This is SJI’s weekly open forum, where opinions on any topic are welcome. What’s on your mind?
33 Comments
The City of San Jose was able to find $6 Million to fund a shopping center, but for some reason had to scrap the $2 Million/year job of maintaining street trees which are on City property. Yesterday, one of the City’s trees uprooted and fell on a parked truck, killing a child. Could this have been predicted or prevented? That’s hard to say but the lesson is clear.
Message to the City; Stop fobbing off your responsibilities on the public. Maintaining infrastructure should get priority over giant employee pensions, over shopping centers that are doomed to fail, and over planting yet more trees that won’t be taken care of.
Blaming a freak of nature, and childs death, on the city? Seriously, you’ve got to be kidding JG!? Look, it’s one thing if you don’t like redevelopment funds being used for redevelopment purposes, but that one went a little to far.
I agree with Tony on this one. This was a massive storm and many trees blew over whether planted by the city or not. It was a freak accident that this 2 year old got killed and extremely sad and is not appropriate to make it into a political statement.
It’s all about our priorities. Am I politicizing a tragedy? Maybe. But I’m not saying anything different about the misguided choices our city makes than I’ve said all along.
Tony D.,
You routinely deride us “naysayers” for failing to display civic pride. In your book “civic pride” appears to be synonymous with “unquestioning support for big, expensive, high profile downtown projects.” I’d love to feel pride for my hometown too but to me, a town to be proud of is one that values the assets that it is blessed with and gives top priority to taking care of them. Avenues lined with trees that are regularly looked after are not only beautiful and a source of civic pride, but the trees are far less prone to falling over than if they are neglected. The City used to thin and lighten it’s trees on a regular basis. To cut costs they eliminated this program just last year. Would this tree have been in the pruning rotation since that time? Would it have been as topheavy as it was if the City had it’s priorities ordered differently?
Steve,
Storms happen. You can count on it. Same with earthquakes. Is it “inappropriate” to discuss whether deaths by crushing might have been avoided with better building construction in Haiti? Or should we just dismiss all their deaths as due to a “freak accident”?
Today, from 12 pm to 2pm, Santa Clarans for Economic Progress will hold a campaign kick off event at the Mission City Ballroom at the Convention Center. More than 500 people expect to attend. This represents the first in a series of broad based, community generated events for the stadium campaign.
I can never figure out whether these euphemistically named groups are really for or against something. Do the Santa Clarans for Economic Progress have a stated position on the proposal to build a 49er Stadium adjacent to Great America?
> Santa Clara County DA tells attorneys to boycott judge who irked them
This is a new one on me. I thought judges were assigned to cases on the basis of a random rotation. I didn’t know that District Attorney’s or anyone else, for that matter, had the privilege of choosing the judges who would try their cases.
I predict the emergence of a new cottage indusry: judge shopping.
Silk stocking law firms, for a fee naturally, will arrange for your case to be heard in the court of Judge Oprah, and guarantee that it will NOT be heard in the court of Judge Roy (“The Law West of the Pecos”) Bean.
I’ve heard of this being used commonly by defense attorneys who know based upon past rulings that some cases are better heard in certain courtrooms. Its kind of the same stuff that goes into jury selection where each side uses their right to dismiss potential jurors.
For a public official to urge officers of her department to engage in this practice seems strange, however. Judges are elected or appointed (depending on the level of jurisdiction) and it seems like a political judgement on the will of the voters to say a Judge is unworthy to handle all criminal matters brought before the court by another publicly elected official (DA).
Part of the ethical taint around court/DA behavior is that in the rush to look good and boost conviction rates (which is somehow an arbitrary metric of how good a job a DA is doing) procedures that would lower convictions such as fulling disclosing evidence to defense attorneys was allegedly forgotten in some cases. I’m not a lawyer or legal expert, but it feels wrong to have politicians who invariably are auditioning for some higher elected office to handle public business in a shoddy way.
I don’t know if that’s what this is a symptom of, or this is just something another media source blew out of perspective for a political grudge. I reserve judgement but also feel I have a constitutional right to discuss some of my thoughts about potential problems.
The negative stereotype “typical white person” was coined by then-Senator Barack Obama during a radio interview on 3/20/08, just two days after his campaign speech on race on 3/18/08. His remark was in connection with his own grandmother, but by affixing “typical” he made it apply to all of the diverse white American peoples. Neither Senator nor President Obama has apologized for his negatively stereotyping all “white persons” as acting badly and lacking diversity.
Stereotypes Against Islam
This failure to apologize is usefully contrasted with Obama’s speech in Cairo on 6/4/09 when he said, “And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” So less than a year after uttering a nasty stereotype against the diverse white American peoples, President Obama denounced stereotypes against Islam in Egypt.
San Jose Mercury News
A search of the Merc index of news stories shows no article that reported Barack Obama’s bigotry embedded in “typical white person.” This is how the Merc educates its readers about events—by just not reporting on them. Can readers imagine the backlash had US Senator John McCain uttered the phrase “typical Asian person” or “typical Latino person”? The Merc would have reported that over and over again.
Memory
We need to keep the phrase “typical white person” alive as a continuing rebuke to Barack Obama’s hate speech, and to remember the cover-up by the Merc.
But aren’t you concerned that constantly reminding intolerant white liberals of their blind biases and hypocrisy might harm their self esteem and cause them to lash out?
Its all the same guy. He promotes his pro “diverse white European” views ad-nauseum under a dozen aliases in hopes he’ll look good in front of his fringe group buddies.
Just a few of the “friends” of the “diverse white European” cause:
American Renaissance (AmRen) is holding their 9th annual conference at the Dulles Airport Westin in Herndon, VA on Feb 19-21
AmRen, published by white supremacist Jared Taylor, is a newsletter that promotes pseudoscientific research which argues that non-whites are genetically and morally inferior. The AmRen conference is a melting pot of radical right-wing racist people and ideas. Previous attendees include Ku Klux Klan members (including former leader David Duke), neo-Nazis (such as Don Black), holocaust deniers, anti-immigration activists, and other ideologues promoting racial hatred. The Anti-Defamation League writes that AmRen,“promotes their views by attacking racial, ethnic, and religious diversity, which they call ‘one of the most divisive forces on the planet’ and therefore ‘dangerous’” and that, “many of North America’s leading intellectual racists have written for American Renaissance or have addressed the biennial American Renaissance conferences.”
Who is supposed to be at the conference this year?
The keynote speaker of the conference this year is Nick Griffin, head of the British National Party (BNP) and member of the European Parliament. Griffin is on the Virginia terrorist watch list. His attendance at the conference is troubling, as he is expected to be placed in jail soon for violating a court order in the UK to open the membership of his political party to non-whites by January, 28th. Griffin isn’t a stranger to jail though; in 1996 he served a 9-month sentence after being found guilty of ‘publishing material likely to incite racial hatred’. Griffin’s speaking date in DC is even more disturbing because James Von Brunn, the neo-Nazi terrorist who shot and killed a security guard at the DC Holocaust Museum in June of 2009, was a member of the American Friends of the British National Party, and had been at events where Griffin Spoke. As well as being a racist, Griffin is notable for his antisemitism, and has referred to the Holocaust as the ‘Holohoax’.
Other speakers include:
Dan Roodt, who argues that blacks are genetically programmed to commit violent crime, and wrote in an article on January 13th, 2010 that, “In South Africa, the white IQ is somewhere around 100 whereas the average black IQ is about 70….Blacks generally prefer parties and festivals because a lot of them lack the mental ability to excel at such demanding subjects as mathematics and natural science which require logical reasoning and cognitive ability.” Roodt is the head of Pro-Afrikaans Action Group, a South African white supremacist organization.
Craig Bodeker, who said in an interview that, “The false concept of ‘racism’ has done more harm than just force decent white people into NOT looking-out for their own ethnic interests, while other groups are encouraged to look out for theirs. In fact, I’ll argue that it has BANKRUPTED AMERICA!”
Jared Taylor, who argues that blacks are “more psychopathic than whites”, and in an article about Hurricane Katrina wrote that, “when blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization—any kind of civilization—disappears. And in a crisis, civilization disappears overnight.”
Sam G. Dickson, who advocates white nationalism and fights against non-white immigration, affirmative action, interracial marriage, homosexuality, and school integration.
Raymond Wolter, who argues against school racial desegregation, and believes that blacks have more natural IQ limitations than whites.
Wayne Lutton, who is the director of a group which publishes the racist Occidental Quarterly journal, and the anti-Semitic Occidental Observer magazine.
It didn’t take long for the seminar letter writers to deluge the Merc with letters to the editor deploring the Supreme Court’s decision knocking down the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.
But those of us who care for the Republic and the Bill of Rights are justifiably alarmed at how close our nation came to gutting the First Amendment.
I’m sure that the seminar writers were unaware of an alarming fact. The Solicitor General of the United States, arguing the government’s position to UPHOLD McCain-Feingold agreed that if the offensive political statements barred by McCain-Feingold had been published in a book instead of a video, he would argue that government would be allowed to BAN THE BOOK!!!
Hello? What?
That’s correct. The Government’s lawyer argued that McCain-Feingold gave government the authority to BAN BOOKS that contained political opinions and political endorsements.
But wait! It gets worse!!!
Four justices of the United States Supreme Court AGREED to uphold McCain-Feingold even after hearing the government’s contention that it allowed the government to ban books.
If the seminar callers ever got their way, the poor ignorant doofusses might someday learn that if the government can ban books that contain objectionable political statements and endorsements, that same government can use that same law to ban their letters from appearing in a newspaper.
How are these pathetic doofusses able to dress and feed themselves?
Political Debate is awesome. I love it so much that I’ve been known to switch sides just to keep the discussion going. It’s like a football game that never ends.
It’s not about always being right, its about being engaged in a shared society where we all want something better.
I really don’t like it when people like to criticize others or ideas they don’t agree with but won’t let anyone share a contrasting viewpoint. It just seems rude and close-minded. If I had to choose between non-stop political adds for 2 weeks around elections or no political talk allowed at all and non-stop Comedy Central programming instead, I’d take the ads.
If you win a debate by silencing your opponents, what did you willing win?
The tablet market is getting hot. Had an Econ professor who raved about reading his morning paper on his Kindle, which was interesting. I admit I convenience of having a good read with the paper on a Sunday or while riding the train, but what if it was simple, easy and cheap to read via wireless tablet? Amazon has Kindle with a wireless option. Apple will probably do something similiar. Cell phone companies will probably try to exploit their duopoly with syndicate pricing (sign a 2-year $99 month plan and get the tablet and the I-phone). What about thinking outside the box. What about content providers like newspapers? We have an industry struggling for a business model in the new economy, and a new technology looking for business partners to leverage the price down for mass appeal. How about bundling a tablet with subscription services (newspapers, magazines, etc.) and use that to drop the upfront costs?
The real fall of the newspaper industry was shifting from readership to advertising revenue to drive their profits. If you have a good product, people will pay to read the entire stories and have it delivered effortlessly on a regular basis (automatic downloading when it hits the streets.)
This Wednesday in Oakland, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC)will try to figure out what to do with $70 million of your federal stimulus money. (The MTC is the Bay Area’s regional transit planner and distributor of state and federal funding to transit agencies like VTA).
Lowdown: the feds found MTC did not do proper Title VI equity analysis on a rail connector to Oakland Airport from the Coliseum BART station. As a result, the feds denied the MTC $70 million in stimulus money needed to start construction this spring. Since MTC likely won’t get needed analysis done before March 1, they are in a position where they must spend the $70 million somehow or lose it altogether.
This is where YOU come in as a taxpayer. If you’re tired of agencies like VTA cutting service and raising fares due to lack of funding, here’s how to take action:
County Supervisors Dave Cortese and Ken Yeager represent the South Bay as MTC Commissioners. This is in addition to Dean Chu of Sunnyvale. Let them know before Wednesday to use that $70 million for much-needed transit operations funding thru this contact source:
That Oakland Airport Connector project is a huge boondoggle. This page http://oaklandairportconnector.com/
has more information, although it hasn’t been updated in a while. Everyone should follow Eugene’s links above.
On February 2, 2010, the San Jose City Council will consider proposed screening criteria and community panel composition for the recruitment of a new Independent Police Auditor. The agenda item is as follows:
3.3 Candidate Screening Criteria and Community Interview Panel Composition for Independent Police Auditor Executive Recruitment.
Recommendation: Approve candidate screening criteria to be used by consultant in evaluating applicants, and provide direction as to the composition of the community panel that will participate in interviewing and providing input on the top tier candidates for the Independent Police Auditor position. CEQA: Not a Project. (Human Resources)
If you wish to share your thoughts and opinions on the topic, you may want to contact your council member in the coming week.. I also encourage you to attend the council meeting itself but bear in mind that members of the public are only allowed to make brief public statements (2 or 3 minutes) at council meetings. In order to ensure that your concerns are given full consideration, you may want to call or write your council member in advance of the February 2 meeting. To review the full meeting agenda with attachments, please go to: http://www.sanjoseca.gov/clerk/Agenda/20100202/20100202a.pdf
The City of San Jose was able to find $6 Million to fund a shopping center, but for some reason had to scrap the $2 Million/year job of maintaining street trees which are on City property. Yesterday, one of the City’s trees uprooted and fell on a parked truck, killing a child. Could this have been predicted or prevented? That’s hard to say but the lesson is clear.
Message to the City; Stop fobbing off your responsibilities on the public. Maintaining infrastructure should get priority over giant employee pensions, over shopping centers that are doomed to fail, and over planting yet more trees that won’t be taken care of.
Blaming a freak of nature, and childs death, on the city? Seriously, you’ve got to be kidding JG!? Look, it’s one thing if you don’t like redevelopment funds being used for redevelopment purposes, but that one went a little to far.
I agree with Tony on this one. This was a massive storm and many trees blew over whether planted by the city or not. It was a freak accident that this 2 year old got killed and extremely sad and is not appropriate to make it into a political statement.
It’s all about our priorities. Am I politicizing a tragedy? Maybe. But I’m not saying anything different about the misguided choices our city makes than I’ve said all along.
Tony D.,
You routinely deride us “naysayers” for failing to display civic pride. In your book “civic pride” appears to be synonymous with “unquestioning support for big, expensive, high profile downtown projects.” I’d love to feel pride for my hometown too but to me, a town to be proud of is one that values the assets that it is blessed with and gives top priority to taking care of them. Avenues lined with trees that are regularly looked after are not only beautiful and a source of civic pride, but the trees are far less prone to falling over than if they are neglected. The City used to thin and lighten it’s trees on a regular basis. To cut costs they eliminated this program just last year. Would this tree have been in the pruning rotation since that time? Would it have been as topheavy as it was if the City had it’s priorities ordered differently?
Steve,
Storms happen. You can count on it. Same with earthquakes. Is it “inappropriate” to discuss whether deaths by crushing might have been avoided with better building construction in Haiti? Or should we just dismiss all their deaths as due to a “freak accident”?
So who were the guys in the truck with SJ city logo thinning my trees all along 4th St about a month and a half ago? They did a nice job BTW…
Read today’s paper.
Today, from 12 pm to 2pm, Santa Clarans for Economic Progress will hold a campaign kick off event at the Mission City Ballroom at the Convention Center. More than 500 people expect to attend. This represents the first in a series of broad based, community generated events for the stadium campaign.
I can never figure out whether these euphemistically named groups are really for or against something. Do the Santa Clarans for Economic Progress have a stated position on the proposal to build a 49er Stadium adjacent to Great America?
Maybe you should ask Santa Clara Plays Fair or the Spartan Pride Party
DA Dolores Carr is in the news again:
http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_14254154?nclick_check=1
Is she’s being courageous or belligerent?
> Santa Clara County DA tells attorneys to boycott judge who irked them
This is a new one on me. I thought judges were assigned to cases on the basis of a random rotation. I didn’t know that District Attorney’s or anyone else, for that matter, had the privilege of choosing the judges who would try their cases.
I predict the emergence of a new cottage indusry: judge shopping.
Silk stocking law firms, for a fee naturally, will arrange for your case to be heard in the court of Judge Oprah, and guarantee that it will NOT be heard in the court of Judge Roy (“The Law West of the Pecos”) Bean.
I’ve heard of this being used commonly by defense attorneys who know based upon past rulings that some cases are better heard in certain courtrooms. Its kind of the same stuff that goes into jury selection where each side uses their right to dismiss potential jurors.
For a public official to urge officers of her department to engage in this practice seems strange, however. Judges are elected or appointed (depending on the level of jurisdiction) and it seems like a political judgement on the will of the voters to say a Judge is unworthy to handle all criminal matters brought before the court by another publicly elected official (DA).
Part of the ethical taint around court/DA behavior is that in the rush to look good and boost conviction rates (which is somehow an arbitrary metric of how good a job a DA is doing) procedures that would lower convictions such as fulling disclosing evidence to defense attorneys was allegedly forgotten in some cases. I’m not a lawyer or legal expert, but it feels wrong to have politicians who invariably are auditioning for some higher elected office to handle public business in a shoddy way.
I don’t know if that’s what this is a symptom of, or this is just something another media source blew out of perspective for a political grudge. I reserve judgement but also feel I have a constitutional right to discuss some of my thoughts about potential problems.
Good education reform is what Arne Duncan is proposing. I dare Chris Patterson to support Obama’s goals for education.
The negative stereotype “typical white person” was coined by then-Senator Barack Obama during a radio interview on 3/20/08, just two days after his campaign speech on race on 3/18/08. His remark was in connection with his own grandmother, but by affixing “typical” he made it apply to all of the diverse white American peoples. Neither Senator nor President Obama has apologized for his negatively stereotyping all “white persons” as acting badly and lacking diversity.
Stereotypes Against Islam
This failure to apologize is usefully contrasted with Obama’s speech in Cairo on 6/4/09 when he said, “And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” So less than a year after uttering a nasty stereotype against the diverse white American peoples, President Obama denounced stereotypes against Islam in Egypt.
San Jose Mercury News
A search of the Merc index of news stories shows no article that reported Barack Obama’s bigotry embedded in “typical white person.” This is how the Merc educates its readers about events—by just not reporting on them. Can readers imagine the backlash had US Senator John McCain uttered the phrase “typical Asian person” or “typical Latino person”? The Merc would have reported that over and over again.
Memory
We need to keep the phrase “typical white person” alive as a continuing rebuke to Barack Obama’s hate speech, and to remember the cover-up by the Merc.
I agree that your facts are correct.
And your logic is unassailable.
But aren’t you concerned that constantly reminding intolerant white liberals of their blind biases and hypocrisy might harm their self esteem and cause them to lash out?
Some people just need a hobby, Bitter, and we aim to please.
Sounds like a typical white person posting typical nonsense.
Its all the same guy. He promotes his pro “diverse white European” views ad-nauseum under a dozen aliases in hopes he’ll look good in front of his fringe group buddies.
> Its all the same guy.
Good grief! Talk about marginalizing.
This is marginalizing on steroids.
Not only are we NOT diverse, WE’RE ALL THE SAME PERSON!!!
Bitter Clinger was right! When you expose their hypocrisy, they lash out.
Good for you, Repetitive, you grasped the concept that white people are diverse.
Now you understand why the term “white culture/values” is such a wildly disordered category of discourse.
Just a few of the “friends” of the “diverse white European” cause:
American Renaissance (AmRen) is holding their 9th annual conference at the Dulles Airport Westin in Herndon, VA on Feb 19-21
AmRen, published by white supremacist Jared Taylor, is a newsletter that promotes pseudoscientific research which argues that non-whites are genetically and morally inferior. The AmRen conference is a melting pot of radical right-wing racist people and ideas. Previous attendees include Ku Klux Klan members (including former leader David Duke), neo-Nazis (such as Don Black), holocaust deniers, anti-immigration activists, and other ideologues promoting racial hatred. The Anti-Defamation League writes that AmRen,“promotes their views by attacking racial, ethnic, and religious diversity, which they call ‘one of the most divisive forces on the planet’ and therefore ‘dangerous’” and that, “many of North America’s leading intellectual racists have written for American Renaissance or have addressed the biennial American Renaissance conferences.”
Who is supposed to be at the conference this year?
The keynote speaker of the conference this year is Nick Griffin, head of the British National Party (BNP) and member of the European Parliament. Griffin is on the Virginia terrorist watch list. His attendance at the conference is troubling, as he is expected to be placed in jail soon for violating a court order in the UK to open the membership of his political party to non-whites by January, 28th. Griffin isn’t a stranger to jail though; in 1996 he served a 9-month sentence after being found guilty of ‘publishing material likely to incite racial hatred’. Griffin’s speaking date in DC is even more disturbing because James Von Brunn, the neo-Nazi terrorist who shot and killed a security guard at the DC Holocaust Museum in June of 2009, was a member of the American Friends of the British National Party, and had been at events where Griffin Spoke. As well as being a racist, Griffin is notable for his antisemitism, and has referred to the Holocaust as the ‘Holohoax’.
Other speakers include:
Dan Roodt, who argues that blacks are genetically programmed to commit violent crime, and wrote in an article on January 13th, 2010 that, “In South Africa, the white IQ is somewhere around 100 whereas the average black IQ is about 70….Blacks generally prefer parties and festivals because a lot of them lack the mental ability to excel at such demanding subjects as mathematics and natural science which require logical reasoning and cognitive ability.” Roodt is the head of Pro-Afrikaans Action Group, a South African white supremacist organization.
Craig Bodeker, who said in an interview that, “The false concept of ‘racism’ has done more harm than just force decent white people into NOT looking-out for their own ethnic interests, while other groups are encouraged to look out for theirs. In fact, I’ll argue that it has BANKRUPTED AMERICA!”
Jared Taylor, who argues that blacks are “more psychopathic than whites”, and in an article about Hurricane Katrina wrote that, “when blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization—any kind of civilization—disappears. And in a crisis, civilization disappears overnight.”
Sam G. Dickson, who advocates white nationalism and fights against non-white immigration, affirmative action, interracial marriage, homosexuality, and school integration.
Raymond Wolter, who argues against school racial desegregation, and believes that blacks have more natural IQ limitations than whites.
Wayne Lutton, who is the director of a group which publishes the racist Occidental Quarterly journal, and the anti-Semitic Occidental Observer magazine.
Somebody’s self esteem was harmed. So he lashed out.
I think I’ll write them a letter asking them why they would allow such a “conference”. I’ll send copies to their headquarters as well.
Isn’t that how its done?
San Jose Inside is becoming message board for a Idaho White Party radio show.
It didn’t take long for the seminar letter writers to deluge the Merc with letters to the editor deploring the Supreme Court’s decision knocking down the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.
But those of us who care for the Republic and the Bill of Rights are justifiably alarmed at how close our nation came to gutting the First Amendment.
I’m sure that the seminar writers were unaware of an alarming fact. The Solicitor General of the United States, arguing the government’s position to UPHOLD McCain-Feingold agreed that if the offensive political statements barred by McCain-Feingold had been published in a book instead of a video, he would argue that government would be allowed to BAN THE BOOK!!!
Hello? What?
That’s correct. The Government’s lawyer argued that McCain-Feingold gave government the authority to BAN BOOKS that contained political opinions and political endorsements.
But wait! It gets worse!!!
Four justices of the United States Supreme Court AGREED to uphold McCain-Feingold even after hearing the government’s contention that it allowed the government to ban books.
If the seminar callers ever got their way, the poor ignorant doofusses might someday learn that if the government can ban books that contain objectionable political statements and endorsements, that same government can use that same law to ban their letters from appearing in a newspaper.
How are these pathetic doofusses able to dress and feed themselves?
Political Debate is awesome. I love it so much that I’ve been known to switch sides just to keep the discussion going. It’s like a football game that never ends.
It’s not about always being right, its about being engaged in a shared society where we all want something better.
I really don’t like it when people like to criticize others or ideas they don’t agree with but won’t let anyone share a contrasting viewpoint. It just seems rude and close-minded. If I had to choose between non-stop political adds for 2 weeks around elections or no political talk allowed at all and non-stop Comedy Central programming instead, I’d take the ads.
If you win a debate by silencing your opponents, what did you willing win?
Rothman. KGO’s political alchemist, pointed out that “there is a coalition of five Catholics on the Court.”
how tolerant
Did KGO Rothman report how the “coalition of five Catholics on the Court” voted on the McCain-Feingold book burning case?
Rothman has earned himself a place on the long and ever growing list of doofusses needing correction.
KGO archives all of it’s broadcasts for the previous 7 days. Which hour and day did he say this so we can hear it?
The tablet market is getting hot. Had an Econ professor who raved about reading his morning paper on his Kindle, which was interesting. I admit I convenience of having a good read with the paper on a Sunday or while riding the train, but what if it was simple, easy and cheap to read via wireless tablet? Amazon has Kindle with a wireless option. Apple will probably do something similiar. Cell phone companies will probably try to exploit their duopoly with syndicate pricing (sign a 2-year $99 month plan and get the tablet and the I-phone). What about thinking outside the box. What about content providers like newspapers? We have an industry struggling for a business model in the new economy, and a new technology looking for business partners to leverage the price down for mass appeal. How about bundling a tablet with subscription services (newspapers, magazines, etc.) and use that to drop the upfront costs?
The real fall of the newspaper industry was shifting from readership to advertising revenue to drive their profits. If you have a good product, people will pay to read the entire stories and have it delivered effortlessly on a regular basis (automatic downloading when it hits the streets.)
-Blair
Palo Alto
This Wednesday in Oakland, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC)will try to figure out what to do with $70 million of your federal stimulus money. (The MTC is the Bay Area’s regional transit planner and distributor of state and federal funding to transit agencies like VTA).
Lowdown: the feds found MTC did not do proper Title VI equity analysis on a rail connector to Oakland Airport from the Coliseum BART station. As a result, the feds denied the MTC $70 million in stimulus money needed to start construction this spring. Since MTC likely won’t get needed analysis done before March 1, they are in a position where they must spend the $70 million somehow or lose it altogether.
This is where YOU come in as a taxpayer. If you’re tired of agencies like VTA cutting service and raising fares due to lack of funding, here’s how to take action:
http://bit.ly/4R7s0h
County Supervisors Dave Cortese and Ken Yeager represent the South Bay as MTC Commissioners. This is in addition to Dean Chu of Sunnyvale. Let them know before Wednesday to use that $70 million for much-needed transit operations funding thru this contact source:
http://www.vtaridersunion.org/DIY/index.html#mtc
Take any VTA bus, light rail, or Caltrain? NOW is the time to get up, stand up, and not give up the fight.
Eugene:
That Oakland Airport Connector project is a huge boondoggle. This page
http://oaklandairportconnector.com/
has more information, although it hasn’t been updated in a while. Everyone should follow Eugene’s links above.
In case you’re interested!
On February 2, 2010, the San Jose City Council will consider proposed screening criteria and community panel composition for the recruitment of a new Independent Police Auditor. The agenda item is as follows:
3.3 Candidate Screening Criteria and Community Interview Panel Composition for Independent Police Auditor Executive Recruitment.
Recommendation: Approve candidate screening criteria to be used by consultant in evaluating applicants, and provide direction as to the composition of the community panel that will participate in interviewing and providing input on the top tier candidates for the Independent Police Auditor position. CEQA: Not a Project. (Human Resources)
If you wish to share your thoughts and opinions on the topic, you may want to contact your council member in the coming week.. I also encourage you to attend the council meeting itself but bear in mind that members of the public are only allowed to make brief public statements (2 or 3 minutes) at council meetings. In order to ensure that your concerns are given full consideration, you may want to call or write your council member in advance of the February 2 meeting. To review the full meeting agenda with attachments, please go to: http://www.sanjoseca.gov/clerk/Agenda/20100202/20100202a.pdf