Come join fiftyseven-thirtythree and Spoke Art for some last minute, “not at the mall” holiday shopping.

Spoke Art is located in San Francisco’s Lower Nob Hill Neighborhood. So DOPE!

Merchandise and prints available from fiftyseven-thirtythree.  All at festival prices!
Prints available from featured Spoke Art artists.

Finally, to add a little holiday cheer, we’re giving a free gift to everyone who spends at least $50 (while supplies last).  And of course, wine and refreshments will be available, in perfect art gallery fashion!

Friday, December 16: 4-9p (6-9p Cocktails)
Saturday, December 17: 12-7p
Sunday, December 18: 12-7p

http://www.fiftyseven-thirtythree.com/
http://spoke-art.com/

Life is busy, we totally understand and agree with you.  This is why we are going go ahead and make you a guarantee for the Holiday season.

California Residents: Order online by December 22, and your orders will arrive by Christmas Eve, December 24th.

Out of State Residents (Continental US, no International, Sorry!): Order online by December 18, and your orders will arrive by Christmas Eve, December 24th.

There is no extra charge.  We just stand in solidarity, with the busy people, slackers, and those who have too many relatives to ever finish gift shopping!

In the last two months, the prevailing media narrative has been that Occupy Oakland has hurt local business and negatively impacted Oakland’s image.

But a survey of more than 100 businesses recently conducted by OO’s Local Business Liaison committee, a group comprised of small business owners, reached different conclusions. Oakland Local obtained a copy of the complete survey – covering a period between Oct. 10 and Nov. 5 – and reviewed it.

According to the survey of 106 businesses, all within two blocks of the Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland, 80 percent of the local businesses contacted by the committee reported that OO either increased their business or had no significant impact; businesses reporting a detrimental impact were a distinct minority.

Specifically, the survey cites:

• 20 percent of businesses surveyed described OO as “decreasing business or having negative impact;” of those businesses, three described themselves as “great supporters” of OO; the remaining 19 said they had “neutral, mixed feelings,” or “were not sure.”
  25 percent of businesses surveyed said OO has “improved business” or had a “positive” impact; 90 percent of those said they supported OO, with the rest remaining neutral.
  55 percent of local businesses were either “not sure” of O/O’s impact or indicated “some positive and some negative impact that seems to balance out.” Of this group, the majority indicated “neutral, mixed feelings” about OO, with almost 20 percent describing themselves as “great supporters.”

Not a single one of the 106 businesses in the survey reported that they had a negative level of support for Occupy Oakland.

These findings clearly contradict statements made by the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and City Councilmembers. Many media reports have generally blamed Occupy Oakland for tarnishing the city’s image in the business community, but this survey has a different set of findings.

In his Nov. 25 column, SF Chronicle writer Chip Johnson said that because of OO, “The city’s credibility as a viable place to live, work and do business hangs in the balance.”  Councilwoman Pat Kernighan, generally considered a pro-business politician, claimed the Occupation set Oakland’s economic development efforts back 15 years. And Joe Haraburda, president of the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, said that at least three corporate firms pulled out of lease negotiations in the week before Nov. 2’s General Strike.

The Local Business Liaison committee – LBL – is still in the process of analyzing and collating data. However, its preliminary findings were that businesses reporting a positive impact included credit unions, convenience stores, low-end restaurants such as pizzerias and delicatessens, as well as restaurants outside the plaza area. The largest benefit was realized by credit unions, whose increase in business was “directly attributed to Occupy Oakland’s promotion of local banks/credit unions” prior to Nov. 5.

Businesses reporting a negative impact included high-end restaurants, cafes and retail stores – some of which suffered as much as a 70 percent drop in receipts.

Yet the LBL said that decline in revenue wasn’t solely attributable to Occupy Oakland’s encampment at the plaza, but was further impacted by the police action of Oct. 25, which resulted in widely-seen video footage of tear gas being deployed against protestors.

According to the LBL, “Those who reported negative impact from the beginning of the Occupy Oakland event also reported an additional and sustained drop in business following the police action on Oct 25.”

The LBL stated that the presence of riot police in the downtown area was detrimental to local business, specifically impacting pedestrian traffic, which retail shops rely on for sales. And the lingering effects of tear-gas “caused reactions in people who were in the downtown area the day after the police action,” which “was certainly not good for business.”

Other factors that may have contributed to negative impact on business include the “aesthetic impact” of a highly-visible homeless encampment in the downtown area and vandalism. Businesses in and around Ogawa Plaza and City Center who cater to city employees may also have been affected by mandatory work furlough days.

Yet, even after the vandalism and property destruction which occurred on Nov. 2, many Occupy supporters went out of their way to patronize affected businesses such as Oakollectiv and Tully’s coffee.

Prior to the Occupy movement coming to Oakland, there were numerous vacant storefronts downtown – a sign of the economic recession, as was the low occupancy rate among the new condominiums built under then – Mayor Jerry Brown’s 10K plan. In 2009, for instance, the Chronicle estimated the percentage of vacancies among new condos in Jack London Square and Uptown rate at 50 percent.

In recent months, some empty retail space has since been filled by pop-up shops like the Betti Ono Gallery and Runway. Still, many vacancies remain, such as the large commercial space at 14th and Franklin situated across the street from the Joyce Gordon Gallery and Githinji Wa Mbire’s pop-up gallery.

The LBL maintains that the Chamber of Commerce doesn’t represent small, local businesses and sees the Occupy movement – and its focus on the 99 percent – as something that can actually help mon’n’pop shops who aren’t being served by big business interests.

Asked if the Chamber of Commerce was a strong advocate for local business, LBL member Jesse Smith said, “The Chamber is staffed with business people who chair in large corporations and their agenda reflects this. Local business owners express that the chamber is hostile to small business, threatening their existence with preference to stores like Banana Republic.”

Smith, who canvassed many of the businesses in the survey, noted that “The Chamber of Commerce has not produced any research on [the impact of Occupy Oakland on business]. This leaves them free to speak from their imagination.”

LBL member Maria Gastelumendi, the owner of The Rising Loafer Cafe and Bakery added, “If one wants to hear from local business owners about their perspectives, go to an association that actually represents them, such as Oakland Grown/Sustainable Business.”

But Paul Junge, the Public Policy Director for the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, said, “the notion that we’re hostile is completely unsupported by facts.” Seventy percent of chamber members are small businesses, he said, and during the Occupation of the plaza, the chamber was asked to coordinate a meeting between 30 small businesses, only half of whom were chamber members.

Junge said it “would more than surprise me” to learn that only 20 percent of businesses in and around Ogawa Plaza were negatively impacted by Occupy Oakland. He received, he said, “dozens” of calls of complaint during the occupation of the plaza, adding there was a “great deal of frustration” with how Occupy Oakland was affecting the perception of business in Oakland. According to Junge, businesses were impacted as far away as the Fruitvale District, and up to 300 potential jobs were lost when lease negotiations were called off.

Junge said customers, clients and lease agents have all told him they were scared by the violence surrounding Occupy Oakland, which contributes to a “pre-existing reputation” of Oakland as a dangerous place.

However, Junge said his evidence is purely anecdotal: “The Chamber has not done a scientific study.”

When pressed, he said that after the Oct. 25 incident in which war veteran Scott Olsen was injured, he got calls saying, “the police are violent;” after the riot following the general strike of Nov. 2, that changed to a “fear of protestors.” He also said that some are hopeful that the businesses who broke off negotiations will eventually come to Oakland, after the furor dies down.

In the meantime, LBL’s ongoing efforts to bolster the downtown retail district have included introducing a resolution at a General Assembly in support of small local businesses – which passed – and endorsing the “Keep Downtown in the Black” event on Black Friday, which urged consumers to boycott “big-box” stores and shop local instead. And, Smith said, they are pursuing an effort to certify businesses as “Occupy-friendly,” in a manner similar to the “Fair Trade” seal. Also, he added, “we are helping to protect a small business (Mama Buzz Cafe) from imminent gentrification.”

On Monday, we told you about Emma Sullivan, a teenager who tweeted her displeasure at governor Sam Brownback and then stuck to her guns after his staff whined about it. But last night, a teen from Waverly, Iowa one-upped Sullivan, confronting Michele Bachmann to her face—in a room full of Bachmann supporters.

During a town hall, 16-year-old Jane Schmidt, the head of her school’s Gay-Straight Alliance, asked the famously anti-gay congresswoman how she would support the LGBT community. After Bachmann said that “all Americans have the same civil rights,” Schmidt pressed her, even as virtually all the adults in the room broke out in applause in response to Bachmann’s reply.

“Then why can’t gay people get married?” Schmidt asked. They can, Bachmann assured her, as long as they marry a person of the opposite sex. A lengthy exchange ensued, wherein Schmidt kept her cool while calling out Bachmann’s bullshit answers.

It’s one thing to tweet an insult or bang out an angry blog post, but it takes real courage to ask tough questions of a politician standing right in front of you as your entire community stares you down. It’s moments like these when YouTube and the First Amendment make especially cozy bedfellows. Maybe the next generation isn’t so doomed, after all.

The saying “no news is good news” takes on a whole different meaning in light of a new study [PDF] out of Fairleigh Dickinson University. Released last week, the study surveyed more than 600 New Jersey adults about current events and, later, what news media they consumed. The goal was to ascertain how informative and healthy certain news diets are. What the researchers found out may not surprise you:

For example, people who watch Fox News, the most popular of the 24-hour cable news networks, are 18 points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who watch no news at all (after controlling for other news sources, partisanship, education and other demographic factors). Fox News watchers are also 6 points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government than those who watch no news.

The study controlled for partisanship, which suggests that something specific to Fox News programs—not party affiliation—makes people more ignorant to certain questions. In other words, when attempting to become a well-informed adult, in some cases it’s probably better to just ignore news altogether than spend any time watching Fox News.

Researches noted that, by contrast, the most informed Americans were those who watched Sunday morning news programs and, to a lesser extent, read national newspapers and listened to NPR. So perhaps its time to stop paying for cable and start paying for that New York Times subscription you’ve been holding out on.

Photo via (cc) Flickr user futureatlas.com

A security researcher has posted a video detailing hidden software installed on smart phones that logs numerous details about users’ activities.

In a 17-minute video posted Monday on YouTube, Trevor Eckhart shows how the software – known as Carrier IQ – logs every text message, Google search and phone number typed on a wide variety of smart phones – including HTC, Blackberry, Nokia and others – and reports them to the mobile phone carrier.

The application, which is labeled on Eckhart’s HTC smartphone as “HTC IQ Agent,” also logs the URL of websites searched on the phone, even if the user intends to encrypt that data using a URL that begins with “HTTPS,” Eckhart said.

The software always runs when Android operating system is running and users are unable to stop it, Eckhart said in the video.

“Why is this not opt-in and why is it so hard to fully remove?” Eckhart wrote at the end of the video.

In a post about Carrier IQ on his website, Eckhart called the software a “rootkit,” a security term for software that runs in the background without a user’s knowledge and is commonly used in malicious software.

Eckhart’s video is the latest in a series of attacks between him and the company. Earlier this month, Carrier IQ sent a cease and desist letter to Eckhart claiming he violated copyright law by publishing Carrier IQ training manuals online. But after the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, came to Eckhart’s defense, the company backed off its legal threats.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the software that Eckhart has publicized “raises substantial privacy concerns” about software that “many consumers don’t know about.”

Carrier IQ could not immediately be reached for comment. But the company told Wired.com that its software is used for “gathering information off the handset to understand the mobile-user experience, where phone calls are dropped, where signal quality is poor, why applications crash and battery life.”

On its website, Carrier IQ, founded in 2005, describes itself as “the world’s leading provider of Mobile Service Intelligence solutions.”

Watch video of Eckhart explaining his findings:

You’re familiar with the idea: seasonal retail shops that suddenly materialize in once-vacant storefronts to sell Halloween costumes in October. Christmas trees in December. Remaindered calendars come January. More recently, big box shops have pounced on the idea of flash retail as well; to promote its Rodarte clothing line a couple of years ago, Target launched Target to Go—mini-shops in carefully selected locations that opened and closed within three days. Google is cashing in on the trend, too—opening temporary retail spaces in airports this fall to hand-sell its new cloud computing laptop.

Now in Oakland, restaurateur Alfonso Dominguez and urban planner Sarah Filley are taking the pop-up concept to a new level. In December, they’re opening a pop-up neighborhood: three downtown blocks of temporary retail shops that showcase local designers, artists and goods.

The six participating stores—which range from clothing and crafts to bicycles and art—will occupy currently vacant spaces for six months, rent free, and try to turn a profit. If they succeed, they’ll sign a long-term lease with the building, which spans four city blocks of the Old Oakland district downtown; and what began as an experiment becomes a bonafide shopping district. That’s the idea, anyway.

Dominguez and Filley are calling the venture “popuphood.”

A designer named Douglas Burnham did something similar in San Francisco, opening a cluster of restaurants and retail shops inside 26 modified shipping containers arranged on an empty lot in Hayes Valley. But the difference, according to Dominguez and Filley, is that popuphood is a long-term plan for neighborhood revitalization, while Burnham’s project was meant to be fleeting.

The stores will share a building with one of Dominguez’s other ventures, a restaurant and tequila bar called Tamarindo, on 8^th Street and Broadway, not too far from a taqueria he owns. So he, admittedly, has a vested interest in bolstering the neighborhood’s profile and economic outlook.

After watching store after store shutter windows and close up when the economy took a downturn in 2008, Dominguez worried that the vacant storefronts would never fill up.

“People were too scared to open retail,” he said.  “And they saw me being the only one here. It was really hard.”

Then he had an idea: What if a group of like-minded business owners banded together to fill the empty spaces, cooperatively market their stores, and together mitigate the risks of starting up a new business?

Inspired, he teamed up with Filley, a friend with experience in urban planning and public art innovation, who helped him put together a business proposal to present to the city’s redevelopment agency and the owners of the building, Peter Sullivan Associates.

“It happened really fast,” Dominguez said. “We were a little like, ‘Whoa, can we pull this off?’”

Within a matter of months, they had secured permits and a marketing grant from the city of Oakland, and worked out an arrangement with the owners, who were happy to donate the space.

“Many of these spaces have been vacant for a year or more,” Filley said. “So for (the property owners), it’s no risk. And the tenants are offering to improve the spaces, and make it work for them.”

Three of the shops—Marion & Rose’s Workshop, Manifesto Bicycles and Sticks + Stones—will open early to host holiday sales for “Plaid Friday,” an indie alternative to Black Friday.

But the grand opening of all six—one of which, a furniture shop, will be housed inside a repurposed shipping container in the parking lot behind the building—is December 9. Dominguez and Filley are hosting a block party from 12pm to 9pm, on 9^th Street, in collaboration with neighboring businesses and restaurants, including Trappist bar and B restaurant.

Besides introducing Oaklanders to the stores, they’re hoping the block party will reacquaint residents with the charm of Old Oakland: the Victorian architecture, mature trees and brick-lined walkways.

“It’s historic and it’s gorgeous,” Filley said. “It also has highest transit and walk scores in the city of Oakland, and there’s a free shuttle that goes from the ferry all the way to the arts district. Its really a big head scratcher as to why this neighborhood hasn’t taken off already.”

Brian Kendall, an urban economic analyst with Oakland’s redevelopment agency, helped Dominguez and Filley secure city funding for the project, from façade improvement grants to marketing money for the grand opening.

“It’s definitely an experiment and I will be really curious to see where it goes,” Kendall said of the venture “it exposes these areas to the possibility of what could be. What does Old Oakland want to be?”

He argues that Popuphood, like Oaklandish and Awaken Café, may bring the “cool factor” to downtown Oakland, which was once dominated by “mom and pop” shops and vacant space, he said.

To say the least, the shops Dominguez and Filley “curated” for popuphood are eclectic and hip: Manifesto sells custom fixed gears. Piper & John General Goods offers vintage clothing, jewelry and “reclaimed” décor. Crown 9 is an artisanal jewelry store. Sticks and Stones art gallery will open an accompanying retail shop. And in a shipping container behind the building, you’ll find Turtle & Hare, an design-and-build furniture shop.

But apart from its trendy offerings, Kendall said Popuphood’s greatest strength will be its founders’ ability to market the project, set themselves apart from other area businesses and reach people who wouldn’t normally go downtown to shop.

“People will travel for restaurants and bars,” Kendall said. “But people aren’t necessarily going to travel for shoes.”

But Filley is optimistic.

“The restaurants and bars around here are fantastic and have a following, so the only thing missing in this neighborhood is retail,” she said. Clustering shops, restaurants and bars can benefit everyone involved, she added.

“Knowing that you have other neighbors that are doing it with you, that can bring marketing and foot traffic and followers was really the tipping point for a lot of them,” Filley said of the other business owners. “To know that you can pool your resources together and ask ‘Where do you get your sign made? How do you use Iphone commerce?’…That’s valuable.”

Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/14jLc)

NUFF SED’.

Spread the word. Get some deals. Show some love!

Happy Holidays.

Love,

fiftyseven-thirtythree fam

via Oakland Local

Even before Occupy came to Oakland, local residents have been known for thinking globally and shopping locally.

This year promises to be no exception with both Plaid Friday and Blackout Oakland scheduled for “Black Friday,” Nov. 25.

Not everyone can or will head to the shops. What if you’re out of town on the big day? Or simply prefer to do your shopping online? Turns out, there are lots of ways to shop local using a computer or smart phone. When it comes to shopping local, you can let your fingers do the walking.

The first stop on our virtual tour is Oakland Unwrapped. This organization is well known for the Oakland Indie Awards – celebrating Oakland business’s and artists each May. But they also host an Online Marketplace where shoppers can find and buy directly from Oakland-owned independent businesses and artists. Click here to shop online with more than 130 different local vendors.

Next is to Oakland Grown. This group of local business owners, artists and engaged citizens supports local purchasing through advocacy, network building and advertising. This year, they also started a gift card program. You can buy the cards in the Oakland Grown gift guide section of the site. Click on the card amount you want to be taken to a screen where you can “Add to cart.” The site has some great real world local shopping ideas sorted by price and category.

There also are national sites, which allow you to find local sellers. Ebay Local is one option – once you type in your city or zip code, you can search for second-hand items from individuals or companies. It can be a great way to both save money and stimulate the local economy. Another site popular with many Oakland crafters is Etsy. This site also features a buy local search. A recent search revealed more than 17,000 items made by Oakland enthusiasts of sewing, knitting, crochet, painting/illustration and other handmade skills.

Several well-known local artists sell their posters online including Melanie Cervantes and Jesus Barraza/Dignidad Rebelde, Favianna Rodriguez, Estria and the Bay Area graffiti artists of Endless Canvas.

Oakland is home to several great museums and a few of them have online stores, including the Oakland Museum of California and Chabot Space & Science Center. You could also always buy your friends and family a museum membership – like this one at Mocha Children’s Art Museum.

Lastly, let’s not forget local swag. Oaklandish has made a business turning local T’s into local grants. There’s also Hella Love and 5733. For even more Oakland spirit (and a higher price tag) you can go official with the Athletics, the Warriors or the Raiders. Clothing, gear or season tickets are appreciated by long time and new fans.

Occupy Black Friday, Plaid Friday, Small Business Saturday, or any other funny shopping day names aside.  Let’s make sure we are understanding the message this year.  SHOP LOCAL.  SHOP AMERICAN MADE.  SUPPORT YOUR COMMUNITIES.

We have been doing a great job exercising our right to free speech and utilizing our tax dollars with the efforts made behind the Occupy Movement!  Also, Bank Transfer Day was a huge success, moving obscene amounts of money away from the banks that don’t deserve them and into Credit Unions.  But we cannot stop there.

Although it’s a sometimes difficult feat, shop local and American made.  By shopping at large stores without any civic responsibility, we are giving money back to those who are far removed from their communities and live in the 1%.  By purchasing items, which are sweatshop made, we are taking jobs away from Americans and other countries who are paying their manufacturers proper and livable wages.

This upcoming weekend is a great time to start.  But lets not make sure we stop there.  Let’s do our research and find out where you can shop to help out, and not hurt our communities.  By voting to shop local, your voice will be heard.

Well, that didn’t last long.

Early Sunday morning, Oakland police removed a small group of Occupiers who had set up tents and spent the night at a vacant lot at 19th Street and Telegraph, in the Uptown district, next to Henry J. Kaiser Park. The raid began around 8 a.m.

Within half an hour, the encampment had been cleared. About 20 campers were asked to leave and complied, OPD spokesperson Johnna Watson said.

“We don’t want a confrontation, we just want them to remove their tents,” Watson added.

There were no arrests.

Overnight Sunday, encampment “residents” at Snow Park – who had been there off and on for weeks – also were asked by OPD to leave and complied. The latest closure was met with no opposition or incident.

Back near Kaiser Park, about 40 demonstrators milled about around 9:30 a.m. Sunday as a line of officers in riot helmets and rain gear maintained a line at the intersection of 19th and Rashida Mohammad streets. Some of the demonstrators chanted slogans. Others attempted to engage in dialogue with police. One woman sang to the officers, who remained mostly stoic, occasionally cracking smiles. At one point, a photographer asked police to pose in front of a sculpture depicting Gandhi. No one took him up on the offer.

Behind the police line, Department of Public Works cleaning crews removed debris from the short-lived encampment, which reportedly was very unpopular with residents of the Uptown apartment complex.

The swift removal of the encampment represented somewhat of a public-relations victory for OPD, who had been widely criticized for excessive use of force during earlier raids, which included the use of tear gas and rubber bullets. This time, OPD kept their composure and maintained professionalism.

Demonstrators seemed unsure what their next steps would be after it became apparent that they would not be permitted to keep the Uptown encampment. Many of the campers relocated to the Snow Park location, which had about 20 tents as of Friday afternoon – but their time at the park near Lake Merritt was short spent as OPD moved in and shut down the city’s last Occupy encampment Sunday evening.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich called child labor laws “stupid” Friday in an appearance at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

“It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid,” said the former House speaker,according to CNN. “Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

“You’re going to see from me extraordinarily radical proposals to fundamentally change the culture of poverty in America,” he added.

Generally, the Fair Labor Standards Act allows minors over 14 to work in most jobs, with several exceptions for minors under that age. Hours are limited for minors under the age of 16. Some states have higher age standards.

He also said Saturday Occupy Wall Street protesters should “take a bath” and “get a job.”

Gingrich has risen in the polls to a virtual tie with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, according to a Gallup poll released Monday.

He still faces questions over his role as a consultant for Freddie Mac, for which he was paid at least $1.5 million for strategic advice from 1999 to 2007. Gingrich has denied ever lobbying for the company and had criticized then-candidate Barack Obama for accepting campaign contributions from the firm. In an interview with USA Today published Monday, he said, “You start with people with a socialist bias that you shouldn’t earn money. If you do, “you’re automatically suspicious of having done something bad,” he added.

Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner disputed Gingrich’s claim that he was never a lobbyist. The columnist reported that the former House speaker tried to convince Capitol Hill Republicans to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare while being paid for by drug companies. Gingrich denied the report Monday, saying he publicly advocated the benefit and was doing well financially at the time.

Gingrich unveiled a plan Monday to allow younger workers to invest their Social Security in private retirement accounts, similar to an unsuccessful plan proposed by former President George W. Bush.

In an interview over the weekend with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Gingrich was asked how he is a better candidate than in the past. He said, “I do fewer dumb things.”

Watch the video right here.

The past month has been a very historic one.  People around the world have been voicing their disgust about corporate greed and the widening socio-economic gap between the rich and poor.

We, here at fiftyseven-thirtythree, have had the privilege to witness one of the most talked about occupy movements right in front of our eyes, Occupy Oakland.  Conservative media outlets have condemned Oakland residents, calling us barbaric.  Liberal political pundits have commented on the stupidity of city administrators.  The media has basically made Oakland look like a Ground Zero of some sorts.

Even more recently, another occupy movement in the Bay Area has gained a large majority of media coverage, Occupy Cal.  Cal students have been protesting about tuition hikes that have taken place in the UC Education system. Added attention has been shown because of the Police beating and shooting of a student, which resulted in his death.

Though some positive, and some really negative, watching all of this happen in the Bay Area in front of our eyes has been a privilege.  Having the ability to watch people actually be passionate, and proactive, about a widespread issue is a beautiful thing.  But through mainstream media, we have been portrayed as more of a place where “anything goes”, rather than the forefront of civic activism.

I will be the first person to say, I could care less what people think.  But when does negative media coverage begin to hurt what we are trying to accomplish out here?  What can we do, to ensure people outside of the Bay Area are seeing an accurate depiction of these events?

What do you guys think?

via Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — Nearly three weeks ago, the Oakland Police Department made international headlines when it razed Occupy Oakland’s encampment under a hail of rubber bullets and lung-stinging clouds of tear gas. The police deployed the same aggressive response on the subsequent protest march that night.

YouTube videos and Twitter carried images of a wheelchair-bound woman caught up in tear-gas haze and close-ups of point-blank wounds left by rubber bullets and bean-bag pellets. Iraq War vet Scott Olsen became an icon not for his service in Iraq, but for being severely wounded when a police projectile fractured his skull and put him intensive care. He has only recently left the hospital.

It has not been a good time to be an Oakland police officer, or the city’s top official. After initially praising the police for their morning raid on the encampment, Mayor Jean Quan then went into damage-control mode amid the ensuing marches and candlelight vigils for Olsen, visiting the 24-year-old at his Highland Hospital room.

By then, Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan promised to investigate his officers’ use of force. Quan vowed to make sure his investigation was thorough. On her Facebook page, she went a step further, issuing a mea culpa:

I am deeply saddened about the outcome on Tuesday. It was not what anyone hoped for, ultimately it was my responsibility, and I apologize for what happened … We have started an investigation into the use of force, including tear gas, on Tuesday. I cannot change the past, but I want to work with you to ensure that this remains peaceful moving forward. When there’s violence, there are no winners — it polarizes us and opens old wounds.

Quan has since had law enforcement clear out the encampment for a second time, after which both her top legal adviser and her deputy mayor abruptly resigned.

Her administration’s investigation into the allegations of excessive force would not have to go back too far into Oakland’s municipal archives to find that the police department has violated its own policies and procedures before.

A similar incident in April 2003 at the Oakland port. Cops fired bean bags and wooden bullets at hundreds of anti-war protesters, leading to condemnation by the United Nations, millions in settlements and the department agreeing to a court-ordered, wide-ranging overhaul of its crowd-control policy. It was a substantial victory for activists that promised at least a respectful detente between them and the cops.

And it lasted until Occupy Oakland.

The rules of engagement stemming from the 2003 incident prohibit such police escalations like the one that led to Olsen’s injury. Stinger grenades containing rubber pellets as well as any weapon meant to be fired at the ground are banned. Less-than-lethal weapons, such as rubber bullets, bean bags and flash-bang devices, can’t be used for crowd control.

Tear gas can only be used as a last resort, and only after warnings are given and “reasonable” time has been given for citizens to disperse. “Crowd control chemical agents shall only be used if other techniques, such as encirclement and multiple simultaneous arrest or police formations, have failed or will not accomplish the policing goal,” the policy stipulates.

The policy went a step further in addressing who the police can target for arrest.

“The mere failure to obtain a permit, such as a parade permit or sound permit is not a sufficient basis to declare an unlawful assembly,” the policy states.

Dan Siegel, Quan’s former legal adviser who resigned Monday from his post, told The Huffington Post that the recent incidents at the Occupy camp clearly broke the policy. “There were agreements made about tear gas use and so-called non-lethal weapons that were just egregiously violated,” he said.

The mayor’s office did not return a request seeking comment.

Rachel Lederman, one of the attorneys in the litigation that spurred the policy changes, had a simple reaction when she saw the news reports on Olsen and the others: “Not again!”

The new incident could lead to a new case, she explained.

“Pretty much every aspect of the crowd control policy was violated,” she said. “We are prepared to take legal action.”

A civil suit has just been filed on behalf of those injured in the Occupy incidents. The gist of thecomplaint relies heavily on the agreement spurred by the port incident.

Officer Johnna Watson in the OPD’s media relations office told HuffPost Tuesday that the department did not violate the agreement stemming from the port incident. Its use of bean bag rounds and tear gas fell within the scope of the agreement, she said.

But James Chanin, another prominent attorney from the 2003 class-action case, said the incidents are eerily similar.

“I’d like to see the supervisor go down for this, including, if necessary, the police chief,” Chanin said.

Few have been as intimately tied to both incidents as the interim chief. Jordan was a defendant in the 2003 case. He had been involved in the planning stages of the police operation and on the scene that day, when more than 50 activists and bystanders were injured.

As the news clips from the Occupy Oakland incidents showed a downtown filled with tear-gas smoke, John Nishinaga said he watched in disbelief. He had been in the middle of the activity at the port in 2003, shaken by pain and fear.

“It reminded me a lot of what I experienced,” Nishinaga recalled to HuffPost. “That scene. And those wounds. And the panic.”

Willow Rosenthal had been there too. “It was really hard for me to see,” she told HuffPost of those images. “I certainly shed tears over it. Emotionally, it’s still very close to the surface.”

* * *

In the morning of April 7, 2003, Rosenthal and Nishinaga joined hundreds of activists at the Port of Oakland for a peaceful — if noisy — demonstration against the country’s just-launched invasion of Iraq. They had set out to picket two shipping lines with ties to the war build-up. It was a mild day, matched only by the tempered chants of the activists.

“It was a pretty boring protest,” Nishinaga admitted.

It took a while for people to show up. The port is fairly isolated from public transportation, and activists had to get off at a nearby BART stop before slogging it down long, wide roads and crossing railroad tracks. It was still dark out when Rosenthal arrived that morning, before the police.

Gradually, at least two picket lines formed. They began to get louder and stronger as the demonstration gained more participants. When the police showed up, they soon moved on the crowd.

“The police were corralling people along one side of this very long roadway,” Nishinaga said. In full riot gear, officers herded the activists and choked off access to the port. During that time, they began firing — without warning — on the crowd, according to Nishinaga and Rosenthal.

As court records and news accounts revealed, cops shot wooden dowels and beanbags, tossed “stingball grenades filled with rubber pellets” and tear gassed the crowd. In the pandemonium, officers struck fleeing individuals with batons and motorcycles.

“Defendants’ actions were the result of unlawful and unconstitutional policies and practices of the City of Oakland and the OPD,” the lawyers for one lawsuit wrote in their complaint.

“One minute I was picketing,” Rosenthal said. “The next minute it felt like a war zone. There were very loud booms going off overhead. Then they started shooting these weapons out of their rifles.”

Rosenthal recalled the police forming a line, dropping to one knee and shooting at activists with bean bags and wooden dowels. “It was very confusing,” she explained. She and others fled down one road only to be cut off by the police dragnet and fired upon.

Many of the injured were shot in the back.

Rosenthal went down after being shot in the back of the leg. A wooden dowel crushed skin and tissue and caused internal bleeding that would require 10 days in the hospital, two surgeries and skin graphs [see slideshow for photos of her injuries], she said.

“There are these moments in life where you know something has happened to you, and right away, I knew my life wouldn’t be the same,” Rosenthal said of being first struck with that wooden bullet. “I felt an impact on my right and I felt my leg go numb. I could tell that something was wrong, really wrong. It brought me to an almost state of terror.”

The police didn’t stop shooting. Activists carried Rosenthal into a tunnel for safety. “I remember looking back at my right and having this feeling of ‘Am I going to have a leg?’ she said. “I was afraid to look.”

“When they started firing, people were just trying to get out of the way for cover,” Nishinaga added. A wooden bullet struck his hand. “I was walking backwards. When I got hit … I was just holding some picket signs that people dropped. I was trying to not litter. It hit the hand I was holding the picket signs with.”

The primitive bullet fractured and mangled Nishinaga’s hand. He said he didn’t get much use out of it for at least a year.

Jack Heyman, the now-retired longshoreman union official, came down to the docks in the early morning to figure out what his fellow workers should do. Could they cross the picket line? Should they wait for the protest to end? A group of longshoreman stood on the sidelines trying to figure it out. Heyman told HuffPost that the police gave no warning before firing on the demonstration.

“It was kind of like ‘Apocalypse Now,’” Heyman said.

Heyman tried to drive over to a terminal. He said police dragged him out of his car and roughed him up. “They mashed my head onto the pavement, foot on my spine, and they twisted my arms behind my back and handcuffed me,” he recalled. Much of his arrest was caught on tape. A reporter is seen asking him what he was arrested for. Heyman replied that he didn’t know.

Some of the police were not bewildered by the events that day. One cop, according to a witness’ affidavit, bragged about shooting activists at the port. According to the statement of the witness, Officer Chris Del Rosario told her shortly after the incidents that day “that he was very tired because he ‘had to shoot a lot of people today’ … and that he ‘shot this one bitch in the forehead and her titties popped out.’”

Interim Chief Jordan has said his officers had no choice but to use tear gas at Occupy Oakland. Officers claimed that Occupiers had thrown objects at them. They had made similar claims in 2003.

In his April 2005 deposition, Jordan said that no officers had infiltrated the activists prior to April 7, but he admitted that he was in favor of such police tactics. Two officers, Jordan confessed, had infiltrated a demonstration against the police violence that May. He said that the two officers had planned “the route of the march and decided, I guess, where it should end up and some of the places that it would go.”

“I think together we probably all decided it would be a good idea to have some undercover officers there,” Jordan stated in his deposition.

The incident stayed with Jordan. He added later in his deposition that he kept a file on the events of April 7. When asked why he had done so, Jordan replied that it was used “for future planning, any kind of training.”

Jordan stated, “In the event it happens again, you want to have some documentation so you can recall incidents, maybe change things the way you did them.”

UPDATE Wednesday morning:

Late Tuesday night, Sue Piper, a special assistant to Mayor Quan, responded via email to questions concerning whether the police department had violated its crowd control policies stemming from the 2003 port incident.

“The police are already doing investigations on the concerns about police use of force during Occupy Oakland,” Piper wrote. “We will be naming an independent investigator — probably next week — to determine if there are any violations.”

CLARIFICATION:The civil suit mentioned in the initial story was filed this week by Rachel Lederman, the ACLU and other civil-rights lawyers. Along with the suit, a motion for an immediate temporary restraining order was filed against the city. Both relied on heavily on the crowd-control policy generated from the 2003 port incident.

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Proof that Jean Quan is losing all support.  Maybe YOU are the one that’s making the wrong choices Mayor Quan.

via SF Gate

(11-14) 08:51 PST OAKLAND – Mayor Jean Quan’s chief legal adviser resigned early this morning after what he called a “tragically unnecessary” police raid of the Occupy Oakland camp.

Dan Siegel, a civil rights attorney and one of Oakland’s most active and vocal police critics, said the city should have done more to work with campers before sending in police.

“The city sent police to evict this camp, arrest people and potentially hurt them,” Siegel said. “Obviously, we’re not on the same page. It’s an amazing show of force to move tents from a public place.”

Siegel strongly and vocally opposed any plan by the city to take down the month-old camp in the days leading up the police raid.

“I am really disappointed with the city,” Siegel said at the protest near City Hall. Oakland has become “the most hostile city to the Occupy movement. Where else are they having 600 police officers take down some tents?”

At a news conference today, Quan said she has known Siegel since the two attended UC Berkeley together and noted that they have been known to disagree. She said Siegel had been working on “a small project on a volunteer basis in my office” and would only say this of his departure: “He’s moving on. I’m moving on.”

Siegel said he wasn’t impressed with Quan’s response to the protest.

“She worked so hard to get into office,” he said. “Obviously her inauguration was a tremendously optimistic day for so many people. What can you say? She didn’t deal with it well.”

Siegel had previously sparred with police officials over the city’s gang injunctions and the handling of violent protests after the a jury found Johannes Mehserle, the former BART police officer, guilty of involuntary manslaughter after shooting an unarmed rider.

In a statement, Quan said it was time for the camp to come down.

“Camping is a tactic. It is one that has divided Oakland, a city of the 99 percent. It’s time to work together on the issues of unemployment, foreclosures and education cuts. While the camping must end, the movement continues.”

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Quan supporters (if there are any left in Oakland) wonder why there is a huge movement to get her out of office.  She doesn’t even want her own residents, who voted her into office, reserving their right to occupy.

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan acknowledged that the city did not have “enough police in the afternoon” during Wednesday’s Occupy Oakland protest, when vandals smashed windows at some downtown banks and a Whole Foods Market.

At a press conference on Thursday, she said it was “so important that people stepped in” when some demonstrators became violent, but added that violence “shouldn’t mar the overall impact of the demonstration and the fact that people in the 99 percent movement demonstrated peacefully.”

By the end of the night, police had arrested approximately 80 people. Five demonstrators and three police officers were injured, including one who was bitten by a suspect, according to interim police Chief Howard Jordan. One individual was taken into custody on felony vandalism charges for breaking windows.

Both Quan and Jordan acknowledged that the demonstrations were taxing the police department’s overtime budget, and its ability to respond to crimes in other parts of the city.

“We don’t have a lot of extra money,” said Quan. “It will mean that the community will get less services.”

Jordan said, “We have enough people to respond to priority calls,” but he declined to specify what constituted a priority.

Quan defended the city’s response to the demonstration. “Throughout this situation we’ve been trying to balance people’s rights to protest and keeping people safe. I think that yesterday we did that.”

She said she understood some Oakland residents frustrations with the on-going encampment in the plaza in front of City Hall. “People support the movement in general, but they don’t want it in their backyard,” she said.

As for the future of the tent city, “if they can’t contain the violence, they’ll need to move the camp to a more appropriate place,” Quan said. When asked where that might be, she joked: “San Francisco.”

Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/13Jcr)

WASHINGTON — The wealth gap between younger and older Americans has stretched to the widest on record, worsened by a prolonged economic downturn that has wiped out job opportunities for young adults and saddled them with housing and college debt.

The typical U.S. household headed by a person age 65 or older has a net worth 47 times greater than a household headed by someone under 35, according to an analysis of census data released Monday.

While people typically accumulate assets as they age, this wealth gap is now more than double what it was in 2005 and nearly five times the 10-to-1 disparity a quarter-century ago, after adjusting for inflation.

The analysis by the Pew Research Center reflects the impact of the economic downturn, which has hit young adults particularly hard. More are pursuing college or advanced degrees, taking on debt as they wait for the job market to recover. Others are struggling to pay mortgage costs on homes now worth less than when they were bought in the housing boom.

The report, coming out before the Nov. 23 deadline for a special congressional committee to propose $1.2 trillion in budget cuts over 10 years, casts a spotlight on a government safety net that has buoyed older Americans on Social Security and Medicare amid wider cuts to education and other programs, including cash assistance for poor families. Complaints about wealth inequality, high unemployment and student debt also have been front and center at Occupy Wall Street protests around the country.

“It makes us wonder whether the extraordinary amount of resources we spend on retirees and their health care should be at least partially reallocated to those who are hurting worse than them,” said Harry Holzer, a labor economist and public policy professor at Georgetown University who called the magnitude of the wealth gap “striking.”

The median net worth of households headed by someone 65 or older was $170,494. That is 42 percent more than in 1984, when the Census Bureau first began measuring wealth broken down by age. The median net worth for the younger-age households was $3,662, down by 68 percent from a quarter-century ago, according to the Pew analysis.

Net worth includes the value of a person’s home, possessions and savings accumulated over the years, including stocks, bank accounts, real estate, cars, boats or other property, minus any debt such as mortgages, college loans and credit card bills. Older Americans tend to hold more net worth because they are more likely to have paid off their mortgages and built up more savings from salary, stocks and other investments over time. The median is the midpoint, and thus refers to a typical household.

The 47-to-1 wealth gap between old and young is believed by demographers to be the highest ever, even predating government records.

In all, 37 percent of younger-age households have a net worth of zero or less, nearly double the share in 1984. But among households headed by a person 65 or older, the percentage in that category has been largely unchanged at 8 percent.

While the wealth gap has been widening gradually due to delayed marriage and increases in single parenting among young adults, the housing bust and recession have made it significantly worse.

For young adults, the main asset is their home. Their housing wealth dropped 31 percent from 1984, the result of increased debt and falling home values. In contrast, Americans 65 or older were more likely to have bought homes long before the housing boom and thus saw a 57 percent gain in housing wealth even after the bust.

Older Americans are staying in jobs longer, while young adults now face the highest unemployment since World War II. As a result, the median income of older-age households since 1967 has grown at four times the rate of those headed by the under-35 age group.

Social Security benefits account for 55 percent of the annual income for older-age households, unchanged since 1984. The retirement benefits, which are indexed for inflation, have been a consistent source of income even as safety-net benefits for other groups such as low-income students have failed to keep up with rising costs or begun to fray. The congressional supercommittee that is proposing budget cuts has been reviewing whether to trim college aid programs, such as by restricting eligibility or charging students interest on loans while they are still in school.

Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty, noted skyrocketing college tuition costs, which come as many strapped state governments cut support for public universities. Federal spending on Pell Grants to low-income students has risen somewhat, but covers a diminishing share of the actual cost of attending college.

“The elderly have a comprehensive safety net that most adults, especially young adults, lack,” Danziger said.

Paul Taylor, director of Pew Social & Demographic Trends and co-author of the analysis, said the report shows that today’s young adults are starting out in life in a very tough economic position. “If this pattern continues, it will call into question one of the most basic tenets of the American Dream – the idea that each generation does better than the one that came before,” he said.

We were proud to participate in the General Strike that took place in Oakland yesterday and would like to thank everyone who demonstrated peacefully!  Now it’s time for us Small Businesses to get back to work.  Today we are offering 20% off of all “Ambition” items at fiftyseven-thirtythree online store.  Use coupon code: AMBITION for the discount.  This discount will run till Midnight, Pacific Standard Time tonight (November 3, 2011).

Yesterday, an impressive amount of people displayed the exact message of our Ambition design, “If you want to achieve greatness, stop asking for permission.” Thank you for showing the world, we can organize and make a difference.  Oakland, be proud, we have given hope to other Occupy Movements around the globe.

Thank you,

fiftyseven-thirtythree

FIFTYSEVEN-THIRTYTHREE ONLINE STORE

AMBITION COLLECTION

Via Good.is

The latest data on economic growth shows the American economy spent the last quarter growing at a rate equal to 2.5 percent a year. That’s neither recession-level bad nor full employment recovery-level good, but it’s worth diving into the numbers to see exactly what’s driving this slow expansion.

A significant part of the growth came from personal spending on health care as insurance premiums continue to rise, meaning a lot of that growth wasn’t very productive. That health care costs are rising—and rising faster than most other expenses—is a problem that businesses and policymakers have struggled with for years: It’s the major cause of federal budget deficits and the reason behind the health care law passed in 2010.

While the effects of the Affordable Care Act on private health care costs remain to be seen—many of its provisions will not go into affect for another two years—health care economists like Harvard’s David Cutler say it draws on nearly every idea that exists to lower costs. But Cutler adds that while we wait for pilot programs to succeed and scale or fail, more changes to the system—including a public insurance option and further incentives for health providers to reform delivery—should be on the table.

While policymakers in Washington and state capitals wait on politics and legal challenges to the 2010 law, consumers can take action themselves to lower costs. Innovative health care companies are coming up with new ways to make cost savings easier to find. Simplee, a company that creates products to make it easier for consumers to track their health spending, made this infographic for GOOD to demonstrate how rising costs in this sector affect us all.

We hope you have this much fun out there this weekend.  Be safe!

via Oakland Local

In a meeting that went well into the night, Oakland Unified School District board members – in a 5 to 2 vote – approved a new restructuring package Wednesday that includes the closing of five elementary schools.

Lakeview, Lazear, Marshall, Maxwell and Santa Fe elementary schools will now shut their doors by the end of the school year in June 2012. The move is expected to save OUSD a little more than $2 million and will affect about 882 students.

Under the restructuring plan, several small high schools will be absorbed into the larger high schools where they currently reside. Those schools affected include East Oakland School for the Arts, Leadership Preparatory Academy, Mandela Academy and Media Academy.

Kaiser Elementary and Burckhalter Elementary, which had been on the closure list at one point, got a reprieve from closure. Those schools will merge together in order to boost the enrollment of up to at least 380 students.

Two middle schools, Sobrante Park and Madison, will begin to develop a grade configuration plan to serve students in grades Pre-K through 12.

The district said closing schools is an unfortunate action the district must take because its resources are stretched too thin. Oakland Unified currently has 101 schools, significantly more than comparable districts in the state. OUSD said money saved in the closings will go towards other, better performing schools.

Over the last several weeks, the OUSD board has held its meetings at three different high schools to ensure greater participation. However, with Occupy Oakland events raging downtown concurrently Wednesday night, only a few hundred concerned residents, teachers, parents and school officials showed up to discuss both the closings and the restructuring of the schools, a vast decrease from previous meetings.

Many speakers at the meeting said they believe that the process was unfair, particularly against students of color in the flatlands.

“When they’re closing all of these schools with mostly black and Latino students, I think that’s a big problem,” Rakeem Richard, an after school program teacher at Lakeview Elementary, said. “This is basically gentrification. What are we going to do? Can we depend on our public school system?”

Other Oaklanders worried about the transition process laid out by the district.

“I just don’t believe the district needs to be closing all of these schools,” Marilyn Davis, a volunteer at Santa Fe Elementary said. “The whole thing seems
rushed.”

For example, in the area of transitioning students from closed schools to, “higher performing schools”, OUSD expects it will actually use money from the closures to pay for any shuttle service needed for students who have transportation challenges. How much the district may have to shell out to pay for a specialized service like that remains unclear.

In fact, there are few specifics about how the transition process will work, other than parents and students will be given top priority in the schools option process and will be provided with “on-site assistance in the transition process.”

Although the district says it will save money by the closures, in an earlier restructuring plan report, officials acknowledge that at least initially, there may be some loss of students connected with the closures.

Parallel to the school closings discussion is the proposed succession of at least eight schools, including ASCEND, Learning Without Limits and Lazear Elementary School. These schools have now filed the paperwork to break away from OUSD and become private charter schools. Officials from these schools said they were frustrated by the districts inability to provide adequate resources and support for their programs.

OUSD Board Director Noel Gallo said he anticipates there will be many more schools that will petition to break away from the district and become a private chart school.
Both Gallo and director Alice Spearman voiced strong opposition to the school closing plan.

“I don’t believe in closing schools for financial reasons,” he said.

Obviously it takes 11 policemen to escort 1 man (who is sitting down) out of Occupy Oakland.

85 people were arrested this morning at Occupy Oakland’s encampment outside of City Hall.  City Officials said they were forced to clear the encampments because of sanitary and public safety concerns.

If there were sanitary issues, maybe city officials should have sent clean up crews rather than the police force.  Maybe they didn’t send clean up crews because they are busy cleaning and beautifying other parts of Oakland.  Oh wait, they aren’t.  Shouldn’t OPD  be policing the other 77.9999 sq. miles of Oakland plagued with crime?

Mayor Jean Quan touched on the topic of Occupy Oakland saying, “They can certainly exercise their free speech rights from 6 in the morning to 10 at night.”  I guess democracy started operating on business hours when businesses started occupying democracy.

Last week, Mayor Quan stated, “democracy is messy”.

I guess that was last week, because this week, it’s not.

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