Larry Bowoto Drops Human Rights Violation Claim - SF Sentinel

The SF Sentinel now reports a story we first broke at this blog where Larry Bowoto, the Nigerian man who claims he was shot by persons employed by Chevron, and whom Chevron points to as the person who held their employees hostage for several days, has dropped his lawsuit claim of human rights violations.

The Sentinel observes:

It is looking more and more likely that Bowoto and 150 of his compatriots took over the Chevron oil platform off Nigeria in a hostage takeover — which is far different from their claims of human rights abuse.

The trial is in September.

Cal, Talk To The Damn Tree Protesters So We Can Move On!

Look, now Cal's being down right silly and arrogant. On Sunday, I understand that there was another rally -- I was resting from a busy week -- and that even Berkeley Councilmember Donna Sprng got involved. Now, UC Spokesperson Dan Mogulof seems to imply that the University doesn't want to talk to anyone.

Dan Mogulof, just do it. Let's stop this silly game, find something clever and political to say to get them to go home. Why not offer the protesters a chance to be part of the action of planning?

It's called a Citizen's Review Commitee.

Look, I know Cal can do better. The way Cal's behaving is not what I learned at the Department of City and Regional Planning, where I got my Master's Degree...at Cal.

Cal needs to grow up.

SF Chronicle Smears Deborah Edgerly, Claims She's Paid To Do Nothing

I just saw the SFGate online article about Oakland City Admininstrator Deborah Edgerly and it has the headline, "Paid to do nothing".

That's an insult and a smear, especially since the same article explains that Edgerly ran a meeting because Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums was late to attend it. The Chronicle's Chris Heredia wrote:

On Friday, Dellums asked all city department heads to report directly to him until further notice. Edgerly, however, ran the first half of a weekly meeting of city department heads on Monday when Dellums was running late.

So that means she's not paid to do nothing -- she's doing something. But most SFGate readers will just see that stupid headline and then make dumb comments in the comments section. Then they will communicate that to others and the public will have the wrong view of Miss E.

Look, I don't think the SF Chronicle should do that. It's not right and it's certainly a smear of the first order.