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UPDATE: Chief Pete Sarna quit before he could be fired. According to Matier and Ross in the San Francisco Chronicle , Oakland, California School Police Chief Pete Sarna went out on a charity golf tournament, and, well this is how Matier and Ross explain it : The district is looking into accusations that the chief, who is white, let loose July 18 with a half-hour tirade loaded with racist epithets against his two sergeants and a police driver - who apparently was called to the event at the Sequoyah Country Club in Oakland so no one would be driving drunk. Sarna allegedly told the African American sergeant, who lives in Orinda, that "the only good n- is a dead n- and they should hang you in the town square to prevent any other n- from coming in the area." That's racist. Pure and simple. Racist. (As a note, we're talking about the Oakland Public School's Police Chief, not the Oakland Police. But to someone like Oakland Tribune Photographer Jane Tyska, tha

As the San Francisco Bay Area talks about the economy, jobs, and spending, or more to the point wasteful spending, here we have the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the MTC, in the Oakland office that's just a brisk 70-foot walk from Lake Merritt BART, moving out of that cool building on 8th and Oak Street, and spending, according to Oakland Local , $150 Million to build a new place - in San Francisco. Oh, and a place that's so far from BART, compared to its current home, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission might as well change its name to the Boonies Transportation Commission. What does the MTC have against Oakland? Drive-by shootings and robberies happen in San Francisco, too. You just don't read about them because the local media's brainwashed against reporting them. There is much to like about Oakland, not to mention the fact its more racially diverse than San Francisco, and finally has a decent set of restaurants and bars to frequent. A

Yesterday's action where the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area Rapid System took the step of interrupting or blocking cell phone service has increased from the first blog post on this, the one in this space, charging that BART's act was not legal, to a much Twitter-tweeted matter where BART's action was consistently said not to be legal. While BART charges that the action was legal, but has not given concrete evidence to support the claim as of this writing (and this blogger has called BART), a look at recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) actions shows that BART's response to the feared protest was not illegal. According to sources, BART's complaint about what this blogger installed rests on the idea that it did not use a cell phone jamming device, but simply turned off the cell phone antenna system serving certain San Francisco BART stations. That was not my point. My point is that, according to a number of online sources, BART's attempt to int

HI Your Fit Day Friends ! Hey! Do you still want to get that sexy summer bod? Or, maybe you're on the rebound from a joint injury... Or, maybe you're just looking for that cool piece of equipment that is super fun and will get you fit and lean in a short amount of time... Or, you just like toys! OK! So, remember I told you that I would find ways to work out to keep me in super duper shape before my pending hip surgery? Well, I had this super idea that I could design running shoes with springs on the bottom that would take the impact off my joints and it would be less painful to walk and super fun to use, as well as keep my booty in shape. But then I said, "Hmm! Why invent the wheel when somebody else has done the work for me? Why not ask the Kangoo Jump people to help me?" So that's what I did. And I think these Boots were made for YOU! Boots Not Just Made For Walking! My first try with the Kangoo jumps was back in Jun

Time to take guns away from Oakland's youth. 3-year-old Carlos Fernando Nava died as the result of a stray bullet fired from the gun of one Oakland Gang Member to another. The flood of news about this tragedy just plain ruined my Wednesday. Oakland murders are not something this blogger likes to mention, but this was the exception. We really have to take guns out of the Oakland equation. What I could not stop thinking about was that 10-year-old boy of about four years ago (from memory), who was also hit by a "stray" bullet near 51st and Pleasant Valley, miles and Worlds away from East Oakland, but still in Oakland. How many Oaklanders young and old, must this happen to before we actually do something to stop this? Who's next? Me? You? Who's next? Oakland must take action. And I hope those who were against Oakland's Gang Injunction Program re-think their position after this incident. We have to take Guns off Oakland's streets

The controversial proposal to build a new, expanded Safeway Rockridge Oakland complex has gone on for something like five years and three major design changes. The last time I weighed in on this design, it was because the product was awful. This time that's changed, as has the economic climate. I talked to Ken Lowney, of Lowney and Associates Architects about what I think is an exciting new design that adds up to be a net plus for Rockridge. It also has the added advantage of having been created by a person in Mr. Lowney who actually lives in Rockridge. Because of that, "it's a very personal project for me," he says. As the video shows, the new Safeway Rockridge Oakland is a far cry from the original plan. It actually fits and conforms to its surroundings, and provides a gift in the form of a triangular over-look cafe on the corner of Claremont and College Avenue. But that's design; my background is in city planning, and my specialization is in urb

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