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  More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! YouTube , MySpace , Metacafe , Blip.tv , Stupid Videos , Sclipo , Viddler and Howcast I just read the news that Simon Cowell, the British entertainment mogul who's terrible bedside temper brings an edge to the popular reality TV show "American Idol" is now considering leaving it . My reaction? YEAH! DO IT! Look, I never really watched American Idol at all -- but I've seen at least once -- and the reason was Cowell. I've got to be honest. I don't like it when people are mean to each other when they're supposed to work together in the real world, and I like it even less on reality TV. Cowell tossed insults at fearful contestants like they're hand grenades then he sits back and watches them cry! Maybe Cowell is the perfect poster child for our fashionably rude society, and if that's the case and his departure would help improve American Culture, then the faster the better. Cowel

This phase of work, work, work is not done (and this is part of it) but not yet taking its toll. To make sure that doens't happen, I did two things: 1) I went to the gym and 2), I went out to just relax. The first thing, the gym, I do every day, or try too. I'm working to keep by weight below 200 pounds. I find I feel best at less than 196. Yesterday I was at 198. The second act was just plain going out. I wound up, as they say, at Luka's and ran into my neighbors and their friend who can dance up a storm. So, for the first time in a a while, I danced to some combination of "house" and reggae. Then, once enough sweat was produced to make think of my desire not to sweat a lot, I stopped, and fortunately so did they, and left. That was fun. It's also a blast to do it with people from your hood. Then I wound up at another place called Mua and ran into a couple I generally see at Cafe Ven Kleef. They had a friend in West Oakland who had a story tip f

  News is coming in that the election season has started early in Alameda this year and it looks like islanders are finally going to get a chance to make something exceptional happen out at the city’s run-down old Navy base. The backers of a plan to clean up and reuse the old Naval Air Station at Alameda Point today submitted the initiative language to the city. Now they will start collecting signatures to place the plan on the Nov. 3 ballot. This is frankly great news for Alameda. That old Navy base has sat unused and neglected for a long, long time. Finally a plan that someone can pay for is coming forward to get the place cleaned up and ready for real public use again. A lot of ideas have come and gone out there, but this is the only one makes any damn sense at all. Look, this has been a long time coming and I’m sure voters are going to get an earful from professional nimby’s who will oppose anything that even resembles a plan that could actually be achieved. And see my vid

I attended my first meeting of the Sports and Entertainment Task Force last Thursday, and which was its second meeting.  It appears that we're on track to produce a document by the April deadline, and I don't write this because I'm on the task force.  I do want this thing to work, and by that I mean we have to create a set of recommendations for the Mayor that's workable and doable.  But I must explain many of the task force members fear the "politicians" will not do anything.  More on that in a bit. This is where we are:  the first meeting was used to explain what the task force is, and what the Mayor expects to see.  We're a collection of concerned citizens who represent various concerns and backgrounds, from restaurant owners, to Internet business owners (me), to activists like Steve Lowe, and journalists like Chris De Benedetti, who's the chairman, to the Mayor's office, who has a staffer that records the action.  What the Mayor expects to s

http://oaklandfocus.blogspot.com - At his 50th birthday party hosted by Phil Tagami, Oakland City Attorney John Russo officially says he is not running for Mayor of Oakland because of his family obligations to his twin sons.

John Wolf spent 226 days in jail to protect his videos and sources, and caused the creation of a new law protecting video-bloggers. Now Sierra Choi is directing and producing a documentary - the trailer is here as part of my video blog. At the time in 2006, I met Josh when he worked for the television division at Peralta Community College. He was also in the middle of his battle with the Federal Government, but even then was still focused on his work, and didn't spend a lot of time fretting about what could happen. Then Josh defied San Francisco U.S. District Judge William Alsup's order to turn over the videos Josh had taken from a anti-G8 anarchist protes heldt in San Francisco on July 8, 2005. Wolf feared that the U.S. Government in the form of the FBI simply wanted to identify the people who were protesting and not solve a crime they claim had been committed against a police officer. Wolf's videos did not contain any footage of a police officer being harmed. S

The iReport at CNN team wants to know what my do-over-day would be. Well, the one I was thinking of, when I -- as Chairman -- wrote an email to the board of the Oakland Super Bowl Bidding Committee.