Monthly Archives: January 2016

Covered California is reminding consumers that time is running out to avoid the increased tax penalty for those who do not have health insurance in 2016, and the exchange is encouraging Californians without coverage to explore their options and sign up to avoid a big tax bill. The deadline to sign up for a health insurance plan that starts on Feb. 1 is Friday, Jan. 15. Open enrollment runs through Jan. 31, and anyone signing up between Jan. 16 and Jan. 31 will have their health care coverage start on March 1.

The examples Hugo Pinnell and George Jackson gave as revolutionary leadership transformed my life and that of many others who became aspiring revolutionaries. So when we received word from outside comrades that in August – always August it seems – on Aug. 12, 2015, Comrade Hugo was stabbed and killed while on a canteen line in New Folsom Prison yard, the world stood still for us. Comrade Harold Brown sacrificed many of his years in prison trying to overturn restrictive policies that isolated prisoners in solitary confinement.

Paul Kagame, the leader of Rwanda, has killed more than five times as many people as Idi Amin. He invaded Rwanda in 1990 and carried out a war of conquest there that ended sometime in 1994. He invaded the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1996 and went in and out of that country for years, killing what the U.N. itself admitted was probably more than 4 million people. The U.S. not only failed to stop it, we actually supported the mass killing. Paul Kagame is a double genocidist, and one could argue too that Bill Clinton was a partner in this. Bill Clinton is arguably a genocidist.

The EPA dismissed 90 percent of claims it received alleging environmental discrimination and never issued a finding of environmental discrimination in its 22-year history of investigating civil rights complaints despite repeated national studies showing that communities of color face a disproportionate burden of environmental pollution. Protest the EPA’s environmental racism at an EPA hearing Wednesday, Jan. 20, 9:30 a.m. to noon, at the Oakland Marriott City Center, 1001 Broadway, Oakland.

Seventy-five percent of the membership of Peoples Temple was African American, and the majority of those who died in Jonestown were African American women. The Jonestown victims have been demonized and marginalized – stripped of agency and, in many respects, humanity. The settlement was envisioned – and promoted – as a kind of “Promised Land,” a racial utopia and antidote to the white supremacist violence and dehumanization Black people experienced in the U.S.

On Jan. 29, Latina wordsmith Raw G, with a full band, will be rockin’ the Bay Area, San Jose and Los Angeles with Mexican rap legend Pato Machete and Mexican Cumbia legend Celso Pina. With the Cali being the melting pot that it is, this show should be an interesting mix of music and culture. Check out Raw G in company at the shows, as well as with these words.

Among the crowd of 150 activists were four young people holding a sign that simply read, “Last 3 Percent.” The words refer not directly to police violence but to the broader problem of the mass exodus of African Americans from San Francisco. Thousands have left their city of birth not because of any personal preference but because of political decisions and economic policies, many set into motion several decades ago.

The Block Report speaks wit' Dr. Kristine Hicks who speaks about SB277, the new law set to take effect in July of 2016 that makes it mandatory for children in the public and private school systems in the state of California to be fully vaccinated, unless they have a signed exemption from a medical doctor.

Protest Big Pharma’s price gouging that threatens Hep-C patients, including Mumia, on Monday, Jan. 11, 12 noon, at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference for Big Pharma executives and investors at Westin St. Francis Hotel, 335 Powell St., Union Square, in San Francisco. Gilead Sciences sells the curative Harvoni pill in Egypt for 10 cents each, and Gilead does not lose money at this price. In the U.S., Gilead is price-gouging at about 10,000 times the cost of production!

Constant boos, shouts to fire Chief Suhr and Ed Lee and get justice for Mario Woods, Alex Nieto and so many more came from both second floor sides of the rotunda filled with angry community folks, drowning out the ceremony. Finally the tragic inauguration comedy was over, but not before at least 15 people were dragged out, several arrested and hundreds more unsuccessfully intimidated for the sole act of not being OK with this theft of a public office, a city and thousands of our lives.

In order to be an acceptable national hero, white America has had to sanitize Martin Luther King so that he was not perceived as a threat to anybody, simply as a religious leader filled with love and high principles. “The Radical King,” edited and introduced by Cornel West (Beacon Press 2015) reclaims what King really stood for and reminds us that the battle against white supremacy requires taking on a lot more than white racists.

Before Mayor Ed Lee even announced the itinerary for his 2016 inauguration celebration yesterday, plans were already underway to crash the party. The Justice for Mario Woods Coalition will meet on the steps of City Hall, rain or shine, at 11 a.m. Friday, Jan. 8, before the public inauguration ceremony begins at 11:30 a.m. Their demand of the re-elected mayor: Replace Police Chief Greg Suhr in light of his handling of the Dec. 2 officer-involved shooting that left Mario Woods, a 26-year-old Black man armed with a butter knife, dead in the Bayview.

Over 25 years ago, the Southeast Greenhouses located at 1150 Phelps St., along with the adjacent Community Facility, were constructed to help offset the impact of the Southeast Water Pollution Control Plant’s expansion. The goal was to bring economic and workforce development opportunities to Bayview residents by offering hands-on training and job opportunities through horticulture programming and other offerings.

One month after SFPD killed Mario Woods, the family of Alex Nieto is joining Black Lives Matter SF and other community organizations in a solidarity march with Woods’ family. The march will start Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2016, in Bernal Heights and Bayview Hunters Point, with the two groups meeting in the middle for a solidarity ceremony. SFPD has turned San Francisco into the eighth deadliest city in the country in terms of killings by police.

August Wilson is considered one of America’s greatest playwrights, and the work that comprises The American Century Cycle, one of the outstanding achievements of the modern theater, is performed across the globe. But only Oakland’s premiere North American African theater company has performed the entire Cycle in chronological order. The Lower Bottom Playaz close the cycle with the timely production of the only play in the cycle that is told from the lens of developers. Wilson’s Hill District in Pittsburgh, Penn., and Oakland, Calif., 2015 hold a lot of common ground. “Radio Golf” continues through Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016, 2 p.m., at the Flight Deck, 1540 Broadway, Oakland.