When I was an undergraduate in college, my best friend and I took a long automobile trip one summer. We decided to drive as far north as we could, from Massachusetts. While in the middle of nowhere around Hudson Bay, a hill appeared out of the fog. It had a dusty road leading up to the top, so we decided to explore it. To do so we had to pass through a tall chain-link fence, but the gate was open, and no one was around.

My interest in World War II always aroused my curiosity about the fall of the Iron Curtain in East-Central Europe, in 1989, and the demise of the Soviet Union two years later. The more I understand these world-historic events, the greater the lessons I discover for our own political situation here in Oakland.

How come a nonprofit group that’s dedicated to opposing torture in such places as Bosnia, Cambodia and Chile is fighting efforts to provide stun guns to Santa Clara jail deputies, who frequently have to defend themselves against dangerous inmates?

An article in the current New Yorker concerns the Trump regime’s “assault on colleges and universities” and explores the thinking of rightwing Christian nationalists who believe that their turn to have power has finally arrived, after decades of being on the outside.

A week ago, with little fanfare, Gov. Newsom signed a reparations bill. As many of you might recall, he’d earlier announced, in no uncertain terms, that he’d never allow cash payments to Black people, not even descendants of slaves. So what does the bill he signed actually mandate?