Family Gathering
The Anti-War March in San Francisco, January 18, 2003

Click here for full story

Action sites:

votetoimpeach.org ... internationalanswer.org ... indymedia.org ... unitedforpeace.org ... moveon.org ... californiapeaceaction.org ... democracynow.org ... drcnet.org ... narconews.com

Urban Renewal Status Report

Urban renewal moves in fits and starts, sometimes like a few raindrops in a parched land, sometimes like a rushing waterfall in a verdant gully teaming with birds and other visitors.

Why do we invite people so far away to visit each other? Is it an expression of status? Or isolation? Or friendliness? Or some other motive? No motive? No motion! Who thinks that getting in a car to visit friends is an illogical, impractical thing?

Being in the space that creates what you need seems to be the simplist approach. Why do we have to go anywhere? To get food and money to pay rent. Who pays rent? Who started that elitist club? Who follows the rules? Who makes the rules?

Toxic Peace Dump. That's what I thought he said, but it seems like an odd collection of words.

Is being "on the web" the same as being "on the road"?

Is the lack of green space in many areas the main factor in its association with being run down? Even sleek new metal plastic and stone interiors have an odd death-like quality that feeds into our alienation.

Do we sleep with the night? Do we wake with the sun? How do we balance sun and shadow?

How are the channels of information and indoctrination devised? How could there be a heirarchical system controlling it all from "the top"? Do you believe that a heirarchical system is the main organizing principle or could it be something you learned?

What you think is the center of the universe is a far off legend for most others. And that mystical memory or sudden surprise may be what you never knew was common.

Is it the first serious near death experience?

Is it the first blissful love nest?

How far do you need to go to get a tomato? 1 mile on asphalt? 5 miles on asphalt? 10 miles on asphalt? How many tomatoes could you grow in the area of asphalt in front of where you live?

International News Browsing Reveals a Radically Different Picture of the World

With the advent of the web, one's perspective easily changes based on browsing patterns, and in static routines of browsing, we find only what we come to expect. Adventurous seekers take new paths and discover facets of this jeweled world never dreamed of. As we discover our global connections and common dreams, our sense of how news is structured and guided by various forces give us an understanding of different value systems.

East Bay Critical Mass Bicycle Ride

Berkeley, California - On the second Friday of each month, bicyclists of all ages happen to converge at the Berkeley, California BART station around 5:30pm and flow into the streets. Come and join your East Bay neighbors for a wonderful time. The ride is a gentle one, in merry spirits. San Francisco also has a Critical Mass ride. Did you ever notice how cars stink? Well, here's your chance to show those poor folks trapped in their two-ton rolling prisons that there's a better way to smell the roses; check it out!

Wood Smoke Deaths on the Rise

Contrary to the idea of rustic woodstoves in the home for heating, cooking and style, modern woodstoves and fireplaces are being revealed as deadly machines. Burning Issue

Unattended Patient Death in Understaffed Hospital

10 February, Oakland, California – Recently in a large Oakland hospital a patient in his forties died unnecessarily as a result of inappropriate use of hospital personnel. The patient was several days out of open heart surgery and was scheduled for a routine chest x-ray in radiology. He was transported in a wheel chair to the department by a hospital transporter. He was not on a heart monitor, nor was he accompanied by a registered nurse or other licensed personnel. In the past, hospital policy would have required these. While in the department, awaiting his test, he was left alone and died.

After this tragic event, the hospital improved the policies by requiring licensed personnel to monitor patients going to other areas of the hospital for tests.

This is probably not a story you'll read about in the mainstream newspaper, but it should be. It is an incident that is the direct result of cutting costs in hospitals. The cost of this human life was factored into the costs of running a hospital. People need to know that this was preventable, simply by having more licensed personnel in a hospital. Unlicensed people on staff cost the hospital less money. Patients are receiving inferior and dangerous lack of care due to the cuts being made by the corporations that run the hospitals.

Be very careful when you go to a hospital. Bring someone with you to keep an eye on you. Give the corporations some complications.

-- written by a concerned person

New Berkeley Library Loses Past Intimacy

The size of the library leaves so much stone cold empty space and long flights of stairs between sections that one has lost the intimacy of the older warmer cozier smaller space. One spends more time traveling within the library than reading through it's treasures. The art and music department on the 4th floor, towering above the street, is an impersonalized anti-social design of a perverse architect. What an assault on the finances and intellect of the library users. One night, upon coming to the library to post a flyer, I was rejected at the lobby by two ticket-takers, with a wealthy crowd at their private cocktail party in the lobby. Children being dropped off by their parents to study in the library were also being rejected; the library being closed to youth's education for this elitist party.

What does a rocket-shaped art car being refilled at a fuel pump have to do with children's education in a library? What kind of people chose to make that sculpture? One must question the motives of such a piece in a 'public' library; perhaps the result of the automobile/oil industry's tragic permeation of everything we do.

The raw food diet

Raw vegetables and nuts with about 10% cooked food for about 6 weeks. Light, easy to digest, keep eating through out the day as you desire. A little honey or dates. Toasted lentil wafers with olive oil. Salads with olive oil and wine vinegar.

Regional public gatherings in kitchens

Humanist Hall in Oakland has created a magical theater incorporating elements of the area in architecture and local spunk.

A People's Park in the base of hills gather those from the ravines, gulches and flatlands.

With all the unexpected spins on your attention, how is it we keep forgetting what is really valuable in life? A group of seven or eight is a complex, enlivening and sweetly ambiguous organism.

Health Warnings

Greenpeace provides public information on potentially hazardous untested Genetically Modified Organisms in food. See the Greenpeace Web site for a day-to-day listing of press releases on their action.

Ban Leaf Blowers for Quiet Yards

A new organization has been formed as a national group opposing the summer use of gas-powered leaf blowers. It is made up of citizens groups from White Plains, Pelham, Larchmont, Scarsdale, New Rochelle, Katonah NY, Mt. Clair New Jersey and Greenwich Connecticut. Quiet Yards USA is fighting manufacturers who send paid lobbyists to de-rail grassroots movements at local level. Fax: 203-637-0463.