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UPDATE: Kajeet updates service, offers new smartphones. If you're a parent who's wondered how to virtually corral the chance that your kids will use their cell phone for something called "sexting," you've probably pounded your head in frustration. Well, there's an answer: Kajeet , a cell phone service "for kids" located in Maryland, but funded by Silicon Valley investor Rick Bolander, who serves as managing partner. Bolander brought his experience in "working with digital content providers and service providers" to bear in his role in helping to form Kajeet. Why do I mention Rick Bolander first and before its CEO? Because under his direction, Kajeet has raised $82 million. Bolander is not just managing director at Kajeet, he's also "Rick Bolander co - founder of Gabriel Venture Partners." Bolander, together with Kajeet CEO Daniel Neal, are creating a new company that's right for the times. A period where it see...

Platinum is an Oakland dance group like no other. It's the all-women dance group product of Oakland's New Style Motherlode, and includes a friend of my from my Skyline High School days, Amy Larsen. If that name rings a bell, it's because she was in this space earlier just one year ago , talking about the then-upcoming New Year's Eve performance called "Heat." Since that time, Platinum has performed at a number of venues around Oakland and the East Bay. As Amy explains "The group grew out of a performance workshop program initiated by NSM (New Style Motherlode) about 5 years ago. We dance to stay in shape and because we love it. However we PERFORM to INSPIRE our audiences to do what they love to do, no matter the age, no matter the experience level, just get out there and dance! And dance is what this group of hotties does. Platinum's next stop: Oakland Pride, this Sunday, September 4th. The women will perform at the Uptown Stage at 1:20 P...

UPDATE: My name is Jonathan Arnold and I am the Volunteer Coordinator for Oakland Pride. We are looking for volunteers in all areas of the festival, and our greatest need now is for volunteers for our entry gates, our volunteer check-in area, and recycling technicians. Anyone who wants to volunteer for Oakland Pride should contact us directly at volunteer@oaklandpride.org for information on attending a volunteer orientation and to sign up for a volunteer shift. Oakland Pride is this Sunday, September 4th at 19th and Franklin in downtown Oakland's Uptown District, and this email from Sean Sullivan presents it well, puts out a call for volunteers, and has email contacts for your use: Friends, After an amazing and impressive 1st year that drew over 50,000 to downtown Oakland, Oakland LGBT Pride is back this September 4th. I might have told you about the fundraiser Richard Fuentes and I hosted with the Mayor and Councilmember Kaplan a few weeks ago. It was a tremendous success th...

A lot of catching up to do on San Francisco News, so lets get started.  There's yet another protest planned to disrupt the evening commute, this one set for 5 PM outside of Civic Center BART Station in San Francisco.  The group Anonymous has reportedly said it would have a protest each week, and to point not just to the shut down of cell phone service that got Anonymous so riled up (this blogger too), but the recent police action that took the life of Charles Blair Hill in July.  On the matter of BART protests, I had a long talk with a good friend of mine who's become a fixture in Bay Area Law Enforcement (and I will not name).  His take was predictably, well, him, but representative of how some of his collegues think.  "BART has handled this poorly," he said. "What they should do, it turn us (police) lose and arrest people who protest down there.  If they get out of line, and don't follow orders, that's it.  Billy club them."  He and I totally d...

My celebration of the suddenly free "Oakland Tribune" from the hands of the Bay Area New Group, or BANG, both ruffled feathers and gained supporters. One email I received went something like this: I just read your blog about the Tribune. I was all set to dis-agree with Yipee. However, if the OAKLAND TRIBUNE can be resurrected on line I am enthused. Newspapers are what in my lifetime, helped give a city identity. In my opinion, the fact local media is SF centric has exaggerated the negatives of Oakland, but there has not been a positive voice out there. I have long promoted the idea of the A's the Warriors, the Raider's and possibly Cal going partners on a sports and news station that is Oakland centric....Let me know how I might be a help in this. The others I will not bother with, except to say that no one, least of all me, celebrates anyone losing a job. But my issue in all this is that we're in a time of digital media, yet what I see are media people consi...

When I got the news that the Oakland Tribune was no more, I could not understand why the reaction expressed above just came out, as "Yipee," but it did. Spontaneously. Then I had to admit that it was because, from my perspective, the real Oakland Tribune died a long time ago. It passed on the moment we lost people like Chauncey Bailey, my friend who was always on top of what was going on in the Oakland flatlands, and who was wrongly, awfully, gunned down . The Oakland Tribune passed when my good friends Monte Poole and Dave Newhouse's work started showing up in the Mercury News. It was no more when legendary Columnist Peggy Stinnett, who really took time to sit down over lunch with me and just talk about Oakland, passed away. Really miss her, I do. The Oakland Tribune was gone when it left the Tribune Tower at 13th and Broadway in Downtown Oakland. The Oakland Tribune I knew had a "pro-Oakland" sprit. It was the paper that was brought back t...

The Oakland murder of 3-year-old Oaklander Carlos Nava sparked an outpouring of emotion appropriate to the tragedy ( Take guns off Oakand's streets! ). But only to a certain point. There are graphic videos of the scene just after he was hit by a stray bullet allegedly produced by 26-year old Lawrence Curtis Denard (who did not enter a plea in court). Oakland videos that have not seen the light of media coverage, even by blogs - until now. For that, you can credit Oaklander Max Allstadt for doing what he does best: righteously bugging the crap out of people he thinks can make a difference if they take action. This blogger's going to skip what would be an off-the-track explanation of how that happened, and just say "Max. You are correct." At first, I objected to his plea because I felt it was sensationalizing a tragedy. But then, I realized I was going against my own belief that digital media is a mirror of our times, and to not show something is to deny other...

UPDATE: Chief Pete Sarna quit before he could be fired. According to Matier and Ross in the San Francisco Chronicle , Oakland, California School Police Chief Pete Sarna went out on a charity golf tournament, and, well this is how Matier and Ross explain it : The district is looking into accusations that the chief, who is white, let loose July 18 with a half-hour tirade loaded with racist epithets against his two sergeants and a police driver - who apparently was called to the event at the Sequoyah Country Club in Oakland so no one would be driving drunk. Sarna allegedly told the African American sergeant, who lives in Orinda, that "the only good n- is a dead n- and they should hang you in the town square to prevent any other n- from coming in the area." That's racist. Pure and simple. Racist. (As a note, we're talking about the Oakland Public School's Police Chief, not the Oakland Police. But to someone like Oakland Tribune Photographer Jane Tyska, tha...

As the San Francisco Bay Area talks about the economy, jobs, and spending, or more to the point wasteful spending, here we have the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the MTC, in the Oakland office that's just a brisk 70-foot walk from Lake Merritt BART, moving out of that cool building on 8th and Oak Street, and spending, according to Oakland Local , $150 Million to build a new place - in San Francisco. Oh, and a place that's so far from BART, compared to its current home, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission might as well change its name to the Boonies Transportation Commission. What does the MTC have against Oakland? Drive-by shootings and robberies happen in San Francisco, too. You just don't read about them because the local media's brainwashed against reporting them. There is much to like about Oakland, not to mention the fact its more racially diverse than San Francisco, and finally has a decent set of restaurants and bars to frequent. A...

Yesterday's action where the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area Rapid System took the step of interrupting or blocking cell phone service has increased from the first blog post on this, the one in this space, charging that BART's act was not legal, to a much Twitter-tweeted matter where BART's action was consistently said not to be legal. While BART charges that the action was legal, but has not given concrete evidence to support the claim as of this writing (and this blogger has called BART), a look at recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) actions shows that BART's response to the feared protest was not illegal. According to sources, BART's complaint about what this blogger installed rests on the idea that it did not use a cell phone jamming device, but simply turned off the cell phone antenna system serving certain San Francisco BART stations. That was not my point. My point is that, according to a number of online sources, BART's attempt to int...

HI Your Fit Day Friends ! Hey! Do you still want to get that sexy summer bod? Or, maybe you're on the rebound from a joint injury... Or, maybe you're just looking for that cool piece of equipment that is super fun and will get you fit and lean in a short amount of time... Or, you just like toys! OK! So, remember I told you that I would find ways to work out to keep me in super duper shape before my pending hip surgery? Well, I had this super idea that I could design running shoes with springs on the bottom that would take the impact off my joints and it would be less painful to walk and super fun to use, as well as keep my booty in shape. But then I said, "Hmm! Why invent the wheel when somebody else has done the work for me? Why not ask the Kangoo Jump people to help me?" So that's what I did. And I think these Boots were made for YOU! Boots Not Just Made For Walking! My first try with the Kangoo jumps was back in Jun...

Time to take guns away from Oakland's youth. 3-year-old Carlos Fernando Nava died as the result of a stray bullet fired from the gun of one Oakland Gang Member to another. The flood of news about this tragedy just plain ruined my Wednesday. Oakland murders are not something this blogger likes to mention, but this was the exception. We really have to take guns out of the Oakland equation. What I could not stop thinking about was that 10-year-old boy of about four years ago (from memory), who was also hit by a "stray" bullet near 51st and Pleasant Valley, miles and Worlds away from East Oakland, but still in Oakland. How many Oaklanders young and old, must this happen to before we actually do something to stop this? Who's next? Me? You? Who's next? Oakland must take action. And I hope those who were against Oakland's Gang Injunction Program re-think their position after this incident. We have to take Guns off Oakland's streets...

The controversial proposal to build a new, expanded Safeway Rockridge Oakland complex has gone on for something like five years and three major design changes. The last time I weighed in on this design, it was because the product was awful. This time that's changed, as has the economic climate. I talked to Ken Lowney, of Lowney and Associates Architects about what I think is an exciting new design that adds up to be a net plus for Rockridge. It also has the added advantage of having been created by a person in Mr. Lowney who actually lives in Rockridge. Because of that, "it's a very personal project for me," he says. As the video shows, the new Safeway Rockridge Oakland is a far cry from the original plan. It actually fits and conforms to its surroundings, and provides a gift in the form of a triangular over-look cafe on the corner of Claremont and College Avenue. But that's design; my background is in city planning, and my specialization is in urb...