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This is Oaklandish's bus, or what they call a "Mobile Operations Unit." But I've got to ask what do they really do in that monster thing? Here's their info... This classic '67 Clark Cortez camper van has been outifitted with A.V. equipment (projector, FM radio transmitter, P.A. system), a kegerator, the Folklandish library of books, videos, collectibles & memorabilia, as well as our line of 'local love' goods. So basically we're rigged and ready to turn it out on-location at the drop of a hat! This completes our long standing dream of being fully equipped to bring our message & media to events and parties all over the town. Look for it November 5th at Dia de los Muertos in the Fruitvale!

I found this link to an interesting group called Oakland Ecovillage and their calendar, which features Sunday walks around the Lake with a group of anti-war neighbors. I'm sure the group realizes that it needs to be more diverse than is shown in this photo, so I will not spend too much time on this except to say if you're a person of color check it out, and to the group's organizers, make a concerted effort to bring African Americans, Latinos, and others in. It's disheartening to see this kind of photo in a city that was once prized for its diversity. Not to mention eating just popcorn! How about potato salad? A potluck with baked chicken? Something!

Oakland Coliseum wins Raiders lawsuit By DAVID KRAVETS, AP Legal Affairs Writer Fri Nov 17, 8:18 PM ET SAN FRANCISCO - A state appeals court on Friday threw out a jury's $34.2 million award to the Oakland Raiders over accusations that managers of the Oakland Coliseum falsely promised a sold-out stadium to lure the team back to the Bay Area. The case dates to 1995, when Raiders owner Al Davis maneuvered to get his team out of Southern California after revenues waned, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum's foundation was shaken by an earthquake and a deal collapsed to build a new stadium and horse track. The Oakland deal, first inked in 1995 and renegotiated a year later, gave the Raiders a $53 million loan, $10 million for a training complex and $100 million to renovate the coliseum, which they share with baseball's Oakland Athletics. The 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento said in a 2-1 ruling on Friday that because the Raiders agreed to the deal a second time, the team

OAKLAND A family dispute ends with 3 killed, 2 in custody Man dives from window to escape gunfire after holiday gathering turns violent Steve Rubenstein, SF Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, November 24, 2006 Three people were killed and another wounded when a North Oakland holiday get-together turned deadly Thursday afternoon. Two men were taken into custody in connection with the shooting. There were nine people, including a child, in the third-floor apartment at 5321 Telegraph Ave. when gunfire broke out shortly before 3 p.m. One man and two women were killed and another man wounded in the gunfire, while another man suffered a broken back when he leaped from a third-floor window to escape the bullets. Oakland police described the incident as a family dispute gone horribly wrong. "There was an ongoing disturbance within the group,'' which had started well before the bloody Thanksgiving shooting, said Officer Roland Holmgren, an Oakland police spokesman. He declined to elab

This is not the press conference, but a presentation on the new technology that would be in what Cicso -- the developers of the router for the Internet -- calls "The Stadium of the Future." These improvements will find their way into the planned new A's stadium to be located in Fremont, but they could be used anywhere in any stadium. The question is how much will this increase ticket prices at the new A's stadium? I'll be we're not going to see Dollar Wednesday's again after it's built -- if it is.

I found this post on the Yahoo Message Board for Adams Point. It's a long response to the proposal to ease conversions of apartments to condos. SAY NO TO OAKLAND'S URBAN REMOVAL PROGRAM--CONDO CONVERSIONS REVISITED! * 3 City Councilmembers led by Ignacio Dela Fuente have put a city-wide proposal to gut Oakland's existing condo conversion protections ON THE FAST TRACK with only 2 months of public hearings and no study on the impacts, including displacement of vulnerable tenants and exacerbating declining school enrollments. They want it passed before Mr. Dellums takes office. * IF YOU ARE A RENTER, increased condo conversion means that you may be evicted from your home and forced to find new housing in an even more difficult rental market. * There will be NO RENT CONTROL PROTECTIONS if the new condo units are re-rented. Over 25% of Oakland's current condos are already being rented out. * OVER 90% OF OAKLAND RENTERS won't be able to afford the new condos. Average c

Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente made a terrible mistake yesterday when he said this to the San Francisco Chronicle: "To be candid, we made more money in one Rolling Stones concert than the A's made (us) in a whole year. We will deal with it," De La Fuente said. Wow. Apparently, Ignacio De La Fuente and the Coliseum Authority think that Cisco Field will only be used for baseball and not concerts. Does anyone at the Coliseum Authority understand that a new competing facility will open and threten to pull over half of the Coliseum's events away from it? I really think that Oakland Officials don't understand sports and entertainment as an industry, and yet are too ego-driven to know when they're making a mistake. This is a massive error.

Here's an example of failure in the making. Instead of forming a private sector task force on the A's matter, Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente calls on stadium manager SMG for advice. Anything to put money in SMG's pocket. It makes me wonder what SMG does for them -- tickets to events? That's not right. The Coliseum Authority's enabiling resolution contains a provision to establish a 20-person private sector advisory board. But it's never been done at all. The SF Bay Area has some of the World's top sports business minds, but we in Oakland don't call on them. What's Ignacio afraid of? Good advice? In the days when the Coliseum was ran by Oakland business people, they would get together and devote time to solve the problem. Instead, we get Ignacio making more negative comments about the A's, as in "We make more money without them." Know where they got that idea from? SMG. SMG's not an economics firm --

Yesterday, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced that the effort to bring the 2016 Olympics to San Francisco was over. As the head of the Oakland Super Bowl XVIV Bidding Committee, which from 1999 to 2001 worked to bring the Super Bowl to Oakland, I hated to witness that event. I thought San Francisco had its best chance yet to land the Olympic Games because it had a large set of people who seemed to be equally committeed to doing it. The SF 2012 Olympic effort was the largely the story of the work and energy of one person, Anne Cribbs, whereas this time the heavy lifting was spread out more to others. In the case of Oakland's Super Bowl that effort was totally the story of my work and enthusiasm. But in all three cases, one element of Bay Area society came forward again and again: the selfish action of one key player, perfectly timed to wreck the chances of winning. What makes the Bay Area a great place to live is also that which keeps it from really growing as a socie

In their blog of the same name, Brooke and Lian point to a growing movement in West Oakland to reduce the tide of social change driven by gentrification. They point out that since 2000, 20 percent of Oakland's black population has left Oakland, and -- they claim -- most of that departure from West Oakland. There's a campaign to stop this and the leaders of the effort have posted signs and even a large billboard in protest of what is called "predatory development." This has been ignored in the mainstream media, with people like the East Bay Express' Chris Thompson calling retailers like Walgreens champions of urban development, but offering no proof to back his claim. Still, the drive -- as uncoordinated as it seems to be -- moves on. My prediction is that it will eventually lead to the first full scale riot Oakland has ever seen. All of the drivers are in place: wildly disparant income levels, high crime, poor neighborhood job opportunities, angry police off

This was posted on the "local" Yahoo! Message Board Earlier this evening [Thursday night], one of the ground-floor apartments in our building was burglarized. We are at 405 Blellevue, which is at the corner of Bellevue and Van Buren. The thief[ves] came in through the window and exited through the front door. No one saw or heard anything. The tenant came home around 2:30 a.m. so we're not exactly sure when it happened, but we think it was around midnight. The burglar(s) took an Apple laptop, iPod, and a Dark Blue LeMond road bike, as well as some small personal items. The also took a red suitcase, presumably to carry the smaller loot. The thief could still be out in the neighborhood with these items. The tenant said that last night they awoke to a knocking. At the time, they thought it was the front door, so they went to the door to find no one there. It seemed peculair, but at the time they thought it was maybe the wind or something else that made the sound. Now, in retr

I just found this video while looking for other content, and wondered why Councilmember Pat Kernighan's staff didn't place it on her website. In this video, made by the "Choose Or Loose The Oakland A's" effort, the District Two representative says she will raise the matter of the retention of the A's to the level of public discussion. Well, Pat, lets' get started! Here's the video:

The San Francisco 49ers annouce they're going to move -- or try to move -- to Santa Clara (and to a parking lot and an area rife with environmental impact issues). SF Mayor Gavin Newsom says he will fight to keep the 49ers in San Francisco, and to that end, he's already dispatched SF City Attorney Dennis Herrera to build a case that will do so. Meanwhile, Lew Wolff annouces a deal to move the Oakland A's to Fremont, and Oakland Mayor-Elect Ron Dellums (yep, I'm calling him out since Jerry's now Attorney General) and Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente do nothing. In fact, De La Fuente thinks there's nothing that can be done. Boy is he wrong. At about this point, I'd give the free advice that Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty told me I was giving and Ignacio told the SF Chronicle he doesn't listen too, but I'm not gonna do that. Instead, I'm going to rag on both Dellums and De La Fuente for a lack of pride and a poor