The Winnemem Journey to Justice benefit event is set for Thursday, February 3, from 7 to 9:30 pm at the David Brower Center at 2150 Allston Way in Berkeley.
The evening of film, food and silent auction will assist the Winnemem Wintu (McCloud River) Tribe in their pursuit of justice, protection of sacred sites and the return of chinook salmon to the McCloud River.
The evening will feature Caleen Sisk-Franco, Winnemem Wintu Spiritual Leader, and documentary film-in-progress excerpts of a new Sacred Land Film Project by Will Doolittle - "Dancing Salmon Home."
The Winnemem Wintu are a traditional tribe located in Redding. Their ancestral lands lie along the McCloud River and stretch from Mount Shasta to the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary. They are a water and salmon people.
Over 90 percent of Winnemem territory, numerous cultural and sacred sites and homes were flooded when Shasta Dam was constructed in 1945. The salmon runs of the river that once served as a source of food and cultural sustenance were decimated.
"Today, the Winnemem are fighting to prevent the federal government from raising the Shasta Dam higher and to restore salmon runs to the McCloud River," said Sisk-Franco. "We are fighting to maintain our traditions and way of life."
In March-April 2010, 30 members of the Tribe went to New Zealand to conduct joint ceremonies with the Maori Nation to bring back the winter run chinook salmon to the McCloud River above Shasta Dam. Ironically, while winter run chinooks from the McCloud are now thriving in the Rakaira and other New Zealand rivers, the fish no longer run up their native river.
The tribe is putting pressure on NOAA Fisheries to allow them to bring back winter run eggs from New Zealand to be reintroduced into the McCloud. The tribe would like to provide passage around the dam for the salmon by connecting Dry Creek above the dam with Cow Creek below the dam. They want to build support among fishermen, environmentalists and other Indian Tribes to restore salmon to the McCloud.
While the Maori and New Zealand governments said they would provide winter chinook eggs to be reintroduced into the McCloud, the U.S. government is reluctant to do this, claiming that the fish have adapted to a shorter river and estuary and may not re-adapt to the Sacramento system and Bay-Delta, according to Sisk-Franco.
"While these governments are working with us, it's our own government that is saying that we must do these studies to find out whether the salmon will survive the 300 mile journey," said Sisk-Franco at the Salmon Summit in Half Moon Bay on December 4.
"We are asking the commercial and recreational fishermen to work with us in getting these fish to come back to the McCloud," she said. "The Indian people know that if the salmon are gone, so will we."
An art auction will present the works of Winnemem and local artists. Tickets are $15 to $25 (no one will be turned away due to lack of funds). All proceeds go directly to the Tribe. Tickets are available at the door or at http://www.winnememwintu.us.
The Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Environmental Justice Coalition for Water and Sacred Land Film Project are sponsoring this great event.
For more information, contact Amy Vanderwarker: amyvander [at] gmail.com.
Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal featured an article about student health plans. One of the cases studied was Paula Villescaz, a student at Berkeley and somebody that I have met through my participation in the California Young Democrats. She has been involved with CYD and the College Democrats for a while now, and has really been a rock star of involvement.
Unfortunately, as outlined in the article, when she got sick and actually needed health coverage, Berkeley's student health plan failed her.
Paula Villescaz, a senior at the University of California at Berkeley, says she never looked closely at the Anthem Blue Cross insurance policy she got through her college. The plan has a $400,000 ceiling, but also has some important limitations, as Ms. Villescaz found out recently.
The political-science major had always been healthy-until March, when doctors discovered she had Ewing's Sarcoma, a rare form of cancer. Berkeley's plan didn't cover her first MRI, her PET scan or many blood tests her doctors required, she says.
In between chemotherapy treatments, Ms. Villescaz says she had to battle the insurance company, which refused to cover her last round of chemotherapy, declaring it medically unnecessary. Her chemotherapy has since concluded, but she is now undergoing radiation treatment.
Ms. Villescaz says she owes about $80,000 all told. Before she got sick, she worked two jobs to support herself and help out her single mother. "I'm going to be paying off these bills for the rest of my life," she says. (Wall Street Journal)
If anything shows the failing of our medical system, this is surely it. Paula played by the rules. She bought health insurance from her university. She had a right to expect that the coverage would be sufficient if she had a major medical incident. Instead, due to drawing the short straw, she is saddled with an enormous debt before she even has started her career.
And this is at the heart of the flaw in our health care system. Even if you do everything right, you still cannot rest easy. The solution is to take health care and/or health care insurance out of the for-profit world. Single payer would prevent these unfortunate consequences of the health industrial complex, and would serve our state, and our nation, far better than the system that we have now.
Interestingly, as highlighted by David Dayen at FDL News, a recent Pew poll shows that 40% of Americans think that the health care bill didn't go far enough.
The poll found that about four in 10 adults think the new law did not go far enough to change the health care system, regardless of whether they support the law, oppose it or remain neutral. On the other side, about one in five say they oppose the law because they think the federal government should not be involved in health care at all. (AP)
It turns out that sometimes people want something they can really believe in. The monster that emerged from the Senate is certainly likely to improve the situation, but it isn't the end game in any way shape or form. We have a lot of work to do before we can actually call our health care system a success.
But returning to Berkeley, I was on the same plan that Paula was on while I was getting my graduate degree in public policy. Over the course of my four semesters there, the cost increased over 25%. It was still more affordable than many of the individual plans I could find, but it was far from a good solution. The University fails us by not fighting harder for their students, and ensuring that the health care plan they are pitching to students will work for them. And Anthem? Well, Anthem has made failing Californians an art form.
This failure hurts not just our students, but the future of California. Setting our students for a lifetime of economic burden is hardly a recipe for long-term success.
The Chronicle featured a really inspiring story yesterday about Mayor Tom Bates of Berkeley. Much like I did last year, he decided to give his car up entirely and to walk and bus around town instead:
The 71-year-old mayor is trading in his 2001 Volvo for an AC Transit pass and a sturdy pair of walking shoes.
“I’m trying to reduce my carbon footprint to the absolute minimum,” he said. “I figure, if I really want to go someplace I can just rent a car.”
Bates’ long farewell to the Volvo began about a year ago, when he started walking to work as a way to lose weight and stay in shape. The 18-minute trek from his home in South Berkeley to City Hall was so invigorating he started walking everywhere he could - to Berkeley Bowl, the BART station, city council meetings.
This is a pretty awesome example being set by a mayor. Now I could take this opportunity to rag on Mayor Dellums for being the least green mayor in the Bay Area, since the Chronicle mentioned he’s chauffeured around in a town car that gets 19 miles per gallon, but fortunately, there’s more to commend Bates for.
Leaving aside the fact that the only place Bush war criminal John Yoo should be teaching is Ft. Leavenworth, it has particularly irked me (and others) that he's teaching at UC-Berkeley. Besides the fact that I attended Berkeley for my public policy degree, the fact that a war criminal was still receiving a state check quite bothered me.
Well, he's taking a break from the state paycheck to move on up to Chapman Law School:
In Berkeley, city leaders branded him a war criminal and human rights activists put up a billboard to denounce him. But in suburban Orange County, Professor John Yoo -- the primary architect of the Bush administration's policy on harsh interrogation techniques that many consider torture -- has found relatively calmer waters.
Yoo is a visiting professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, on leave from his tenured post at UC Berkeley to teach foreign relations law.(LAT 2/11/09)
Look, I'm all for academic freedom, but academic freedom has nothing to do with John Yoo's crimes. John Yoo is a man that found it acceptable to write legal opinions that provided a patina of legitimacy for waterboarding and other methods of torture. But, as Americans, there is no place for torture, and Yoo knew that. Yoo knew and understood the spirit of the Geneva Convention, yet ignored it.
With all the talk of truth commissions concerning the Bush administration's crimes, I am reminded of the truth commissions in South Africa. Where an attorney stood up and admit what they did. Yet like those South African apartheid era officials, the Bush administration continues to point blame and excuse themselves. Ever the victims, never the perpetrators.
I can only hope that John Yoo chooses to forever leave Berkeley, and is someday arrested and convicted of his crimes. Until then, I'll just have to comfort myself knowing that he left one of the finest legal institutions, for, well, Clarence Thomas' Cast-off U.
Here it is, our 7000th Diary. Wow! So, Open thread time:
• Joan Buchanan (AD-15) has a TV ad. Check it out:
• Shockingly, Tony Strickland is getting dirty in SD-19 against Hannah-Beth Jackson. He put out a mailer against Hannah-Beth's non-existent negative mailers saying he doesn't care. Put this together with his massive tobacco and oil company donations, and the push polls he has been doing, and you have one of the more disgusting campaigns we've seen for a while. He should be ashamed of the crap that's coming out of his campaign, but what do you expect from the former California director of Club for Growth?
• Dan Walters writes today about the prison crisis, which is not improving magically through lawmakers' collective decision to ignore it. J. Clark Kelso is extremely likely, in my opinion, to get the $8 billion he's seeking from a judge to fix the prison healthcare system, so just tack that on to next year's budget.
• Late Friday, unemployment statistics for August were released, and we're up to 7.7%, the third-highest in the nation (only Rhode Island and Michigan are worse). That's over two percentage points up from just a year ago.
• Karl Rove is coming to San Bernardino to headline a fundraiser with the local GOP. This is kind of perfect, since the San Bernardino Republican Party is kind of a criminal enterprise in its own right, too.
• Hey, big news from Gray Davis: he doesn't like the recall process! But, seriously, he makes decent points about good governance, which this state seems to think is a quaint process.
• Arnold seriously hates Republicans. Seriously. Except that he is so totally down with their policies. You know, just the ones that make rich people richer and the poor poorer, not the really crazy ones. Or something like that.
• Dan Walters ponders whether Democrats are losing their will. And if they do, will Arnold stand up against a borrowing budget?
• Of interest to me as a Berkeley Alum, the tree sitters will be removed from the grove by the stadium shortly. The University has pretty much won at every court, and they will begin to build the controversial athletic training facility where the grove of oak and redwoods once stood.
• Another one: There's going to be another bus headed from Orange County into Nevada to campaign for Barack Obama. Here's the information... Dave here: actually, there are several buses to Nevada this weekend from California. This is one of the targeted weekends. At MyBO you can enter in your zip code and find the trip in your area, if you're so inclined.
Unfortunately, there’s a very vocal minority of Berkeley neighborhood activists and merchants that want to prevent bus riders from San Leandro, Oakland and Berkeley from benefiting from faster transit. They must be worried that the City will soon recognize the environmental and community benefits of this project, so some of the opponents have decided to circumvent the council and go straight to the voters.
On March 19th, Dean Metzger and Bruce Kaplan of Berkeley filed a request for a ballot title and initiative summary for an anti-BRT initiative (PDF) that they presumably hope to get on the November ballot. This is just a first step, and who knows if they’ll be able to gather enough signatures to get on the ballot, but the initiative is bad news for the East Bay. It’s also just bad policy.
Since there are readers across the state, I'd appreciate it if Calitics readers could send an email with this story to your local officials. Let us all know in the comments the responses you receive. Thanks!
As those of us who have had the wonderful opportunity to live in Berkeley understand, the city isn't always as liberal as it's cracked up to be. The city consistently fought against affordable housing, homeless shelters - it even threatened to stop BART from being built unless it was built underground (a battle Berkeley finally won).
In these instances Berkeley has shown that it is no different from other parts of California that oppose progressive urbanism. Homeowners who are convinced that they can maintain a 1950s style urban landscape even in the face of population pressure, housing costs, and environmental/energy crises tend to dominate public discussions about urban change, and insist that their views be privileged over all others. This is true in supposedly liberal, progressive Berkeley, as much as it is in the San Fernando Valley or - dare I say it - Orange County.
That's what AC Transit is proposing for its busiest route in the East Bay, the 15-mile-long stretch from Bay Fair BART Station in San Leandro to downtown Berkeley.
The $400 million bus rapid transit project would look a lot like light rail, with elevated stops in the middle of the street and dedicated lanes free of cars. Buses would run every 10 minutes and sail through intersections.
But the project may hit a roadblock in Berkeley, where some neighbors and merchants are lobbying furiously against it, saying it would worsen traffic and be the death knell for the beleaguered Telegraph Avenue shopping district.
And if Berkeley rejects the plan, the entire project is imperiled - which leaves some people in town wondering how one of the region's most green-thinking cities could say no to public transit.
I (Brian) will be using this for submissions that I receive over the series of tubes. I was sent an Internet with the following story. I have not edited it in any way. I have not confirmed this story, so make of it what you will.
Subject: Options for Recovery Board Member protested by students for buying student votes with free booze at Blakes on Telegraph 7-10 pm October 18 2006
Options for Recovery Board Member George Beier did not fool many students last night with his attempts to buy student votes with booze. Parents, students, and neighbors protested Beiers free alchohol for votes outside of Blakes on Telegraph last night.
Across town at the UCB campus, candidate Beier ducked out of the ASUC candidate debate midpoint before students could ask him hard hitting questions, leaving ten year incumbent Berkley City Councilman Kriss Worthington alone to talk to students about their concerns.
UCB police and Berkeley Police have just been given money by the State of Calfornia to combat the serious alcohol related problems on and near the UCB campus.
Beier's judgment may be flawed if he thinks that a member of the Board of Directors of Options for Recovery should give free booze to UCB students to buy their votes.
Options should take a serious look at how Beier has used being on the board of Options on his candidate statement online to show how he understands Berkeley alcohol and drug problems, then in a hypocritical move gives free beer to students to buy their votes. His myspace.com/votegeorge website shows him with a wall of hooka marijuana pipes behind him in one photo. What messages about drug and alchohol use is this candidate sending our youth as his website completely pinpoints UCB students as his voter targets. UCB students in photos used to supposedly show support for the candidate -on the candidates website- are angered that their photographs are used without their knowledge or permission.
Does Options for Recovery need to be used to further the political ambitions of a candidate?
Do the parents who have such high hopes for their children want to have a candidate pushing free booze on their children to further his political ambitions and push the agenda of big money interests?
Is there a California State Law, regarding Privacy Rights of Minors, preventing photographs of minors be made public without consent? Is this under the Welfare Code Child Abuse statutes?
Who gave candidate Beiers campaign money to buy booze for UCB students to buy their votes?
Respectfully,
Patty Pink (mother of students attending college in Berkeley)
