Monthly Archives: April 2014

KPOO Radio is the first station on the dial to play local Hip Hop. DJ X-1 is one of the godfathers of the Bay Area Hip Hop radio movement, and he is famous for breaking local Hip Hop artists like JT the Bigga Figga and, within recent years, Beeda Weeda and J. Stalin. Although he is still on terrestrial radio, he has now turned his attention to owning audio real estate on the internet with his newest creation, Turnd Up Radio.

The San Francisco Superior Court is accepting applications for Civil Grand Jury service for the 2014-2015 term, Judge Teri L. Jackson announced. “As chair of...

Veronica Blair has one of those superhero sounding names, and when you find out what her and her friends are into, it may be kind of fitting. Veronica is one of few Black circus artists that I know of in the Bay Area who takes it upon herself to organize events and push the knowledge of our people’s history of involvement in the art form.

Two women writing to expose abuse that has terrorized them at CIW (California Institution for Women) wish not to reveal their identities for fear of more retaliation. We have no voice. There is no one to help us. PLEASE HELP! How you can help: Contact the CIW warden, Kimberly Hughes, at California Institution for Women, 16756 Chino-Corona Road, Corona, CA 92880, 909-597-1771.

Behind a chain link fence on Site 6’s northern border across Avenue M from the island’s Wastewater Treatment plant, the Navy stores, moves out and continually replaces a trail of thousands of large boxcar shaped containers full of radiologically toxic materials to be shipped off-island. “There have been several (high-radiation) shipments and about a thousand intermodal (containers) of radium waste shipped from Treasure Island.”

Art student Maria Johnson, searching for Treasure Island friends, wandered in “cordoned off areas” to find bus stops. She “saw many buildings with asbestos hazards laden on them, graffiti made with spray paint and shattered, old windows. It looked very desolate. I am just shocked that we’re allowed to access this ‘normal’ location even though the island is basically contaminated beyond repair.”

Situated at Treasure Island’s northwest corner on Site 12, Halyburton Court consists of a small cluster of vacant 24-unit apartment buildings that, from the 1970s to 1996, housed military families. Considering all possible contamination sources, it is noteworthy that from 1957 to 1969, before Halyburton Court was built, the Navy operated a radiological training school just south along the perimeter facing San Francisco.

Think of Treasure Island as an iridescent green glowing ghost ship whose prow divides the blue waves as it navigates San Francisco Bay waters gliding northwest under the Golden Gate Bridge. On the tidy front lawn of your market rate or low income Site 12 rental brought to you courtesy of The John Stewart Co., it is as if you are standing at the bow of the radioactive vessel as it carries its toxic contents ever forward into a stunning red-gold sunset.

Beverly Henry died. I just got the email today. The state of California owes women prisoners their lives back – imagine going into prison healthy and leaving with a terminal illness. This is the case for many of the women there. Beverly Henry told me to tell her story and I plan to begin right now. A warrior to the end, it was her voice that told women to stand up for their rights even perhaps especially behind bars.

On Dec. 21, 2011, St. Charles Borromeo School, the Archdiocese of San Francisco, Principal Dean, Superintendent Maureen Huntington and others were named as parties in a civil rights lawsuit filed in California’s Superior Court on behalf of Mildred Kayondo and her son, who is now 14, yet still suffers from the appalling, repeated abuse and indifference he experienced at St. Charles Borromeo. The jury trial – after nearly two years of litigation by attorneys Richard L. Richardson and Joel Siegal – is now set for July 14.

The Assembly Public Safety Committee, chaired by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, will hear Ammiano’s AB 1652 to control use of solitary confinement on Tuesday, April 8, at 9 a.m. in Room 126 of the State Capitol. The bill comes out of a series of in-depth hearings held in the wake of prisoner hunger strikes in 2011 and 2013. AB 1652 limits the violations and situations for which a prisoner can be placed in SHU.

WBAI AfrobeatRadio spoke to St. John’s University Law School Professor Charles Kambanda on April 9, 2011, during the first week of Rwanda’s 17-year commemoration of the 1994 genocide. Pacifica and AfrobeatRadio producer Ann Garrison and Professor Kambanda asked us to republish the audio archive and transcript as the 20th Anniversary Commemorations of the Rwandan Genocide begin.

On March 8, hundreds of people, especially from the South and particularly Jackson, Miss., came to mourn and reflect on the life of Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, who died suddenly on Feb. 25 at the age of 66. Starting with a March 5 tribute at the historically Black college, Jackson State University, Mayor Lumumba’s life was memorialized for several days, ending with the masses lining the streets for his burial motorcade. A collection of tributes to the late great mayor of Jackson, Miss.

Kagame denies responsibility for the assassination attempts even as he welcomes their success, as he did that of his former intelligence chief Patrick Karegeya, who was strangled by multiple assassins. Shortly thereafter, Kagame told a Rwandan audience, mostly in their own language, Kinyarwanda, that you can’t betray Rwanda without being punished.

Ah, spring has sprung and here comes GIANTS BASEBALL! As is my yearly ritual, plan to be there at the season HOME OPENER, April 8! Giants vs. Arizona. RARELY do I miss the opportunity to mingle on the field with the players prior to the FIRST PITCH! Since moving to the Bayview and 3-street, it’s so easy to hop the 3RD STREET MUNI T-LINE direct to AT&T Park.

On Sept. 26, 2013, an article with the title “Disabled and riding a wheelbarrow: a father’s love” explained how Eunice Atim and Sarah Atiano of Uganda, Africa, lacked wheelchairs that could enable them to get around and go back to school. Though the article indicated that Eunice Atim greatly doubted that she’d receive a wheelchair, this happened opposite to what she thought.

By the time you read this, April Fool’s Day will have come and gone; but a week later, April 8, could be the day of reckoning for people using computers running Microsoft XP software. That’s the day Microsoft will end support of its XP operating system.

In San Francisco, whose Black population has dropped from a high of over 12 percent to under 5 percent in three decades, the population in its 3,300 public housing units being transferred to private control is nearly 80 percent Black. But major developers had already made decisions, and the two predominately Black teams were denied any future consideration. “No mo’ Fillmo” and “We are sick and tired of being locked out!” were the protest cries in subsequent SFHA board meetings. This re-envisioning of public housing is the latest strategy to advance the out-migration of Black people in particular and the poor in general from the city by the Bay.

This is the second film by local director Big Spence to be selected to the film fest in as many years, but his directorial debut will be with his newest creation, “Set Me Free,” which is set to screen Friday, April 4, 6:30 p.m., at the Bal Theater in San Leandro. Support local and positive themed filmmaking and support the Oakland International Film Festival, which starts this Thursday. You can get more info at oiff.org.

George Orwell’s book titled “1984” was about a police state that controlled every aspect of life, including thinking, enforced by the “Thought Police.” This book comes to mind when I hear of the new Step Down Program CDCR is implementing. Its components are not new. California has had and still has programs like this in juvenile facilities as an attempt – which is often successful – to reprogram the youth’s mind to become controlled and subservient to the police state. Submit your comments on the Security Threat Group/Step Down Program regulations by 5 p.m. on April 3 to m_STGRegulation@cdcr.ca.gov by email or 916-324-6075 by fax.