UPDATE
The Board of Supervisors, for a reason unknown to us, canceled their scheduled Transportation and Planning Committee meeting scheduled for Monday 3/4, at which this issue was scheduled to be heard. As far as we know, the issue will be heard Monday April 1st at 9am. Please come, and spread the word!

We have an historic opportunity to place a moratorium on Bayer’s (formerly Monsanto’s) RoundUp, and all toxic herbicides containing glyphosate in Alameda County. We need YOU to come out on April 1st and to spread the word. The Transportation/Planning Committee of the BOS will be considering the moratorium, and it won’t happen without mass turnout and thousands of signatures. Please sign and share this petition: https://www.change.org/p/alameda-county-board-of-supervisors-ban-roundup-glyphosates-in-alameda-county?recruiter=6256975&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_term=share_petition

Here’s the deal: Alameda County agencies still spray thousands of gallons of RoundUp on Alameda County residents without their knowledge, despite clear scientific evidence spanning years of studies around the globe demonstrating glyphosate’s toxicity to humans and Life. They only post notifications when they spray on public trails/trailheads, but the vast majority of RoundUp is sprayed on literally thousands of linear miles of waterways and flood control channels, many of which border homes and backyards of East Oakland and unincorporated Alameda County residents. These residents are NOT warned, and are being put at risk by Alameda County agencies and officials by toxic RoundUp “drift”.

RoundUp is associated with higher rates of cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, early pregnancy terminations, low-birth weight, endocrine disruption, and it kills beneficial gut bacteria which is linked to a growing list of health problems. With this knowledge, Alameda County agencies are at risk for class action lawsuits if they don’t stop. Like Dewayne Johnson, who recently won a $289 million settlement against Monsanto, the Alameda County workers who are tasked with spraying this poison are also at great risk. And in this moment of severe climate disruption, why would Alameda County continue to spray RoundUp directly into the waterways of the Bay???

Let’s follow the lead of our indigenous elders who are leading this fight to force Alameda County to stop using glyphosates. Goats are being used by the county already with great results, at a comparable financial expense. Let’s have Alameda County join the dozens and dozens of cities and countries who have banned glyphosates, and help inspire other cities and counties throughout the U.S. to follow suit!

We’re still playing every Monday that it doesn’t rain!

Occupella organizes informal public singing at Bay Area occupation sites, marches and at BART stations. We sing to promote peace, justice, and an end to corporate domination, especially in support of the Occupy movement.

Music has the power to build spirit, foster a sense of unity, convey messages and emotions, spread information, and bring joy to participants and audience alike. See spirited clip of an action at BART. Check out the actions calendar and come add your voice. There are lots of ways to participate and everyone is welcome.

RACHEL KLEINFELD at Books Inc. Berkeley

Senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Rachel Kleinfeld discusses her comprehensive work, A Savage Order: How the World’s Deadliest Countries Can Forge a Path to Security.

The most violent places in the world today are not at war. More people have died in Mexico in recent years than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. These parts of the world are instead buckling under a maelstrom of gangs, organized crime, political conflict, corruption, and state brutality. Such devastating violence can feel hopeless, yet some places–from Colombia to the Republic of Georgia–have been able to recover.

In this powerfully argued and urgent book, Rachel Kleinfeld examines why some democracies, including our own, are crippled by extreme violence and how they can regain security. Drawing on fifteen years of study and firsthand field research–interviewing generals, former guerrillas, activists, politicians, mobsters, and law enforcement in countries around the world–Kleinfeld tells the stories of societies that successfully fought seemingly ingrained violence and offers penetrating conclusions about what must be done to build governments that are able to protect the lives of their citizens.

Taking on existing literature and popular theories about war, crime, and foreign intervention, A Savage Order is a blistering yet inspiring investigation into what makes some countries peaceful and others war zones, and a blueprint for what we can do to help.

Advance tickets: $12: brownpapertickets.com :: T: 800-838-3006  or
Pegasus Books (3 sites), Books Inc (Berkeley),
Moe’s,
Walden Pond Bookstore,
East Bay Books,
Mrs. Dalloway’s

As the United States continues to tear-gas and imprison asylum seekers on the U.S.-Mexico border, we wonder why so many Hondurans are fleeing their homeland, now one of the most violent countries in the world due to a devastating drug war and a political crisis stemming largely from a U.S.-backed coup. Dana Frank’s powerful narrative recounts the tumultuous time in Honduras that witnessed then-President Manuel Zelaya overthrown in 2009. Told through first-person experiences layered with deeper political analysis, this narrative weaves together two perspectives; first, the broad picture of Honduras since the coup, including the coup itself and its continuation in two repressive regimes; secondly, the evolving Honduran resistance movement, plus an emerging solidarity movement in the United States.

While full of disturbing incidents, this narrative directly counters mainstream media coverage that portrays Honduras as a pit of unrelenting awfulness, in which powerless sobbing mothers cry over bodies in the morgue. Rather, it’s about sobering challenges and the inspiring collective strength with which people can face them.

Dana Frank, Professor of History Emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is the author of Baneras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America. Since the 2009 military coup her articles about human rights and U.S. policy in Honduras have appeared in The Nation, New York Times, Politico Magazine, Foreign Affairs.com, The Baffler, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, and many other publications, and she has testified before both the US Congress and Canadian Parliament.

Diana Martinez is a native of El Salvador. She graduated from medical school in Mexico City and worked as a community doctor in rural Mexico. Later she served in the conflict zones as part of the liberation movement during the war in El Salvador. Subsequently Diana returned to academics to study public health and demographic sciences. After doing a fellowship at UCSF, she coordinated innovative research in health literacy, reproductive health, pesticide exposure, and chronic disease among Latino immigrants and farm workers across California. Through her use of multimedia in public health education interventions, Diana became passionate about radio production. She graduated from the KPFA Apprenticeship program and has since been involved at the station as a producer for more than ten years. Currently she is KPFA’s senior producer for Letters and Politics.

KPFA benefit

Relevant Agenda Items

4. 5:15pm: Federal Task Force Transparency Ordinance – OPD – presentation of inaugural annual report for FBI/JTTF, review and take possible action.

5. 5:25pm: Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Automated License Plate Reader Anticipated Impact Report and draft Use Policy – review and take possible action.

6. 6:00pm: Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Remote Camera Impact Report and draft use Policy – review and take possible action.

7. 6:20pm: Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – UC Berkeley/Steve Trush – Review of Surveillance Acquisition Technology Questionnaire revisions

8. 6:50pm: Review of Old Business and take possible action
a. City Attorney opinion re applicability of SB 1160 (BART jammer bill) to cell-site simulator use
b. City Attorney opinion re applicability of SB 178 (CalECPA) to cell-site simulator use (PC 1546.2 notice provision)

EAST BAY BOOKSELLERS welcomes Elisabeth Jay Friedman to discuss her new book Seeking Rights From the Left: Gender, Sexuality and the Latin American Pink Tide, on Thursday, April 4 at 7pm. She will be joined in conversation by C.S. Soong.

Seeking Rights from the Left offers a unique comparative assessment of left-leaning Latin American governments by examining their engagement with feminist, women’s, and LGBT movements and issues. Focusing on the “Pink Tide” in eight national cases–Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Venezuela–the contributors evaluate how the Left addressed gender- and sexuality-based rights through the state. Most of these governments improved the basic conditions of poor women and their families. Many significantly advanced women’s representation in national legislatures. Some legalized same-sex relationships and enabled their citizens to claim their own gender identity. They also opened opportunities for feminist and LGBT movements to press forward their demands. But at the same time, these governments have largely relied on heteropatriarchal relations of power, ignoring or rejecting the more challenging elements of a social agenda and engaging in strategic trade-offs among gender and sexual rights. Moreover, the comparative examination of such rights arenas reveals that the Left’s more general political and economic projects have been profoundly, if at times unintentionally, informed by traditional understandings of gender and sexuality.

Contributors: Sonia E. Alvarez, Mar a Constanza Diaz, Rachel Elfenbein, Elisabeth Jay Friedman, Niki Johnson, Victoria Keller, Edurne Larracoechea Bohigas, Amy Lind, Marlise Matos, Shawnna Mullenax, Ana Laura Rodr guez Gust , Diego Sempol, Constanza Tabbush, Gwynn Thomas, Catalina Trebisacce, Annie Wilkinson.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elisabeth Jay Friedman is Professor of Politics and Latin American Studies at the University of San Francisco and the author of several books, including Interpreting the Internet: Feminist and Queer Counterpublics in Latin America.

C.S. Soong is co-host and producer of Against the Grain, a thrice-weekly program on KPFA-FM that highlights progressive and radical thinking and activism.

Join us for a Poor People’s Hearing on Homelessness, Mass Incarceration, and the Criminalization of Poverty in the Bay Area.

Poor People’s Hearing Bay Area. Changing the Moral Narrative: Against Systemic Racism, Poverty, the War Economy, and Ecological Devastation.

This Bay Area hearing will focus specifically on homelessness, mass incarceration, and the criminalization of poverty. It is the Oakland stop on a statewide Poor People’s Bus Tour from the Yurok Indian Nation in the North down to the U.S.-Mexico border. The Bus Tour is organized the California Poor People’s Campaign which is part of the National Poor People’s Campaign.

The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is organizing tens of thousands of people across the country to challenge the evils of systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, ecological devastation and the nation’s distorted morality.

https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/

Organized by California Poor People’s Campaign Bay Area Steering Committee. Please join the Poor People’s Campaign Bay Area Support Group. If you can help organize future events in the National Poor People’s Campaign with us here in the Bay, please join us at the steering committee meetings.

Calling all filmmakers –We’re going live!

This will be a 2 hour, hands-on workshop where we’ll learn OBS (Open Broadcast Software) and low budget (>$500) multi-cam livestreaming –we’ll take feeds from multiple cameras, a projector, and an audio signal to create a live show.

$5 minimum donation suggested, but NOTAFLOF 🙂