Better off in Cuba

A recent mayor of Oakland is now the Attorney General for the state of Calfiornia.

"Homicide Rate Overwhelming Oakland Police"
There have been 21 homocides in Oakland since the start of the year. The police announced a gun buy-back program and the line stretched for several blocks. Police ran out of money and had to hand out IOUs. Now the cash-strapped department is reportedly on the hook for $170,000.

The latest slaying comes after a weekend that saw six people killed in 10 shooting incidents and a popular college instructor killed at his Oakland Hills home. [That killing was not random but may be due to the mentoring relationship between the killer and the instructor.] There's a map of homocides in 2007-2008.

State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, who was carjacked at gunpoint in December was the first to hand in his handgun. "He gave police the handgun he bought 15 years ago after receiving death threats during his fight to ban assault weapons." Perata is under investigation by the FBI. He's likely to be the next mayor of Oakland. The buy-back was political theatre at best. Even the police chief said that gun buy-backs don't have much effect on crime.

It doesn't say if he took the $250 per gun given out by police in the three-gun per person buy-back. Enterprising gun dealers from as far as Reno, apparently, accepted the money - for guns still bearing a $35 price tag, according to the story. That's just kind of typical of the type of ill-considered policies that abound in Oakland.

The current mayor of Oakland is Ron Dellums. He's described as "the first openly socialist Congressman since World War II" in a Wikipedia entry. He was elected twelve times as U.S. Congressman for the Oakland-Berkeley district.

We better hope that Ron doesn't do for other American cities what he has helped happen to Oakland under his careful watch in Congress and before, and since. He was named national chair of Hillary Clinton's Urban Policy Committee in 2004.

See Special election musical chairs

Education in Oakland would be a joke if it was not so tragic.The state took over Oakland public schools in 2003 and bailed out the district to the tune of $100 million. (A fact not mentioned in the Oakland Wikipedia entry.) To this date, the board still don't have full control. (See Teachers and Trash Education on the Oakland school board antics.) Only 20 percent of students performed at least "proficient" on the English section of a 2005 STAR test for a population that isn't English deficient.

See GreatSchools.net on the district performance. For which taxpayers pay $9,019 per pupil.

Ghetto doesn't begin to describe Oakland, California. It's an internment camp where even basic education is denied.

People in Oakland would probably be better off in Cuba, a country Dellums open admires and visits often.

There's no end to how many opportunities there are to exploit the vulnerable in Oakland.

There's a new "popular new hair salon" in Oakland called the NitPixie. They specialize in head lice removal.

Clients undergo three, hourlong treatments. A family of three, such as the Whitneys, would rack up a bill of at least $900.

The cost is a concern to a health officials.

"Lice-removal businesses might give families peace of mind, and that's great for those who can afford the service, said Julia Graham Lear, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Health and Health Care in Schools. But it probably isn't necessary, she said.

"[Lice] is disgusting, but it can be treated simply and relatively inexpensively," Lear said. "For anyone to spend that kind of money because they think that's what they need to do to be a good parent — that's what I worry about."

We all ought to worry.