Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

Children's Fairyland and Don Macleay in the Oakland Mayor's Race, have urgent announcements in today's Oakland news. Don Macleay, the Green Party candidate running for for Mayor of Oakland, sent out this email for 100 signatures he needs from you this Saturday: Nomination signatures needed. Sat. July 31 10AM Friends, For the campaign to take the next step I need 100 Oakland voters to sign for me. We are collecting signatures all this week. You can contact me, Jan, Greg or Michael. To make it easy we are going to meet at Cafe Dejena on Saturday July 31st at 10 AM. It is at 3939 MLK corner of 40th right near the MacArthur BART EASY to get to on bike, foot and car and easy to park. http://www.cafedejena.com We will have nomination petitions to sign and voter registration cards if you need them. And, now is a good time to donate because the campaign is now finally officially under way. http://macleay4mayor.org/donate.html Don Macleay Children's F

Wow. American Idol is in a state of chaos: J-Lo, Jennifer Lopez, is in as a judge; Kara DioGuardi was fired as a judge, and Ellen DeGeneres quit from being a judge after just one season, and less than a year. Now, according to TMZ, it's Randy Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, and Steven Tyler as the three-judge panel. Still, American Idol' s not the same without Simon Cowell; then again, it's ratings were tanking with Simon Cowell. I said "YEAH" when I first got the word Simon was leaving , and I stand by that. Sometimes the dude could be just plain mean. OK, people got a kick out of it and watched, but eventually they tired of his act. Now, American Idol' s real problem is that there are too many freaking American Idol -type shows. The formula has been over saturated. Think about it. We have Britain's Got Talent , America's Got Talent , So You Think You Can Dance , Dancing With The Stars , and a few shows I've left out of my memory. And t

Montana Fishburne, the daughter of famed actor, Laurence Fishburne, is certainly making her dad an unhappy camper as she's now called "Chippy D" and is a porn star. According to MissJia.com via TMZ.com, Montana Fishburne thanks her hotness Kim Kardashian for the idea. She says it was Kim Kardashian's sex tape that gave her inspiration. Laurence Fishburne is the famous TV and movie actor best known for playing Mobius in the Matrix film series. But what was going on at home? 19-year-old Montana Fishburne told the site CarltonJordan.com that she had a lot of at-home experience in playing a porn actress. Uh...what? No word on what Laurence Fishburne thinks about all of this, yet. And according to her Twitter account, Kim Kardashian's too busy grinding with Dallas Cowboys Wide Receiver Miles Austin to even care: time to shine ;-) RT @MilesAustiniii -@kimkardashian rise and grind. ;) about 24 hours ago via web Stay tuned.

What's interesting to learn about Bay Area venture capital firms, and on the heels of Thursday's TechCrunch Summer Party hosted by August Capital , is that not every one focuses on the United States. In the case of Tano Capital, the San Mateo, California investment firm founded by Charles E. Johnson, the former President of Franklin Templeton investments, who's its managing director , has its investment interests primarily in India and China. The firm, established in 2007, started with a few small investments, but then ramped up its activity considerably in 2009. It started with an investment in AltoBeam Technology, a China-based designer of digital TV chipsets. Then Tano placed $2.2 million in TongXue.com , a Chinese-based social network, that's become one of the 50,000 largest websites in the World (and with a really cool animated activity map). In 2010, Tano Capital's activity increased, to the point that it has now as many deals in play as it did in al

According to Bob Egelko and Henry K. Lee of the San Francisco Chronicle , the man who terrorized Oakland (causing Adams Point residents to take to online chat rooms about the helicopter and shooting noise) was a parolee named Byron Williams who hated left-wing politicians and had on a bullet-proof vest.  In other words, a Tea Party sympathizer. That he was on the Oakland stretch of 1-580 may have been no accident, considering Oakland's a hot bed of left-wing political activity. Byron Williams also reads like a Tea Party sympathizer, and not exactly the warm and fuzzy kind. More like the kind that wants to harm you if you disagree with him. Rush Limbaugh's a Tea Party hero Is this what we're coming too? A Northern California man who's mother says was upset by "the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items." Another Tea Party-type nut? Doesn't that sound something like Joe Stack , the man who flew his plane into the

In many ways, Dr. Terrance Candell is a lot like fellow Oaklander Urban Farmer Novella Carpenter , the author of Farm City . Both are energetic, intelligent, engaging, passionate, caring, and committed to Oakland. Both also have facilities they started from scratch: Novella her urban farm and for Dr. Candell, Candell's College Preparatory Academy . The main difference, other than he being black and male, and she being white and female, is that Dr. Candell's running for Mayor of Oakland. Dr. Terrance Candell PhD This blogger visited Dr. Candell at Candell's College Preparatory Academy in East Oakland, right across the street from Eastmont Mall and at 2544 73rd Street. What was great about the talk, as evidenced by the video, was to what high degree Dr. Candell cares about his students and already is the Mayor of East Oakland. In our talk, he hugs his students and even got all over one who dared to jaywalk across 73rd street. He wants to transfer that level of

Urban farming is fast catching on as an alternative to shopping in overpriced food stores and worrying about how to feed a family on a challenged budget in a bad economy. Oakland, California has become the San Francisco East Bay Area's center of the urban farming movement. All of this was evident at the City Slickers June fundraiser held at St. Paul's Church near Lake Merritt. Why wait this long to blog about the event? Because everything about the Oakland urban farming effort, from City Slickers and the people involved in it, to the work of Oaklander Novella Carpenter, City Slickers Founder Willow Rosenthal and her friend Laura Pivas and, it's board members including Kelli Saturno, Barbara Lafeete - Olawale and Interim Executive Director Barbara Finnin . And others not in the West Oakland food organization, but an influence on the movement, like UC Berkeley Professor and Activist Michael Pollan (who Rosenthal and Carpenter describe as a "hero"

YouTube , Metacafe , Blip.tv and Viddler A group of wandering musicians playing The Beatles Norwegian Wood on a San Francisco BART train bound for Oakland last week, Thursday. The musicians, who appeared to be a family consisting of a man and three boys, one an older teenager of about 16, and the other two between the ages of 12 and 14, went from car to car singing The Beatles Norwegian Wood , and really not badly, all things considered - for whatever money the BART riders would give. I gave two bucks. It's sad that taking on such activities as singing The Beatles Norwegian Wood on a Bay Area Rapid Transit Train at rush hour is what some have to do to make money. While BART has a "no-panhadling" policy, groups like this one should be given some leeway as they provide entertainment after a long day and a little levity in a San Francisco Bay Area than can take itself a little too seriously.

NewMediaAge thought it was pulling a fast one by offering a study that reads "Almost two-thirds of people are happy to pay for quality journalism but not online, according to a YouGov survey," for a fee behind a paywall, when the same study results are actually available online without charge . Thus, NewMediaAge proved why paywalls don't work, even as it was using one: all you have to do is search around to get the same content for free. And where you can get the study results summary is the very YouGov site that produced the study , here: media paywalls don't work .  That reports: A vast majority (83 percent) replied that they would refuse to pay, with only two percent of respondents willing to shell out for online content in the current format. Only four percent would pay for online even when the content in question was not available anywhere else. NewMediaAge must think the online consumer is stupid. The study claims : The Daily Mail is read onli

On Thursday night July 15th, a change in flight plans enabled this blogger to attend the Oakland Mayoral Forum on Public Safety. Here are some thoughts from the distance of Georgia before the forum videos go up. First, former California State Senator Don Perata's making a huge mistake by not showing up to the debates. As I've explained to Perata, and the other Oakland mayoral candidates when I've talked to them, its very important to have as much internet exposure as possible that's self-generated. Instead, Perata's allowing others - once again - to write his script for him. Come November, it's going to cost him dearly. As a joke, someone - perhaps longtime Oaklander Pam Drake, since she took that photo - placed a chair next to the candidates panel with the words "Don Perata" on it. While they also should have had one for Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, because Dellums is just that he's making his own media just by working at being Mayor, ev

Joe Tuman  The Oakland Mayor's Race added its 11th candidate: San Francisco State University Professor of Communications and Legal Studies and 25-year Oakland resident Joe Tuman. Tuman came from out of nowhere Wednesday to a formidable media splash suitable for, well, for someone who worked in the media. In addition to teaching at SFState, Joe Tuman's other title was "CBS 5 Eyewitness News Political Analyst," a job he gave up to run for Mayor of Oakland. Joe Tuman and I talked twice: the first time briefly at his campaign kickoff by Lake Merritt and the second time at Cafe DiBartolo on Grand Avenue (a video that will come later). Tuman says he simply felt that it was time for the right leadership at Oakland City Hall and he believes he can provide that. In that way, Tuman is no different that Terrance Candell or any of the other candidates in the Oakland Mayor's Race, except that Tuman and Candell point to the leadership problem as they see it more

Joe Tuman  The Oakland Mayor's Race added its 11th candidate: San Francisco State University Professor of Communications and Legal Studies and 25-year Oakland resident Joe Tuman. Tuman came from out of nowhere Wednesday to a formidable media splash suitable for, well, for someone who worked in the media. In addition to teaching at SFState, Joe Tuman's other title was "CBS 5 Eyewitness News Political Analyst," a job he gave up to run for Mayor of Oakland. Joe Tuman and I talked twice: the first time briefly at his campaign kickoff by Lake Merritt and the second time at Cafe DiBartolo on Grand Avenue (a video that will come later). Tuman says he simply felt that it was time for the right leadership at Oakland City Hall and he believes he can provide that. In that way, Tuman is no different that Terrance Candell or any of the other candidates in the Oakland Mayor's Race, except that Tuman and Candell point to the leadership problem as they see it more of

ZZA's Enoteca in Oakland  This installment of Oakland News, or news about what's going on in Oakland, California from very reliable sources, is a sad one. ZZA's Enoteca at 550 Grand Avenue in Oakland's Adams Point District and next to Lake Merritt, the popular food and wine bar next to ZZA's Restaurant on Grand Avenue, was closed down by the Oakland, California representative of the State of California Alcohol and Beverage Control (ABC). The reason that this blogger was given was that it "had something to do with a change or 'unraveling' of ownership" according to a very good, but unnamed source. ZZA's Enoteca has been closed since last Friday. ZZA's Enoteca was a welcome addition to not just the ZZA's space, but the growing Grand Avenue restaurant scene. It offered something rare: an ability to work online on your computer over a glass of wine. The free WiFi aspect of ZZA's Enoteca made it a must-be-at for this blogge