Every week San Jose Inside offers this open forum for discussion of any topic. This is the place to rant and/or rave about the news of the week and/or anything else.

Attentive followers of SJI will notice a subtle change in the front page design:: we’ve begun reorganizing San Jose Inside by topics rather than by writer. This change is reflected in the navigation menu at the top of the page. A drop-down menu appears with the names of regular contributors when a mouse pointer is moved over the “Columnists” tab.

Leon E. Panetta, the former Monterey Bay area congressman and White House chief of staff, is President-elect Barack Obama’s pick for head of the Central Intelligence Agency, according to national news reports quoting Democratic insiders. Panetta has degrees in political science and law from Santa Clara University. “He couldn’t have picked a better guy,” says San Jose attorney Bill Gates, a longtime friend.

It’s a brand new year, and 2009 means big changes. Posters this weekend are sounding off about the disappearance of a website known for its anonymous personal attacks on its political adversaries.

This is it—the last best chance for SJI reader/writers to rant and/or rave together in 2008. Suggested theme—a time-honored end-of-year tribute: 2008: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

In this, the second-to-last 2008 episode of SJI’s weekly open forum, rants are more than welcome, as always. And we’d especially like to see some raves.

By G. Melesaine
A couple of weeks ago the San Jose Eastside School District proposed to cut athletics for next year. There was no debate. The cuts had to be made before the Dec.15th, 2008 date where, according to state law, the district had to turn in their balanced budget for the next two years. The district is already in debt, and the state as well, so cuts had to be made. Athletics was the first choice. I attended the aftermath meeting on Dec. 15 at the district office where athletic directors were confronted by angry parents and students trying to find solutions.

By Erin Sherbert
The Nov. 4 election was about month away, and with a downtrodden economy, it appeared that a transportation tax like the BART measure was going to need all the help it could get. So San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, a leading proponent of the BART tax, made some back-and-forth calls to the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce’s president, Pat Dando, requesting some face time with her board.

Dando turned him down.

Saturday, Dec. 13. This the third-to-last Rants & Raves of 2008. Been quite a year, and it ain’t over yet. Maybe this is a good time and place to look back and remember the worst (that’ll be easy) and the best of it.

By Erin Sherbert
Madison Nguyen rolls up in a Lexus SUV and parks behind Lighthouse Café, a popular Vietnamese coffee shop off King Road. She greets a handful of volunteers, rattling off a few words in Vietnamese as she unlocks the door to the headquarters of her anti-recall campaign. It’s pure coincidence that this small space next door to the coffee shop is the same spot where Nguyen hosted her 2005 victory party, the night she was elected to San Jose’s City Council.

Anything you’ve got to say, about anything at all, this is the place to say it. It’s SJI’s weekly roundup of random intelligence and opinion.

Even during this weekend of gratitude and joy, there is plenty to rant & rave about. And this is the place to do it.

The forum is open for another opportunity to do what we do best here on SJI.

Thoughts, comments and judgments on local, national or global culture, politics or trivia—including even BART—all are welcome here today.

After a three-week hiatus, Rants and Raves returns. The election is over. Blog it or not.