Electioneering, Berkeley-style

Next week's election is a busy one. Whole forests have been cut down for glossy direct mail, and the televisions of those unlucky enough to be watching drone with actor monologues and candidate clips that tragically fail to sound convincing. Here are my choices for what will be on my ballot in Berkeley, and largely relying on VoteSmart and Berkeley's Institute for Governmental Studies for information. (I've left out uncontested races.) If you know more, leave a comment.

California state offices

• Statewide: Democratic slate - Angelides, Garmendi, Bowen, Chiang, Lockyer, Brown, Bustamante. While Schwartzenegger's green veneer has some appeal in a Hollywood glamor-boy sort of way, he's been busy imprisioning more people and providing public schooling to fewer (for example, between 2003-2004 and 2006-2007, yearly State spending increased 23%, from $154 billion to $189 billion; State funding for the University of California rose only 6%, from $9.4 billion to $9.9 billion, forcing large tuition increases; and funding for the Department of Corrections jumped an astonishing 80%, from $4.8 billion to $8.7 billion). Environment-wise, Schwarzenegger vetoed the imposition of renewable-energy targets on electrical utilities, and his favored avenues for decarbonization, hydrogen-powered Hummers and more Persian Gulf imports via new liquified-natural-gas terminals, evince either incredible naïveté or great contempt for the intelligence of the average Californian. Schwarzenegger's vision of a militarized and walled Mexican border is out-and-out scary. Although several of the Democrats in question have their own histories of corruption, changing the Schwarzenegger & co. Bushite regime is a necessary first step toward more constructive use of State resources.
  
  
• State Board of Equalization (oversees state taxes), 1st District: This is an overwhelmingly Democratic district, so I feel comfortable voting for a third party - I'm leaning toward the Libertarian candidate, Kennita Watson, who's both articulate and a Sam Delaney fan.
  
  
• Supreme and Appellate court judges: routinely confirm.
  
  
• US Senate: Feinstein has an overwhelming campaign machine but has been a Democrat-in-name-only, hewing to the PATRIOT Act, supporting war in Iraq, and opposing same-sex marriage. I'll vote for Marsha Feinland of the Peace and Freedom Party, a pleasantly radical neighbor.
  

State propositions

• Prop. 1A, reserve collected state gas tax for transportation improvements - no (this restriction sounds needless)
  
  
• Prop. 1B, authorize borrowing $20 billion for transportation-related projects - no (mostly a pork-barrel of money for specific, questionably necessary, roads to expand; does nothing to reduce vehicle-miles traveled [California Bike Coalition])
  
  
• Prop. 1C, authorize borrowing $3 billion for affordable-housing projects - yes
  
  
• Prop. 1D, authorize borrowing $10 billion for building and repairing schools - yes
  
  
• Prop. 1E, authorize borrowing $4 billion for flood control projects - yes
  
  
• Prop. 83, yet another crowd-pleasing ritual condemnation of already-demonized, admittedly bad, bogeymen - no (Mandatory GPS tagging of legislators, permitting the public to keep better track of their nefarious activities, would be an infinitely more helpful variant.)
  
  
• Prop. 84, authorize borrowing $5 billion for projects loosely connected with water quality - yes
  
  
• Prop. 85, require teens to tell a parent before having an abortion - no (abusive parents don't need more legal power)
  
  
• Prop. 86, tax tobacco heavily to pay for $2 billion a year in various health program - no (Even though I don't like smoking, there's no reason for smokers to pay more than their fair share of taxes, and this high a tax will promote smuggling and organized crime besides.)
  
  
• Prop. 87, tax California oil extraction at something like $2 per barrel, genrating around $300 million a year which is to be spent to promote alternative fuels and other renewable-energy technologies - yes (with reservations - while taxing fossil fuels is good, the usefulness of alternative fuels is very overhyped)
  
  
• Prop. 88, impose a statewide tax on land parcels to raise $500 million per year for spending school - no (the money could come from cutting back on destructive state spending)
  
  
• Prop. 89, public funding of candidates who agree to spending limits, and restrict spending by all candidates - yes (imagine how many trees would be spared the fate of being turned into junk mail!)
  
  
• Prop. 90, require governments to compensate landowners if a government action can be imagined to reduce their property's value - no (a more limited rule is needed to restrict eminent-domain confiscation)
  

Regional races

• US House (CA-9): Lee (D)
  
  
• California Assembly (14): Hancock (D) (Mayor Bates' wife, incidentally)
  
  
• Alameda County Superior court judge, #21: Doubtfully, Hayashi, on the strength of the League of Conservation Voters' endorsement.
  
  
• AC Transit director (Alameda and Contra Costa county bus lines): Kaplan (the incumbent), a progressive-enough lawyer.
  
  
• East Bay Regional Park District (1): Skinner, on the strength of the Sierra Club's endorsement
  

Berkeley stuff

• Mayor: Zelda Bronstein. The incumbent, Tom Bates, talks visionary but has been shadily supporting more or less unsightly commercial developments (as exemplified by his support of Measure I and opposition to Measure J in this election) and doing far too little to actually make Berkeley a model of mixed-use prosperity. Bronstein's focus on promoting public participation in planning new projects and reducing the University's burden on city finances looks promising.
  
  
• School directors: Harrison, a de-schooling advocate; Baggins, a political science professor who seems to be the only one to acknowledge that very many berkeley student are refugees from the Oakland district; Hemphill, an advocate of community partnership.
  
  
• Measure A, renew $20 million / year in extra property taxes for Berkeley schools - yes
  
  
• Measure E, stop requiring a special election to fill rent stabilization-board-commissioner vacancies - yes
  
  
• Measure F, approve changes to the waterfront plan for building some new sports fields in the flats near the Albany border - yes
  
  
• Measure G, advise the city to adopt plans for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions - yes
  
  
• Measure H, advise the US Congress, who always seem to be the last to realize the obvious, that Bush and Cheney should be impeached - yes
  
  
• Measure I, authorize the sale of more rental houses as "condominiums" and kicking their tenants out - no
  
  
• Measure J, strengthen the city's landmark-preservation process. with the goal of stopping the demolition of pretty old houses in order to build big ugly new ones - yes
  
  

Bioneers!

The conference was inspiring, a weekend-long pep talk on discovering your better self and saving the world to boot. The site's a conference center just north of San Rafael, adjoining an artificial lake that jumped with Canada goslings in the middle of a shallow basin framed by low hills that were green with valley oak and bay laurel. Paul Stamets talked about mycelial networks as the first internet, and everything from cellulosic ethanol to quick 'n' easy termite control through fungi, and there were good presentation on everything from saving Canadian forest to bringing fresh food to poor cities to the curative power of psychedelic plants. The multicultural dance performances made me resolve to get back to contra sessions.

Heat

I noticed that, in his column in the SF Chronicle, Mark Morford decries the takeover of organic food by large companies, such as (horrors!) Wal-Mart This is overdone; the organic label merely denotes that artificial chemicals were not used, and has never necessarily meant that everything about the labeled food is wholesome. The increasing popularity of organic in the mass market is very good in that it provides a constituency to block the spread of genetically modified crops and reduces, however slightly, biocide spraying and the global health risk posed by dosing animals with hormones and antibiotics. Organic food typically remains fossil-fuel intensive, if likely somewhat less so than the average supermarket offering, but there are plenty of farmers' markets in the Bay area where suppliers can be found to meet one's favorite sustainability criteria, not to mention community gardens for the conscientious columnist to work in.

There was also an article about magnetic-induction based food heating, inexplicably not on their website - neat!