I’ve had a good run, more than five years, which for a blog is the human equivalent of fifty. But it’s getting harder and harder for me to find good things to write about.
I started out in 2021 concerned with encampments and cops, and those topics are certainly still current and interesting. But there’s not something current and interesting to write about five days a week, which has always been my goal. And I don’t want to write the same things over and over: OPD is running out of money, Carroll Fife continues to promote racist, anti-police policies, encampments are still all over the place. My readers already know those things.
My motive in writing the blog always has been threefold: to report, warn and encourage. Report the news, if there is any; warn about the dangers of the rogues who run Oakland; and encourage The Resistance to hang in there and never give up hope, because you’re not alone, even though it can seem you are.
After five years, though, it may be time to pull the plug. One can only do so much.
It’s not because of health reasons. Yes, I have an incurable, fatal disease—cancer—but it’s not stopping me from doing the blog, or most everything else. I can still write (well, I hope). I still research the news, look at the City Council’s agenda, watch KTOP, read the newspapers, and occasionally meet with friends in government. As far as the news goes, I can’t hope to compete with other online sources, such as Oakland Report, East Bay Insiders, etc. They do a great job and are an invaluable resource to us all. But I can interpret the news in a way that contributes to my other aims: warning the public and keeping hope alive.
Things are just slowing down in Oakland. The City Council has, for the moment, lightened up on its war against cops. That’s good news, but it makes reporting on that war more challenging. B. Lee has kept a very low profile. Why, we don’t really know, but she hasn’t gotten herself into huge trouble with a big mouth, the way Libby Schaaf and Sheng Thao did. As for encampments, they’re still horrible, and getting worse, but to tell you the truth, the public no longer seems to care. Maybe they’ve become the new normal, I don’t know, but people just don’t get outraged about them, the way they did during the Wood Street days. I don’t want to be the only one shouting from the rooftops while the rest of Oakland passes by, oblivious and uncaring.
So we’ll see how it goes. For the moment, I’ll try to continue. There are still folks out there who seem to value my writing, even when they disagree with what I say (and when they do, boy, do they let me know!). And I still enjoy the physical act of writing, and the intellectual process that fuels it. But if I can’t come up with suitable stuff to write about, what’s the point? As the late, great Herb Caen often used to lament, Item, item, hoosegottaitem?
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Meanwhile, on the Democratic primary for Governor: I was for Swalwell until the recent revelations. Now, I’m inclined toward Becerra. We need to unite quickly behind a candidate, and Becerra seems to me the most viable. I actually prefer Matt Mahan, but I don’t think anything short of a Newsom endorsement can help him, and the Governor is not going to endorse anyone.
Steve Heimoff