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There's an idea from certain racist types that this blogger was blocked from posting at the SF Chronicle website because of "ties" to a "Chevron operative." That's bullshit. What the truth is, is that the new SFGate.com executive director Alana Nguyen did not, by her own written admission, like my take on the Rick Perry issue, as well as my statement that the position she holds was one that I believed I was better suited for. Moreover, at over 3,000 posts, far more than any other City Brights blogger my content was undoubtedly starting to tax their server budget. This video explains it all: No one pays me to hold an opinion - I do support Chevron in Ecuador because I think Ecuador's political system is corrupt and anti-American. This is a view I've held for some time, and before I started blogging at SFGate.com. I also happen to feel that there are certain knee jerk non-profits that just make money off challenging oil companies like Chev...

According to Zennie62.com Jeremy Renner's went from good actor, to up-and-comer after his breakout movie The Hurt Locker , and now he's a true A-list star, working alongside Tom Cruise and going off to exotic locations like Dubai to shoot, in this case, the newest Mission: Impossible movie, Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol . Filming in Dubai created trying challenges related to the Middle East heat, and that brought out the worst in Renner. According to a source who worked close to Mr. Renner on the set of Mission: Impossible , the very demanding and well-liked actor was given to the occasional vulgar outburst because of the searing conditions - most famously this one: 'How long am I going to sit here playing with my balls with my tongue?' Renner was also said to be impatient with others to be ready to go when a scene was about to be made. In all, set workers are faster to blame the heat than Renner, saying that they were pleased to have worked with him....

Concerned that fans and patrons think Andronico’s is totally out of business with the close of its Telegraph Avenue store in Berkeley, the food retailer's went on a big push to let you know they're still going strong, and their facilities on Shattuck Avenue, and on Solono Avenue, both in Berkeley, are still going concerns as the firm emerges from bankruptcy. [caption id="attachment_13477" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Andronico's "] [/caption] The Telegraph Avenue store was the final one to close and marks the end of a financial restructuring program that started last year, and managed to save 375 jobs in the process. Bill Andronico, third generation member of the family which founded the markets, said... “Investment in the future of Andronico’s Markets can begin now that we are financially stable after the sale of the company to Renovo Capital. Our focus now is to build upon the strong brand built over three gener...

A rumor started that Whole Foods on 27th and Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, the 50,000 square-foot store that has revitalized a long-dead part of Oakland's Adams Point, and can be seen in this Zennie62 video from September 26, 2007... was going to leave Oakland after an attack by protestors at first connected to Occupy Oakland, but later found not to be associated with the mainstream managers of the movement, as seen in this video from Russia Today: Here's an email that was circulated: Subject: Say it isn't so! Dear Mr. Lennon and Mr. Brizee, A rumor has begun to circulate that WholeFoods is contemplating pulling out of Oakland! I do find it difficult to believe, given the capital investment you’ve recently expended renovating the store. However, if there’s any truth to the rumor, I’m sure that it is strictly a business decision, so I’ll skip the part where I wax poetic about your cheese department, the bakery, the prepared foods, and the produce! Instead...

In the wake of the law enforcement clearing of Occupy Oakland from Frank Ogawa Plaza on Monday morning, and the news of similar actions in Portland, Denver, New York, and other cities, come the previously unknown news that the events were the result of an 18 city collaboration. The deliverer of that news? Oakland Mayor Jean Quan. On a BBC interview, Mayor Quan said she was "part of an 18-city" collaboration that centered around a large conference call to all parities. That explains a whole lot. It explains why it seemed the same message was being blasted by mayor after mayor around the nation. Constantly repeating the words "the encampment caused a heath issue" (or words to that effect) on television in city after city served to grab the overall communications message away from the Occupy Movement, and replace it with a narrative which says that the Occupy Movement is chaotic, dangerous, and dirty. From the looks of things now, the strategy seems...

The latest news in the Occupy Oakland constellation of information is the effort to recall Oakland Mayor Jean Quan.  According to an email from a source, Sanjiv Handa, East Bay News Service reports that $100,000 has been pledged toward the effort to recall the Mayor.  Also, the latest Occupy Oakland news is that Oakland Police and law enforcement will move in to clear the encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza at 4 AM, Monday, November 14th. Here's the text from the email sent to Zennie62.com: FYI from Sanjiv Handa, East Bay News Service: The Oakland Bulletin SM The Authoritative Source About Every Nuance of Oakland Politics and Process Since 1994   SM $100,000 Pledged to Qualify Quan Recall A petition to force an election to recall Mayor Jean Quan has been certified for the signature-gathering phase. Proponents have a maximum of 160 days to turn in about 19,800 signatures from registered Oakland voters on petitions that are now available. Special interes...

At a press conference Sunday evening, Don Macleay, head of the Oakland Green Party, Wilson Riles, long-time Oakland activist, Vicki McGuire, mental health professional, and Naomi Shiff, Oakland architect and preservationist, all called for Oakland Mayor Jean Quan to avoid what will almost certainly be a violent removal of the Occupy Oakland encampment.  Here are videos from the press event held at the Oakland City Hall Steps, Sunday at 4:30 PM. Occupy Oakland protestor and encampment dwellers received a third eviction notice on Sunday.  Stay tuned.

Oakland Activists Call Occupy Oakland Press Conference At City Hall Today Oakland Green Party Head Calls For Stop To Planned City Of Oakland Eviction at 4:30 PM PST For Immediate Release Contact: Don Macleay at 510-290-1200 Sunday, November 13th, 2011 Oakland Green Party Head and 2010 Oakland Mayor's Race Candidate Don Macleay, and long time Oakland Activists Wilson Riles, and Vicki McGuire will hold a press conference today, and will be joined by other Occupy Oakland participants on the steps of Oakland's City Hall.   They will assemble right in front of the Oakland City Hall steps, just 150 feet from the main Occupy Oakland General Assembly Meeting Area at Frank Ogawa Plaza, near 14th and Broadway.  Here's Mr. Macleay's prepared statement: <blockquote>We the undersigned are making a proposal to the General Assembly calling for a PUBLIC FORUM on Thursday Nov. 17 on the subject of HOW TO HARMONIZE THE OCCUPY OAKLAND PROTEST WITH THE OAKLAND COMMUNITY AT LARGE The...

A video blogger named OakFoSho is running an Occupy Oakland Live Stream now, today, Saturday November 12, 2011.  He's covering the activities of the day, even as the encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza just received its second eviction notice from the Oakland Police, and for the second straight day.  He says that UStream.tv set them up "for free" and are some "really down people" over there at USTream headquarters.  He said that the reason UStream dropped in was that on the night of the police raid on October 25th, 35,000 people saw his live stream of the happenings, as broadcasted via his cell phone.  So, the UStream people saw that, and worked to set Occupy Oakland up with a brand new system.  The first one for the Occupy Movement. So far, it's attracted over 200 views.  Right now, the live stream focus is on a teach in. For UStream this is more than a good-will effort; it's business.  If the Oakland Police and Alameda County Law Enforcement tak...

In an amusing blog post (and for its pure hubris), The Oakland Police Association has stated in a new blog that it's time for Occupy Oakland to go. Frankly, releasing this blog post was one of the dumbest actions any Oakland public organization outside the Mayor could have made. It just shows how little respect the Oakland Police have for the Mayor of Oakland and the chain of command. Here's the blog post: November 11, 2011 On behalf of the 645 Oakland police officers we represent, this letter comes to you out of duty to protect the Oakland community and its citizens. Oakland police officers are the 99% and we understand and sympathize with your message. We respect your right to peaceful protest. We are also sworn to protect the citizens of Oakland. Right now, Oakland is in a state of emergency. Our police officers are the 99% struggling in Oakland neighborhoods every day to contain the 1% who rob, steal, rape and murder our law-abiding citizens. The Occupy Oakla...

For the many who never knew Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson, who was Oakland's last three-term Mayor, and its first African American Mayor, serving from 1977 to 1991, when he lost to Elihu Harris.  During his time, Mayor Wilson was a tireless promoter of Oakland.  The video below has Mayor Wilson making a video to announce the State Urban Economic Development Conference to help prospective developers and business owners build and relocate in Oakland.  In the video, Wilson presents different views of Oakland, showing everyone what a great city it really is. By contrast, Oakland doesn't have such events in the present day.  Instead, we have meetings to present our public safety plans to residents.  It's all fear-based, not economics based, and at a time when Oakland needs to create more jobs. Mayor Wilson died of cancer in 1990

The Cal - Stanford Big Game is next week, and promises to be another memorable college football contest. As usual, there will be a number of parties, but there's one event that you really must come to: a benefit for Jill's Legacy . Jill's Legacy is a non-profit organization based around Cal Crew Team Member Jill Costello, who lost her battle with lung cancer at the age of 22. The website describes the organization in this way: Jill's Legacy is an Advisory Board to the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation made up of promising young professionals who have each been personally touched by Lung Cancer. The Board has been called Jill's Legacy in memory of 22-year-old college student and athlete at U.C. Berkeley, Jillian Costello, who lost her battle with Lung Cancer in June of 2010, just one year after being diagnosed. With its oldest member just 24, this Board of empowered young adults is largely made up of Jill's closest friends and loved ones. The grou...

Occupy Oakland has revealed one thing: just how basically ignorant so many people can be at once.  There are many examples here, but the latest one is the shooting and death of a person at 14th and Broadway, and all over a "bag of weed."  That's Oakland for ya.  There's way too much media around Occupy Oakland, which is a good thing because offers just enough information to be able to make a sound determination of what actually was going on out there.  First, because the shooting happened at 14th and Broadway, which is next to the encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza, conservative blogs like Big Government by Andrew Brietbart and also HotAir, have jumped all over the incident as evidence that the occupation needs to end.  That's even though many say it had nothing to do with the movement at all.  See this AP Video: The sad fact is that 14th and Broadway has long been a place where you could run into drug dealers and vagrants, and possibly be robbed by t...

This blogger felt it necessary to add a post regarding the issue of being blocked from posting at SFGate.com and, according to the emails and exchanges received, due to the Rick Perry blog posts, and the new SFGate.com Executive Director Alana Nguyen's fear that the take presented, and the way it was presented might "get them sued."   (And for the record, my blog posts and videos about LGBT issues have always been consistent and supportive of the LGBT political community.) First, thank you to the many people who have chimed in with words of support.  The news is that there has been no impact on revenues generated by Zennie62Media properties in the wake of the SFGate.com action. Indeed, only 3 percent of total video view come from blog posts, and about half of the video views are from return visitors. And while the full list of sources of views will not be revealed here, of late, SFGate.com's impact has been minimal at best. And for those who haven't seen it, h...

SAN FRANCISCO — Earlier today, the Board of Directors of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) approved an historic agreement with organized labor (*see list of signatory unions below) designed to ensure labor peace and equal opportunity for small, local, disadvantaged, union, and non-union businesses throughout the construction of the $4 billion Transbay Transit Center Project.  Construction of the Project will create more than 125,000 jobs.  The Project Labor Agreement (PLA) is a pact that all construction and trade workers, both union and non-union, must abide by while working on the Transbay site.  Under the pact, all workers agree to work by the same rules, on an equal playing field.  In return, workers are provided uniform benefits and protections. The Transbay Transit Center Project will require workers from diverse crafts, including plumbers, carpenters, operating engineers, ironworkers, sheet metal workers, electricians, and la...

Apparently giving a response to efforts to recall embattled Oakland Mayor Jean Quan after her bungling of the Occupy Oakland effort, her husband Floyd Quan wrote an email that has many Oakland insiders up in arms. The basic read of has Mr. Quan calling for the removal and replacement of the Oakland City Council, and with a form of what he calls "direct democracy" via neighborhood organizations, like the Montclair / Oakland Democratic Club. Many have taken the email as Mr. Quan retaliating for the recall effort. Here's the email posted "as is": The idea if neighborhood assemblies is exactly what the Town Halls were meant to be; we did 8 of them with the last being the biggest, almost 600 people at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. It you see this is as a alternative power structure, so be it. The ideas of issues that flowed from these are the basis for us to work on as priorities for the city, neighborhood by neighborhood. We wanted to use thes...

Here's an update to the original Zennie62.com blog post : it seems a Houston-based blog picked up my lasted re-telling of the "Is Rick Perry Gay?" question the mainstream media has avoided asking. Here's what Chicago Pride wrote : Houston — Some bloggers want Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry to answer one simple question: "Are you gay?" The issue is being dredged up again on the San Francisco Chronicle's website by blogger Zennie Abraham. "It's a good question to ask that's not been asked: why has CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC not followed up on the long-time claims that Rick Perry may be Gay, or at least had a romantic encounter with a man, but they're all over the Herman Cain rumors," Abraham wrote on Monday. The details of the Perry rumor -- as presented by blogger Mike Starks and the venerable newspaper the Austin American-Statesman -- are that the Perry's wife discovered him in a compromising position with...

Alana Nguyen , the new Executive Director of SFGate.com, has blocked Zennie62 from further blog postings on the website of the San Francisco Chronicle. The exact reason for the sudden action wasn't stated in the email sent to announce it, but emails and conversations the day before pointed to a sudden concern for a blog subject Zennie62 (Zennie Abraham) has covered before: why the mainstream media failed to ask Texas Governor Rick Perry about allegations that he's Gay or had a Gay relationship with the now former Secretary of State Geoff Connor. Nguyen, who was found by SFGate.com while she was managing editor at YardBarker, has a law degree from Stanford, but is best known for her work at YardBarker, and her time as AOL's "Miss Gossip for AOL FanHouse. She started with the website in September, and it seems wants to make changes. But one of the talks Nguyen and this blogger had was regarding the City Brights program. The disclaimer says that City Brights blogge...

In the ongoing story of the City of Oakland, Occupy Oakland, Mayor Jean Quan, and the Oakland Police, comes this interesting new blog post by the Oakland Police Officers Association.   The blog post is all well and good; until the part that reads "Oakland is struggling – we need real leaders NOW who will step up and lead – not send mixed messages."  A big ouch to Mayor Quan Read on: An Open Letter to the Citizens of Oakland from the Oakland Police Officers’ Association 1 November 2011 – Oakland, Ca. We represent the 645 police officers who work hard every day to protect the citizens of Oakland. We, too, are the 99% fighting for better working conditions, fair treatment and the ability to provide a living for our children and families. We are severely understaffed with many City beats remaining unprotected by police during the day and evening hours. As your police officers, we are confused. On Tuesday, October 25th, we were ordered by Mayor Quan to clear out the encampm...

A bit of catching up to do on Oakland News, so here we go. Occupy Oakland Occupy Oakland continues to "occupy" the collective minds of Oakland and much of America, just one week after Oakland's Brutal Tuesday, where police and Occupy Oakland protestors clashed. The result were some injuries to protesters - one fatal and to Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen. After suffering in critical condition for some time, the good new is that Olsen is out of that status, and is recovering. Mr. Olsen was visited by both the Mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan, and Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan. And in related news, Jordan got to the media to defend the actions of the police who hurt Olsen. Jordan said “I want to ensure you that all allegations of misconduct and excessive uses of force are being thoroughly investigated by internal and external investigative sources,’’ Jordan said. “I am confident in our abilities to conduct thorough and fair investigations into the actions of p...