My friend J. is a Tibetan man, via Dharamsala, now living in Oakland, where he runs a small neighborhood business. He has written a lengthy biography of the President of Tibet, in Tibetan, alas, so I cannot read it. But J. arranged to have it translated into English by a professor friend of his, also Tibetan, and he now has the translation in manuscript. He has asked me to read it because, he says, he wants to make sure it makes sense to Americans, or “tells a story,” as J. puts it. He hopes to market the book in this country. I of course agreed to his request.

The “Entitlement State Grift”

I do think there’s grift and graft in Oakland, plenty of it when it comes to how government spends our money, especially in the areas of what our enlightened leaders call “equity” and “violence prevention.” Lord knows I’ve criticized it here for as long as I can remember.

Leftwing radicals who resist doing anything to control encampments for years have accused those of us who wish to manage the damn things of waging “a war on the homeless.” It’s a clever line, implying not only that we’re heartless sons-of-bitches but also associating us with Richard Nixon’s “war on drugs,” a massive failure by an unpopular president.

The case of the 17-year old who shot three people at Westfield Valley Fair Mall, in San Jose, is bringing renewed attention to California’s juvenile justice system. Under current state law, the shooter cannot be charged as an adult, even though he committed a violent crime involving a gun. The most severe sentence the 17-year old can receive is five years in a juvenile detention center.

I heard a lady comment at a Police Commission hearing that OPD “needs to be overseen because they can’t oversee themselves. It’s not because of something that happened twenty years ago. It’s because of things that are still happening today.”