Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com On YouTube.com This Sunday, August 2nd (yikes, two days before my birthday!) The San Francisco-based Richmond / Ermet AIDS Foundation ( REAF.org ) features the 15th annual presentation of "Help Is On The Way: No Business Like Show Business." I've attended this gala over the last four years and I've got to tell ya it’s a load of fun; a mix of a little serious, a lot of energy, and a ton of talent. (The video above is from last year's event, where San Francisco luminaries like Harry Denton were holding court in the pre-show auction lounge, joined by "Austin Powers" , "Dean Martin" , and others.) Before I explain why you should attend, let me give you some background. REAF was founded by Barbara Richmond and the late Peggy Ermet in memory of their sons, John Richmond and Doug Ermet, who both lost their lives to AIDS. In 1995, t

The new tax is the focus of this video featuring At-Large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan

I saw this at the YouTube channel of EASTOAKLAND106. who wrote: 2 Thug Azz Niggaz went dumb on a addict i mean dayam only in oakland. But if you sell bad dope and you get caught its bad for the seller. But if you going to sell dope make sure its real or be simple about it DONT MESS WITH IT! LOL Then the white due tried to jack a homeless person in a wheele chair on 99th and E-14 i dont know why he did that. That was a big mistake. But why they decided to make a video of one of them hitting a man on the street is beyond me, but it shows the other side of Oakland not captured by the blogs, but it should be. Between this and the Oakland Salon Beating, also on YouTube, it's becoming a small habit of posting assaults on the video channel.

In the wake of the Oscar Grant shooting and the Crowley / Gates racial profiling incident , Oakland bloggers and vloggers should be writing about how we can move beyond that problem. Some of the blogs here are one-note wonders, when they could be valuable voices for social advancement.

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com YouTube.com , Yahoo , MySpace , Metacafe , DailyMotion , Blip.tv , StupidVideos , Sclipo and Viddler What started as a calamity threatening to divide America has seemingly ended in a planned beer bust at the White House, courtesy of President Barack Obama himself. The ill-advised ( in my opinion ) arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Lewis Gates by Cambridge Police Officer Sgt. James Crowley four days ago caught the attention of the nation, but it was President Obama's comment that the Cambridge Police "acted stupidly" and the rather terrible response by the Cambridge Police Union at its press conference , which created a much-needed national conversation about race, law enforcement, and American culture. Regardless of where you stand on this issue, there's no doubt that it has been the political talk of the day, even if much of it was disjointed, nas

I found this on YouTube and its worth a good look. Here' what was written at ckellogg05: The personal development teacher at the 2009 Berkeley/Oakland AileyCamp at Cal Performances, Shawn Nealy, talks about the class and shows examples of the campers drawings about their role models. The nationally acclaimed youth program, conceived by Alvin Ailey, founder of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and locally produced by Cal Performances, combines ballet, jazz, modern and African dance instruction with personal development and creative communication classes and field trips. The camp is tuition free and admits under-served middle school students ages 1114 from the Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond and Albany Unified School districts; the camp is located on the UC Berkeley campus.

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com The latest news in the Chevron / Richmond oil refinery issue is that California Attorney General Jerry Brown wants to step in and mediate the negotiations between the oil giant and the City of Richmond. In working to do this, Brown's scored a point on San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in the California Governor's race. According to the San Jose Mercury news and Contra Costa Times (yeah, I know they're merged), Brown appeared before the Richmond City Council and a "standing-room-only" crowd of 350 people, most reportedly laid off union workers from the Chevron facility, who's reconstruction effort was halted by court order in the wake of a lawsuit by environmentalists challenging the environmental impact report for the venue, costing them their jobs (I wonder if Dennis Roos was there ?). The Richmond electeds passed a resolution supporting the involvem