between the non-Oakland-based eager-beaver builders and the homegrown industrialists for quite some time now. Here’s a longtime group of Oakland businesspeople who, after being encouraged by the city to do so, have invested millions into their facilities, only to be faced now with an incursion of residential uses that can only serve to limit virtually every aspect of their operation.
Depending which side of the fence you’re on, being “pro-business” translates as abject fealty to those with the most do-re-mi to push their project through, or it means admiration for those who create the most in terms of sustainability, productivity, and jobs. Though it’s often difficult to see through the media hype surrounding the Donald’s hairdo, small businesses are still the backbone of this country. So kudos to those like Nancy who still care enough to vote for what’s right.
Steve Lowe, vice president, West Oakland Commerce Association, Oakland
“A Very Long Run,” DVDish, 11/16
Same as it ever was
In his review of the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Chosen Collection, writer Luke K. Thompson writes that the set “lacks any of the prior commentaries,” which is untrue. The 39 discs which contain the 144 episodes are exactly the same as when they were originally released separately by season. Nothing has been changed on those discs, so the commentaries are in fact still on the discs.
“ML,” via the Internet
CORRECTION
In our December 14 feature about the Richmond Steelers, the photograph of Sam Bernstine was taken by Jonathan Karminsky.
