Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

  More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!   Rosie Rios, who was one famously known as the economic development division head sacked by then-Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown in 2003 as part of a "great purge" of Oakland economic development officials friendly to then-City Manager Robert Bobb's support of a downtown Oakland baseball stadium, has resurfaced in an excellent way this year as the person selected by President Barack Obama to be the United States Treasurer, subject to Senate confirmation. The U.S. Treasurer reports to the Secretary of The Treasury Tim Geithner on matters of coinage, currency circulation, and related issues, but her signature also will appear on U.S. currency. In 2001, Rios was appointed Director of the Oakland Economic Development and Redevelopment Divisions   by then-Oakland Redevelopment Agency head Bill Claggett.  Before her stint with Oakland, Rios served as an excellent and well-regarded economic development direc

  More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! Right out of the blue, I get this email from my friend Steve Kloft, who's an established Internet marketing guru, announcing he's created a widget containing links to my SFGate.com postings, my main blog Zennie62.com, my Twitter tweets, and my YouTube videos! Steve, thanks a million! That makes up for the 600 mb Bay to Breakers videos I'm still uploading, the nutso cyberstalkers , and all the crap I've had to deal with that comes with just expressing my opinion! But as I've said before, there are good people out there, fortunately I know them and they have away of just appearing when you need a boost: Steve's an example. Here's the widget: Get the Zennie Abraham widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox ! You can get your own copy at this link: http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/zennie-abraham And thanks again, Steve! That was a bolt out of the blue!

  More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! Coliseum BART Station rendering with connector When BART was opened in 1972 one of the first station stops was at the "Coliseum", a station called Coliseum BART for the well-known sports complex. Almost from the day the station opened many asked why the BART line didn't have a spur to serve Oakland International Airport. These questions continued through the 70s, 80s, and then in the 90s a group of Oakland business leaders strongly pushed for "an airport connector" of some design. It was listed as an objective by the 500 Oaklanders who attended "Oakland Sharing The Vision" or as a few friends liked to call it, "sharing the ham sandwich." Then when BART approved the San Francisco International Airport extention, a number of people in Oakland (including myself) just hit the ceiling. Why them and not us? At any rate, there was always a constituency for the project and it was neve

  More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! 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 authorit

More at East Bay Express I just saw this over at the Express Blog... “The East Bay Express is moving to Oakland's Jack London Square area on May 16. The Express has been in Emeryville for nearly eight years, after spending its first 23 years in Berkeley. The paper is leasing office space at 620 Third Street, between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Jefferson Street, three blocks west of Broadway.” GREAT! Welcome to Oakland Bob Gammon, but does that mean your newsroom staff will diversify? Would be nice to see a video with some people of color representing the Express. At any rate, welcome to Oakland.

  More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! On "Crazy Right Wing Extremists." You can't please everyone, especially conservatives. What's interesting regarding the outcome of my Susan Boyle video-blog of two days ago is the reaction I received from some viewers toward what I considered to be a throw-away line at best. I was trying to state that in a news World where we hear about "nasty pirates, mean internet commentators, and crazy right-wing extremists it's great to have some good news in the form of Susan Boyle's performance and story. My blog post was clear as a bell, but I discovered you can't combat the insecurities of the reader; they're going to think what they want to think depending on their background and beliefs. It's literally impossible to anticipate every reaction to what's written, so better to just go for it. As I state in the video, about 15 percent of the commenters focused on the "crazy ri

I just went around Oakland to really get out of the house, which means heading to places like Luka's, Cafe Van Kleef, and other venues. It's to socialize -- some of my best blog story tips have come in this way. But it's also to support the local businesses. In this case, the crowds generated by the successful appearance of Green Day at the Fox went away and downtown Oakland and the Lake was largely full of locals. So I dropped into The Alley really to get a copy of their menu, and then walked over to a drinkery called Smitty's two doors away. I've decided that I'm not comfortable with Smitty's at all. Sorry but some of the clientele look like they're going to take hostages! Hey, I'm serious -- some rough-looking folks hang there and they seem proud of the way they look where I'm heading for the hills! Not that I would not help raise money for an event there, but geez. I've had it with this "We're Oakland and so it's