Oakland Local Digs In

Oakland Local has just celebrated its 1-month anniversary and it is finding a hospitable home in Oakland and digging in for the long-haul.

We have received some wonderful feedback and Oaklanders (and many others around the Bay) seem to be finding a valuable service.

Here’s just a few of the benchmarks Oakland Local has achieved over the past month:

Oakland Local received some great shout outs from NextGenWeb as well as MediaBistro’s BayNewser on reaching 10,000 unique users (a watershed for considering advertising revenue streams). Oakland Local is also listed on the NY Times Bay Area blogroll.

We reached over 1000 fans on Facebook within a couple weeks, and are now at over 1700.  We added a Facebook Connect for easy log-in.  We’ve  partnered with dozens of local non-profits and community organizations, including Ella Baker Center, Oakland Rising, and Spot.us.  We were one of the media sponsor’s for Ella Baker Center’s Breakthrough Visionary Awards Night, where Carl Anthony, Lateefah Simon, and Lynne Swift were honored.

Oakland Local also held its first Community Meet-up at Tech Liminal, where people with varied interests came and shared what kinds of coverage and types of projects and partnerships they would like to see.  Getting more local education and positive music coverage and having Spanish-language stories and bloggers were some of the great ideas which we will be hopefully implementing in 2010.

In addition, the community calendar, blogs directory, and non-profit database are all filling up.  One thing I hope to see more of is discussion in the forums.  If you don’t see a topic that engages you, suggest one or start one yourself. It’s as easy as click, click, type, and click.

As a team member I have to say that I think Oakland Local has HUGE potential not only to be an enormously valuable information resource and go-to for under-reported stories, but also a community-building tool.  Do I dare say also a force for positive social change in Oakland?

Let me also add that all this has been built so far on a shoestring budget–about $10,000.  Imagine if Oakland Local had the kind of money that other start-ups have!

We welcome your feedback, story ideas, Oakland photos, and participation in the forums and Meet-ups.  Look for Oakland Local to scale up from one week to the next as we add more diverse voices, build more partnerships, roll out more story packages, and engage in more provocative discussions.

Picking the Zoning Bone

Believe me, I don’t typically find myself at a community meeting on city zoning updates on a Saturday morning. But this one was being held just a few blocks from my house at Peralta Elementary School.  How could I not go? I was interested in learning more about the zoning process.

I have a whole cohort of friends who are planners or in some way policy-wonkified, who long ago learned to understand and navigate the twisted intricacies of that beast that goes by the name city planning.  Sometimes when the topic of building heights and set backs comes up, I  feel a little like Joey on the show ‘Friends’, just nodding along, but not really appreciating it.

Actually my particular interest was to learn how more city spaces might be used more productively, say, for example, for food production.  Especially since the “Cultivating the Commons” report released last week that found 1200 acres of vacant and underutilized public land in Oakland–just sitting there begging to be put to good use.

Plant the Seed: Join us in a School Garden Work Party

Join Planting Justice, West Oakland Youth Standing Empowered, and the after-school gardening class at Explore College Preparatory Middle School for a day of urban gardening and permaculture. We will be transforming a grassy slope into a perennial food forest. The day will involve mulching fruit trees, planting winter cover crop, and sowing wildflower seeds.

We also will be giving away a bunch of donated vegetable plants, courtesy of Planting Justice and Janelle Orsi, author of The Sharing Solution.

When: Monday, November 9, 3:00-6:00pm

Where: 3550 64th Ave., off of MacArthur, East Oakland

This is one of many ways to get involved as part of Green Week ‘09: A Bay Area Eco-Arts Service Week, presented in conjunction with CommuniTree, SF Green Festival, Global Exchange, and Grind for the Green.

Come be part of tangible solutions for food justice in East Oakland!Planting Justice

Promote Your Page Too

Go here for more about the school garden program at Explore.

Oakland Local Launches!

I’m excited about yesterday’s launch of Oakland’s newest community and news resource, Oakland Local, covering the environment, food, development, transportation, identity, arts & education, and social justice issues.

I am also honored to be a part of an amazing production and editorial team as a writer.  Founder Susan Mernit is an experienced media hound and a consummate human being.  She is also a self-described trouble-maker, so be prepared for some gritty coverage.   She won a New Voices grant from the J-Lab, funded by the Knight foundation, to develop and implement Oakland Local.

I love that Oakland Local will be giving press to many under-reported issues and providing a platform to under-represented voices in Oakland.  There is so much going on in Oakland, many challenges but also so much great work that needs to be covered.  I hope to do my part by help to cover this work and help grow community around these issues and further our civic discourse for positive social change.

Oakland Local is meant to be a hub for civic engagement, so be sure to check out the growing list of forums about Oakland issues, ranging from the moving of the trial of officer Mehserle to how to build an alternative, just, and local economy.  If you don’t see a topic yet you want to discuss, start one!

Oakland local also partners with and shares news about non-profit organizations, community groups, and engaged citizens.  Here are just a few of the community partnerships formed so far: Urban Habitat, Bay Localize, Communities for A Better A Environment, Just Cause Oakland, EBASE, YouthRadio, Urban Releaf, Kids First Oakland, and Media Alliance.

Oakland Local also hosts blogs from staff writers and community members.  Here is my Oakland Local blog.

Looking forward to seeing the site, the coverage, and the community grow over the coming year!

Plant the Seed: October 24 International Day of Climate Action

UPDATE: (Oct. 16)
Because of short notice for planning and other events (Social Media for Social Change and Beast Blogger Camp 2), this action will be held another date in November, to be determined.

Calling all you do-gooders, gardeners, permis, urban farmers, locavores, foodies, sustainable ag, urban greening people, slow food folks, climate just activists, educators, and food justice workers:

Many of you have probably heard of the 350 International Day of Climate Action on October 24.

I am putting together a positive and creative action for that day, specifically in Oakland, but perhaps in multiple locations and open to all Bay Area folks interested in joining.

My idea is that since food, the agriculture system, and urban green spaces are vital to localizing the economy, reducing carbon, and leading healthier lives, we should have an action around those themes.  Lots of ideas, but one is spelling out a huge “350″ in potted starter vegetable plants on a huge empty unused lot, then giving them away to people for free to grow their own food and give extra away to friends and neighbors, and planting the surplus plants during a volunteer work party to harvest, plant winter crops, on school roof-top garden, etc.  Ideally I’d like to take over 350 empty lots in Oakland and plant winter crops and trees on them!

We already have over 100+ plants (spinach, kale, lettuce, etc.) offered as donations for the action!

Let me know if you are interested in throwing some energy behind this with me and/or if you have some ideas. Thanks!

I found a couple possible locations for an action.  One is Explore Prep School in Oakland. Planting Justice has been working with them to develop a food forest and a curriculum.

I also met Starhawk at the Burn Green Soiree last night at Revolution Cafe in Oakland and her presentation was on Hunters Point Family project in SF and their permiculture projects, community gardens, farmers’ market, and youth programs.

I told her my ideas and it seems like a good fit and way to gather lots of people for a good cause while simultaneously helping raise visibility to both the issues and that project.  But I would  still want to find an Oakland site for an action in East Bay.

Here’s a couple links for inspiration and background:

Sharing the Harvest

Michael Pollan and Bill McKibben on The Good Food Project

http://www.350.org/foodandfarm

Gandhi’s Birthday, Militarism, and Non-cooperation

October 2 is Mohandas Gandhi’s birthday.  It has been declared International Day of Non-Violence.  One of the most memorable experiences of my life was visiting the Gandhi Memorial in Delhi, India, the site of his assassination by a Hindu nationalist.  It is worth pausing a moment to reflect on Gandhi, as we continue as a nation to invest in more violence and militarism while supporting a system that encourages the growth of vast social inequalities.

We like to think of Gandhi as a sort of holy man, someone separated from the ugly affairs of the world in prayer or meditation.  But we forget that Gandhi was very much a politician. He called himself “a politician trying to be a saint.”

Gandhi very much influenced  Martin Luther King, Jr. , whose office prominently displayed a portrait of Gandhi.  King visited India after Gandhi’s murder to learn how his methods and principles could apply to our own country also torn apart by prejudice, violence & war, social injustice, and economic inequalities.

He said of Gandhi,“Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale.”

This is one Gandhi quote that always springs to mind whenever I witness Christianity or any religion used to buttress military, imperialism, or violence. What Jesus’ ethic was is debatable, but last time I checked he was found decrying the evils of power, injustice, and the corruption of money and championing those who were left out, on the bottom, and on the fringes.  And remember, Gandhi was a big fan of Jesus, or at least some of what the New Testament records as his ethics.  It influenced him as he got his start in South Africa.

And ‘large scale’ is key.  I remember the film depiction of Gandhi, in his 60’s, embarking on the Salt March toward the sea, to engage in a simple act of non- violent civil disobedience. He picked up salt from the ocean and claimed it as India’s right.  The act was illegal. He drew 100,000 fellow Indians of all stripes to the cause.  They were jailed or worse.

Or recall  the day of non-cooperation by transportation, communications, and factory workers–among many others, including police, teachers, and lawyers–to protest a massacre of Indians by the British and the repressive laws imposed.  He called it a day of fasting and prayer.  But it was a  day of massive non-compliance. The powers that be couldn’t ignore it.

Gandhi said that “Non Co-operation with evil is as much a duty as co-operation with good” and “Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. also taught that one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

Of course one big difference is that Gandhi was in a struggle against empire (British) from without.  King was part of a struggle against an (American) empire of which he was a part.

As are we.

Can you imagine transportation and communication workers in the United States simply refusing to cooperate?  There was a glimpse of that last year when the dock workers up and down the West Coast stopped cooperating for a day to protest the Iraq Occupation.  Imagine the negotiating position a massively scaled up version of this would create! But all this takes courage and sacrifice.  And so far most Americans haven’t shown a desire to really be engaged in their democracy let alone sacrifice in this manner.

Yet we have key advantages in our relatively free society. We can adopt such Gandhian strategies mostly without fear of brutally violent repression (though police forces across the country seem to be adopting increasingly militaristic weapons and strategies).

But we are also free to squander our freedoms.  We are free to ogle and idolize celebrities.  We are free to have distractions.  We are free to be consumers, not citizens.

At least the tea-baggers are engaged.

I may be wrong, but it seems that the majority who believe in nonviolence and a more just, peaceful world and who claim to oppose the militaristic policies of our government, simply don’t show up.

Imagine what we could achieve if just 5% or 10% or even 20% more of the population showed up.  Imagine if those that already agree that it is obscene that we are about to approve a $650 billion military budget–as much as the rest of the world’s military budgets combined, not including the trillions of borrowed dollars that are still piling up next to the bodies from Iraq and Afghanistan–while teachers get laid off, homelessness and unemployment rises, and people don’t get the medical care they need, actually show up, get involved, and get their voices heard.

In other words, refuse to cooperate in that evil.

As Gandhi said, “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”