From wrolley at charter.net Wed Feb 1 14:02:24 2006 From: wrolley at charter.net (Wes Rolley) Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2006 14:02:24 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Governing vs. Complaining Message-ID: <43E12FF0.4080301@charter.net> I just had a chance to review a preliminary copy of an article that has been submitted to the next issue of Green Focus by Roger Gray. Roger is a young Green in Pasadena and a member of the Transportation Commission in his City. The subject: Governing vs. Complaining. It is one of my favorite topics. The difference is that quietly, without fanfare, Roger is doing it. He set a goal to have 6 Greens on Commissions in Pasadena by the end of the year. So far, the count is 3 and will be 4 within another month or so. He wrote me that "having found and minimally- groomed a Green to replace me, I have asked to be moved on to Utility Advisory" Having spent time on the Parks and Recreation Commission in Morgan Hill, I know how time consuming it can be. However, it is a great place to start injuecting Green Ideas into local government. Below, is an announcement that Roger just sent out. /A Green Invitation for You.../ /_______________________________________________ / // * * ** *What if you could tell the government how to govern, /and they listened/? * *What if, just once a month, you /got to be the government/? * ** *What if you were /personally/ in a position to spread Green ideas* * to the greater public at large?* /Come find out how _you_ can turn your passion for a green lifestyle / /and the Green Key Values into official local government action!/ // /*Wild Thyme Restaurant*/ */805 Fair Oaks Ave/ * /*South Pasadena*/ /*Thursday, February 9, 2006*/ /*7:30-9:00 p.m.*/ YOU can be appointed to one of dozens of official citizen commissions and committees that advise, direct, and sometimes decide how local government operates. No experience required, you don't even have to run for office! Help us get six new Green commissioners appointed by next Thanksgiving weekend. City of Pasadena Commissioners Gregory Harrison (Human Services Commission) and Roger Gray (Transportation Advisory Commission) will talk about: * all the opportunities available, * how to get yourself appointed in three easy steps (or less), * and how even non-commissioners can greatly effect local decision making by talking to the existing citizen commissioners and committee members in the community. For more information about the event, please contact Tera Little at teralittle at att.net or 626-403-1841. Please note: you are not required to buy food or drink from Wild Thyme; however, menus will be available. We hope to see you there! -- "Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente Wes Rolley http://www.refpub.com/ Tel: 408.778.3024 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 30313 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tnharter at greens.org Thu Feb 2 00:07:04 2006 From: tnharter at greens.org (Tian Harter) Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2006 00:07:04 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: [Neighbors For Aimee Allison] Kickoff Party Tomorrow! (Thursday, Feb 2)] Message-ID: <43E1BDA8.1080203@greens.org> Anybody want to carpool to this? -- Tian http://tian.greens.org Latest change: Added pictures of the San Francisco Green Party event. -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Neighbors for Aimee Allison Subject: [Neighbors For Aimee Allison] Kickoff Party Tomorrow! (Thursday, Feb 2) Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2006 16:19:18 -0800 (PST) Size: 6853 URL: From wrolley at charter.net Thu Feb 2 09:34:28 2006 From: wrolley at charter.net (Wes Rolley) Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:34:28 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Changing Registration Message-ID: <43E242A4.60405@charter.net> In the last presidential election there were a number of Greens who changed their registration from Green to DTS or Democrat in order to cast a primary vote for Dennis Kucinich or Howard Dean. Many never came back. There is now a movement to get Greens to change their registration again, to support Cindy Sheehan in a primary against DiFi, one for which she has not even pulled papers. In the case of Dean and Kucinich, no matter how much closer they were to Green Values than Kerry or Edwards, the impact of a few Greens making the switch was negligible in the Democratic Party but significant in the Green Party. It is one of the many reasons that Green Party registration in California is declining over the last 2 years. If every Green in California re-registered as DTS and voted for Sheehan, it would be about 2% of the Democratic registration, hardly noticable against DiFi but the Green Party would not exist any more. Sheehan is so tightly connected to Moveon.org that there is almost no chance that she would support a Green Party candidate after she loses to DiFi, as is inevitable. Note: As of this week, the Peace and Freedom Party no longer has ballot access in California. -- "Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente Wes Rolley http://www.refpub.com/ Tel: 408.778.3024 From alexcathy at aol.com Thu Feb 2 10:40:01 2006 From: alexcathy at aol.com (alexcathy at aol.com) Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2006 13:40:01 -0500 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Changing Registration In-Reply-To: <43E242A4.60405@charter.net> References: <43E242A4.60405@charter.net> Message-ID: <8C7F63F35B60ABD-1690-F25@FWM-R04.sysops.aol.com> Dear Green Friends, For the record, I agree 100% with Wes Rolley's analysis. This is like a recurring nightmare. I love Cindy Sheehan, and her threat to run against DiFi may have already had the salutary effect of nudging Feinstein into voting for the Alito filibuster, but the idea the Greens would give up their registered Green status to cast a primary vote for Cindy is just about the dumbest political idea I ever heard in my life. At least in the Howard Dean - Denis Kucinich thing there was the outside chance the Demos might actually nominate an antiwar candidate. The chances they'd dump a senior Democratic senators like Feinstein are, let's face it, just about zero. If anyone really wants to make life unhappy for DiFi, they'd do much better backing our Green Party candidate in the fall. This one is a no-brainer. Alex Walker -----Original Message----- From: Wes Rolley To: Green Discuss Sent: Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:34:28 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Changing Registration . . . In the case of Dean and Kucinich, no matter how much closer they were to Green Values than Kerry or Edwards, the impact of a few Greens making the switch was negligible in the Democratic Party but significant in the Green Party. It is one of the many reasons that Green Party registration in California is declining over the last 2 years. If every Green in California re-registered as DTS and voted for Sheehan, it would be about 2% of the Democratic registration, hardly noticable against DiFi but the Green Party would not exist any more. Sheehan is so tightly connected to Moveon.org that there is almost no chance that she would support a Green Party candidate after she loses to DiFi, as is inevitable. . . . ----Original Message----- From WB4D23 at aol.com Fri Feb 3 14:43:51 2006 From: WB4D23 at aol.com (WB4D23 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 17:43:51 EST Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Next Tuesday's Meeting/Agenda Item/Minimum Wage Initiative Presentation Message-ID: <1f8.1aa4d56c.311536a7@aol.com> Tim Smith, an activist in the $7.75 minimum wage initiative campaign has requested speaking time at next Tuesday's meeting. I suggested 10 minutes; he requested at least 20 minutes to present, plus another 10 minutes for Q&A's. Warner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gerrygras at earthlink.net Fri Feb 3 15:18:54 2006 From: gerrygras at earthlink.net (Gerry Gras) Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2006 15:18:54 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] The End of the Internet? Message-ID: <43E3E4DE.6040109@earthlink.net> http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0202-26.htm From gerrygras at earthlink.net Fri Feb 3 15:31:58 2006 From: gerrygras at earthlink.net (Gerry Gras) Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2006 15:31:58 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Request for Agenda Items Message-ID: <43E3E7EE.8010001@earthlink.net> Please submit your agenda items for Tuesday's meeting. Thanks, Gerry From thinkgreen at threeparty.org Sat Feb 4 07:32:42 2006 From: thinkgreen at threeparty.org (Roy) Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 07:32:42 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] The End of the Internet? In-Reply-To: <43E3E4DE.6040109@earthlink.net> References: <43E3E4DE.6040109@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <43E4C91A.3020600@threeparty.org> Gerry Gras wrote: > http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0202-26.htm > It's been harder and harder to keep the bile down lately...also the rage. Peace Roy > _______________________________________________ > sosfbay-discuss mailing list > sosfbay-discuss at marla.cagreens.org > http://marla.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss > From cls at truffula.sj.ca.us Sat Feb 4 10:58:57 2006 From: cls at truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer) Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 10:58:57 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] The End of the Internet? Message-ID: End of the Internet predicted (again), film at 11. Don't forget the principle, proven again and again, The Internet Routes Around Damage, and its well known corollary, Censorship is Just One More Kind of Damage. When BBN was given the gravy boat to develop the original Internet Protocols, one of the design goals was that there be no single point of failure. They may have sold the idea to Congress on the grounds that the network was supposed to survive destruction of peering points in war, but nobody inside was concerned about that particular failure mode. If a global war takes out MAE-East, loss of Internet is the least of your worries. Microsoft dumping Internet Exploder and Outleak Express on Netscape was gonna kill the Internet. Moving the DNS governance from National Science Foundation to Dept of Commerce was gonna kill the Internet. As far as I'm concerned, Eternal September (if you don't know what that is, google it) did more damage than those events. And the sudden broadband deployment in South Korea was worse. We've even survived the fusion of spamming and cracking, and its rise as a locus of international organized crime. What's gonna end, and it *should*, is the bandwidth is free party. It turns out the economics of long haul and edge bandwidth are really weird. It costs about the same to lay a hundred optical fibers from San Jose to Los Angeles as it costs to lay one, and most of the existing fiber was laid by Enron-type bubble companies which then collapsed. So the fiber between cities is at 2% capacity and depreciating. But that doesn't mean bandwidth is free. We're just not paying for it right now. (Routers and the staff to manage them and the fortresses they live in turn out to be the big cost.) The telcos are locked in a price war with the cable TV companies, charging less than cost for residential broadband and the network behind it. They're looking for a way to end that price war. You're gonna have to pay something approaching the cost for movie downloads and podcasts and voice over IP. Good. It won't be True Cost Pricing, but it will be more real than the free bandwidth fantasy we're living in now. Meanwhile, the really essential functions, email and the text part of the Web, consume tiny bandwidth, that can be supported by volunteers if need be. Should the telcos take away the fat pipes, independent skinny pipes will remain. Should the DNS become discriminatory, the alternative DNSes are ready to roll. I'm more worried about spam and malware and voluntary, stylish stupidity chasing people away from email and the Web than about any telco conspiracy. Cameron From wrolley at charter.net Sat Feb 4 11:40:09 2006 From: wrolley at charter.net (Wes Rolley) Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 11:40:09 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] The End of the Internet? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43E50319.4030204@charter.net> Just to exerpt the conclusions from what Cameron said, he speaks the truty. I might add that one of the costs that I pay as an internet user is to have my cable company handle all of the email that I receive. Most of it is SPAM. Some of the rest is malicious. The SPAMMERS exist because email is free. If everyone had to pay a micro-charge for their email, it would not be much of an additional cost. I send at the most 20 a day. But, for many spammers, who sends million, the costs would start to excede their hope of revenue and that will reduce the number of routers needed, the amount of switching. I, for one, would welcome a scheme by which some sort of micro charge is costed into email. As a telecom consultant I know wrote, "If you dig a trench the most expensive thing you can put into it is dirt." > >What's gonna end, and it *should*, is the bandwidth >is free party. It turns out the economics of >long haul and edge bandwidth are really weird. >It costs about the same to lay a hundred optical >fibers from San Jose to Los Angeles as it costs >to lay one, and most of the existing fiber was laid >by Enron-type bubble companies which then collapsed. >So the fiber between cities is at 2% capacity >and depreciating. > >But that doesn't mean bandwidth is free. We're just >not paying for it right now. (Routers and the staff >to manage them and the fortresses they live in >turn out to be the big cost.) The telcos are locked >in a price war with the cable TV companies, >charging less than cost for residential broadband >and the network behind it. They're looking for a >way to end that price war. You're gonna have to >pay something approaching the cost for movie downloads >and podcasts and voice over IP. Good. It won't be >True Cost Pricing, but it will be more real than the >free bandwidth fantasy we're living in now. > >Meanwhile, the really essential functions, >email and the text part of the Web, consume tiny >bandwidth, that can be supported by volunteers if need be. >Should the telcos take away the fat pipes, >independent skinny pipes will remain. >Should the DNS become discriminatory, the >alternative DNSes are ready to roll. I'm more >worried about spam and malware and voluntary, stylish >stupidity chasing people away from email and the Web >than about any telco conspiracy. > -- "Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente Wes Rolley http://www.refpub.com/ Tel: 408.778.3024 From cls at truffula.sj.ca.us Sat Feb 4 13:48:02 2006 From: cls at truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer) Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 13:48:02 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] The End of the Internet? Message-ID: >Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 11:40:09 -0800 >From: Wes Rolley >To: sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org >Subject: Re: [Sosfbay-discuss] The End of the Internet? >Just to exerpt the conclusions from what Cameron said, he speaks the >truth. I might add that one of the costs that I pay as an internet user >is to have my cable company handle all of the email that I receive. >Most of it is SPAM. Some of the rest is malicious. The SPAMMERS exist >because email is free. Not really. Spammers are like cockroaches. They have evolved to fill an ecological niche, the Internet service provider who does not enforce his terms of service and peering contracts. Internet service providers who do those things don't emit much spam. It is not the cockroaches' fault when they infest a dirty kitchen. It is the fault of the owner of the kitchen. It could be the proprietor has chosen a flawed business model, where he can't afford to keep his kitchen clean. The cockroaches are still his fault. Email isn't free. Never was. Email became possible because of a covenant, a mutual understanding, that each message is something the recipient wants and expects. Therefore the recipients agree in advance to pay for email from strangers. Spamming, therefore, is theft. Stealing is already illegal. It's also trespass to chattel and illegal conversion of assets. During the twenty year period that the public email system evolved into its current form, that covenant was good enough. There weren't any "rogue" Internet service providers. Anybody who spammed or tried to crack other people's machines got thrown off line immediately. That period lasted until 1994, when a jackass named Phil Lawlor in charge of an Internet carrier named AGIS decided to let a sociopath named Sanford Wallace set up a spamming company on his network. AGIS' peers blinked, and the long peace was over. (Wallace had been in the junk fax business before, and there is evidence he's gone back to it.) AGIS went bankrupt, but the other backbone carriers followed its corrupt and negligent model anyway. By then, it was no longer possible to invent and roll out a new email system. The cooperative environment of the Internet Engineering Task Force had been overwhelmed by battles for market share between Microsoft and its "competitors." > If everyone had to pay a micro-charge for their >email, it would not be much of an additional cost. This problem has been thoroughly examined by minds greater than ours. The consensus conclusion is that would be some other message transmission system. With postage, it wouldn't be the public email system any more. There are two big problems. 1. Nobody has made a defacto-standard of a vendor-neutral, host-neutral, open Internet application in a decade. (The last one was Adobe's PDF.) It just doesn't happen any more. If we scrap the public SMTP email system, we'll replace it with some kind of trade secret proprietary thing, with backdoors for Homeland Security and Microsoft. Or we'll get competing incompatible "standards" as happened in streaming audio, instant messaging, and cell phones. The collegial, cooperative atmosphere that incubated SMTP email and the domain name system (together, they're the public email system) no longer exists. And you can forget open-source, trustworthy email software. Microsoft will change their postage system constantly so nobody else can write compatible micro-postage "email" software. Nobody but Microsoft is in any position to force a micro-postage system on the public. 2. There would still be spam. Before the current bot-net situation developed, spammers used to send from "throwaway" dial-up accounts obtained with fake identities and stolen credit cards. They'd just go back to that, but charge their micro-postage on the stolen accounts. Or they'd break into legitimate servers and send their crap on somebody else's tab. But much worse, so-called "legitimate" spammers would be happy to pay to bombard you with their "legitimate" advertising. Get ready for giant spams from Safeway and Publisher's Clearinghouse. The Dems and GOP could afford micro-postage for political spam, but the Greens couldn't. I believe one reason the telcos allow spammers on their networks in violation of their contracts is they are "softening up" the public to accept "legitimate" spam. That's why the Direct Marketing Association (and their sock-puppets at the American Civil Liberty Union) are so pro-spam, too. Micro-postage "email" sounds good at first but it turns out to be a really, really bad idea. Spam is not a technology problem, it is a social problem. It cannot be solved by technology. (This is why techno-bandaids like micro-postage and Sender Policy Framework and Domain Keys have failed.) Today's public email technology is quite adequate. It just needs existing laws (including civil contract law) enforced. And a consumer boycott of the culpable corporations wouldn't hurt. Cameron From alexcathy at aol.com Sat Feb 4 14:26:57 2006 From: alexcathy at aol.com (alexcathy at aol.com) Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 17:26:57 -0500 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] My Letter on "Reform" in Today's Murky News Message-ID: <8C7F7F13EA3E74D-434-A3B3@mblk-d24.sysops.aol.com> Dear Green Friends, For what it's worth, the San Jose Mercury News printed my general pitch for "Reform" with the Green Party today. I've had three letters-to-the-editor printed in the "Murky News" in three years. I guess this is my "quota" for 2006. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Readers? Letters Printed in the San Jose Mercury News, Saturday, Feb 4, 2006 (On the Web at http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/13791440.htm) MAJOR PARTIES NOT THE ONLY CHOICE I saw two editorials for reform this week: ``Voters should demand sunshine law'' (Jan. 30) and ``Redistricting reform may yet emerge from Legislature'' (Jan 31). H.L. Mencken said, ``Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule -- and both commonly succeed, and are right.'' At long last, after swinging from Republican to Democrat to Republican, it's time to make a space for independent candidates and parties like (dare I say it?) the California Green Party. Republicans and Democrats collaborate to keep things just the way they are. We need [to] have instant runoff voting, proportional representation and public financing of campaigns. No less importantly, we need the media to quit pretending Democrats and Republicans are our only choice. Alex Walker Milpitas = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = P.S.: They deleted my reference to the "San Jose Democratic Party Machine" and my assertion that the "Santa Clara Republicans are a joke," but that's okay. This way my letter is, as they say, positive and upbeat. From fredd at freeshell.org Sat Feb 4 18:22:18 2006 From: fredd at freeshell.org (Fred Duperrault) Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 18:22:18 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Request for Agenda Items Message-ID: <43E5615A.1000707@freeshell.org> SCC Green Friends, I will probably be an hour or so late for the business meeting on Tuesday. The MVVP is presenting the MV City Council a proposal to allow MVVP to place a memorial in the Civic Center Plaza to those who have lost their lives in Iraq while serving the US military. The memorial would not be permanent but would be on display during the several days marking the third anniversary of the beginning of the invasion-occupation of Iraq. Karen Meredeth has been the leading the way in this request. Because we want to show great support for this request, we need as many speakers and supportive individuals to be present when it comes time for the speaking. That is why I'll be late for the GP meeting. I want to be there. I do, however, wish to make a proposal to schedule Peter Drekmeier as a speaker during our March meeting. He will tell of the urgency of why the "SCC Open Space Initiative" should be adopted by the electorate in November. He will also suggest strategies on how we GP members can be major players in its success. The necessary petition will be one of them. Please put this item near the end of the agenda. Thanks, Fred Duperrault Please submit your agenda items for Tuesday's meeting. Thanks, Gerry _______________________________________________ sosfbay-discuss mailing list sosfbay-discuss at marla.cagreens.org http://marla.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss From j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net Sat Feb 4 23:00:22 2006 From: j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net (Jim Doyle) Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 23:00:22 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] agenda items Message-ID: <43E5A286.7070304@sbcglobal.net> Whoa! 20 minutes for Tim Smith? In my opinion he will want ot hand out petitions with which we should gather signatures. That doesn't take more than 5 minutes. It seems to me it is a no brainer for the Greens. so hand out the petitions to be signed and review the technical requirements. And tell us where we can find the background and history and whom we may contact with questions. Basta. From eameece at california.com Sat Feb 4 21:43:53 2006 From: eameece at california.com (E. Alan Meece) Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 21:43:53 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] spiritual progressives (pardon me; this email is rather long!) Message-ID: <43E59099.312F@california.com> I have brought up an idea similar to what I am proposing now in this email before, but haven't really pushed it. Then came the election of 2004. It seemed according to some polls, TV interviews, and people I talked to during the campaign, that people today are voting for Bush and Republicans because they "share my values." The concern over "moral values" in politics has become a big hot topic, and is addressed in bestsellers such as Lakoff's "Don't Think of an Elephant" and Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas." Many people started thinking that the Left needs to address the topic of moral values in politics; otherwise the domain is left to the right wing, and the "moral values" addressed amount to such virtues as homophobia, keeping women in their place, keeping our guns, teaching creationism in the schools, stopping stem cell research, and other "culture wars" issues. In other words, the Left has abandoned spiritual and moral concerns, while the Right has picked them up and used them to get votes for their program of hurting the poor, super-nationalism and war, and keeping white males dominant in society. The right's "moral values" seem to me to amount to bigotry and chauvinism of various kinds. So in Nov.2004 at my local church group, I discussed this with some people there, and I with my minister's help started a non-partisan group there called "spiritual politics." We had visioning sessions and brainstorms and talked about what we could do; meanwhile unknown to me a much larger church group was doing the same thing and setting up groups nationwide. This group is Tikkun, a progressive Jewish organization led by Rabbi Michael Lerner, and the groups are called the Network of Spiritual Progressives. My minister and I went to their Spiritual Activism conference in Berkeley in July 2005. Then we joined up our little group with their network. Rabbi Lerner, a member of the Green Party, suggested that we need a "spiritual progressive caucus" in political parties, especially the Greens and Democrats. He says that the Greens in his area around San Francisco have dismissed spiritual politics as irrelevant, and even insulted people with spiritual beliefs as somehow being less informed or intelligent. I have never experienced either secular people or spiritual people being put down this way in our local group. Nevertheless, the point such people as Lerner and Lakoff are making today, and which also occured to me after the election, seems very important indeed. People are voting for the Right wing because they are speaking to spiritual and moral concerns, and the Left is not. It is not that the Left has no spiritual people in it; far from it. In fact, spirituality has been the chief motive for liberal activists throughout history. Martin Luther King Jr. is an obvious example. But people on the Left keep their spirituality hidden. They are concerned it might lead to a joining of church and state, or that they might appear weak and stupid if they deal with issues that don't depend on hard science. They may wonder how the state or politicians might even address spiritual issues in ways that are non-oppressive. Whatever the reason may be, the die has been cast. Religion and/or spirituality and "moral values" are in politics to stay. If the Left doesn't address them, we lose. It's that simple. People have concerns more important to them than their economic status. They are lonely. Their families don't work. They feel unsafe, alienated and unappreciated. Their culture assaults their sensibilities. Having no alternative, they vote for the Right wing, who assure them that these problems are caused by secular liberals, gays, feminists, peaceniks, activist judges, the liberal media, etc. Of course they are voting wrong, and their concerns are forgotten once the Right gets into office anyway. Instead, the Right wing politicians busy themselves with destroying communities and social support structures and instituting the litany of destructive policies we all know so well. Meanwhile, the real cause of their spiritual and moral concerns is not addressed; namely, the alienating effects of our capitalist, corporate workplace and economy, as well as unawareness among our leaders of our real needs for meaning and connection with something greater than ourselves. So what would a Green spiritual progressives caucus do? I asked Rabbi Lerner himself yesterday when I interviewed him on my radio program on KKUP (I also recorded the interview). He is promoting his new book "The Left Hand of God." In general, he says the Greens need a better "overarching vision" (beyond the 10 key values, apparently) that would address not only our economic and ecological concerns but our meaning concerns. He said our vision needs to articulate a new "bottom line" for our institutions; namely, do they foster nurturing and loving care for people and for our society and planet? Do they bring people together, and allow them to express what is fulfilling and meaningful to them? The current bottom line, of course, is how much money and power does an institution generate for its owners. There is a rich "green spirituality" tradition in the Green Party. I would think a Green caucus would ask that we do some brief spiritual practices at our meetings and events, such as moments of silence or non-sectarian prayers. We could discuss how what we advocate politically might address the real spiritual crisis and needs that people have, so that some people with these concerns might consider voting for us instead of the Republicans. Is there anyone on this list who shares my concerns, and would be willing to join me in asking that forming a "Green spiritual progressives caucus" be on the agenda to be formed in our group, and/or that we make some time during meetings and events for celebrating and acknowledging our green spirituality? Let me be clear, that the proposal of "spiritual progressives" does not mean some of us want to join church and state. We do want to take spirituality out of the closet, to realize it is important to many voters, and part of our own political tradition. We want our agenda to reflect not only material, economic, bureaucratic proposals, but moral and spiritual ones too. We don't want to convert anyone to our religion, or chase seculars away. We recognize the key importance of the secular issues we address now, although we may feel they are not separate, really, from the spiritual ones. Otherwise, we cede the spiritual realm to the Right Wing, whose agenda is to make one particular religious tradition, fundamentalist Christianity, the basis for government, culture and society. We allow them to define the term "moral values and spirituality," and allow them to distort it into prejudice and chauvinism. What d'you'all think?? Eric Meece aka Eric the Green From thinkgreen at threeparty.org Sun Feb 5 09:24:02 2006 From: thinkgreen at threeparty.org (Roy) Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 09:24:02 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] spiritual progressives (pardon me; this email is rather long!) In-Reply-To: <43E59099.312F@california.com> References: <43E59099.312F@california.com> Message-ID: <43E634B2.9010507@threeparty.org> Eric, excellent and timely post and I couldn't agree more. I must add that what goes around comes around and a lot of what I may say is projection on my behalf, but I used to consider "spiritual" people weak minded and religious people complete idiots. It was a type of pride in intellectualism, an intellectualism I have sensed to be rooted at the core of the "left" (projection?). I think a lot of this comes from an understandable rejection of fundamentalism and anything associated with it which for me had anything thing to do with a church, god or higher power. I wasn't able to differentiate. However, now comes the Karma.. I now have a personal belief system which includes what some may call "gOD" and have gone through a period of being wary of being branded as soft in the mind by those I used to relate to. That period is quite over and I can only pity those whose only rudder is their intellect and relegate their hearts, intuition etc to a place of inferiority. These faculties are inferior because they have been labeled as feminine in our society and there lies the crux of the problem. We have been shamed out of our own saving graces. I'm quite familiar with the work Rabbi Lehrner had done and was sent an invitation quite early on to join. That letter had included a statement concerning the violence of some of the Palestinians against the Israeli occupation and was deploring the terrorism. I wrote a letter suggesting that he reference at least Israel's terrorism (which was conspicuously absent from his statement), specially in the creation of state of Israel itself when making such remarks about Palestinians in the future. His silence and his original statement told me all I needed to know about him as an organizer so I declined membership. I suspect he's really a closet Zionist though probably not able to admit it in that exact context. I have a hard time listening to people who espouse animal rights of any kind and still eat meat and I put Michael's refusal to address Israeli terrorism specially (starting with the creation of the state of Israel) as THE problem when it comes to Palestinian reprisals in that same category. So while I don't want to flush the baby down with the bath water, the baby better make some noise so I can find it. I'm aware some people who I have a lot of respect for have joined Michaels initiative and now you bring it up. Maybe there's a baby in there after all :-) I am quite interested in the development of the Spiritual aspects of Politics and how it can be incorporated within the Green Party. Namaste Roy E. Alan Meece wrote: > I have brought up an idea similar to what I am proposing now in this > email before, but haven't really pushed it. > > Then came the election of 2004. It seemed according to some polls, TV > interviews, and people I talked to during the campaign, that people > today are voting for Bush and Republicans because they "share my > values." The concern over "moral values" in politics has become a big > hot topic, and is addressed in bestsellers such as Lakoff's "Don't Think > of an Elephant" and Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas." Many people > started thinking that the Left needs to address the topic of moral > values in politics; otherwise the domain is left to the right wing, and > the "moral values" addressed amount to such virtues as homophobia, > keeping women in their place, keeping our guns, teaching creationism in > the schools, stopping stem cell research, and other "culture wars" > issues. In other words, the Left has abandoned spiritual and moral > concerns, while the Right has picked them up and used them to get votes > for their program of hurting the poor, super-nationalism and war, and > keeping white males dominant in society. The right's "moral values" seem > to me to amount to bigotry and chauvinism of various kinds. > > So in Nov.2004 at my local church group, I discussed this with some > people there, and I with my minister's help started a non-partisan group > there called "spiritual politics." We had visioning sessions and > brainstorms and talked about what we could do; meanwhile unknown to me a > much larger church group was doing the same thing and setting up groups > nationwide. This group is Tikkun, a progressive Jewish organization led > by Rabbi Michael Lerner, and the groups are called the Network of > Spiritual Progressives. My minister and I went to their Spiritual > Activism conference in Berkeley in July 2005. Then we joined up our > little group with their network. > > Rabbi Lerner, a member of the Green Party, suggested that we need a > "spiritual progressive caucus" in political parties, especially the > Greens and Democrats. He says that the Greens in his area around San > Francisco have dismissed spiritual politics as irrelevant, and even > insulted people with spiritual beliefs as somehow being less informed or > intelligent. I have never experienced either secular people or spiritual > people being put down this way in our local group. > > Nevertheless, the point such people as Lerner and Lakoff are making > today, and which also occured to me after the election, seems very > important indeed. People are voting for the Right wing because they are > speaking to spiritual and moral concerns, and the Left is not. It is not > that the Left has no spiritual people in it; far from it. In fact, > spirituality has been the chief motive for liberal activists throughout > history. Martin Luther King Jr. is an obvious example. But people on the > Left keep their spirituality hidden. They are concerned it might lead to > a joining of church and state, or that they might appear weak and stupid > if they deal with issues that don't depend on hard science. They may > wonder how the state or politicians might even address spiritual issues > in ways that are non-oppressive. > > Whatever the reason may be, the die has been cast. Religion and/or > spirituality and "moral values" are in politics to stay. If the Left > doesn't address them, we lose. It's that simple. People have concerns > more important to them than their economic status. They are lonely. > Their families don't work. They feel unsafe, alienated and > unappreciated. Their culture assaults their sensibilities. Having no > alternative, they vote for the Right wing, who assure them that these > problems are caused by secular liberals, gays, feminists, peaceniks, > activist judges, the liberal media, etc. Of course they are voting > wrong, and their concerns are forgotten once the Right gets into office > anyway. Instead, the Right wing politicians busy themselves with > destroying communities and social support structures and instituting the > litany of destructive policies we all know so well. Meanwhile, the real > cause of their spiritual and moral concerns is not addressed; namely, > the alienating effects of our capitalist, corporate workplace and > economy, as well as unawareness among our leaders of our real needs for > meaning and connection with something greater than ourselves. > > So what would a Green spiritual progressives caucus do? I asked Rabbi > Lerner himself yesterday when I interviewed him on my radio program on > KKUP (I also recorded the interview). He is promoting his new book "The > Left Hand of God." In general, he says the Greens need a better > "overarching vision" (beyond the 10 key values, apparently) that would > address not only our economic and ecological concerns but our meaning > concerns. He said our vision needs to articulate a new "bottom line" for > our institutions; namely, do they foster nurturing and loving care for > people and for our society and planet? Do they bring people together, > and allow them to express what is fulfilling and meaningful to them? The > current bottom line, of course, is how much money and power does an > institution generate for its owners. > > There is a rich "green spirituality" tradition in the Green Party. I > would think a Green caucus would ask that we do some brief spiritual > practices at our meetings and events, such as moments of silence or > non-sectarian prayers. We could discuss how what we advocate politically > might address the real spiritual crisis and needs that people have, so > that some people with these concerns might consider voting for us > instead of the Republicans. > > Is there anyone on this list who shares my concerns, and would be > willing to join me in asking that forming a "Green spiritual > progressives caucus" be on the agenda to be formed in our group, and/or > that we make some time during meetings and events for celebrating and > acknowledging our green spirituality? > > Let me be clear, that the proposal of "spiritual progressives" does not > mean some of us want to join church and state. We do want to take > spirituality out of the closet, to realize it is important to many > voters, and part of our own political tradition. We want our agenda to > reflect not only material, economic, bureaucratic proposals, but moral > and spiritual ones too. We don't want to convert anyone to our religion, > or chase seculars away. We recognize the key importance of the secular > issues we address now, although we may feel they are not separate, > really, from the spiritual ones. > > Otherwise, we cede the spiritual realm to the Right Wing, whose agenda > is to make one particular religious tradition, fundamentalist > Christianity, the basis for government, culture and society. We allow > them to define the term "moral values and spirituality," and allow them > to distort it into prejudice and chauvinism. > > What d'you'all think?? > > Eric Meece aka Eric the Green > _______________________________________________ > sosfbay-discuss mailing list > sosfbay-discuss at marla.cagreens.org > http://marla.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss > From cls at truffula.sj.ca.us Sun Feb 5 12:28:24 2006 From: cls at truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer) Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 12:28:24 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] spiritual progressives Message-ID: Rabbi Lerner may have run into the International Socialist Organization faction of the SF Greens. ISO's got a problem with spirituality and religion. "Religion is the opiate of the masses." And they're so anti-Zionist that they come across as antisemetic. They've refused to let Rabbi Lerner speak at the A.N.S.W.E.R rallies. They won't recognize the Israeli peace movement. It's one of the ways their dogmatism has led them to the political margins, alienating large groups who should be their allies. This is one reason I don't like folks to call the Greens "Left" or "leftist." That term belongs to the Socialists and it is encumbered with way too much mental and cultural baggage to be useful. We are not the Socialist Party(ies). We are are *informed by* The Left, but we are not The Left. Regarding Eric's suggestion, Tikkun is awesome. Anything that brings Green organizations and Tikkun closer is a good thing. Cameron From alexcathy at aol.com Sun Feb 5 12:37:04 2006 From: alexcathy at aol.com (alexcathy at aol.com) Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 15:37:04 -0500 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Spiritual Progressives In-Reply-To: <43E59099.312F@california.com> References: <43E59099.312F@california.com> Message-ID: <8C7F8AB0F119CBE-14FC-3AAE@mblk-d15.sysops.aol.com> Dear Eric, My coincidence, the topic this morning at my church, Sunnyhills United Methodist Church in Milpitas, was the question of "Progressive Christianity." Our guest speaker was Rev. Glenn Fuller. He's retired now, but he was the minister at Sunnyhills back in the early Sixties. Fuller is a very distinguished clergyman who worked for many, many years in Asia. He was one of those visionaries from "The Greatest Generation" during the civil rights era of the Sixties. Having grown up in the Black church in the South in those years (what Taylor Branch calls "the King years") I have never had a problem squaring my faith with progressive, Green, and even "Lefty" values. Without getting carried away, this might be yet another way to differentiate ourselves from Democrats and Republicans who just want to play cynical games about "values" they pretend to admire, but in fact, despise. By the way, Michael Lerner is going to be in Santa Cruz in a couple of weeks. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = MICHAEL LERNER IN SANTA CRUZ, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16TH Rabbi Michael Lerner, who the Washington Post once called "the guru of the Clinton White House", will speak Thursday, February 16, at the Veteran's Hall in Santa Cruz at 8 PM, introducing ideas from his new book The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right. Tickets are $5-$20 donation, sliding scale, with no one turned away for lack of funds. Purchase tickets in advance from the Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV), 423-1626. Receive a free ticket when you purchase the book from RCNV or Bookshop Santa Cruz. Tickets and books will also be available at the door. . . . His visit will also inaugurate the newly-formed Santa Cruz County chapter of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, the national interfaith movement co-chaired by Lerner with Princeton author/professor Cornel West and Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister. The NSP works to unite Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and spiritual activists of broadly diverse practices/faiths, in social and political action that expresses the core values of justice, peace, nonviolence and environmental health found in all religions. His Santa Cruz visit is cosponsored by the Resource Center for Nonviolence, now in its 30th year working for these same values and commitments, and Inner Light Ministries. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Alex Walker P.S.: Many registered Greens in Santa Cruz. Tian could probably pick up some petiton signatures. From alexcathy at aol.com Sun Feb 5 13:06:53 2006 From: alexcathy at aol.com (alexcathy at aol.com) Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 16:06:53 -0500 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Spiritual Progressives In-Reply-To: <43E634B2.9010507@threeparty.org> References: <43E59099.312F@california.com> <43E634B2.9010507@threeparty.org> Message-ID: <8C7F8AF39B24777-14FC-3BB5@mblk-d15.sysops.aol.com> A couple of quick follow-up points about Michael Lerner. First, the movement to reassert a progressive spirituality is much bigger than Lerner or even two or three nationally famous charismatic leaders. JIM WALLIS, longtime editor of "Sojourners" has published a whole book on the subject "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It." George Lakoff touches on this in his book "Moral Politics." Over the holidays I read a book by Bill Press titled "How the Republicans Stole Christmas." Even Jimmy Carter has recently weighed in with "Our Endangered Values." My man, Cornel West, who I knew slightly when I was living in Boston, has always been talking about this stuff. Remember back in 2003 during the big round of desmonstrations all over the world against Mr. Bush's imminent war? Rabbi Michael Lerner was one of the ones scheduled to speak in San Francisco. International A.N.S.W.E.R. objected on the ground that Lerner was a supporter of Israel. All the co-sponsors of the march had agreed that if any one group objects to a speaker, then that person would not speak. Accordingly, Lerner was not permitted to speak. Now, here is the part of the story that, in my opinion, really tells us something about the character of the man. He marched against the war that day and urged all of his friends to go right ahead with all the things they were planning to do. The goddamned media... as always... tried to play this up as a "schism" within the ranks. Lerner, to his great credity, refused to play the media's game. C'mon, how many of these prima dona celebrities would do that? You gotta give him a point for being secure enough to know that the movement is not just about him. Alex Walker From tnharter at greens.org Sun Feb 5 23:00:53 2006 From: tnharter at greens.org (Tian Harter) Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 23:00:53 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] agenda items In-Reply-To: <43E5A286.7070304@sbcglobal.net> References: <43E5A286.7070304@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <43E6F425.6000603@greens.org> Jim Doyle wrote: >Whoa! 20 minutes for Tim Smith? >In my opinion he will want ot hand out petitions with which >we should gather signatures. >That doesn't take more than 5 minutes. >It seems to me it is a no brainer for the Greens. >so hand out the petitions to be signed and review the >technical requirements. And tell us where we can find the background and >history and whom we may contact with questions. >Basta. > >_______________________________________________ >sosfbay-discuss mailing list >sosfbay-discuss at marla.cagreens.org >http://marla.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss > > > He is coming all the way down from Sonoma County. He probably wants to share the answers to some frequently asked questions, and some of the gossip about how the initiative is doing. It's not like we have visitors all the time we need to bottle up. How about 10 minutes? I'm going to have to be a bit late to the meeting. The MVVP are going to the City Council meeting, and we need to show numbers in the gallery. The agenda item will be about 8 PM, so I wont be there before 8:30 at the earliest. -- Tian http://tian.greens.org Latest change: Added my favorite moment from the State of the Union Adress last month. From thinkgreen at threeparty.org Sun Feb 5 23:11:26 2006 From: thinkgreen at threeparty.org (Roy) Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 23:11:26 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] spiritual progressives In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43E6F69E.6000001@threeparty.org> Cameron L. Spitzer wrote: > Rabbi Lerner may have run into the International > Socialist Organization faction of the SF Greens. > ISO's got a problem with spirituality and > religion. "Religion is the opiate of the masses." > And they're so anti-Zionist that they come across > as antisemetic. They've refused to let Rabbi Lerner > speak at the A.N.S.W.E.R rallies. Religion IS the opiate of some masses when it takes the form of fundamentalism.. one of our major religions is consumerism, another is technology and of course those good old christianity and judaism in any of its forms. Did I mention sports :-) Saying that they are SO anti-Zionist that they appear antisemitic isn't saying much. Any questioning of Israel is met with large out crys of anti semitism by zionists and their supporters. Any discussion of their ability to mobilize and effect the body politic as well as the media is met with even more stringent crys of outrage. Since ANSWER rallies were focused on the middle east, allowing Lehrner to speak there would be rather hypocritical, as I used the analogy in my previous comments of asking a meat eater to speak at a conference for vegetarians. > They won't recognize the Israeli peace movement. I'm not aware of too many Israeli peace movements who start of with the assertion that Israel really doesn't have any "right" to be there to start with. This is the whole belief behind Zionism. Even Noam Chomsky, the saint of the progressives begins one of his talks declaring that we must start with the undeniable right of the State of Israel to exist. I'm not saying that Israel should pushed into the sea, but for there to be real peace in the region the absolute wrong that's been done to Palestinians must be recognized and it never will be if every time we get any where near the truth screams of anti semitism rise up from the ranks of even the progressive movements. I used to think of people who spoke the way I just have as anti semitic...it took awhile for the realities and entrenchment of Zionism and it's supporters. Many supporters are Christians since the bible stories all depict the Israelites as these poor people who were chased from their land but were justified during the time of their rule to chop off the heads of sinners by the city full under the rule of David. One murderous dude. > It's one of the ways their dogmatism has led them > to the political margins, alienating large groups > who should be their allies. > Funny.. I hear that about the Greens and that they're so fanatical they put trees before people. I had just recently had this thrown in my face and merely replied that the Greens are really a humanist party but have recognized the critical balance and our dependence on nature so that in defending trees we ARE defending ourselves. Regretfully that doesn't fit on a bumper sticker :-) From tnharter at greens.org Mon Feb 6 00:05:45 2006 From: tnharter at greens.org (Tian Harter) Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2006 00:05:45 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] spiritual progressives In-Reply-To: <43E6F69E.6000001@threeparty.org> References: <43E6F69E.6000001@threeparty.org> Message-ID: <43E70359.20608@greens.org> Roy wrote: >Cameron L. Spitzer wrote: > > >>Rabbi Lerner may have run into the International >>Socialist Organization faction of the SF Greens. >>ISO's got a problem with spirituality and >>religion. "Religion is the opiate of the masses." >>And they're so anti-Zionist that they come across >>as antisemetic. They've refused to let Rabbi Lerner >>speak at the A.N.S.W.E.R rallies. >> >> > >Religion IS the opiate of some masses when it takes the form of >fundamentalism.. one of our major religions is consumerism, another is >technology and of course those good old christianity and judaism in any >of its forms. Did I mention sports :-) > > Baseball is definately a religion. Please notice, that at least around here baseball is working very hard to be transit friendly. Also notice that in baseball there is a very interesting role for superstition. I've never had any luck trying to explain it to either christians or jews. Not that I've ever tried that hard. Not that I'm an expert. Ever hear of the church of the sub genius? There is something funny going on there.... >Saying that they are SO anti-Zionist that they appear antisemitic isn't >saying much. Any questioning of Israel is met with large out crys of >anti semitism by zionists and their supporters. Any discussion of their >ability to mobilize and effect the body politic as well as the media is >met with even more stringent crys of outrage. Since ANSWER rallies were >focused on the middle east, allowing Lehrner to speak there would be >rather hypocritical, as I used the analogy in my previous comments of >asking a meat eater to speak at a conference for vegetarians. > > > >>They won't recognize the Israeli peace movement. >> >> > >I'm not aware of too many Israeli peace movements who start of with the >assertion that Israel really doesn't have any "right" to be there to >start with. This is the whole belief behind Zionism. Even Noam Chomsky, >the saint of the progressives begins one of his talks declaring that we >must start with the undeniable right of the State of Israel to exist. > > At the bookstore in downtown Mountain View, in the window, there is a new DVD of Noam Chomsky. The title is "Rebel Without a Pause." I'm thinking 'some gullible child is going to get the impression Noam Chomsky never slept." >I'm not saying that Israel should pushed into the sea, but for there to >be real peace in the region the absolute wrong that's been done to >Palestinians must be recognized and it never will be if every time we >get any where near the truth screams of anti semitism rise up from the >ranks of even the progressive movements. I used to think of people who >spoke the way I just have as anti semitic...it took awhile for the >realities and entrenchment of Zionism and it's supporters. Many >supporters are Christians since the bible stories all depict the >Israelites as these poor people who were chased from their land but were >justified during the time of their rule to chop off the heads of sinners >by the city full under the rule of David. One murderous dude. > > For me, all that biblical stuff happened long be fore the revolution our founding fathers signed on to. I've heard it said that WW II was the most clear cut case of an evil dictator running the show in known history. When I try to put things into perspective, I remind myself that there are many more people in India then there are in Israel, even though their countries are about the same age, as democracies go. I'm thinking that when democracy play by play gets more sophisticated, the announcer will be able to bring up statistics on war crimes and border violations and so forth between countries as they parade across the national stage. It'll be interesting to see how they factor in the different religions and how spiritual they really are, as measured by American eyes. I'm sure they will do a good job, if enough ratings points are at stake. I'm hoping having lower stats for war crimes is better, but you never know with these Republicans. Seems to me that the Isrealis haven't been trying to develop good karma for the day when the truth comes out. Ever heard Allison Weir talk about how they make the American media give us a false impression about what is going on over there? > > >>It's one of the ways their dogmatism has led them >>to the political margins, alienating large groups >>who should be their allies. >> >> >> > >Funny.. I hear that about the Greens and that they're so fanatical they >put trees before people. I had just recently had this thrown in my face >and merely replied that the Greens are really a humanist party but have >recognized the critical balance and our dependence on nature so that in >defending trees we ARE defending ourselves. Regretfully that doesn't fit >on a bumper sticker :-) > > > You could fit all of the above on a bumper sticker. You just couldn't expect the guy in the car behind you to read it at 65 MPH. Especially if he was following at a legal distance. For spirtiual politics, consider this peice that got forwarded to me via a quaker. It is so concretely political I'm lost trying to find a disconnect in it, except that the author doesn't like Bush: http://www.fcnl.org/smith/stateofunion06.htm -- Tian http://tian.greens.org Latest change: Added my favorite moment from the State of the Union Adress last month. When I told my dad I had a favorite moment in that speech, he said "It's not possible to have a favorite moment from Bush." I didn't want to try and explain it was only my favorite turd. From jims at greens.org Mon Feb 6 09:52:57 2006 From: jims at greens.org (Jim Stauffer) Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2006 09:52:57 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Request for Agenda Items References: <43E3E7EE.8010001@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <43E78CF9.4BDC8447@greens.org> I'd like to hear a brief report/discussion on this nebulous controversy with San Mateo over regional reps. Pat Gray has been sending messages to the state bylaws committee claiming serious problems in our region. Her messages have been so frequent and so accusatory that the state committee began discussing our region as some kind of situation that needs their intervention, and even compared us to LA. This is getting to a point of absurdity. Perhaps it's time we considered joining another region. -- Jim Gerry Gras wrote: > > Please submit your agenda items for Tuesday's meeting. > > Thanks, > > Gerry > > _______________________________________________ > sosfbay-discuss mailing list > sosfbay-discuss at marla.cagreens.org > http://marla.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss From thinkgreen at threeparty.org Mon Feb 6 11:42:36 2006 From: thinkgreen at threeparty.org (Roy) Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2006 11:42:36 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] spiritual progressives In-Reply-To: <43E70359.20608@greens.org> References: <43E6F69E.6000001@threeparty.org> <43E70359.20608@greens.org> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.0.20060206100530.03967b18@threeparty.org> > > >Baseball is definately a religion. Please notice, that at least >around here baseball is working very hard to be transit >friendly. Also notice that in baseball there is a very interesting >role for superstition. I've never had any luck trying to explain >it to either christians or jews. Not that I've ever tried that hard. >Not that I'm an expert. You needn't be an expert in biology or physics to point out lemmings jumping off a cliff. >At the bookstore in downtown Mountain View, in the window, >there is a new DVD of Noam Chomsky. The title is "Rebel >Without a Pause." I'm thinking 'some gullible child is going >to get the impression Noam Chomsky never slept." Or is a dawg with no feat. (freudian clip there) (don't get me wrong, I do like a lot of what Chomsky says) For me, all that biblical stuff happened long be fore the revolution >our founding fathers signed on to. I've heard it said that WW II >was the most clear cut case of an evil dictator running the show >in known history. I'm sure you know this, but who's writing the history?..how come there was no interest until oil was at stake? and even once the war was in progress our business were still doing business with Germany? Some thing's rotten in Denmark for sure with this noble cause routine. > When I try to put things into perspective, I >remind myself that there are many more people in India then >there are in Israel, even though their countries are about the >same age, as democracies go. I'm thinking that when democracy >play by play gets more sophisticated, the announcer will be able >to bring up statistics on war crimes and border violations and >so forth between countries as they parade across the national >stage. It'll be interesting to see how they factor in the different >religions and how spiritual they really are, as measured by >American eyes. I'm sure they will do a good job, if enough >ratings points are at stake. I'm hoping having lower stats for >war crimes is better, but you never know with these Republicans. When you say democracy in the above sentences I'm hoping you mean capitalism..yes? >Seems to me that the Isrealis haven't been trying to develop >good karma for the day when the truth comes out. Ever heard >Allison Weir talk about how they make the American media give >us a false impression about what is going on over there? Allison has been one of many who have been instrumental in opening my eyes to what it was that I was smelling. > >You could fit all of the above on a bumper sticker. You just >couldn't expect the guy in the car behind you to read it at >65 MPH. Especially if he was following at a legal distance. For that matter I could have it put on a grain of rice :-) >For spirtiual politics, consider this peice that got forwarded to >me via a quaker. It is so concretely political I'm lost trying to >find a disconnect in it, except that the author doesn't like Bush: > >http://www.fcnl.org/smith/stateofunion06.htm Good Article. What gets me is how everyone wants to pin this all on Bush and his regime. Basically it's a class warfare and imperialism together. Bush has pushed it to limits that are unacceptable to some who found lower levels of it acceptable before. So what do we do. Go back to acceptable levels? Not for me. I found it unacceptable before Bush and will most certainly find it unacceptable after. So will those who the opportunistic predatory nature of US "capitalism" has in it's sights. Hey.. did you pick a pic yet? Namaste Roy >-- >Tian >http://tian.greens.org >Latest change: Added my favorite moment from the State >of the Union Adress last month. When I told my dad >I had a favorite moment in that speech, he said "It's not >possible to have a favorite moment from Bush." I didn't >want to try and explain it was only my favorite turd. > >_______________________________________________ >sosfbay-discuss mailing list >sosfbay-discuss at marla.cagreens.org >http://marla.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss "Humans who enslave, castrate, experiment on and fillet other animals have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and 'animals' is essential if we are to bend them to our will, wear them, eat them-without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just to much like us. " Dr. Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan. From tnharter at greens.org Mon Feb 6 12:47:40 2006 From: tnharter at greens.org (Tian Harter) Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2006 12:47:40 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] spiritual progressives In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.0.20060206100530.03967b18@threeparty.org> References: <43E6F69E.6000001@threeparty.org> <43E70359.20608@greens.org> <6.1.2.0.0.20060206100530.03967b18@threeparty.org> Message-ID: <43E7B5EC.7040902@greens.org> Roy wrote: >>At the bookstore in downtown Mountain View, in the window, >>there is a new DVD of Noam Chomsky. The title is "Rebel >>Without a Pause." I'm thinking 'some gullible child is going >>to get the impression Noam Chomsky never slept." >> >> > > >Or is a dawg with no feat. (freudian clip there) > >(don't get me wrong, I do like a lot of what Chomsky says) > >For me, all that biblical stuff happened long be fore the revolution > > >>our founding fathers signed on to. I've heard it said that WW II >>was the most clear cut case of an evil dictator running the show >>in known history. >> >> > > >I'm sure you know this, but who's writing the history?..how come there was >no interest until oil was at stake? and even once the war was in progress >our business were still doing business with Germany? Some thing's rotten in >Denmark for sure with this noble cause routine. > > > Yeah, but re-writing history is a big project. In terms of world records, six million bodies is a lot. In percentaget terms how does that compare with the 10% of Americans that died in the Civil War? I don't know. I'm sure there is some historian that is very certain about the truth, but for me that is arguing about how many (spiritual term for war criminal ghosts here) can dance on a pinhead. My father still remembers WW II, but he is a member of a rapidly dwindling minority at this point in time. I know plenty of people that don't have their facts straight on Vietnam. What are we (meaning the they that will be living here after you and I are gone) supposed to remember about that time anyhow? How do you know? >> When I try to put things into perspective, I >>remind myself that there are many more people in India then >>there are in Israel, even though their countries are about the >>same age, as democracies go. I'm thinking that when democracy >>play by play gets more sophisticated, the announcer will be able >>to bring up statistics on war crimes and border violations and >>so forth between countries as they parade across the national >>stage. It'll be interesting to see how they factor in the different >>religions and how spiritual they really are, as measured by >>American eyes. I'm sure they will do a good job, if enough >>ratings points are at stake. I'm hoping having lower stats for >>war crimes is better, but you never know with these Republicans. >> >> > >When you say democracy in the above sentences I'm hoping you mean >capitalism..yes? > > Ummm... I've learned a lot more about bargaining from Indians than I have from Isrealis. Haggling price with an Indian shopkeeper is fun, if you have goods on the table. I would say they could teach us a thing or two about marketplace democracy, meaning the one dollar one vote as a medium of exchange kind. When I think of spiritual politics, I think of my friend with the "WHAT WOULD KALI DO?" sticker on her car. I'm sure that it uses less gas than a lot of cars with "WWJD?" on them... Isrealis are better at "playing politics with god". I remember being told about people in Israel who get paid to pray and study theology by business people in other parts of the world that don't have time to do it themselves. Never heard stories like that about anywhere else... Neither of them really strikes me as being a 'democracy' in the way I understand the term. They could both get there though... > > >>Seems to me that the Isrealis haven't been trying to develop >>good karma for the day when the truth comes out. Ever heard >>Allison Weir talk about how they make the American media give >>us a false impression about what is going on over there? >> >> > > >Allison has been one of many who have been instrumental in opening my eyes >to what it was that I was smelling. > > > > >>You could fit all of the above on a bumper sticker. You just >>couldn't expect the guy in the car behind you to read it at >>65 MPH. Especially if he was following at a legal distance. >> >> > > >For that matter I could have it put on a grain of rice :-) > > > Yeah, but that would requre MUCH more sophisticated technology, and would almost guarantee nobody would ever read it. I would call the writing of such "praying", except for the unspiritual chemicals you would probably be forced to use, and the fact that if you used photoprocesses you wouldn't be thinking about the meaning of the words during the writing... > > >>For spirtiual politics, consider this peice that got forwarded to >>me via a quaker. It is so concretely political I'm lost trying to >>find a disconnect in it, except that the author doesn't like Bush: >> >>http://www.fcnl.org/smith/stateofunion06.htm >> >> > > >Good Article. What gets me is how everyone wants to pin this all on Bush >and his regime. Basically it's a class warfare and imperialism together. >Bush has pushed it to limits that are unacceptable to some who found lower >levels of it acceptable before. So what do we do. Go back to acceptable >levels? Not for me. I found it unacceptable before Bush and will most >certainly find it unacceptable after. So will those who the opportunistic >predatory nature of US "capitalism" has in it's sights. > > There is a term that I'm told the Native Americans had that translates to "left behind". The idea is that when you weren't strong enough to move on to the next hunting ground, you were left behind to finish out your few remaining days with plenty of privacy. In our modern world, "left behind" has become a synonym for "forgotten". All that ink used to print pictures of the President and his words guarantees he won't be forgotton. Every now and then I go visit my grandparents graves. I'm painfully aware that those fine people will be forgotten when the people that knew them are gone. I'm utterly certain that they were much more moral role models than the jerks in the current Administration. Unfortunately, we can't "leave behind" the political system. It will always be about yesterday and tomorrow, and how we (meaning the people alive now) build a bridge between them, or don't. >Hey.. did you pick a pic yet? > > Yup, and I've been giving out the flier with that picture in it. People like it a lot better than the previous one! >>-- >>Tian >>http://tian.greens.org >>Latest change: Added my favorite moment from the State >>of the Union Adress last month. When I told my dad >>I had a favorite moment in that speech, he said "It's not >>possible to have a favorite moment from Bush." I didn't >>want to try and explain it was only my favorite turd. >> >>___________________________________________ >> >> -- Tian http://tian.greens.org Latest change: Added my pictures from Aimee Allisons kickoff event. From baalavi at yahoo.com Mon Feb 6 14:00:00 2006 From: baalavi at yahoo.com (Bob Alavi) Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 14:00:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Fwd: 911 Loose Change 2nd Edition with Extra Message-ID: <20060206220000.46084.qmail@web52101.mail.yahoo.com> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8260059923762628848 My curious question which is generally overlooked by many, including this video (and Farenheit 911) is: "How did Ariel Sharon ***know*** to cancel his scheduled meeting in Washington DC -- DUE TO 9/11?!!!" (He was scheduled to meet with the US Congress in DC at 1:00 PM EDT on 9/11/2001. Flight from Israel to DC is about 12 hours, -- ignore 1, 2, (n?) prep hours for getting to and from the airport, refreshing, "resting before the meeting", etc. and just take the 12 hours, not a more realistic "24 hours" for commoners such as you and I -- my simple calculation tells me at least by 1:00 AM EDT (only 12 hours in advance of hit) he should have been onboard or evern airborne. Then by around "9 - 9:30 AM EDT" (ground zero/time zero) -- his plane must have been ready to land somewhere near DC. But Sharon NEVER LEFT ISRAEL "due to 9/11"!!!!! for that meeting. The first announcement regarding "Sharon Cancelling his meeting in DC" aired around 11:30 AM on 9/11/2001. I remember that personally. How did Sharon know...? That far in advance of 9/11 ... http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8260059923762628848 --------------------------------- Bring words and photos together (easily) with PhotoMail - it's free and works with your Yahoo! Mail. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gerrygras at earthlink.net Mon Feb 6 22:37:52 2006 From: gerrygras at earthlink.net (Gerry Gras) Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2006 22:37:52 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Proposed Agenda for County Meeting Message-ID: <43E84040.7000302@earthlink.net> Proposed Agenda for County Meeting Tuesday, February 7, 2006 Location: Banjara Indian Restaurant - http://banjarainc.com 407 Town & Country Village, Sunnyvale Directions available at above web site 6:30 Socializing and Dinner 7:30 Meeting NOTE: The order of items in this agenda is not necessarily the order we will be discussing them. -- Preliminary Items -- Choose Facilitator(s), Note-Taker(s), Time Keeper, and Vibes Watcher(s) (5) Introductions and Short Announcements (5) Revise and Affirm Agenda (5) -- Main Part -- 1. Treasurer's Report (5) Adam 2. State Party Business Fair Wage Initiative (15) Tim Smith 3. Old Business 2006 Tabling (5) Jim Doyle / Warner Planning Meeting - review the year (10) Bylaws change re Regional Rep selection process (5) Gerry County Council election (5) DeAnza 8 Status (10) Jim Doyle 4. New Business County Council report (5) Carol Brouillet for Congress (5) Carol Regional Rep complaints (10) Gerry Change Meeting date from 1st Tuesday to 1st Wednesday (5) Warner (Total scheduled time: 1 hour, 35 minutes) -- Future Events -- Next GPSCC meeting Tuesday, March 7, 2006 ? (Unless Warner's proposal passes) -- Disclaimer -- The items summarized above are agenda suggestions, only. The actual meeting agenda is affirmed at the meeting by those who are present. Additionally, the times allotted to agenda items may be changed during the course of the meeting, and some items may not e reached during the meeting because of time limits. Persons receiving this email are invited to make additional suggestions or corrections regarding potential agenda items, time estimates or the agenda sequence. Please share this information with individuals who do not have email. From fredd at freeshell.org Mon Feb 6 22:57:38 2006 From: fredd at freeshell.org (Fred Duperrault) Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2006 22:57:38 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Request for Agenda Items Message-ID: <43E844E2.5060804@freeshell.org> Gerry, Please add "SCC Open Space Initiative" near the end of the meeting. Thanks, Fred SCC Green Friends, I will probably be an hour or so late for the business meeting on Tuesday. The MVVP is presenting the MV City Council a proposal to allow MVVP to place a memorial in the Civic Center Plaza to those who have lost their lives in Iraq while serving the US military. The memorial would not be permanent but would be on display during the several days marking the third anniversary of the beginning of the invasion-occupation of Iraq. Karen Meredeth has been the leading the way in this request. Because we want to show great support for this request, we need as many speakers and supportive individuals to be present when it comes time for the speaking. That is why I'll be late for the GP meeting. I want to be there. I do, however, wish to make a proposal to schedule Peter Drekmeier as a speaker during our March meeting. He will tell of the urgency of why the "SCC Open Space Initiative" should be adopted by the electorate in November. He will also suggest strategies on how we GP members can be major players in its success. The necessary petition will be one of them. Please put this item near the end of the agenda. Thanks, Fred Duperrault Please submit your agenda items for Tuesday's meeting. Thanks, Gerry _______________________________________________ sosfbay-discuss mailing list sosfbay-discuss at marla.cagreens.org http://marla.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss _______________________________________________ sosfbay-discuss mailing list sosfbay-discuss at marla.cagreens.org http://marla.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss From eameece at california.com Sun Feb 5 00:18:37 2006 From: eameece at california.com (E. Alan Meece) Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 00:18:37 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] spiritual progressives Message-ID: <43E5B4DD.1E0A@california.com> Thanks to those of you who replied to my message. I didn't hear anyone say though that they'd like this to be an agenda item. It doesn't appear on the agenda for tommorrow night. Would anyone want me to ask that this be put on the agenda for next month-- that a Green spiritual progressives caucus be formed at our local group? I would like some support for this specific idea before I ask for it; I don't want to be the only member of such a caucus. If anyone else has a response to my previous email, I'd like to see it. What is being done in Alameda is fine, but does that mean we only need such a caucus in some counties? Such as the one in which Tikkun itself is located? Or at the state level? Roy, it might be that Rabbi Lerner's non-answer means that he didn't see or didn't have time to answer you. They get pretty busy at those Tikkun offices and some of my emails to them have also gone unanswered. The many articles in Tikkun magazine on this subject seem pretty balanced and aware of the wrongs committed by Israel; balanced enough for me anyway, and I am someone who is very critical of Israel. It would be nice if someone besides ANSWER were available to organize our peace rallies. Eric the Green From Mjsmith55 at aol.com Tue Feb 7 10:38:59 2006 From: Mjsmith55 at aol.com (Mjsmith55 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 13:38:59 EST Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Reminder: Green Talk on Nuclear Energy Message-ID: <2ef.b0cb26.311a4343@aol.com> Welcome to gpsmc-news, the occasional online newsletter of the Green Party of San Mateo County. You'll find subscription (and unsubscription) instructions at the end of this message. You'll find all this information, as well as directions and links to maps, at our online calendar: <_http://cagreens.org/sanmateo/calendar.html_ (http://cagreens.org/sanmateo/calendar.html) >. Most calendar items have contact persons noted, but you can always inquire at _gpsmc at cagreens.org_ (mailto:gpsmc at cagreens.org) or 650-366-6603 for more information on anything concerning GPSMC. ========================================= Green Talk with the Green Party of San Mateo County Michael Bock of Helen Caldicott?s Nuclear Policy Research Institute, showing the film "Nuclear Deception" and speaking on the dangers of nuclear power. When: Wednesday February 8 at 7-9pm. Preceded by free refreshments 6-7pm. Where: Green Party Office, 212A Miller St, South San Francisco, 94080 Cost: free. Public is invited Contacts: For more info contact the GPSMC Email: _gpsmc at cagreens.org_ (mailto:gpsmc at cagreens.org) Phone: 650-366-6603 Website: greens.org/cal/sanmateo/calendar.html Event coordinator: Mitch Smith Email: _mjsmith55 at aol.com_ (mailto:mjsmith55 at aol.com) Downloadable flyer at _http://www.greens.org/cal/sanmateo/files/GT20060208.pdf_ (http://www.greens.org/cal/sanmateo/files/GT20060208.pdf) . Please distribute widely. Speaker Bio: Michael Bock is an activist who has been working with the Nuclear Policy Research Institute. Of his work on this issue, Michael says, "To me the challenge with the nuclear issue is to integrate it with solutions. In this way the problem become the motivation for the solution and the solution becomes yet another strike against the problem." NPRI was established by Dr. Helen Caldicott, who for the last thirty-five years has lead an international campaign to end the nuclear age. Dr. Caldicott is the author of five books, most recently The New Nuclear Danger. NPRI seeks to educate the American public about the greatest single threat to the world's public health, namely the profound medical, environmental, political and moral consequences of perpetuating nuclear weapons, power and waste. *****This event is wheelchair accessible***** Every month, the Green Party of San Mateo County hosts lectures on topics important to residents of our region. Speakers may be local residents discussing their area of expertise or nationally-recognized activists Whether the subject is taxes, health care, public transportation or airport expansion, you will find something at the Green Talks that impacts you and your neighbors. Everyone is welcome! ========================================= -- Mailing List Information We try to keep the traffic on this list to a minimum, but if you'd rather not get any messages, follow the link at the end of this message and unsubscribe. If you have trouble, send me a note at <_mjsmith55 at aol.com_ (mailto:mjsmith55 at aol.com) > and I'll take care of it directly. If you have an announcement that you'd like to see posted to the news list, send the announcement, well in advance of the event, to Mitch Smith <_mjsmith55 at aol.com_ (mailto:mjsmith55 at aol.com) >. We also have an email discussion list for San Mateo Greens. Subscribe to this list at <_http://lists.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/gpsmc-d_ (http://lists.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/gpsmc-d) >, and then post messages by sending them to <_gpsmc-d at cagreens.org_ (mailto:gpsmc-d at cagreens.org) >. This list is for the discussion of issues and other items of specific interest to San Mateo Greens. You'll also find instructions for signing up at our GPSMC Get Informed! web page: <_http://cagreens.org/sanmateo/inform.html_ (http://cagreens.org/sanmateo/inform.html) >. -- Mitch Smith _______________________________________________ gpsmc-news mailing list _gpsmc-news at cagreens.org_ (mailto:gpsmc-news at cagreens.org) _http://lists.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/gpsmc-news_ (http://lists.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/gpsmc-news) _http://cagreens.org/sanmateo/_ (http://cagreens.org/sanmateo/) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tnharter at greens.org Tue Feb 7 11:01:25 2006 From: tnharter at greens.org (Tian Harter) Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2006 11:01:25 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Anybody know a good dentist? Message-ID: <43E8EE85.4050007@greens.org> I had a filling fall out of one of my teeth. I'd like a recomendation on a good dentist to have it redone. Thanks, -- Tian http://tian.greens.org Latest change: Added my pictures from Aimee Allisons kickoff event. From AlexCathy at aol.com Tue Feb 7 11:13:53 2006 From: AlexCathy at aol.com (AlexCathy at aol.com) Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 14:13:53 EST Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS -- JUDAS SAYS PRINT MUHAMMAD CARTOONS Message-ID: <28f.53bd6c7.311a4b71@aol.com> Click here: SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS -- JUDAS SAYS PRINT MUHAMMAD CARTOONS : SF Bay Area Indymedia Dear Green Friends, There I go again. The hypocrisy of the big creeps who run this country never cease to amaze me. I have just posted this article to the IndyBay Web Site. SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS -- JUDAS SAYS PRINT MUHAMMAD CARTOONS by Alex Walker Jerry Ceppos, former executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News and former vice president/news of Knight Ridder, has an op-ed it today's edition of the Merc about the uproar in the Islamic world over caricatures of Muhammad titled "We Must See cartoons to Understand Furor." The unlimited self-righteous hypocrisy of the U.S. Ruling Class never ceases to amaze me. With the arrogance and self-righteousness so typical of his class in the U.S., Mr. Ceppos says of he were an editor today he'd run the cartoons because "we," that is, the enlightened, free-thinking, superior people of the U.S. have a need to know. Ceppos writes: "I'd run them because they're big news and help explain a religion that we desperately need to understand." Here is the problem. Jerry Ceppos is the Judas that abandoned Gary Webb in the middle of the "Dark Alliance" investigation of the C.I.A. in the mid-1990s. The Lonely Heroic Saga of Gary Webb Gary Webb (1955 - 2004), was an investigative journalist best known for his 1966 "Dark Alliance" series written for the San Jose Mercury News. In this explosive series Webb uncovered the connection between the U.S.-back Nicaraguan contras, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, and crack cocaine distribution in African-American communities in Los Angeles and other big cities of the U.S. His work was disputed and later disowned by the Mercury News, effectively ending his career as a mainstream media journalist. After leaving the Merc, Gary Webb went to work for the California Assembly Speaker's Office of Member Services and served as a consultant to the California State legislature Task Force on Government Oversight. On December 10, 2004, he was found dead from gunshot wounds to the head. The coroner determined that it was a suicide and it subsequently became known that Webb had been suffering from clinical depression. Jerry Ceppos is the rat who stabbed Gary Webb in the back under pressure from the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the entire U.S. establishment. In his book Gary Webb says as the attacks from the U.S. establishment escalated, this very same Jerry Ceppos said "I don't want to get into a war with them." See below excerpts from Ceppos' op-ed We Must See Cartoons to Understand Furor by Jerry Ceppos The San Jose Mercury News, Tuesday, February 7, 2006 http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/13810391.htm Maybe it's because I'm a person now and not a newspaper editor that I'm bothered by the blackout in almost all mainstream U.S. media of the cartoons that have incited much of the Muslim world. Images often provoke controversy more than words do. When I was a newspaper editor, I probably spent the equivalent of six months of my life debating whether to publish one or another controversial photograph, political cartoon or comic strip. The photograph of a dead American soldier being dragged through the streets of Somalia. The photo of Richard Allen Davis, Polly Klaas' killer, making an obscene courtroom gesture. A ``Doonesbury'' comic strip in which a TV commentator tours Ronald Reagan's brain, pointing out deficiencies. (The Mercury News published the first two on my watch. I can't remember what we decided on the Doonesbury strip, proving that what seem like tough decisions mercifully do not always follow you into eternity.) . . . I get it that many Muslims believe that no image of the Prophet Muhammad should appear. I am grateful for the Times' word descriptions of the drawings and understand why the drawings would be provocative: ``One cartoon depicts Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb. Another shows him at the gates of heaven, arms raised, saying to men who seem to be suicide bombers, `Stop, stop, we have run out of virgins.' A third has devil's horns emerging from his turban. A fourth shows two women who are entirely veiled, with only their eyes showing, and the prophet standing between them with a strip of black cloth covering his eyes, preventing him from seeing.'' But I can't truly understand the controversy until I see the cartoons. No, I wouldn't run the cartoons ``to show support'' for the Danish paper, which the BBC says was the motivation for many European newspapers. I'd run them because they're big news and help explain a religion that we desperately need to understand. . . . It is curious that Mr. Ceppos mentions comparatively trivial editorial decisions about photographs and cartoons, but never mentions "Dark Alliance," the greatest controversy in his career. Now, see below excerpts from an account of his Judas role: Judas Retires: Jerry Ceppos and the Burning Memory of Gary Webb By Luis Gomez, Posted on Wed Aug 24th, 2005 http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/8/24/145235/991 . . . In the book Dark Alliance, Gary Webb says (open your books to page 444, please): "The Mercury News' executive editor, Jerry Ceppos, called and congratulated me. The TV networks were calling the paper. We were getting phone calls from all over the world. 'Let's stay on the top of this,' he said. 'Anything you need, you let us know. We want to run with this thing.' A few days later, I got a $500 bonus check in the mail and a note from Ceppos: 'Remarkable series! Thanks for doing this for us.'" . . . Later, in early October, 1996, the offensive against Gary Webb's brilliant work began. The Washington Post circulated a story, signed by a pair of mercenaries, that put Webb's entire investigation in doubt. In those days, Webb was in New York, on the long tour that brought him to hundreds of radio and television programs to tell the story. "About 2:00 a.m., Jerry Ceppos called," recalls Webb on page 448 of his book. "He asked me to take a look [at the Post piece] and give him my reaction." During the conversation, Ceppos mentioned that the Post's "journalists" had uses, as evidence, 'a lot of unnamed sources, mainly. It's really a strange piece. I'll send you a fax of it, and we can talk in the morning.'" Gary followed up by refuting the Washington Post story's content, and was also able to identify one of the authors (Walter Pincus) as having worked as an informant for the CIA, which could not have been a coincidence. And, well, Jerry did what an editor should do in these cases: he backed his reporter and sent a letter to the Post (which of course was never published). In that missive, Jerry Ceppos stated, "We strongly support the conclusions the series drew and will until someone proves them wrong." But the attacks on the investigation continued and grew, nearly all of them launched by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. And that scared Gary Webb's bosses. One morning, Ceppos invited Gary to a meeting with the Mercury News' other editors... who asked Webb to quit the investigation and see if they could respond to the attacks from these three horsemen of the apocalypse. What you said that morning, Jerry Ceppos, is a phrase for the history books: "I don't want to get into a war with them." Because it was then that you began to pull back your troops, and ordered all copies of the CD-ROM that had been made with all Gary's documents and notes destroyed before it was released. But Gary Webb was an authentic and stubborn journalist. Together with his colleague Georg Hodel he began investigating and proving everything he had said in the "Dark Alliance" series. Those months of work were not in vain for the pair... until, on March 25, 1997, Jerry Ceppos called Webb to communicate to him "a very difficult decision" (p. 459). According to Ceppos, there were various errors in the series of reports, because of which the Mercury News planned to publish a letter to the readers acknowledging the supposed faults. Still on the phone, Gary asked if "I get a chance to say something." "The decision has been made," Ceppos responded... and in the weeks after that call the executive editor's support transformed into rejection. Ceppos published his column on May 11, 1997, and, as Gary wrote, "if there was ever a chance of getting to the bottom of the CIA's involvement with drug traffickers, it died on that day." The big U.S. dailies' pressure on Ceppos had its desired effect: his column was correctly interpreted as a retraction, as acknowledgement that Webb's investigation was "wrong." It never mattered that the CIA's own internal investigation, some time later, confirmed most of what Gary had written and discovered; as far as I know, Ceppos never wrote a column about that. "We need a real-time ethics class that deals with the down and dirty issues of fairness, because whatever we're doing in our classrooms and newsrooms isn't working," said a conference attendee in the spring of 1998, before an auditorium of students and professors of the University of Oregon. It was Jerry Ceppos, who not only was not sorry for having betrayed Gary Webb, his own reporter, but even publicly acknowledged the latter's "flaws." Did you understand the lesson, kind readers? When you work for one of the commercial media, if you're going to stick that dagger in, push it up to the hilt, and, once it's there, your hand full of blood, move it around as much as possible. Only then will your personal prestige (and salary) be safe... Solidarity and truth are just two little words that can be scorned and forgotten in commercial journalism. All right, any questions? Ask Jerry Ceppos... . . . I have always known that a coward, a traitor, with power and authority, is more dangerous than anyone else. That little mouse with the surname of Ceppos is one of those... a good example, the best Judas I have found lately. Because his betrayal didn't end with that story; he had still more dirty tricks to play on Gary Webb, our colleague, our teacher and friend... Let's turn to page 464 in Dark Alliance: Ceppos, who'd not spoken to me since his column ran, call me at home in early June (1997). He was killing the follow-ups, he shouted. I was off the story for good. He couldn't trust me anymore because I'd "aligned myself with one side of the issue." "Which side is that, Jerry? The side that wants the truth to come out?" ...I was to report to his office in two days "to discuss your future at the Mercury News." Gary Webb's future, according to Judas, I mean, Jerry Ceppos, was to work in the San Jose Mercury News' central office. The editors had lost confidence in Webb, said Ceppos, and he needed more supervision. If he refused, he would be sent to the Western Office in Cupertino, California, "the newspaper's version of Siberia," according to Gary. Most commentators in the U.S. have predictably and simple-mindedly compared the caricatures of Muhammad in the Islamic world to caricatures of Jesus in this so-called Christian nation. That is not the correct analogy. Edgy depictions of the founder of Christianity are commonplace in the West. See, for example, films like "The Last Temptation of Christ" or "The Passion of the Christ" or the upcoming blockbuster, "The Da Vinci Code." What really takes guts In the U.S. is challenging the "divinity" of the President, the C.I.A. and the New York Times. And in this regard, Knight-Ridder's little Judas has no moral standing. Please send e-mail letters to the editor of the "Suck-Up-To-Power" Mercury News at letters at mercurynews.com. If 100 people write letters about Gary, maybe the hypocrites will print one or two. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From baalavi at yahoo.com Tue Feb 7 12:56:44 2006 From: baalavi at yahoo.com (Bob Alavi) Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 12:56:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS -- JUDAS SAYS PRINT MUHAMMAD CARTOONS In-Reply-To: <28f.53bd6c7.311a4b71@aol.com> Message-ID: <20060207205644.13184.qmail@web52104.mail.yahoo.com> Let's get the facts straight from the horse's mouth: FROM MATHEWS (the first book of New Testament) ============================ 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. =========================== I guess they're doing a good job with that sword to set everone against each other :) AlexCathy at aol.com wrote: Click here: SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS -- JUDAS SAYS PRINT MUHAMMAD CARTOONS : SF Bay Area Indymedia Dear Green Friends, There I go again. The hypocrisy of the big creeps who run this country never cease to amaze me. I have just posted this article to the IndyBay Web Site. SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS -- JUDAS SAYS PRINT MUHAMMAD CARTOONS by Alex Walker Jerry Ceppos, former executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News and former vice president/news of Knight Ridder, has an op-ed it today's edition of the Merc about the uproar in the Islamic world over caricatures of Muhammad titled "We Must See cartoons to Understand Furor." The unlimited self-righteous hypocrisy of the U.S. Ruling Class never ceases to amaze me. With the arrogance and self-righteousness so typical of his class in the U.S., Mr. Ceppos says of he were an editor today he'd run the cartoons because "we," that is, the enlightened, free-thinking, superior people of the U.S. have a need to know. Ceppos writes: "I'd run them because they're big news and help explain a religion that we desperately need to understand." Here is the problem. Jerry Ceppos is the Judas that abandoned Gary Webb in the middle of the "Dark Alliance" investigation of the C.I.A. in the mid-1990s. The Lonely Heroic Saga of Gary Webb Gary Webb (1955 - 2004), was an investigative journalist best known for his 1966 "Dark Alliance" series written for the San Jose Mercury News. In this explosive series Webb uncovered the connection between the U.S.-back Nicaraguan contras, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, and crack cocaine distribution in African-American communities in Los Angeles and other big cities of the U.S. His work was disputed and later disowned by the Mercury News, effectively ending his career as a mainstream media journalist. After leaving the Merc, Gary Webb went to work for the California Assembly Speaker's Office of Member Services and served as a consultant to the California State legislature Task Force on Government Oversight. On December 10, 2004, he was found dead from gunshot wounds to the head. The coroner determined that it was a suicide and it subsequently became known that Webb had been suffering from clinical depression. Jerry Ceppos is the rat who stabbed Gary Webb in the back under pressure from the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the entire U.S. establishment. In his book Gary Webb says as the attacks from the U.S. establishment escalated, this very same Jerry Ceppos said "I don't want to get into a war with them." See below excerpts from Ceppos' op-ed We Must See Cartoons to Understand Furor by Jerry Ceppos The San Jose Mercury News, Tuesday, February 7, 2006 http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/13810391.htm Maybe it's because I'm a person now and not a newspaper editor that I'm bothered by the blackout in almost all mainstream U.S. media of the cartoons that have incited much of the Muslim world. Images often provoke controversy more than words do. When I was a newspaper editor, I probably spent the equivalent of six months of my life debating whether to publish one or another controversial photograph, political cartoon or comic strip. The photograph of a dead American soldier being dragged through the streets of Somalia. The photo of Richard Allen Davis, Polly Klaas' killer, making an obscene courtroom gesture. A ``Doonesbury'' comic strip in which a TV commentator tours Ronald Reagan's brain, pointing out deficiencies. (The Mercury News published the first two on my watch. I can't remember what we decided on the Doonesbury strip, proving that what seem like tough decisions mercifully do not always follow you into eternity.) . . . I get it that many Muslims believe that no image of the Prophet Muhammad should appear. I am grateful for the Times' word descriptions of the drawings and understand why the drawings would be provocative: ``One cartoon depicts Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb. Another shows him at the gates of heaven, arms raised, saying to men who seem to be suicide bombers, `Stop, stop, we have run out of virgins.' A third has devil's horns emerging from his turban. A fourth shows two women who are entirely veiled, with only their eyes showing, and the prophet standing between them with a strip of black cloth covering his eyes, preventing him from seeing.'' But I can't truly understand the controversy until I see the cartoons. No, I wouldn't run the cartoons ``to show support'' for the Danish paper, which the BBC says was the motivation for many European newspapers. I'd run them because they're big news and help explain a religion that we desperately need to understand. . . . It is curious that Mr. Ceppos mentions comparatively trivial editorial decisions about photographs and cartoons, but never mentions "Dark Alliance," the greatest controversy in his career. Now, see below excerpts from an account of his Judas role: Judas Retires: Jerry Ceppos and the Burning Memory of Gary Webb By Luis Gomez, Posted on Wed Aug 24th, 2005 http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/8/24/145235/991 . . . In the book Dark Alliance, Gary Webb says (open your books to page 444, please): "The Mercury News' executive editor, Jerry Ceppos, called and congratulated me. The TV networks were calling the paper. We were getting phone calls from all over the world. 'Let's stay on the top of this,' he said. 'Anything you need, you let us know. We want to run with this thing.' A few days later, I got a $500 bonus check in the mail and a note from Ceppos: 'Remarkable series! Thanks for doing this for us.'" . . . Later, in early October, 1996, the offensive against Gary Webb's brilliant work began. The Washington Post circulated a story, signed by a pair of mercenaries, that put Webb's entire investigation in doubt. In those days, Webb was in New York, on the long tour that brought him to hundreds of radio and television programs to tell the story. "About 2:00 a.m., Jerry Ceppos called," recalls Webb on page 448 of his book. "He asked me to take a look [at the Post piece] and give him my reaction." During the conversation, Ceppos mentioned that the Post's "journalists" had uses, as evidence, 'a lot of unnamed sources, mainly. It's really a strange piece. I'll send you a fax of it, and we can talk in the morning.'" Gary followed up by refuting the Washington Post story's content, and was also able to identify one of the authors (Walter Pincus) as having worked as an informant for the CIA, which could not have been a coincidence. And, well, Jerry did what an editor should do in these cases: he backed his reporter and sent a letter to the Post (which of course was never published). In that missive, Jerry Ceppos stated, "We strongly support the conclusions the series drew and will until someone proves them wrong." But the attacks on the investigation continued and grew, nearly all of them launched by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. And that scared Gary Webb's bosses. One morning, Ceppos invited Gary to a meeting with the Mercury News' other editors... who asked Webb to quit the investigation and see if they could respond to the attacks from these three horsemen of the apocalypse. What you said that morning, Jerry Ceppos, is a phrase for the history books: "I don't want to get into a war with them." Because it was then that you began to pull back your troops, and ordered all copies of the CD-ROM that had been made with all Gary's documents and notes destroyed before it was released. But Gary Webb was an authentic and stubborn journalist. Together with his colleague Georg Hodel he began investigating and proving everything he had said in the "Dark Alliance" series. Those months of work were not in vain for the pair... until, on March 25, 1997, Jerry Ceppos called Webb to communicate to him "a very difficult decision" (p. 459). According to Ceppos, there were various errors in the series of reports, because of which the Mercury News planned to publish a letter to the readers acknowledging the supposed faults. Still on the phone, Gary asked if "I get a chance to say something." "The decision has been made," Ceppos responded... and in the weeks after that call the executive editor's support transformed into rejection. Ceppos published his column on May 11, 1997, and, as Gary wrote, "if there was ever a chance of getting to the bottom of the CIA's involvement with drug traffickers, it died on that day." The big U.S. dailies' pressure on Ceppos had its desired effect: his column was correctly interpreted as a retraction, as acknowledgement that Webb's investigation was "wrong." It never mattered that the CIA's own internal investigation, some time later, confirmed most of what Gary had written and discovered; as far as I know, Ceppos never wrote a column about that. "We need a real-time ethics class that deals with the down and dirty issues of fairness, because whatever we're doing in our classrooms and newsrooms isn't working," said a conference attendee in the spring of 1998, before an auditorium of students and professors of the University of Oregon. It was Jerry Ceppos, who not only was not sorry for having betrayed Gary Webb, his own reporter, but even publicly acknowledged the latter's "flaws." Did you understand the lesson, kind readers? When you work for one of the commercial media, if you're going to stick that dagger in, push it up to the hilt, and, once it's there, your hand full of blood, move it around as much as possible. Only then will your personal prestige (and salary) be safe... Solidarity and truth are just two little words that can be scorned and forgotten in commercial journalism. All right, any questions? Ask Jerry Ceppos... . . . I have always known that a coward, a traitor, with power and authority, is more dangerous than anyone else. That little mouse with the surname of Ceppos is one of those... a good example, the best Judas I have found lately. Because his betrayal didn't end with that story; he had still more dirty tricks to play on Gary Webb, our colleague, our teacher and friend... Let's turn to page 464 in Dark Alliance: Ceppos, who'd not spoken to me since his column ran, call me at home in early June (1997). He was killing the follow-ups, he shouted. I was off the story for good. He couldn't trust me anymore because I'd "aligned myself with one side of the issue." "Which side is that, Jerry? The side that wants the truth to come out?" ...I was to report to his office in two days "to discuss your future at the Mercury News." Gary Webb's future, according to Judas, I mean, Jerry Ceppos, was to work in the San Jose Mercury News' central office. The editors had lost confidence in Webb, said Ceppos, and he needed more supervision. If he refused, he would be sent to the Western Office in Cupertino, California, "the newspaper's version of Siberia," according to Gary. Most commentators in the U.S. have predictably and simple-mindedly compared the caricatures of Muhammad in the Islamic world to caricatures of Jesus in this so-called Christian nation. That is not the correct analogy. Edgy depictions of the founder of Christianity are commonplace in the West. See, for example, films like "The Last Temptation of Christ" or "The Passion of the Christ" or the upcoming blockbuster, "The Da Vinci Code." What really takes guts In the U.S. is challenging the "divinity" of the President, the C.I.A. and the New York Times. And in this regard, Knight-Ridder's little Judas has no moral standing. Please send e-mail letters to the editor of the "Suck-Up-To-Power" Mercury News at letters at mercurynews.com. If 100 people write letters about Gary, maybe the hypocrites will print one or two. _______________________________________________ sosfbay-discuss mailing list sosfbay-discuss at marla.cagreens.org http://marla.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss --------------------------------- What are the most popular cars? Find out at Yahoo! Autos -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From WB4D23 at aol.com Tue Feb 7 16:47:33 2006 From: WB4D23 at aol.com (WB4D23 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 19:47:33 EST Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Fwd: Update on BAREC Message-ID: <23f.67ffc3f.311a99a5@aol.com> In a message dated 2/7/06 12:30:57 AM Pacific Standard Time, info at savebarec.org writes: Dear BAREC Friends: It has been a number of months since you received BAREC news. This note should bring you up to date on efforts to keep BAREC as agricultural land, its current status, and what you can do to help. The articles, programs, and details are on our website, _www.savebarec.org._ (http://www.savebarec.org/) 1. SAN JOSE MERCURY ARTICLE LAST WEEK: Last week Connie Skipitares did a short article in the "San Jose Mercury News" titled "Report Due on Housing at Old Research Station" (_http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/the_valley/13741297.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.j sp_ (http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/the_valley/13741297.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp) ). In this article Santa Clara Mayor Mahan stated: "The State's going to sell the property; there is no way we can prevent that. We have to be reasonable in allowing rezoning; we cannot withhold entitlements unreasonably, especially when we cannot offer a good alternative." Well, Mayor Mahan, we do have a plan for environmental, growing healthy food, and nutrition education which you can see on our website (_http://www.savebarec.org/docs/barec-land-use-option.pdf_ (http://www.savebarec.org/docs/barec-land-use-option.pdf) ). The University of California at Santa Cruz has offered to help us. Our county's environmental education has only one week in K - 12. Other Bay Area counties have a much more comprehensive approach. We have also made an offer to purchase BAREC at an agriculturally zoned price but neither the State nor the City will talk or listen to anyone in the community since before BAREC became available for sale. Please write a Letter To the Editor regarding saving BAREC. Make sure you place your address and phone number at the bottom of your letter. Following are the ways to send your letter: email: _letters at mercurynews.com_ (mailto:letters at mercurynews.com) mail: 750 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose 95190 fax: 408-271-3792 2. LIST BAREC AS A SANTA CLARA COUNTY PLACE NEEDING PRESERVATION: Contact Sal Pizarro at the San Jose Mercury News and tell him to add BAREC to the list of places which should be preserved in Santa Clara County: email: _spizarro at mercurynews.com_ (mailto:spizarro at mercurynews.com) phone: 408-920-5473 3. PRELIMINARY EIR DUE LATE FEBRUARY: In October the City of Santa Clara had an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) scoping meeting and announced that the Preliminary EIR would be coming out in early Spring. However, they are now saying it will come out late this month...February. The neighbors and active Save BAREC members wrote their EIR concerns. After the Preliminary EIR comes out we will have 45 days to respond and then they will incorporate these thoughts into the final EIR for the City Council approval. One important EIR alternative is "no project". If the City Council approves a BAREC housing EIR which they currently appear to want, they will then vote to change the BAREC zoning from agriculture to medium density housing. A key component for the BAREC housing proposal is 165 units of low income high rise senior housing. Since the existing Santa Clara senior housing projects all have many vacancies, should our historical agricultural land be taken for unneeded housing? 4. BANNED CANCER CAUSING CHEMICAL DIELDRIN IN BAREC SOIL: We have recently uncovered information about the chemicals in the BAREC soil. The most serious is Dieldrin which is an extremely long lasting chemical banned from usage by EPA in 1989. There is three times more Dieldrin on BAREC than is allowable by EPA standards. Dieldrin is associated with cancers and Parkinson. It could have been one of the chemicals the State sprayed by helicopter from the 1950s through the 1970s. It may also be the major reason why so many people living adjacent to BAREC have had or have cancer. Dieldrin is extremely dangerous when airborne. It appears that the State's plan to clean up the soil contamination is to move the top two feet of soil off the site. Moving the soil combined with construction will place Dieldrin in the air and could make the cancer problem even more serious both for the community and wherever the contaminated soil is placed. Our suggestion is to clean up the soil biologically on site. We have a plan to do this and a soil scientist willing to take on the job. This, however, is not the way the State or any of our local governments clean up soil. It would be a major paradigm shift for them. We believe this is the reason the State and City have announced a Preliminary EIR completion date three times in the past three years. They didn't expect to be watched so closely. If you know anyone who can give us detailed information about Dieldrin for the EIR, please let us know. 5. COUNTY SUPERVISOR BEALL NEEDS ENCOURAGEMENT TO SUPPORT BAREC: We gave a second BAREC presentation to the Cory Neighborhood Association which is adjacent to BAREC. County Supervisor Jim Beall's assistant, Jean Cohen, was at this meeting. From her comments it is clear that Beall has not yet made a decision about his BAREC support. Last September we gave him "the best presentation of any community group in all of his years of public service". Admittedly the BAREC issues are complicated and most of our legislators appear to support developers more than meeting community needs. Beall said he is is not beholden to developers. Let's keep writing him to make sure he supports what the community wants and needs. One important thought to add in your note: Beall's District 4 is the only county district of five districts which has no county park. However, District 4 has many county residents. BAREC is in the middle of District 4 and could become District 4's county park especially since the State did not offer it to them as required by law. Note also that Beall is running for State Assembly next November. You may write him at: email: _jim.beall at box.co.santa-clara.ca.us_ (mailto:jim.beall at box.co.santa-clara.ca.us) phone: 408-356-7710 fax: 408-299-2038 mail: CountyGovernment Building, East Wing, 70 West Hedding Street, San Jose, CA 951101 assistant's name: Jean Cohen (408) 277-3924 6. FRONT COVER NEWS: In late November the "Metro" (_http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/10.19.05/index.html_ (http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/10.19.05/index.html) ) and the "Rose Garden Resident" both did front cover articles on BAREC. The "Metro" was the first to cover the State and City's unethical and illegal issues relating to the BAREC sale. On public television Mayor Mahan stated: "If the county will step forward and say we will join with the City of Santa Clara and purchase some of that [land] or if the City of San Jose wanted to contribute, it would be marvelous. To have 17 acres reserved as open space would be magnificent." Yet, the "Metro" article states that San Jose Councilman Ken Yeager met with Mahan to offer San Jose parks money to help keep BAREC in open space and Mahan never followed through. Note that Mahan and Yeager are running against each other for Jim Beall's County Supervisor position next November. BAREC is caught in the middle of politics. Authors Vrinda Normand and Mary Gotttschalk did excellent pieces in these two weekly newspapers. 7. BAREC ON TELEVISION: In December ABC Channel 7 6 p.m. News did a BAREC special with wonderful aerials from its helicopter. This special included an interview in front of BAREC and adjacent to our Save BAREC Van. Each day this van is parked in front of BAREC on Winchester. Thanks to Kirk Vartan for moving the van every 72 hours and getting the van organized. Thanks to Brian Everett for use of his van and thanks to Pat Fox and Kathryn Mathewson for their sign contributions. 8. VIVA FILES FOR NON PROFIT STATUS: In December VIVA (Valley Initiative for Values in Urban Agriculture and Horticulture) filed papers for its federal non profit status so in the near future those who donate to help BAREC will be able to receive a tax write-off. VIVA is the foundation which offered to purchase BAREC. We have found a donor to purchase all 17 acres at $10,000 per acre as is. This is the price that the UC Regents quoted was its value at the time they voted to return it to the State. We appreciate your support and anything you can do to prepserve our State's agricultural history by saving BAREC from housing. Given the State and City's agenda, this next few months may determine BAREC's fate. Consequently, we will need your help more than ever. Friends of BAREC 888-BAREC-80 _info at savebarec.org_ (mailto:info at savebarec.org) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "SaveBAREC" Subject: Update on BAREC Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 00:26:06 -0800 Size: 25096 URL: From wrolley at charter.net Tue Feb 7 19:42:35 2006 From: wrolley at charter.net (Wes Rolley) Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2006 19:42:35 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Spiritual Progressives Discussion Message-ID: <43E968AB.3010501@charter.net> I feel sick about the continued burning of rural churches in Alabama, four more today. That is not spiritual. I wonder about those "Christians" who would support the most extreme Zionist elements because it will bring the 2nd coming ever closer. I am astounded that Pat Robertson can't keep his mouth shut about politics. But I also remember summer lessons at the Quaker Meeting House when I was young. I wasn't a Quaker. My family was Methodist, as you might have guessed from my name. But the spiritual feeling that came from that community had nothing at all to do with what I mentioned above. Some of the best things that Greens are doing derive from their roots in a spiritual community. That is where Greens are actively involved in the life of the community and their spiritual values and Green Values come together. On the other hand, I recently received a link to an editorial entitiled "The Islamization of The Green Party" in FrontPage Magazine. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21115 That is not the Green Party that I know. For a woman with a scholarly set of credentials, I find it very misleading, poorly researched, very biased. The efforts of California Green Party to reach out to the Islamic Community are not driven by anti-Israel sentiment, but rather from the fact that many good Islamic Families have suffered from the backlash of 911. If there ever is a time to see the union of spiritual values and Green Values to set a standard for behaviour, it is now. BTW: I saw Fred Depperault on Channel 7 KGO-TV tonight. Wesley -- "Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente Wes Rolley http://www.refpub.com/ Tel: 408.778.3024 From AlexCathy at aol.com Wed Feb 8 07:53:03 2006 From: AlexCathy at aol.com (AlexCathy at aol.com) Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 10:53:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] A washingtonpost.com video link from: AlexCathy@aol.com Message-ID: <3993134.1139413984485.JavaMail.wlogic@sane5> You have been sent this video link from AlexCathy at aol.com as a courtesy of washingtonpost.com Personal Message: Click this link for an example of how faith can move some people to SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER Civil Rights Leader Lowery Speaks at King Funeral http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2006/02/07/VI2006020701526.html?referrer=emaillink Visit washingtonpost.com today for the latest in: News - http://www.washingtonpost.com/?referrer=emaillink Politics - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/politics/?referrer=emaillink Sports - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/sports/?referrer=emaillink Entertainment Guide - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artsandliving/entertainmentguide/?referrer=emailarticle Travel - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artsandliving/travel/?referrer=emaillink Technology - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/technology/?referrer=emaillink Want the latest news in your inbox? Check out washingtonpost.com's e-mail newsletters: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?node=admin/email&referrer=emaillink ? 2004 The Washington Post Company From eameece at california.com Wed Feb 8 18:00:57 2006 From: eameece at california.com (E. Alan Meece) Date: Wed, 08 Feb 2006 18:00:57 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] dentist recommendation Message-ID: <43EAA258.6B77@california.com> Tian, I recommend Devinder S. Shoker. He's in north San Jose, but prices are lower there and he gives good service with no runaround. He's East-Indian. 2133 Morrill Ave, San Jose 95132 (408)945-0411 Eric the Green From alexcathy at aol.com Thu Feb 9 07:26:40 2006 From: alexcathy at aol.com (alexcathy at aol.com) Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2006 10:26:40 -0500 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Spiritual Progressives In-Reply-To: <43E5B4DD.1E0A@california.com> References: <43E5B4DD.1E0A@california.com> Message-ID: <8C7FBA45BB51ACE-16E0-3B72@MBLK-R08.sysops.aol.com> Dear Green Friends, How is this for great timing!? You may have seen this in the MSM. A group of leading evangelical Christian leaders, of all people, have come out strongly on the question of global warning. "...Specifically, and mirroring a proposal by the Pew Foundation, the leaders called on Congress to pass laws to create a trading system that would spur companies to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, which scientists say is a major cause of global warming. One such bill, The Climate Stewardship Act, first introduced in 2003 by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and Connecticut Democrat Sen. Joseph Lieberman, would require that U.S. emissions return to their 2000 levels by 2010..." At the risk of sounding like a cynical Karl Rove-style political torpedo, this is clearly an opening for the Greens if only because we are not associated with all those Democrats they hate! I mean, if, say, Ted Kennedy or Hillary Clinton was pushing this, I dare say the knee-jerk reaction of these guys would be to oppose it. This is something that Greens could be pushing for in every "Red" district in the country. Alex Walker = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Posted on America Online, Thursday, February 9, 2006. EVANGELICALS URGE ACTION ON GLOBAL WARMING By Alan Elsner, Reuters WASHINGTON (Feb. 9) - A group of 85 evangelical Christian leaders on Wednesday backed legislation opposed by the White House to cut carbon dioxide emissions, kicking off a campaign to mobilize religious conservatives to combat global warming. The group which included mega-church pastors, Christian college presidents, religious broadcasters and writers, also unveiled a full-page advertisement to run in Thursday's New York Times and a television ad it hopes to screen nationally. "With God's help, we can stop global warming for our kids, our world and our Lord," the television spot declared. The campaign by evangelicals coincided with a call on Wednesday by a leading U.S. think tank for the United States to take immediate steps to fight global warming, including working with other nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Pew Center for Global Climate Change said in a report that America has waited too long to seriously tackle the climate change problem and spelled out 15 steps the United States could take to reduce emissions it spews as the world's biggest energy consumer and producer of greenhouse gases. "This transition will not be easy, but it is crucial to begin now," the Pew Center said. "Further delay will only make the challenge before us more daunting and more costly." The campaign by the evangelical leaders represented a possible split in President George W. Bush's political base, in which Christian evangelical voters are heavily represented. However, the names of most of the president's most influential Christian political backers were notably absent from the list of signatories joining the campaign. Possibly the best-known signer was Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book, "The Purpose Driven Life." TRADING SYSTEM Specifically, and mirroring a proposal by the Pew Foundation, the leaders called on Congress to pass laws to create a trading system that would spur companies to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, which scientists say is a major cause of global warming. One such bill, The Climate Stewardship Act, first introduced in 2003 by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and Connecticut Democrat Sen. Joseph Lieberman, would require that U.S. emissions return to their 2000 levels by 2010. The United States, with around 5 percent of the world's population, accounts for a quarter of its greenhouse gases and U.S. emissions rose by 2 percentage points in 2004 alone, according to government figures. The McCain-Lieberman bill has failed to win passage twice in the Senate, although a majority there did adopt a non-binding resolution to cap emissions. The issue has not come up for a vote in the House of Representatives. The Bush administration opposes imposing mandatory limits and backs voluntary efforts by companies. It has also refused to join the Kyoto Protocol, an international accord signed by the European Union, Japan and most other industrialized nations that sets hard targets for cutting emissions. The Christian leaders said they were impelled by their faith to launch the campaign out of a growing realization that the threat of global warming was real and that the world's poor would suffer the most. Paul de Vries, president of New York Divinity School, said: "However we treat the world, that's how we are treating Jesus because He is the cosmic glue." The leaders said a poll they commissioned of 1,000 evangelical Protestants showed that two thirds were convinced global warming was taking place. Additionally, 63 percent said the United States must start to address the issue immediately and half said it must act even if there was a high economic cost. The Pew Foundation also recommended boosting renewable fuel output and providing financial incentives to farmers to spur absorption of greenhouse gas emissions on farm lands. U.S. government weather forecasters reported on Tuesday that the nation's January temperatures were the warmest on record, beating the average for the month by 8.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Two weeks ago NASA scientists confirmed that 2005 was the hottest year ever recorded worldwide. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = From workoutwellforall at gmail.com Thu Feb 9 19:30:49 2006 From: workoutwellforall at gmail.com (Christian Pecaut) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 19:30:49 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Minutes from 2/7/05 Santa Clara Green Meeting Message-ID: <58f8ab140602091930v7c33f00ai6feba85d0114fb7@mail.gmail.com> Santa Clara Green Party Meeting -- 2/7/06 Tim, Cameron, Dana, Gary, Jerry, Brian, Warner, Jim, Jody, Jim, Mike, Peter, Carol, and Christian were present.. #1 - STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL - MICHAEL LYMAN #2 - TABLING - JIM DOYLE #3 - PLANNING MEETING FOR COUNTY COUNCIL #4 - BYLAWS CHANGE #5 - UPCOMING COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTIONS #6 - DE ANZA 8 STATUS UPDATE - JIM DOYLE #7 - REPORT FROM COUNTY COUNCIL #8 - CAROL BROUILLET FOR CONGRESS #9 - CHANGE MEETING DATE #10 - REGIONAL REPS COMPAINTS #11 - FAIR WAGE CAMPAIGN - TIM SMITH #12 - HOW TO GATHER SIGNATURES - TIM SMITH -- #1 - STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL - MICHAEL LYMAN Treasurer for state Green Party for 5 years. Began campaigning 1.5 months ago. Major Issues: 1) Death Penalty - he lives near San Quentin, attends the rallys, and works with other groups there - $4 million dollar shortfall caused schools to close in SF, but Schwarzenegger has suggested $200 million for expanding death row, expecting 100s more beds on death row 2) Reform of 3 Strikes - Prop 60 failed by a small margin - working to keep the campaign alive 3) Decriminalize Drugs, Defend Medical Marijuana 4) Defend Freedom of Marriage, and Immigrants Rights 5) Pressure Lockyer, current CA Attorney General on Homeland Security and PATRIOT Act enforcement 6) Legal Actions w/ Enron -- there are still settlements coming out 7) Lots of Support for Impeachment for War Crimes "The quickest way to start a revolution is to enforce the law." #2 - TABLING - JIM DOYLE - Carol needs tabling materials - We'll include Living Wage petitions - Mountain View Farmer's Market was suggested as a good place to table #3 - PLANNING MEETING FOR COUNTY COUNCIL - Jim would like the planning meeting to be _realistic_, in previous planning sessions many people come, offer ideas, and then disappear - Jerry would like the meeting in San Jose - Carol would like to bring in Greens from the voter rolls - Dana remembers slate night of Green candidates working well for one of these events, another suggestions for 3 Green Senator candidates to have a debate #4 - BYLAWS CHANGE - no time to implement by laws change - question about by laws determining regions #5 - UPCOMING COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTIONS - Jim Doyle is the only candidate we have right now, if he is elected alone, then he can appoint everyone else - Need 20 valid signatures to run, without fee, and the time to gather the signatuers begins in February 13th - one more general meeting before the deadline - Others offices do not exclude county council - Primary is on June 7th #6 - DE ANZA 8 STATUS UPDATE - JIM DOYLE - Protest Against Colin Powell at De Anza a few months ago, objects were thrown at police, a young black man was injured - No charged have yet been brought agains them - in a public meeting the sheriff showed video of the protest that was edited, and when the microphone was opened up for public comments, it got shut down after ranting happened #7 - REPORT FROM COUNTY COUNCIL - Discussed possible candidates, one specifically with lots of interested, Alex Walker for Milpitas City Council - Regular Community TV Issue - Meets the last weekend of each month at Mike Fisghetti's home -- should be put on the announcement list before it comes up #8 - CAROL BROUILLET FOR CONGRESS - has gathered 135 signatures already - campaign began with a rally on Martin Luther Kind's birthday, which was videotaped and will be edited for web / community access distribution - ABC - TV showed up, but may not have used any of the footage - All the Greens she has contacted are itching to get active - Got a call from Bill Hillman, a major political candidate consultant, who said that there has not been a better time for third party candidates to run for office - Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance is having a benefit at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland on Feb. 23, a Call to Activism - David Ray Griffin is also speaking at the Grand Lake on March 30th - Behind Every Terrorist There is a Bush, a DVD that Carol produced will air on Free Speech TV on Feburary 19th #9 - CHANGE MEETING DATE - more discussion will continue on the listserv - suggestions were made to move the meeting to the second week of each month, and change the date to wednesday rather than tuesday #10 - REGIONAL REPS COMPAINTS - there has been complaints coming from San Mateo about their county council reps - when pressed for specific allegations, none have been forthcoming -- leaving the issue possibly not deserving more than 30 seconds of inquiry #11 - FAIR WAGE CAMPAIGN - TIM SMITH - $7.75 + COLA -- 73% support - $8.75 + COLA -- 63% support - Schwarzenegger has vetoed the last two years living wage proposals - one good way to determine which proposal to support is to see if it can withstand a big negative advertising campaign, $10-25 million backing that up, which is hard because the Greens have almost no organization or funding - $7.75 + COLA -- $2000/year for 2,000,000 people - $8.75 + COLA -- there has never been a $2.00 increase in the minimum wage elsewhere in the US - Talk to Jerry and Warner for petitions - Time Frame: Gather signatures by Mid to late April 15th, on the ballet in November - Need 385,000 valid signatures, so we will shoot for 600,000 signatures #12 - HOW TO GATHER SIGNATURES - TIM SMITH - take 2 piece of cardboard, and two rubber bands, so that you can hold a stack of petitions rather than clipboards - he handed out a tips sheet for gathering signatures effectively - you can wear a 'Fair Wage Volunteers' nametag in order to distinguish you from petition mercenaries - collecting petitions is protects as free speech, even on private property like malls - need a street address, NOT a PO Box - all cities cited on one petition sheet need to be from the same county - be sure to sign declaration - when someone is approaching, while they are still 20-30ft feet away, ask them if they are registered to vote - then, say that is only takes 30 seconds to fill out the form - while they are signing, do not watch them sign, because now is the best opportunity to pick up another signature because of the human desire to know what other humans are interested in - rush hour at Safeway is from 3:30pm - 6:30pm - Sat/Sun in downtown Palo Alto is busy - four part Green pitch: are you for peace, wages, equal rights, and the environment? From tnharter at greens.org Fri Feb 10 10:42:54 2006 From: tnharter at greens.org (Tian Harter) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 10:42:54 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: FINAL DRAFT: Greens only 'peace' option after Cindy pulls out...] Message-ID: <43ECDEAE.803@greens.org> My first appearance in a Green Party of California press release..... :-) -------- Original Message -------- Subject: FINAL DRAFT: Greens only 'peace' option after Cindy pulls out... Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 00:43:42 -0800 From: civillib at cwnet.com Todd, Tian, Kent: Thanks for your help...could only squeeze in 1 graph per, but I think this works...sends a message to the media you guys are running campaigns. This will go out statewide ot all news outlets from dailies and weeklies to radio, TV and wire services. Several thousand outlets. Stay in touch, and let's try to do this again from the GPCA. Also, what about planning some statewide debates between now and June? Could be good media. Thanks all, Cres News Advisory THE GREEN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA www.cagreens.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, February 10, 2006 Contact(s): Sara Amir, 310.270-7106 saraamir at earthlink.net Pat Driscoll 916.320-6430 pat at sonicfrog.com Susan King 415.823-5524 funking at mindspring.com Cindy Sheehan's decision not to run for US Senate leaves Green Party candidates as the only real option for millions of California voters opposed to the war in Iraq SACRAMENTO ? The nominee of the Green Party for U.S. Senate ? after anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan bowed out of the race Thursday ? may be the only hope for millions of California voters who desperately want the war in Iraq to end, said a trio of Green Party Senate candidates Friday. Cindy Sheehan ended speculation she might seek public office on an anti-war platform by announcing Thursday she would not, as had been rumored, run in the upcoming June Primary opposing pro-war incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein for the Democratic Party nomination. The Green Party's nominee for US Senate is now the only "peace" option for voters ? including Democrats ? who want the war to end, said the three hopefuls who will face-off in the June Primary. "I have the utmost respect for what Cindy Sheehan has been able to accomplish. Now, without someone like her on the Democratic Primary ballot to give peace voters an option, the only way they can make a strong statement is by registering Green and voting in the Green Party Primary, and then vote Green in November," said Tian Harter, one Green candidate. And, Todd Chretien, also running in the Primary for a chance to meet Feinstein, predicted that, had Sheehan run, "millions of Californians would have abandoned the pro-war incumbent to support her. The senate race will be a referendum on the war in Iraq. Sen. Feinstein wants it to continue. I want to bring our troops home now." Kent Mesplay, another Green Party Senate candidate and former party presidential candidate in the 2004 California primary, praised Cindy Sheehan for her "determination to shine a light on the truth and to help in whatever way she can to lead us toward a more peaceful and equitable world. May we all encounter such genuine participants in our fledgling democracy." -30- -- Tian http://tian.greens.org Latest change: Added my pictures from Aimee Allisons kickoff event. From WB4D23 at aol.com Fri Feb 10 12:33:53 2006 From: WB4D23 at aol.com (WB4D23 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 15:33:53 EST Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Annual Internment Order Observance Sunday February 19th in San Jose Message-ID: <2d1.3225c0e.311e52b1@aol.com> Nihomachi Outreach Committee (NOC) presents: The 26th Annual San Jose Day of Remembrance 2006 "Stand Up for Justice" February 19, 2006 Sunday, 5:30 p.m. San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin 640 North 5th Street (Between Taylor and Jackson Streets in Japantown) For more information call Masao at 408-243- 3436 or email _info at sjnoc.org_ (mailto:info at sjnoc.org) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andid at cagreens.org Mon Feb 13 09:31:34 2006 From: andid at cagreens.org (Andrea Dorey) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 09:31:34 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Appeal from HC4A for 2006 Message-ID: <3da16b9d962543028028a6fd87b0aad2@cagreens.org> FYI. A clipping from Health Care 4 All's latest email, enclosed within the ***. Note paragraph 4. Now is the time for all good [people] to come to the aid of THEIR party! They have carried the heavy water for us on this issue?I just hope that we the Green Party can muster the strength and cooperation to support HC4A in their unrelenting effort to make health care accessible to each and every resident of California. Andrea ***************** Happy New Year!?As we carry on our work to establish universal health care in California, it is clear that 2006 will be a very important year.? The campaign is gaining momentum, both in Sacramento and throughout the state.? ? We have seen great progress in building a network of grassroots community support, and in fostering awareness here in Sacramento about the need for universal health care.? The 300 organizations and thousands of individual supporters who have endorsed SB 840 have done an excellent job at keeping CHIRA on the radar screen at the capitol. However, legislators need to see this level of support coming from their own districts.? This is our task for 2006.? ? Last year, SB 840 passed three important Senate committees before it was approved on the Senate Floor; it then ended the year with a key victory in the Assembly Health Committee.? Our goal in 2006 is nothing short of moving SB 840 to the Governor?s desk. This is no small task because the lowest hurdles have already been cleared. ? To do this, it is critical that supporters think creatively and collaboratively about ways to build deep-rooted support in their community and convey this effectively to their elected representatives.? To participate in this growing network of active supporters, get in touch with your regional president of Health Care for All by visiting www.healthcareforall.org. If you are a physician, contact the California Physicians Alliance (CaPA) by emailing capa at jps.net. Additionally, if you belong to another organization endorsing SB 840 (see attached endorsement list [not included in this clipping, ALD]), their leadership can often help you plug into work happening around the state.... ? ******************************** Andrea Dorey Santa Clara County Green Party 408-306-1900 (cell phone: short messages please) Chinese Proverbs: "Serving the powerful is like sleeping with a tiger." and "It is difficult to get off a tiger's back." -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 3144 bytes Desc: not available URL: From gerrygras at earthlink.net Mon Feb 13 17:40:26 2006 From: gerrygras at earthlink.net (Gerry Gras) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 17:40:26 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Annual Planning Meeting Location Message-ID: <43F1350A.8080206@earthlink.net> Last year (I am told) the GPSCC had a planning meeting with a pancake breakfast that was fun and raised some money. So far, no one has come forward willing to organize another meeting like that. So for this year it appears we will have a simpler meeting with just a pot luck. At the moment, we are looking for a good location, preferably convenient to public transit. And I would like to see it somewhere more centrally located, say downtown San Jose. If anyone has suggestions for location, please let me know. I am also assuming that it would happen on a Saturday, probably in the afternoon. Gerry From alexcathy at aol.com Tue Feb 14 07:52:50 2006 From: alexcathy at aol.com (alexcathy at aol.com) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 10:52:50 -0500 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] New Santa Clara Rural Development Fight Message-ID: <8C7FF95D7A06AE8-14B0-2F9C7@mblk-d28.sysops.aol.com> Dear Green Friends, F.Y.I. A new fight is brewing in Santa Clara County over rural development. See pasted below the lead front page article in yesterday's San Jose Mercury News. This is a perennial issue where I live in Milpitas. Overwhelming majorities of our local voters have expressed the desire to maintain our beautiful green hills for twenty years. No matter. A big problem with our money-driven politics is that dumb ideas never go away so long as there are rich people who support them. And since there are plenty of "Silicon Valley" millionaires with fantasies of play-acting as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With The Wind" out of a big ugly mansion on the hills looking down on "micro-slaves" in the valley, this issue never completely goes away. Please note that (who else?) Wes Rolley's dear "friend," the corrupt Congressman Richard Pombo, is mentioned. Also note how the issue has already been "framed" in the language of the familiar rightwing Republican phony "populism." The bullshit pits us "elite" city folks with "401(k) plans for retirement" against po' little ranchers and farmers with "their life savings tied up in land." Can't you just hear the sound track with the country fiddle and the banjo? Alex Walker = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Published in the San Jose Mercury News, Monday, February 13, 2006. DRIVE TO CURB RURAL GROWTH SANTA CLARA COUNTY RANCHERS VOW FIGHT By Paul Rogers Setting the stage for a major land-use battle, a coalition of environmentalists plans to begin collecting signatures today for a ballot measure to set strict new development rules for hillsides, ranches and large farms across Santa Clara County. The Sierra Club, Greenbelt Alliance, Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society and other members of the coalition -- which already has $300,000 in the bank -- must collect 36,040 signatures from registered county voters to qualify for the November ballot, something they and their opponents expect will happen. The measure, which farmers and ranchers fear would drive down the value of their land, would affect nearly half of Santa Clara County's 839,000 acres. The complex proposal would essentially do two things. First, it would reduce the number of homes that could be built in unincorporated, rural areas along the east foothills of the Diablo Range from Milpitas to Gilroy, the Santa Cruz Mountains from Gilroy to Los Altos and east of Mount Hamilton. On lands zoned for ranching, for example, it would allow only one home per 160 acres, down from up to eight homes per 160 acres now. It also would set limits for new development in those areas: curbing the amount of square footage that could be built per parcel, reducing building on ridgelines and banning building unless adequate water is available. Only outside cities The measure would not affect land within city limits. Nor, supporters say, would it affect proposed development in Coyote Valley, which would be annexed into the city of San Jose before the development was built. Supporters say the changes are needed to reduce the risk of sprawl, particularly as Silicon Valley's population grows in the decades ahead. "Part of what makes California such a special place is the rural areas, the oak woodlands, the ridgelines,'' said Melissa Hippard, executive director of the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club. ``We're trying to keep urban areas in urban areas.'' But farmers and ranchers are up in arms. They say the county's general plan already does a good job of protecting rural landscapes by limiting development. They say the proposal, if approved by a majority of voters, would reduce their property values. "This is going to be one of the most controversial land-use issues to be raised here in a long time,'' said Jenny Derry, executive director of the Santa Clara County Farm Bureau. Derry noted that while city residents have 401(k) plans for retirement, rural residents have their life savings tied up in land. "I am personally dead set against it,'' said Don Silacci, a Gilroy cattle rancher and past president of the Santa Clara County Cattlemen's Association. ``We've got all kinds of restrictions now. We just don't need a bunch of environmentalists putting a lot of new regulations on us.'' Help from ex-professor The measure was drafted with help from Robert Girard, a Stanford University Law professor from 1958 to 1994. Over the past 20 years, Girard has been a low-profile author of a number of ballot measures to limit growth across Northern California. He was one of the primary authors of Measure T, for example, which San Mateo County voters passed in 1996 by 74 percent, endorsing a tunnel at Devils Slide on Highway 1 instead of a new highway through a state park, as Caltrans wanted. The $270 million tunnel is now under construction. A slow-growth measure drafted in part by Girard was rejected by voters in San Benito County in 2004. But he also was key in helping write Alameda County's Measure D, approved by voters in 2000, which placed new restrictions on rural development stricter than those now proposed for Santa Clara County. The Sierra Club and real estate developers spent a total of $3 million during that campaign. "There is a real public interest in preserving the rural nature, the natural qualities of the county,'' Girard said. ``To strike some kind of reasonable balance between the rural areas and the urban areas is very important to the public. If you are going to do that, you do have to impose some limitations on development.'' Although there have been no huge new subdivisions approved in recent years on unincorporated ranch land and farmlands in Santa Clara County, Hippard and other environmentalists said they are concerned about potential development proposals. They cite properties such as the 6,500-acre Sargent Ranch near Gilroy, along with development that could result if Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Stockton, ever is successful with his plan to build a freeway over Mount Hamilton from the Central Valley to San Jose. Since the 1970s, Santa Clara has been the most populous county in the Bay Area. Santa Clara County grew by 695,000 people from 1970 to 2005. The current population of 1.7 million is projected to grow to 2.25 million by 2040, according to state estimates. That increase is the equivalent of adding the current populations of Oakland and Tracy. Some endorsements The measure already has won endorsements from Assembly members John Laird and Sally Lieber, Santa Clara County Supervisor Liz Kniss and former supervisors Dianne McKenna, Rod Diridon and Rebecca Morgan. It also is endorsed by former San Jose mayors Susan Hammer and Janet Gray Hayes, along with Dennis Kennedy, the mayor of Morgan Hill, and Judy Kleinberg, the mayor of Palo Alto. But opponents say they will be mobilizing, too. "Owners have been taking care of their land all these years knowing that at some point they'd be able to sell a piece or two and be able to retire on their land,'' said Derry of the farm bureau. ``We see it as a property rights issue.'' = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = For more information, go to www.openspace2006.org. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = From wrolley at charter.net Tue Feb 14 08:35:08 2006 From: wrolley at charter.net (Wes Rolley) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:35:08 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] New Santa Clara Rural Development Fight In-Reply-To: <8C7FF95D7A06AE8-14B0-2F9C7@mblk-d28.sysops.aol.com> References: <8C7FF95D7A06AE8-14B0-2F9C7@mblk-d28.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <43F206BC.6050103@charter.net> >Dear Green Friends, > > F.Y.I. A new fight is brewing in Santa Clara County over rural >development. See pasted below the lead front page article in >yesterday's San Jose Mercury News. > > This is a perennial issue where I live in Milpitas. Overwhelming >majorities of our local voters have expressed the desire to maintain >our beautiful green hills for twenty years. > Alex, Thank you for calling this to everyone's attention. It is worth an expanded comment, which I will probably end up making on CAGREENING. There are a couple of additional items to note: - the highway over Mt. Hamilton that Pombo is pushing will significantly increase the value of some land. Specifically, the Pombo Family Ranch, across which it would go and which would contain some of the most logical intersections with other roads, making them prime development locations. - I have had inquiries from the SJ Metro newpaper about what I know concerning the Mt. Hamilton road. They seem to be interested in doing a story here, just as they did on the Angelides - Tsakopoulos developer money flowing into California Democratic politics. It was a reminded that we should not neglect such alternative newspapers. - I have been reading Bruce Babbit's new book: Cities in the Wilderness: a Vision for Land Use in America. The lessons that he illustrates concerning the development in Tucson, AZ, will be valuable here. He specifically talks about the deeply held belief of ranchers and other land owners who feel that they have the right to get rich off the land in any way that they can. This is not a battle that conservatiionists will win without compromise and inventiveness in seeking solutions. - one of the real issues involved here is that of affordable housing. The lack of affordable housing in Silicon Valley is the impetus for people moving into the foothills and over the mountains to San Joaquin County. And in the middle of this, San Jose builder Barry Swenson is asking for a waiver re complying with Affordable Housing regulations in the construction of new high rise Condo's in Down Town San Jose. (link and exerpt below) These issues are connected and you don't solve one without affecting the other. __ From Tuesday, Feb. 14 San Jose Mercury News: - http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/13867568.htm *DEVELOPERS SAY S.J. AFFORDABLE HOUSING RULE CAN'T BE MET BY JUNE DEADLINE, SEEK WAIVER* The developers of a high-rise condominium project in the heart of downtown San Jose say their project can't proceed unless they're exempted from city affordable housing requirements. But they said there's ``no way in heck'' they can meet the deadline to qualify for that exemption. Co-developers Barry Swenson Builder and parking company owner Albert Schlarmann unveiled detailed drawings last week to the Downtown Association, historic preservationists and other interested parties. The site is now a Second Street parking lot bordering on Fountain Alley. But a key assumption in their 426,000-square-foot project could set up a stumbling block. The developers, who want to build at least 16 stories, say they'll ask the city to extend a waiver of affordable-housing rules beyond a June 30 deadline. City officials say they didn't know the builders were applying for the waiver. ``That's brand new news to me,'' said Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez, who represents downtown. In August 2004, the city waived rules that say 20 percent of the units that developers build in downtown residential projects must be ``affordable,'' a requirement they say can cost them millions. The waiver, which the city issued to encourage downtown high-rise construction, applies to projects that have building permits issued by June 30. -- "Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente Wes Rolley http://www.refpub.com/ Tel: 408.778.3024 From civillib at cwnet.com Tue Feb 14 11:41:03 2006 From: civillib at cwnet.com (civillib at cwnet.com) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 11:41:03 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] [GPCA-MediaComm] New Santa Clara Rural Development Fight Message-ID: <3.0.32.20060214111332.01aaeaf8@mailhost.cwnet.com> Are we (Greens) part of this coalition? If so, if we can get some quotes from you or other Greens active we could toss this out statewide. Cres At 10:52 AM 2/14/2006 -0500, alexcathy at aol.com wrote: >Dear Green Friends, > > F.Y.I. A new fight is brewing in Santa Clara County over rural >development. See pasted below the lead front page article in >yesterday's San Jose Mercury News. > > This is a perennial issue where I live in Milpitas. Overwhelming >majorities of our local voters have expressed the desire to maintain >our beautiful green hills for twenty years. > > No matter. > > A big problem with our money-driven politics is that dumb ideas never >go away so long as there are rich people who support them. And since >there are plenty of "Silicon Valley" millionaires with fantasies of >play-acting as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With The Wind" >out of a big ugly mansion on the hills looking down on "micro-slaves" >in the valley, this issue never completely goes away. > > Please note that (who else?) Wes Rolley's dear "friend," the corrupt >Congressman Richard Pombo, is mentioned. > > Also note how the issue has already been "framed" in the language of >the familiar rightwing Republican phony "populism." The bullshit pits >us "elite" city folks with "401(k) plans for retirement" against po' >little ranchers and farmers with "their life savings tied up in land." > > Can't you just hear the sound track with the country fiddle and the >banjo? > > > Alex Walker > > > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > Published in the San Jose Mercury News, Monday, February 13, 2006. > DRIVE TO CURB RURAL GROWTH > SANTA CLARA COUNTY RANCHERS VOW FIGHT > By Paul Rogers > > Setting the stage for a major land-use battle, a coalition of >environmentalists plans to begin collecting signatures today for a >ballot measure to set strict new development rules for hillsides, >ranches and large farms across Santa Clara County. > The Sierra Club, Greenbelt Alliance, Santa Clara Valley Audubon >Society and other members of the coalition -- which already has >$300,000 in the bank -- must collect 36,040 signatures from registered >county voters to qualify for the November ballot, something they and >their opponents expect will happen. > > The measure, which farmers and ranchers fear would drive down the >value of their land, would affect nearly half of Santa Clara County's >839,000 acres. > > The complex proposal would essentially do two things. First, it would >reduce the number of homes that could be built in unincorporated, rural >areas along the east foothills of the Diablo Range from Milpitas to >Gilroy, the Santa Cruz Mountains from Gilroy to Los Altos and east of >Mount Hamilton. On lands zoned for ranching, for example, it would >allow only one home per 160 acres, down from up to eight homes per 160 >acres now. > > It also would set limits for new development in those areas: curbing >the amount of square footage that could be built per parcel, reducing >building on ridgelines and banning building unless adequate water is >available. > Only outside cities > > The measure would not affect land within city limits. Nor, supporters >say, would it affect proposed development in Coyote Valley, which would >be annexed into the city of San Jose before the development was built. > > Supporters say the changes are needed to reduce the risk of sprawl, >particularly as Silicon Valley's population grows in the decades ahead. > > "Part of what makes California such a special place is the rural >areas, the oak woodlands, the ridgelines,'' said Melissa Hippard, >executive director of the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club. >``We're trying to keep urban areas in urban areas.'' > But farmers and ranchers are up in arms. They say the county's general >plan already does a good job of protecting rural landscapes by limiting >development. They say the proposal, if approved by a majority of >voters, would reduce their property values. > > "This is going to be one of the most controversial land-use issues to >be raised here in a long time,'' said Jenny Derry, executive director >of the Santa Clara County Farm Bureau. > > Derry noted that while city residents have 401(k) plans for >retirement, rural residents have their life savings tied up in land. > "I am personally dead set against it,'' said Don Silacci, a Gilroy >cattle rancher and past president of the Santa Clara County Cattlemen's >Association. ``We've got all kinds of restrictions now. We just don't >need a bunch of environmentalists putting a lot of new regulations on >us.'' > > Help from ex-professor > > The measure was drafted with help from Robert Girard, a Stanford >University Law professor from 1958 to 1994. > Over the past 20 years, Girard has been a low-profile author of a >number of ballot measures to limit growth across Northern California. > > He was one of the primary authors of Measure T, for example, which San >Mateo County voters passed in 1996 by 74 percent, endorsing a tunnel at >Devils Slide on Highway 1 instead of a new highway through a state >park, as Caltrans wanted. The $270 million tunnel is now under >construction. > > A slow-growth measure drafted in part by Girard was rejected by voters >in San Benito County in 2004. But he also was key in helping write >Alameda County's Measure D, approved by voters in 2000, which placed >new restrictions on rural development stricter than those now proposed >for Santa Clara County. The Sierra Club and real estate developers >spent a total of $3 million during that campaign. > > "There is a real public interest in preserving the rural nature, the >natural qualities of the county,'' Girard said. ``To strike some kind >of reasonable balance between the rural areas and the urban areas is >very important to the public. If you are going to do that, you do have >to impose some limitations on development.'' > > Although there have been no huge new subdivisions approved in recent >years on unincorporated ranch land and farmlands in Santa Clara County, >Hippard and other environmentalists said they are concerned about >potential development proposals. They cite properties such as the >6,500-acre Sargent Ranch near Gilroy, along with development that could >result if Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Stockton, ever is successful with his >plan to build a freeway over Mount Hamilton from the Central Valley to >San Jose. > Since the 1970s, Santa Clara has been the most populous county in the >Bay Area. Santa Clara County grew by 695,000 people from 1970 to 2005. >The current population of 1.7 million is projected to grow to 2.25 >million by 2040, according to state estimates. That increase is the >equivalent of adding the current populations of Oakland and Tracy. > > Some endorsements > > The measure already has won endorsements from Assembly members John >Laird and Sally Lieber, Santa Clara County Supervisor Liz Kniss and >former supervisors Dianne McKenna, Rod Diridon and Rebecca Morgan. > > It also is endorsed by former San Jose mayors Susan Hammer and Janet >Gray Hayes, along with Dennis Kennedy, the mayor of Morgan Hill, and >Judy Kleinberg, the mayor of Palo Alto. > But opponents say they will be mobilizing, too. > > "Owners have been taking care of their land all these years knowing >that at some point they'd be able to sell a piece or two and be able to >retire on their land,'' said Derry of the farm bureau. ``We see it as a >property rights issue.'' > > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > > For more information, go to www.openspace2006.org. > > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > > >_______________________________________________ >GPCA-MediaWG mailing list >GPCA-MediaWG at marla.cagreens.org >http://marla.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/gpca-mediawg > > > From wrolley at charter.net Tue Feb 14 15:24:38 2006 From: wrolley at charter.net (Wes Rolley) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 15:24:38 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] We don't need no stinking licenses! Message-ID: <43F266B6.7020908@charter.net> It all goes to show, if you are rich enough and powererful enough you don't need anything. First Schwarzenegger had no motorcycle license. Now Chency had no $7 stamp on his hunting license. I guess he was too busy looking for WMD and bailing out Scooter. -- "Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente Wes Rolley http://www.refpub.com/ Tel: 408.778.3024 From j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net Wed Feb 15 13:41:47 2006 From: j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net (Jim Doyle) Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2006 13:41:47 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] tabling in Mountain View Message-ID: <43F3A01B.5010805@sbcglobal.net> Tian will be tabling at the Mountain View Farmer's Market this coming Sunday and he needs some help. If you can table for a couple or a few hours on Sunday between 9 am and 1 pm please let Tian or Jim Doyle know. Tian: TNHarter at aol.com (650) 964-6481 Jim D j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net (408) 269-3299 From tnharter at greens.org Thu Feb 16 12:37:49 2006 From: tnharter at greens.org (Tian Harter) Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 12:37:49 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] New Santa Clara Rural Development Fight In-Reply-To: <8C7FF95D7A06AE8-14B0-2F9C7@mblk-d28.sysops.aol.com> References: <8C7FF95D7A06AE8-14B0-2F9C7@mblk-d28.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <43F4E29D.3080008@greens.org> I'm feeling like I need some coppies of that petition to get signatures on. -- Tian http://tian.greens.org Latest change: Added my pictures from Barry Hermanson's kickoff event. From TNHarter at aol.com Thu Feb 16 17:06:31 2006 From: TNHarter at aol.com (TNHarter at aol.com) Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 20:06:31 EST Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Fwd: [G-C-F] seeking experience with green party fundraising envelopes in mailers Message-ID: <13d.24bbe8d4.31267b97@aol.com> -- Tian Harter http://tianharter.org Now gathering signatures to get on the ballot as a Green Party Candidate for U. S. Senator. So far 147 signatures have been validated. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Mike Feinstein Subject: [G-C-F] seeking experience with green party fundraising envelopes in mailers Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 12:16:00 -0800 Size: 7592 URL: From tnharter at greens.org Thu Feb 16 22:54:18 2006 From: tnharter at greens.org (Tian Harter) Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 22:54:18 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: [SBM] Winter Soldier, the film is coming to Palo Alto] Message-ID: <43F5731A.9050806@greens.org> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [SBM] Winter Soldier, the film is coming to Palo Alto Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 16:44:58 -0800 From: bernard greening To: vfp SJ , David Tam , Sharon Kufeldt ,Dennis Kyne , South Bay Mobilization An intense, unforgettable film... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Winter Soldier** The Film* * Monday, February 27 7:30 p.m. First Presbyterian Church 1140 Cowper Street, Palo Alto $7 - $15 sliding scale - No one turned away Wheelchair accessible Proceeds benefit the March 18 antiwar rally in Palo Alto* *?Why did it take 30 years for this film to get a national release? *The soldiers' sentiments could just as well have been conveyed today about Iraq. Their visible anguish is a sobering reality check about the nature of war.? S.F. Chronicle *?Like a live hand grenade brought home from a distant battlefield,* the 34-year-old antiwar documentary /Winter Soldier/ has been handled for decades as if it could explode at any moment.? N.Y. Times *?In an ideal and informed democracy, a /Winter Soldier/ screening would be a voter registration requirement.? *Village Voice Download and distribute the flyer. Click here. View Printable Version -- Tian http://tian.greens.org Latest change: Added my pictures from Barry Hermanson's kickoff event. From rob.means at electric-bikes.com Fri Feb 17 10:20:42 2006 From: rob.means at electric-bikes.com (Rob Means) Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 10:20:42 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] letter to the editor Message-ID: <000001c633ee$dca9daf0$6401a8c0@OFFICE> letter to the editor of the Milpitas Post: County Supervisor McHugh proposed a task force to strengthen ethics and lobbying ordinances (Post 2/26/06). I believe that trying to better control the behavior of "evil" elected officials is a challenge beyond his abilities. Better he should work to get "good" people elected in the first place. Currently, we have a system of voting for the lesser of two evils, instead of voting for the best available. For example, in the 2000 presidential election, we got to vote for the lesser of two evils - Bush or Gore. Some of us who voted for Nader (who's generally considered "good") were chastised for splitting the vote and allowing the worse of two evils (Bush) to get elected. I say, let's change the system. Instand Run-off Voting (IRV) would solve the problem. Also known as "ranked voting", IRV would allow me to rank Nader #1, Gore #2, and Bush #3 (actually I would have placed Bush below Pat Buchanan). Since neither Gore nor Bush got 50% of the vote, votes for Nader would be discarded and the #2 votes counted. IRV encourages people to vote for the best available without hurting their own interests. IRV was recently implemented in San Francisco. The current system of winner-take-all benefits incumbents, whether state, county or city. One Milpitas City Council member has said that he loves it when many people are on the ballot because they split the vote and he wins easily. Supervisor McHugh also overlooks the fact that the Culture of Corruption in Washington results from our method of funding campaigns. Senators and Congressmen must raise thousands of dollars every day to pay for their campaigns. In that environment, a lobbyist like Jack Abramoff can deliver piles of money in return for legislative votes. Again, the solution is simple and being used today in Maine and Arizona. Let the public pay for the campaigns! Public financing is a small cost to insure that 1) legislators are not beholden to special (i.e. monied) interests, 2) every qualified person has a chance at election, not just the rich and politically-connected, and 3) legislators are doing the public's business, not wasting time raising money for their next campaign. The County already has the authority to implement IRV. And the new electronic voting machines give us the technical ability. All that's missing is a commitment to real change - instead of posturing for the next campaign. Rob Means, Electro Ride Bikes and Scooters 408-262-8975 rob.means at electric-bikes.com 1421 Yellowstone Ave., Milpitas, CA 95035-6913 Discover cycling that's Easy, Safe, Fast - and FUN! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --- -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.10/263 - Release Date: 2/16/2006 From WB4D23 at aol.com Fri Feb 17 17:25:16 2006 From: WB4D23 at aol.com (WB4D23 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 20:25:16 EST Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Fwd: [JVPBA-Announce] Joel Beinin's Lecture Stanford University Tues Feb 21 Message-ID: <8a.3670e8b9.3127d17c@aol.com> Muslim Students Awarness Network History Department Taube Center for Jewish Studies Abbasi Program for Islamic Studies presents Joel Beinin Professor of History Stanford University Jews in the Modern Arab World Tuesday, February 21, 2006, 7:30 PM Building 200, room 02 Lane History Corner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Mitchell Plitnick" Subject: [JVPBA-Announce] Fw: [JewishClubMaoz] ACTION ALERT:Joel Beinin's Lecture -Jews in Arab World Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 13:58:36 -0800 Size: 20928 URL: From gerrygras at earthlink.net Fri Feb 17 21:52:00 2006 From: gerrygras at earthlink.net (Gerry Gras) Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 21:52:00 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: Initiative Update] Message-ID: <43F6B600.8080405@earthlink.net> Here is some information about a county wide open space initiative. We (GPSCC) may want to endorse this. Gerry -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Initiative Update Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 09:08:31 -0800 From: Peter Drekmeier Friends, The website for the Santa Clara County Land Conservation Initiative is live. You can check it out at http://www.OpenSpace2006.org. Please spread the word and link to your blogs. Can you help collect signatures this weekend? If so, we'll set you up with petitions and instructions. Just let me know. Please join us for one of our volunteer meetings in San Jose and Palo Alto on Sunday. We'll go over the details of the Initiative and let you know how you can help out. Here are the details: Sunday, Feb. 19, 3-4pm Martin Luther King Jr. Library 150 E. San Fernando St., 2nd Floor San Jose Sunday, Feb. 19, 7-8pm Peninsula Conservation Center 3921 E. Bayshore Road Palo Alto Thank you. Any support would be much appreciated. -Peter ----------------------------------- Peter Drekmeier Campaign Coordinator People for Land and Nature (PLAN) 48 So. Seventh St. San Jose, CA 95112 (650) 223-3306 Peter at OpenSpace2006.org www.OpenSpace2006.org From wrolley at charter.net Sat Feb 18 16:29:56 2006 From: wrolley at charter.net (Wes Rolley) Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 16:29:56 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: Discussion-GPAC Berkeley Tuesday IRV rally 6pm!] Message-ID: <43F7BC04.5040305@charter.net> -- "Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente Wes Rolley http://www.refpub.com/ Tel: 408.778.3024 -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Jesse Townley Subject: Discussion-GPAC Berkeley Tuesday IRV rally 6pm! Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 16:27:41 -0800 Size: 9286 URL: From WB4D23 at aol.com Sat Feb 18 21:33:59 2006 From: WB4D23 at aol.com (WB4D23 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 00:33:59 EST Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Dorothy Naor, New Profile, Speaking in Sunnyvale, Thursday March 16th Message-ID: <290.5e4eb15.31295d47@aol.com> South Bay Jewish Voice for Peace Guest Speaker: Dorothy Naor of New Profile ?Co-Existence Can Work? New Profile is an Israeli feminist, anti-militarist organization. Ms. Naor, originally from San Francisco, has lived in Israel since1958. She will speak about the philosophy and activities of New Profile, how the Occupation affects Israelis and Palestinians, and what non-violent means, including the use of economic pressure, can be used to help end the Occupation. Thursday, March 16, 2006 7:00 PM Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church Rm. 501 728 W. Fremont Ave. (Near Hollenback) Sunnyvale Endorsed by: San Jose Womens International League for Peace and Freedom, Tikkun, Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church Pilgrims of Ibillin, South Bay Mobilization for Peace For more information call: 408-566-3114 or email southbay at jewishvoiceforpeace.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net Sun Feb 19 16:29:23 2006 From: j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net (Jim Doyle) Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 16:29:23 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] possible meeting locations Message-ID: <43F90D63.4050404@sbcglobal.net> I have attended meetings of other groups at each of these places. In my opinion either one would serve our purposes. Lori's Diner 19930 Stevens Creek Blvd Cupertino Between Highway 85 and Wolfe Road One just calls for a no fee reservation (408) 257-1950 Stuft Pizza Bar and Grill 1461 W Campbell Ave at N San Tomas Aquino Rd Campbell, CA 95008-1616 408-871-7171 I am waiting for a return call for details on fees and meal requirements, if any. However, they even tolerated a 3 person meeting one night. From j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net Sun Feb 19 22:42:00 2006 From: j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net (Jim Doyle) Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 22:42:00 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] minimum wage Message-ID: <43F964B8.6050709@sbcglobal.net> Here is an article on a recently released study that shows 1) predicted consequences have not occurred 2) positive benefits have occurred from a minimum wage law or ordinance in Miami-Dade county. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0218-23.htm From tnharter at greens.org Mon Feb 20 10:54:24 2006 From: tnharter at greens.org (Tian Harter) Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 10:54:24 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: [SBM] Go see "Why We Fight"] Message-ID: <43FA1060.8000700@greens.org> I went along to this showing, and it does talk about the reasons behind the war in Iraq in a constructive way. There are things like Dwight Eisenhower's son explaining the evolution in his father's thinking, and a retired New York cop explaining his own. -- Tian http://tian.greens.org Latest change: Added my pictures from Barry Hermanson's kickoff event. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [SBM] Go see "Why We Fight" Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 10:43:33 -0800 (PST) From: Charlotte Casey To: South Bay Mobilization A bunch of us saw it last week and thought it was excellent. This week it's at Santana Row and will most likely move to the Century 25 in Saratoga on Friday. Go see it and recommend it to your friends! Charlotte From j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net Tue Feb 21 12:27:22 2006 From: j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net (Jim Doyle) Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 12:27:22 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] community health care meeting Message-ID: <43FB77AA.7020905@sbcglobal.net> First the notice, then after it a question. /Come to/ /Fighting for our Lives:/ *A Community* *Health Care Hearing* Saturday, February 25 10:00 am ? 1:00 pm 55 W. Younger Ave., San Jose (Sheriff?s Auditorium, one block north of First and Hedding) This is a hearing called by the community to raise awareness about the urgent need to deal with the health care crisis. Our congressional representatives and other elected officials have been invited to listen to *testimony about health care problems and solutions, such as SB 840 and HR 676, bills for comprehensive universal single payer health care. *It is one of over forty Citizens Congressional Hearings nationwide, coordinated by Health Care Now and* *Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan), author of HR 676, _www.healthcare-now.org_. /*Everybody In, Nobody Out*/ /*Sponsors:* Health Care for All Californians ? Silicon Valley Coalition; San Jose Labor Party; CHAM (Community Homeless Alliance Ministry); Low-Income Self-Help Center; California Nurses Association; South Bay Central Labor Council; SIREN (Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network); CWA #9423; 9 to 5; Unitarian Fellowship (Santa Cruz); Funeral Consumers Alliance (Santa Cruz); Women?s International League for Peace and Freedom; FORUM (Federation of Retired Union Members); UFCW #428; California Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign; CARA; Santa Clara County Democratic Party; California Physicians Alliance/ REFRESHMENTS AND CHILDCARE WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL (408) 977-1275 OR (650) 322-9609 My question is how did we miss endorsing this meeting? From WB4D23 at aol.com Tue Feb 21 15:24:09 2006 From: WB4D23 at aol.com (WB4D23 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 18:24:09 EST Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] SJSU Earth Day Thursday April 20th Message-ID: <27d.604eff9.312cfb19@aol.com> I received a telephone call from someone at the Environmental Studies Department who advised that the SJSU Earth Day will be Thursday April 20th. Participation application form to be mailed. Warner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gerrygras at earthlink.net Wed Feb 22 09:51:19 2006 From: gerrygras at earthlink.net (Gerry Gras) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 09:51:19 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Will GPSCC endorse the Open Space Initiative? Message-ID: <43FCA497.1080204@earthlink.net> The organizers of the Open Space Initiative have asked the GPSCC to endorse the initiative. I have seen support on this list for this measure. I plan to ask the county council to vote on this. I am not including the "Information Enclosed" because it is 92 KB. It is available on request. Gerry -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Green party endose Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 15:46:15 -0800 (PST) Hi Gerry, As a follow up to our telephone conversation, - we hope that the Green Party of Santa Clara County will endorse the Land Conservation initiative. We would be glad to come to the next meeting (First Tuesday of the month - March 7) at the Banjara Restaurant (6:30 social hour 7:30 business meeting - www.banjarainc.com). If there is a way to get an earlier endorsement that would be helpful. Information enclosed: 1) Title and Summary from County Counsel 2) e mail from Charlotte with Peter's notfication (which has Initiative's web site info - http://www.OpenSpace2006.org available next week) Let me know if other is info is needed to help get the Green Party's endorsement. Get well soon. Ernie From erik at kiehle.com Wed Feb 22 11:44:06 2006 From: erik at kiehle.com (Erik Kiehle) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 11:44:06 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Considering a run for Assembly District 24 Message-ID: <0419E476-4D41-4E8A-8BE9-25A28BD05728@kiehle.com> Hello everyone. I'm considering a run for Assembly District 24. I'd like to know if anyone else is planning to run or if anyone has thought or objections. Thanks, Erik Kiehle Resident of Campbell erik at kiehle.com -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 2431 bytes Desc: not available URL: From wrolley at charter.net Wed Feb 22 20:33:39 2006 From: wrolley at charter.net (Wes Rolley) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 20:33:39 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Open Space Initiative Message-ID: <43FD3B23.8070800@charter.net> I have not yet gone through the entire proposed initiative. However, from what I have read, the GPSCC should definitely endorse this initiative. I have some additional questions that I want to discuss with Mike Grzan a Morgan Hill City Councilman who has already endorsed the measure. These involve the manner in which the initiative would impact the MH Urban Growth Boundary provisions and the City of San Jose's Coyote Valley Specific Plan . I am more concerned about the latter, mostly because there is not much I can do about it. All I know about the Coyote Valley Plan is that everytime it changes, it gets better for developers. -- "Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente Wes Rolley http://www.refpub.com/ Tel: 408.778.3024 From tnharter at greens.org Wed Feb 22 22:35:50 2006 From: tnharter at greens.org (Tian Harter) Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:35:50 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: Notes From the Trail: We're Not In Kansas Anymore, Toto] Message-ID: <43FD57C6.1090109@greens.org> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 17078 bytes Desc: not available URL: From vdf at juno.com Thu Feb 23 09:27:45 2006 From: vdf at juno.com (Valerie D. Face) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 17:27:45 GMT Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Some feedback on signatures in lieu of filing fee for Laura Wells for State Controller Message-ID: <20060223.092812.20391.442539@webmail11.lax.untd.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From fredd at freeshell.org Thu Feb 23 12:08:37 2006 From: fredd at freeshell.org (Fred Duperrault) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 12:08:37 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Open Space Initiative Message-ID: <43FE1645.2070604@freeshell.org> My uunderstanding is that the initiative will not impact the Coyote Valley because it is within Jan Jose's city limits. The initiative addresses only areas that are not incorporated as municipalities. Fred Duperrault I have not yet gone through the entire proposed initiative. However, from what I have read, the GPSCC should definitely endorse this initiative. I have some additional questions that I want to discuss with Mike Grzan a Morgan Hill City Councilman who has already endorsed the measure. These involve the manner in which the initiative would impact the MH Urban Growth Boundary provisions and the City of San Jose's Coyote Valley Specific Plan . I am more concerned about the latter, mostly because there is not much I can do about it. All I know about the Coyote Valley Plan is that everytime it changes, it gets better for developers. -- "Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente Wes Rolley http://www.refpub.com/ Tel: 408.778.3024 _______________________________________________ sosfbay-discuss mailing list sosfbay-discuss at marla.cagreens.org http://marla.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss From j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net Thu Feb 23 12:10:44 2006 From: j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net (Jim Doyle) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 12:10:44 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] March Peace March in Palo Alto Message-ID: <43FE16C4.2090206@sbcglobal.net> I have let Paul George know that the Green Party of Santa Clara County would be a cosponsor of the event. He has many requests for speakers - 2 or 3 minutes each - and the Green Parties of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties will be considered. Jim Doyle From wrolley at charter.net Thu Feb 23 18:23:14 2006 From: wrolley at charter.net (Wes Rolley) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 18:23:14 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: [GPCA Updates] Green Party - Part time administrative help sought] Message-ID: <43FE6E12.8000801@charter.net> -- "Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente Wes Rolley http://www.refpub.com/ Tel: 408.778.3024 -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Jim Stauffer Subject: [GPCA Updates] Green Party - Part time administrative help sought Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 18:14:35 -0800 Size: 4292 URL: From tnharter at greens.org Sun Feb 26 23:58:23 2006 From: tnharter at greens.org (Tian Harter) Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2006 23:58:23 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Fwd: An Article About Globalization and the American Economy Message-ID: <4402B11F.1030104@greens.org> Received from a politically savvy friend (article follows): Unfortunately, Bill Clinton made another one of those "some-people-see-less-than-others" moves when he pushed NAFTA through back in 1993. I remember standing in my kitchen when the NAFTA thing was signed, and thinking: Why is Clinton doing this? Surely he doesn't actually believe this horseshit! This (and other globalization enabling moves) cannot possibly work. Of course, a lot of people were saying that because it was common sense; Clinton and co. said they knew better.... Clinton's greatest character flaw may be his huge need to be accepted by the likes of the crowd who engineered his public humiliation and downfall (he's still at it, with the Bushes). Jeff Faux, writing in _The Nation_, stated: "There was no compelling economic or political reason for Bill Clinton the make NAFTA a priority in his first year as president. In economic terms, nothing was broken that needed fixing. Politically, NAFTA and the WTO that followed traded away the interests of the Democratic Party's blue-collar base while creating a bonanza for Republican constituencies on Wall Street and in red-state agribusiness.... A year later, in November 1994, enough angry Democratic voters stayed away from the polls to give the Republicans control of the House.... The Democrats still have not recovered." ["The Party of Davos," _The Nation_, Feb. 13, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/faux.] And they still have not learned anything. They keep swallowing the Repug-lite snake oil. They still have a neurotic need to seek the appreciation of their sworn enemies, whose mission is destroy them and democracy in the USA by any means fair or foul. Thirteen years and a war later, we're on Skid Row. The "sucking noise" is now the only sound to be heard in this economy... It's grown to a roar.... What to do now? None of our leaders (any Dems out there? Sucking noise, anyone?) seems to have any idea. Otherwise, they might actually be mentioning this problem out loud. ----- *Forget Iran, Americans Should be Hysterical About This *Nuking the Economy by Paul Craig Roberts Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics re-benchmarked the payroll jobs data back to 2000. Thanks to Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services, I have the adjusted data from January 2001 through January 2006. If you are worried about terrorists, you don't know what worry is. Job growth over the last five years is the weakest on record. The US economy came up more than 7 million jobs short of keeping up with population growth. That?s one good reason for controlling immigration. An economy that cannot keep up with population growth should not be boosting population with heavy rates of legal and illegal immigration. Over the past five years, the US economy experienced a net job loss in goods-producing activities. The entire job growth was in service-providing activities -- primarily credit intermediation; health care and social assistance; waiters, waitresses, and bartenders; and state and local government. US manufacturing lost 2.9 million jobs, almost 17% of the manufacturing work force. The wipe-out is across the board. Not a single manufacturing payroll classification created a single new job. The declines in some manufacturing sectors have more in common with a country undergoing saturation bombing during war than with a super-economy that is "the envy of the world." Communications equipment lost 43% of its workforce. Semiconductors and electronic components lost 37% of its workforce. The workforce in computers and electronic products declined 30%. Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25% of its employees. The workforce in motor vehicles and parts declined 12%. Furniture and related products lost 17% of its jobs. Apparel manufacturers lost almost half of the work force. Employment in textile mills declined 43%. Paper and paper products lost one-fifth of its jobs. The work force in plastics and rubber products declined by 15%. Even manufacturers of beverages and tobacco products experienced a 7% shrinkage in jobs. The knowledge jobs that were supposed to take the place of lost manufacturing jobs in the globalized "new economy" never appeared. The information sector lost 17% of its jobs, with the telecommunications work force declining by 25%. Even wholesale and retail trade lost jobs. Despite massive new accounting burdens imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley, accounting and bookkeeping employment shrank by 4%. Computer systems design and related lost 9% of its jobs. Today there are 209,000 fewer managerial and supervisory jobs than 5 years ago. In five years the US economy only created 70,000 jobs in architecture and engineering, many of which are clerical. Little wonder engineering enrollments are shrinking. There are no jobs for graduates. The talk about engineering shortages is absolute ignorance. There are several hundred thousand American engineers who are unemployed and have been for years. No student wants a degree that is nothing but a ticket to a soup line. Many engineers have written to me that they cannot even get Wal-Mart jobs because their education makes them over-qualified. Offshore outsourcing and offshore production have left the US awash with unemployment among the highly educated. The low measured rate of unemployment does not include discouraged workers. Labor arbitrage has made the unemployment rate less and less a meaningful indicator. In the past unemployment resulted mainly from turnover in the labor force and recession. Recoveries pulled people back into jobs. Unemployment benefits were intended to help people over the down time in the cycle when workers were laid off. Today the unemployment is permanent as entire occupations and industries are wiped out by labor arbitrage as corporations replace their American employees with foreign ones. Economists who look beyond political press releases estimate the US unemployment rate to be between 7% and 8.5%. There are now hundreds of thousands of Americans who will never recover their investment in their university education. Unless the BLS is falsifying the data or businesses are reporting the opposite of the facts, the US is experiencing a job depression. Most economists refuse to acknowledge the facts, because they endorsed globalization. It was a win-win situation, they said. They were wrong. At a time when America desperately needs the voices of educated people as a counterweight to the disinformation that emanates from the Bush administration and its supporters, economists have discredited themselves. This is especially true for "free market economists" who foolishly assumed that international labor arbitrage was an example of free trade that was benefiting Americans. Where is the benefit when employment in US export industries and import-competitive industries is shrinking? After decades of struggle to regain credibility, free market economics is on the verge of another wipe-out. No sane economist can possibly maintain that a deplorable record of merely 1,054,000 net new private sector jobs over five years is an indication of a healthy economy. The total number of private sector jobs created over the five year period is 500,000 jobs less than one year?s legal and illegal immigration! (In a December 2005 Center for Immigration Studies report based on the Census Bureau?s March 2005 Current Population Survey, Steven Camarota writes that there were 7.9 million new immigrants between January 2000 and March 2005.) The economics profession has failed America. It touts a meaningless number while joblessness soars. Lazy journalists at the New York Times simply rewrite the Bush administration's press releases. On February 10, the Commerce Department released a record US trade deficit in goods and services for 2005 -- $726 billion. The US deficit in Advanced Technology Products reached a new high. Offshore production for home markets and jobs outsourcing has made the US highly dependent on foreign provided goods and services, while simultaneously reducing the export capability of the US economy. It is possible that there might be no exchange rate at which the US can balance its trade. Polls indicate that the Bush administration is succeeding in whipping up fear and hysteria about Iran. The secretary of defense is promising Americans decades-long war. Is death in battle Bush?s solution to the job depression? Will Asians finance a decades-long war for a bankrupt country? --- Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts at yahoo.com . -- Tian http://tian.greens.org Latest change: Added my pictures from Barry Hermanson's kickoff event. From j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net Mon Feb 27 11:32:00 2006 From: j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net (Jim Doyle) Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 11:32:00 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Berryessa Art and Wine Festival Tabling Message-ID: <440353B0.5010109@sbcglobal.net> Here is a portion of an email notice I received. We will need tablers for this event so tabling at this event should be on the agenda for the March 7-th meeting. I would like to extend an invitation to your organization to participate on Community Row in this year's Berryessa Art and Wine Festival. As a non-profit organization or government agency, your space will be free or charge as long as you contact me by March 15. This will be the 31st year of the Berryessa Art and Wine Festival and it will again be held on the Saturday immediately before Mother's Day. This year it will be held on Saturday, May 13, from 10 am until 5 pm at Penitencia Creek Park on 3050 Berryessa Road at the Berryessa Community Center. From MARKETPOIN at aol.com Tue Feb 28 12:19:06 2006 From: MARKETPOIN at aol.com (MARKETPOIN at aol.com) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 15:19:06 EST Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Fwd: Volunteer - Can I Help Message-ID: <295.64b8a25.31360a3a@aol.com> I received the following e-mail and e-mailed back to him. He would like to volunteer with the Green Party. Can someone get back to him? Judy In a message dated 2/27/2006 11:52:06 PM Pacific Standard Time, tim at alvco.com writes: > Hi - I'd like to volenteer on any level. Call me anytime at work - Tim, > ALVCO Services 408.279.5531 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Timbo Subject: Can I Help Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 23:51:54 -0800 Size: 1004 URL: From thinkgreen at threeparty.org Tue Feb 28 13:16:35 2006 From: thinkgreen at threeparty.org (Roy) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 13:16:35 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Fwd: Volunteer - Can I Help In-Reply-To: <295.64b8a25.31360a3a@aol.com> References: <295.64b8a25.31360a3a@aol.com> Message-ID: <4404BDB3.4020604@threeparty.org> MARKETPOIN at aol.com wrote: > I received the following e-mail and e-mailed back to him. He would like > to volunteer with the Green Party. Can someone get back to him? > > Judy Hmmm I googled ALVCO and it says Plumbing and Solar Heating. Interesting. Roy > From gerrygras at earthlink.net Tue Feb 28 13:16:42 2006 From: gerrygras at earthlink.net (Gerry Gras) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 13:16:42 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Considering a run for Assembly District 24 References: <0419E476-4D41-4E8A-8BE9-25A28BD05728@kiehle.com> Message-ID: <4404BDBA.9020108@earthlink.net> Erik Kiehle wrote: > Hello everyone. I'm considering a run for Assembly District 24. I'd > like to know if anyone else is planning to run or if anyone has thought > or objections. > I have not seen any objections. And I see nothing wrong with having multiple Green candidates for the same seat, as long as the candidates are cordial to each other. It helps get publicity. Go for it! Gerry From gerrygras at earthlink.net Tue Feb 28 13:16:58 2006 From: gerrygras at earthlink.net (Gerry Gras) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 13:16:58 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Regional Rep Election Message-ID: <4404BDCA.20108@earthlink.net> My term as Regional Rep to the GPCA CC ends at the next plenary, 2 months from now. The default mode of deciding this is for it to be decided at the plenary. But that limits the decision to those who attend the plenary, which is not local. So it is prudent to decide the matter earlier, at GPSCC and GPSMC meetings, or at a joint GPSCC/GPSMC meeting in the region. Unfortunately the process for revising our bylaws re Regional Rep Election has been moving at a very slow pace, and won't be ready in time for this election. Now is the time for potential candidates to consider running. And for those who wish to run, to announce ASAP. I have had the position for 2 terms, which means for four years. I think it is time for a change, for the region and for myself. I am willing and happy to run for Alternate Regional Rep, but I would like to see someone else be the next Regional Rep. If anyone would like to talk to me about this, you are welcome to call me at 408-732-6701 between 9 AM and 11 PM. Unfortunately I have not yet replaced my broken answering machine. Gerry P.S. I am sending this email to both the sosfbay-discuss list and the gpsmc-cc list separately, to avoid cross posting. I am not using the SC-SM list because I believe this should go to a wider audience. From erik at kiehle.com Tue Feb 28 14:08:17 2006 From: erik at kiehle.com (Erik Kiehle) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 14:08:17 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Fwd: Considering a run for Assembly District 24 References: <0419E476-4D41-4E8A-8BE9-25A28BD05728@kiehle.com> Message-ID: <9C554BDB-931C-49EE-80A3-9ADD25129671@kiehle.com> Hello Everyone, Many thanks to all who wrote back with insights and suggestions. After reflection, I've decided that I'm getting too late of a start for this election cycle and will therefore not make a run for AD 24. I look forward to spending time getting back in touch with the GPSCC and getting an earlier start for a future election. Thanks, Erik Kiehle erik at kiehle.com Begin forwarded message: > Cc: Erik Kiehle > Subject: Considering a run for Assembly District 24 > > Hello everyone. I'm considering a run for Assembly District 24. I'd > like to know if anyone else is planning to run or if anyone has > thought or objections. > > Thanks, > Erik Kiehle > Resident of Campbell > erik at kiehle.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 2431 bytes Desc: not available URL: From gerrygras at earthlink.net Tue Feb 28 15:26:25 2006 From: gerrygras at earthlink.net (Gerry Gras) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 15:26:25 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Regional Rep Election Message-ID: <4404DC21.60604@earthlink.net> [I left something out of the previous version.] My term as Regional Rep to the GPCA CC ends at the next plenary, 2 months from now. So it is time to hold another Regional Rep Election. The default mode of choosing a Regional Rep is to decide at the plenary. But that limits the decision to those who attend the plenary, which is not local. So it is prudent to decide the matter earlier, at GPSCC and GPSMC meetings, or at a joint GPSCC/GPSMC meeting in the region. Unfortunately the process for revising our bylaws re Regional Rep Election has been moving at a very slow pace, and won't be ready in time for this election. Now is the time for potential candidates to consider running. And for those who wish to run, to announce ASAP. I have had the position for 2 terms, which means for four years. I think it is time for a change, for the region and for myself. I am willing and happy to run for Alternate Regional Rep, but I would like to see someone else be the next Regional Rep. If anyone would like to talk to me about this, you are welcome to call me at 408-732-6701 between 9 AM and 11 PM. Unfortunately I have not yet replaced my broken answering machine. Gerry P.S. I am sending this email to both the sosfbay-discuss list and the gpsmc-cc list separately, to avoid cross posting. I am not using the SC-SM list because I believe this should go to a wider audience. From j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net Tue Feb 28 16:46:23 2006 From: j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net (Jim Doyle) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 16:46:23 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] volunteer Tim Message-ID: <4404EEDF.1070605@sbcglobal.net> I contacted Tim, it's Tim Alvarado. He will table with us in Palo Alto on March 18-th. Jim Doyle From tnharter at greens.org Tue Feb 28 17:38:31 2006 From: tnharter at greens.org (Tian Harter) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 17:38:31 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Tian is now on the 6/6/06 Green Party ballot. Message-ID: <4404FB17.9040509@greens.org> As I write this, I have done all the steps required to put my name on the California ballot as a Green Party Candidate for U. S. Senator. The paperwork hasn't rippled through to the list on the Secretary of State's website yet, but it does show that I've collected far more signatures than the other Green Party candidates for U. S Senate: http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_cand.htm (If you download the list by race, the Senate race is the last one.) Of the 231 signatures that have been validated for my campaign, I'm not sure who did about 55 of them, but thanks so much if it was you! Meanwhile, I have continued to do updates to my website as I find events to take pictures of I expect to find interesting. At the moment my weblog front page is dominated by things like other candidate campaign kickoff events, but there is also a vigil against illegal wiretapping with a great ACLU handout about the issue. You can see those by clicking on the various pictures near the top of: http://tian.greens.org BTW: I'm planning to send out a candidate mailing early next week. If you aren't on my mailing list (the people who I, Carol, Don, or Gloria asked to sign my nominating papers) and you would like to be, email me your address and I will add you. -- Tian http://tian.greens.org Latest change: Added my pictures from a STOP ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING! vigil. BTW: I went down to the Registrar of Voters Office at lunch time and finished getting my name on the ballot. Now all I have to do is figure out how to win the Green Party Primary... http://tianharter.org From fredd at freeshell.org Tue Feb 28 17:45:09 2006 From: fredd at freeshell.org (Fred Duperrault) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 17:45:09 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: [Fwd: Open Space Initiative]] Message-ID: <4404FCA5.8090702@freeshell.org> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Fwd: Open Space Initiative] Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 17:40:21 -0800 From: Fred Duperrault To: sosfbay-discus at cagreens.org -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Open Space Initiative Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 17:36:00 -0800 From: Fred Duperrault To: sosfbay-discus at cagreens.org A couple of months ago I told Peter Drekmeier that he would be welcome to speak at a SCC Green Party Meeting. If there would be a consensus among the SCC GP County Council to invite him to use the first half hour of the March 7 meeting to brief us on the status and strategy of PLAN's SCC Open Space Initiative, I will contact him immediately. I know he'll be delighted, and free, to speak to us next Tuesday Night. (PLAN {People for Land And Nature} has two months left to collect 52,000 signatures to place the initiative on Santa Clara County's November ballot. There must be 37,000 valid signatures, so a 15K cushion will make sure that the effort will net 37K valid ones.) Replies ASAP will be much appreciated. Fred Duperrault fredd at freeshell.org (650) 691-1215 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tnharter at greens.org Tue Feb 28 17:57:04 2006 From: tnharter at greens.org (Tian Harter) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 17:57:04 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: [Fwd: Open Space Initiative]] In-Reply-To: <4404FCA5.8090702@freeshell.org> References: <4404FCA5.8090702@freeshell.org> Message-ID: <4404FF70.1080105@greens.org> I vote YES! Invite Peter to speak. Tian Fred Duperrault wrote: > > > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: [Fwd: Open Space Initiative] > Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 17:40:21 -0800 > From: Fred Duperrault > To: sosfbay-discus at cagreens.org > > > >-------- Original Message -------- >Subject: Open Space Initiative >Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 17:36:00 -0800 >From: Fred Duperrault >To: sosfbay-discus at cagreens.org > > > >A couple of months ago I told Peter Drekmeier that he would be welcome >to speak at a SCC Green Party Meeting. > >If there would be a consensus among the SCC GP County Council to >invite him to use the first half hour of the March 7 meeting to brief us >on the status and strategy of PLAN's SCC Open Space Initiative, I will >contact him immediately. I know he'll be delighted, and free, to speak >to us next Tuesday Night. >(PLAN {People for Land And Nature} has two months left to collect >52,000 signatures to place the initiative on Santa Clara County's >November ballot. There must be 37,000 valid signatures, so a 15K >cushion will make sure that the effort will net 37K valid ones.) > >Replies ASAP will be much appreciated. > >Fred Duperrault >fredd at freeshell.org >(650) 691-1215 > > > > > > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >_______________________________________________ >sosfbay-discuss mailing list >sosfbay-discuss at marla.cagreens.org >http://marla.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss > > -- Tian http://tian.greens.org Latest change: Added my pictures from a STOP ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING! vigil. BTW: I went down to the Registrar of Voters Office at lunch time and finished getting my name on the ballot. Now all I have to do is figure out how to win the Green Party Primary... From jims at greens.org Tue Feb 28 19:12:34 2006 From: jims at greens.org (Jim Stauffer) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 19:12:34 -0800 Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] Regional Rep Election References: <4404DC21.60604@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <44051122.F6D07099@greens.org> As I recall, they way we've elected reps in the past was for the candidates to present themselves at each county's meeting. If both counties approve, they instruct their delegates to vote accordingly at the plenary. I think it's an adequate system. -- Jim Gerry Gras wrote: > > [I left something out of the previous version.] > > My term as Regional Rep to the GPCA CC ends at the next plenary, > 2 months from now. > > So it is time to hold another Regional Rep Election. > > The default mode of choosing a Regional Rep is to decide at > the plenary. But that limits the decision to those who attend > the plenary, which is not local. So it is prudent to decide > the matter earlier, at GPSCC and GPSMC meetings, or at a joint > GPSCC/GPSMC meeting in the region. > > Unfortunately the process for revising our bylaws re Regional > Rep Election has been moving at a very slow pace, and won't be > ready in time for this election. > > Now is the time for potential candidates to consider running. > And for those who wish to run, to announce ASAP. > > I have had the position for 2 terms, which means for four > years. I think it is time for a change, for the region and > for myself. > > I am willing and happy to run for Alternate Regional Rep, but > I would like to see someone else be the next Regional Rep. > > If anyone would like to talk to me about this, you are welcome > to call me at 408-732-6701 between 9 AM and 11 PM. Unfortunately > I have not yet replaced my broken answering machine. > > Gerry > > P.S. I am sending this email to both the sosfbay-discuss list > and the gpsmc-cc list separately, to avoid cross posting. I am > not using the SC-SM list because I believe this should go to > a wider audience. > > _______________________________________________ > sosfbay-discuss mailing list > sosfbay-discuss at marla.cagreens.org > http://marla.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/sosfbay-discuss From WB4D23 at aol.com Tue Feb 28 21:44:12 2006 From: WB4D23 at aol.com (WB4D23 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 00:44:12 EST Subject: [Sosfbay-discuss] San Jose Area Open Space Authority Candidates Filing Deadline March 10th Message-ID: <1e0.4e455e07.31368eac@aol.com> As reported February 28, 2006, in the SJMN: South Bay residents interested in running for a seat on the borad of directors of the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority have until March 10th to file as a candidate with the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters. The SCC OSA was formed in 1993 and has preserved abut 11,150 acres of land for parks and opens space using property tax assessments for its funding. OSA Board members serve four year terms begining in July. Candidates must be registered voters and residents of the district in which they seek election. Seats being elected June 6th are: District 2 -- Milpitas/North San Jose District 5 -- Cambrian Park and Camden areas District 6 -- East and Central San Jose District 7 -- South San Jose area For District Map and more information go to _www.openspaceauthority.org_ (http://www.openspaceauthority.org) or call (408) 224-7476 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: