Ever been at a demonstration, march, or rally and wanted to make more noise? A group of people at CJWP have gotten together with some others to form a new drumming group. The idea is to practice together regularly (in Oakland) until we get good enough to make a good showing at rallies, marches, and other events.

You can sign up for the list at http://lists.jooksing.com/mailman/listinfo/cjwp-drumming.

The City Council committee will be holding a second hearing on the Condominium Conversion Ordinance this Tuesday (Nov. 28). Minor changes might happen, but it’s still going to go before the full council. That’s going to happen on Dec. 5.

Here’s a letter from Eddie of the Oakland Tenants Union about the meetings:

To Oakland Tenants Union and supporters

The Community and Economic Development Committee (CED) of the Oakland city council will hold a second hearing on a proposal to drastically weaken the Condominium Conversion Ordinance on Tuesday, November 28. Meeting time is 4 P.M.

The committee already approved the change on November 14 but will have another discussion on it on the 28th when perhaps some modifications to the original proposal may come up.

Keep in mind that the real important city council date is on the evening of Tuesday, December 5 when the matters goes before the full city council. Nonetheless, opponents of the change are invited to appear before the CED committee on November 28. Oakland Tenants Union and members from the Coalition to Protect Rental Housing will be there.

Under the change, as many as 800 units could be converted each year, thereby taking those units out of the rental market. At its core, many owners now cannot convert their units unless another housing unit has been created to replace it. The proposal is to do away with this one to one replacement. Getting rid of the replacement requirement would make it a whole lot easier to convert a unit and have it sell for a price higher than most tenants could afford. One of the things people can demand is that the city’s Planning staff conduct a systematic study of determining if tenants want the change, and how many will be evicted from their rented apartment because the buying price is too high.

The CED committee meets at City Hall, probably Hearing Room One.

Call 510 444-6089 for feedback or questions.

Eddie Ytuarte, Oakland Tenants Union

CNet posted an article about the top women geeks. Except they called them girl geeks and included Paris Hilton, Darryl Hannah, and Lisa Simpson in the list (along with more obvious candidates like Marie Curie and Grace Hopper). The list is stupid for so many reasons … but one thing that has come out of it that surprised me is that Slashdot has an article criticizing the list with actually some positive info on women geeks (which I found out about through Systers). I’m used to Slashdot discussions bagging on women, but this one actually has some positive posts and some info on women who deserve recognition for science and tech. accomplishments.

To give you an idea of what the “Top ten geek girls” is like (without linking to CNet and giving them more traffic), here’s my impression of how CNet would have written …

Top ten geek boys

1. Alan Turing. World’s first computer scientist.
2. Neil Armstrong. Went to space.
3. Dennis Ritchie. Won a national medal of technology.
4. Keanu Reeves. Geek icon.
5. Thomas Edison. Inventor.
6. Aldous Huxley. Wrote Brave New World.
7. Jimmy Neutron. Boy genius.
8. Albert Einstein. Played dice with the universe.
9. Click and Clack. Hip car talk show hosts.
10. Fabio. Famous boy gamer.

The order is inspired by the actual list on CNet. The description titles are about as lame as the original ones. I don’t actually know that Fabio enjoys video games, but if he does, I think he’d be a perfect analog to Paris Hilton on the original list.

You too can make your own top 10 list! Bonus points for going further and Bio paragraphs like:

Dennis Ritchie

Ritchie was a quintessential geek. Not content with working on the Multics operating system, he wrote a compiler. His invention was called the Pascal programming language. Ritchie’s contribution to the world of computers cannot be underestimated …

You get the idea. ;-)

Researchers at Harvard University have released a study showing a link between the consumption of red meat and breast cancer.

The study of more than 90,000 women found that the more red meat the women consumed when they were in their 20s, 30s and 40s, the greater their risk for getting breast cancer fueled by hormones in the next 12 years. Those who consumed the most red meat faced nearly twice the risk of those who ate red meat infrequently.

Another reason to go veg! ;-)

There’s an interesting discussion going on HREF Considered Harmful, Avi Bryan’ts blog. Avi posted a few messages about the idea of implementing Ruby on a Smalltalk, such as the recently open sourced Strongtalk (a high-performance variant of Smalltalk). Many people have contributed lots of insight to this, including JRuby Charles Oliver Nutter. Avi started a Google Group about Ruby on Smalltalk.

Sounds like an interesting idea – a way to get a much faster Ruby plus the great dev. tools that have existed in Smalltalk for years. It might be a way to run Ruby faster than JRuby and would probably be easier to implement than YARV.

Wow, what an election! More later. In the meantime, here’s an announcement I saw about a series of meetings that the LGBT Advisory Committee to the San Francisco Human Rights Commission is holding about people of color in the LGBT community:

The LGBT Advisory Committee of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission is hosting a series of meetings to discuss race within the LGBT community. How does race play out in your lives as LGBT people? What strategies do you take to deal with it? Can this lead to city policy change? We hope our conversations will lead to heightened community awareness and empower people of color within the LGBT Community. Events are open to all, but the focus will be to hear the voices of LGBT people of color. Refreshments will be provided. THE MISSION Wednesday, 11/8 ^:30-8:30 pm Community United Against Violence 170-A Capp Street @ 16th THE WESTERN ADDITION/THE FILLMORE Tuesday 11/14 6:30pm-8:30pm Ella Hill Hutch Community Center 1050 McAllister Street @ Webster

I’ve been at work and just remembed that the first meeting was tonight. Dang.

The East Bay Express has a great article on how a single city council seat could make a huge difference in Oakland. It’s about how pro-development incumbent Pat Kernighan is trying to rebrand herself as a progressive due to the popularity of challenger Aimee Allison.

At her core, Pat Kernighan is a buttoned-down, pro-business, pro-development Democrat. She’s the darling of the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, and throughout her career has allied herself with Oakland’s most pro-business politician — City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente. But now, at least publicly, Kernighan has reversed course. Her moderate credentials and political ties have become a liability.

Kernighan has accepted lots of money from developers, has voted consistently for them, and has been a past ally of council president Ignacio De La Fuente (who’s under investigation by the FBI). Aimee Allison, on the other hand, was a conscientious objector of the first Gulf War and has worked against military recruitment in schools ever since. Allison won’t accept any contributions from developers, and she has the support of progressive groups.

Anyway, if you live in Oakland (especially D2!) I recommend reading the article – it outlines some clear differences between the two candidates, and why progressives need to come out and support Aimee Allison for city council. This last week before the election is critical and if you have time to volunteer on a campaign, this is a good one. Not only will you get a chance to meet with and talk to Aimee herself, but working with a smaller electorate, you can more easily see the effect you’ll have on the outcome.

The Chronicle has a sad story about what’s believed to be the first genital mutilation case in the United States:

An Ethiopian immigrant was convicted Wednesday of the genital mutilation of his 2-year-old daughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in what was believed to be the first such criminal case in the United States.

Khalid Adem, 30, was found guilty of aggravated battery and cruelty to children. Prosecutors said he used scissors to remove his daughter’s clitoris in his family’s Atlanta-area apartment in 2001. The child’s mother, Fortunate Adem, said she did not discover it until more than a year later.

It’s terrible that this happens, and newspapers and television news aren’t helping by calling this kind of mutiliation ‘circimcision’ when it’s much worse. They do this even when they should know better – the Chron article calls it genital mutiliation to begin with but ends calling it circumcision:

Knives, razors or even sharp stones are usually used, according to a 2001 department report. The tools are frequently not sterilized, and often, many girls are circumcised at the same ceremony, leading to infection.

It is unknown how many girls have died from the procedure, either during the cutting or from infections, or years later in childbirth. Nightmares, depression, shock and feelings of betrayal are common psychological side effects, according to a 2001 federal report.

Since 2001, the State Department estimates that up to 130 million women worldwide have undergone circumcision.

Circumcision of males could be called genital mutilation, too, but of a much lesser scale. Women who have their clitorises cut off not only are missing an organ, but have many other health problems as well, such as trouble urinating.