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Category Archives: Oakland

Free Range

Tile Style

For some reason I’ve been taking a lot of photos of tilework lately. Continuing to mine that vein, I took some pictures of mosaic murals in jingletown today: While many of the murals in this cluster are mosaics, there are some painted murals too. I’ve posted shots of some of the other murals (along with […]

Guilt Sandwich

Fixer Upper

Water views. Satellite TV included. I walked by this scene today at Union Point Park. I daydream about moving onto a boat sometimes, but every time I hear about a boat sinking in the Oakland estuary, I am reminded of the virtues of solid ground—even solid ground which shakes and rolls under our feet every […]

Vigil

I wrote half of a post the other day about the Tucson shootings and related matters, but it wasn’t really coming together as I hoped, so I’ve set it aside for now. Maybe after my thoughts jangle around in my head for a little while, they’ll emerge more fully formed at some later date. Meanwhile, […]

Navigating the Strait of Caña

I’m all for new businesses opening up in vacant storefronts in nearby neighborhoods, and I’m all for sidewalk seating in front of restaurants and cafes too—almost anything that encourages people to be out and about on the streets and sidewalks of our neighborhoods seems like a good thing to me, whether they are walking to […]

The Varieties of Sunset Experience

I’m not obsessed with sunsets over Lake Merritt—really, I’m not!—but it’s hard to resist pulling out a camera whenever I happen to walk the dog over to Lakeshore Avenue in late afternoon. And when the pictures turn out well, then it’s hard to resist posting them online. That many of the sunsets from the east […]

Happy Holidays

Looks like Christmas has already come and gone at Cleveland Elementary School here in Oakland:

At What Price?

I don’t know how long this banner has been hanging, but I only noticed it today: No matter the price, it sounds like a better bargain than the “Special Sale! Misfortunes” which are advertised a few blocks away.

Do We Have a Mayor Yet?

Ten years and one day ago was the 2000 presidential election, which, as everyone presumably remembers, took about a month to resolve. Since I was working on the national desk of a newspaper at the time, it meant that I hardly got to take a day off. I did have one weekend free, however, and […]

Time for a Change at BART

Those who have seen my bike know that I prefer it unadorned and minimalist—no brand name, no logos, no stickers, no extraneous parts, and no colors except black and white. So it was not without hesitation that I temporarily scraperized it and turned it into a rolling billboard for Robert Raburn’s campaign for the BART […]

Truthiness in Advertising

Looking at this glossy 8.5 X 11 inch mailer sent to residents by the Jean Quan campaign, you would probably never guess that headline of the Tribune’s Mayoral endorsement was “We recommend Rebecca Kaplan for Oakland mayor.” This is just one more unexpected complication of our new Instant Runoff Voting system, where we forgo primaries […]