Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

I've never ever liked the Waste Managment contract and believed it was the best example of the worst of privitization, the next being SMG, which manages the Oakland Coliseum. Sorry, but I'm no far of privitization. Residents fume over stinky garbage Reports of restored service a bunch of trash talk, they say Christopher Heredia, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, July 19, 2007 Talks in the drawn-out East Bay garbage-hauler lockout recessed Wednesday without breakthroughs, while Waste Management Inc. said service was restored to pre-lockout levels but many customers complained they were still getting partial or no service. "It's a mess," said Pamela Drake, director of the Lakeshore Business Improvement District near Lake Merritt, where cans in the shopping district normally emptied by Waste Management were overflowing. "They haven't been doing any pickup at all," she said. Drake said she drove to Waste Management's headquarters on 98th Avenue on...

It's one thing to have one writer like me take a break and work on other aspects of a several thousand page site, but it's quite another when a website with a group of writers doens't make a single post but once in three months. I'm writing about The Grand Lake Guardian. Unlike this blog, which is part of a 50-blog network, I never believed the Grand Lake Guardian got much traffic at all, even though it's insider fan(s) objected to this point-of-view. When I checked the traffic using Compete, there wasn't enough activity for it to register stats. On Alexa, the only report was that it ranked 6,944,395 of all websites, but there was no 3 month average for it. What this means is that the site's traffic is so low, it's difficult to register. This blog's part of Blogger, so it's harder for those systems to measure Oakland Focus Traffic. But I can say that the blog is read each day or some posting is -- between 5 times and as many as 200 times a...

First, I got wind of this Thursday night at the gym, and looked into the article. The person who told me about this was right. The comments in the Tribune article are as distasteful as the way Mr. Carey reportedly came after Phil Tagami. I've captured both below. And as a word of warning, I do not publish anonymous comments. Don't try. As to where I was during all this? The MLB All Star Game, happily. Oakland business leaders in near-brawl at City Hall By Cecily Burt, STAFF WRITER - OAKLAND TRIBUNE Article Last Updated: 07/12/2007 12:58:35 PM PDT OAKLAND — Two men known to blow off steam at city meetings from time to time nearly came to physical blows outside City Hall Tuesday afternoon, although the only casualty appears to be Councilmember Larry Reid's bad back, wrenched while trying to keep the peace. The near dust-up happened in the middle of Tuesday's Community and Economic Development Committee meeting. The room was packed because comedy film mogul Keenen Iv...

On the first Saturday of each month, Cafe Van Kleef, a great electic hangout at 1621 Telegraph features a dance group called The Hot Pink Feathers. It's a San Francisco-based group of women who described their performance as "Hot Pink Feathers is the world's premiere samba burlesque dance troupe. These San Francisco-based dancing darlings are spreading the glitter gospel across the globe with their exuberant extravangzas. From family friendly to all-out risque revues, the Feathers entertainment themes range from Brazilian Carnaval, New Orleans Mardi Gras, French Can Can, Gypsy Cabaret, Tropical Sambafest, to Bawdy Bollywood and beyond." They dance to the music of a band called "Blue Bone Express" and in the hottest outfits anyone's ever seen. They pack the house. I've only seen them once before this video, and when I did I told Peter Van Kleef, the establishment's owner, than I'd film the event -- that's what it is, really -- the ne...

The Uptown Bar is known for hosting music groups of all kinds from rock to rap and hip hop, which pretty much means they're going to see all kinds of personalities. Tuesday, July 3rd was no exception. On that evening, Uptown hoted a hip hop group called Mista Masta, which is repped by ATM Records , at least that's true according to Uptown's calendar as it looked for this week -- that will change. Anyway, the group got a little rowdy and after their performance didn't clear the stage to close. Uptown Manager and Owner Kevin Burns decided to take matters into his own hands, and got up onto the stage to tell the group it was time to clean up. As he did this, he was hit by a woman on one side and then clobbered in the head by a man, both unidentified, but also part of the group. Kevin called the cops, but by the time they arrived, the Mista Masta clan was out of the door and gone. When I conducted an online search, I learned that the only Mista Masta is someone als...

We were all very excited when Ron Dellumns became Mayor of Oakland as w wanted a fresh face and a new start. But since he assumed office, Mayor Dellumns has been largely quiet. But what's personally distressing to me is that when I call the Mayor's Office main number -- 510-238-3141 -- I've gotten a voicemail message during business hours on several occasions. It's happened so much that I now call another number I used when I needed to directly contact Jerry Brown. I'm not giving that number out just yet, because once I do, the Mayor's Office may change it. Oaklanders have echoed the same feelings I express here. Take a look at this forum exchange I found on Topix.com: Graham Carter Berkeley, CA Reply » | Flag | #1 Jan 12, 2006 If he moved elsewhere HE would not be missed - as major HE was a total failure. deeba dabba Saint Louis, MO Reply » | Flag | #2 Saturday Jun 16 yep, i don't doubt it, crap always seems to like to stick around Oakland Kevin San ...

Yep. You read that clear as day. I will repeat the title: "Oakland and The SF Bay Area Slowly Becoming More Racist Than The South" Before I explain, let's recap exactly what the definition of racism is by referring to this Wikipedia definition: In practice, racism takes forms such as racial prejudice, segregation or subordination (subjugation). Racism can more narrowly refer to a legalized system of domination by one ethnic group over another, such as in institutional racism. Racial prejudice refers to a pre-formed notion of individuals based on their perceived racial heritage. It involves hasty generalizations about members of a group based on the perceived characteristics of one or more members of the group. Generalizations include beliefs that every member of a group has the same personality traits, interests, language, culture, ideas, norms and attitudes. Racial prejudices are sometimes promoted by the mainstream media. Racism has started wars and slavery. It is, ...