THIS & THAT #18                                  

THE SHIP HAS SAILED

PRELUDE — Friday, December 2, 2016

At 11:20 pm PST, a fire broke out in a warehouse known as Ghost Ship, located in the Fruitvale Section of Oakland, California. In the high-priced San Francisco Bay Area where rent for a one-bedroom dwelling averages $2,366 a month, the Ghost Ship’s landlord converted it into an artist collective. He offered financially struggling creative people an open space to live and work in, for less than $800 each a month.

The warehouse was two stories high with each artist having her or his own area. It was a satisfying maze in places, and in others, a crowded, cluttered cornucopia of couches, artwork, furniture, old pianos, raggedy rugs, mannequins, and wooden palettes used for a staircase. There were neither smoke detectors nor sprinklers. Many areas were heated by propane, electrical wiring was exposed, and the situation was ripe for the deadly inferno that occurred.

The landlord knew this, so did fire inspectors who rarely inspected the premises, as did the tenants who accepted these conditions as a tradeoff for unbelievably low rents.

That night, the collective was holding a concert, and many of those crowded into the Ghost Ship were unaware that there were two stairways, and that neither led to an exit.

AFTERMATH — Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Firefighters found the last of the 36 bodies that had died in the devastating fire.

BLAME AND RESPONSIBILITY

If something goes right, there are always a myriad of people and organizations that step up and take credit for the results, even if they contributed little or nothing to the outcome. However, when things do not turn out right, or turn out dreadfully wrong, there’s a paucity of people who will admit that they were lacking in effort. They will step back, deny responsibility, and try to blame others for their inactions. Such was the case with the Ghost Ship fire, and the individuals and groups who should have been involved in preventing this disaster. Many are still in a state of denial.

HOUSING CRISIS IN BAY AREA

With a home-buying option out of the price range of most in the progressive, artistic Bay Area community, many unemployed and under-employed seek inexpensive accommodations wherever they can find them. Some sleep in their vehicles, if they can afford to own one, others double or triple up with friends. Still others are willing to take their chances in Ghost Ship-like communes, even when they know that living conditions are sub-par, and no permits had been obtained. They weren’t open to leaving the area and finding dwellings in less expensive regions. By staying where creativity allegedly flows, they were consciously or unconsciously accepting responsibility for that choice, and were willing to live, or die, with it.

WAS THE FIRE PREVENTABLE?

The owner, who seemed to be invisible and unavailable for any interviews, avoided any connection with the warehouse. She also owned several other potential firetraps in the Oakland area.  She leased the warehouse to one man, the landlord, who in turn, rented out spaces in the entire building to each of the tenants. He knew of the dangerous conditions, but did little to alleviate them. By just taking a perfunctory look at their surroundings, the tenants must have known of the terrible shape of the interior, the fire hazards which were all around them, and that there wasn’t a fire extinguisher, nor a smoke detector in sight. If all parties had put some effort into cleaning up the place, perhaps their names wouldn’t have been listed as victims.

After the fire, the landlord hired top-flight lawyers to defend him should lawsuits come his way, and one of his lawyers sent out a warning, “He should not be made a scapegoat.” Ironically, the landlord and his wife and children also lived in the warehouse, but they were staying in a hotel the night of the catastrophe.

THE CITY OF OAKLAND

Oakland is a city on the move, but one of its main problems is that professional sports teams are moving away. When they do, any city loses some of its luster, prestige and attention from the media and tourists.

The owner of the Oakland Raiders professional football team is being heavily wooed by the City of Las Vegas, and may be heading to that enticing locale. Some of Oakland’s elected officials are doing what they can to keep the Raiders, and probably investing more time on that project, rather than on insuring the safety of old warehouse buildings.

The Golden State Warriors professional basketball team will be leaving Oakland within three years, heading to a more prestigious location across the Bay in San Francisco. That’s a done deal, taking more shine away from the city’s sports scene.

THE OAKLAND FIRE DEPARTMENT

According to some conflicting accounts, the Ghost Ship had not been regularly inspected, or even inspected at all, yet the Fire Department was aware of the extremely dangerous conditions inside. They had discovered debris outside the warehouse, and in perfunctory, unofficial glimpses, they knew of the hazards. The fire department’s union president said that they knew of the dangerous conditions they would face inside the burning building.

The Fire Chief acknowledged that they were woefully short of inspectors. Eight civilian fire inspectors were charged with performing state-mandated inspections annually on about 500 residential buildings, 350 schools, 520 places of assembly, 310 institutions such as hospitals, jails, and care facilities, and 123 high-rise buildings. The Ghost Ship avoided such inspections, since it was secretly operating as a residential building. On December 11, it was noted that the Fire Chief refused to release records, or answer specific questions, about her department’s role in inspecting the warehouse.

The Ghost Ship was located one block away from an Oakland fire station.

THE CONCERT GOERS

Most came for an inexpensive fun night out, gathering with friends and like-minded people. Parties like this one were considered the heart of the artistic community, and many looked forward to such happenings, finding out about them on social media.

People who attended the fateful concert had probably attended similar ones around the city. In most likelihood, they had never checked the Ghost Ship out, for if anyone had done so, they would have discovered that it was a disaster waiting to happen. Attendees were most likely unaware that the stairways out were in poor shape, and the exits were impossible to find.

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

Death can be quite final, and since all of the parties previously mentioned didn’t prepare themselves for complete destruction of the Ghost Ship beforehand. After the disaster, belated action began to place in an attempt to try and prevent future such occurrences.

The Ghost Ship is in ruins, and no one knows if it will ever be resurrected and rise from its ashes.  But to reduce the chances of the next such warehouse being converted into a tinderbox, landlords have begun taking overdue preventative action.

By December 17, people living at four similar warehouses in Oakland received eviction notices, and were given one month to three months to leave. The Mayor’s office is seeking to create a task force to assess and reduce risks in Oakland. One warehouse owner is looking to see what the city does next. He said, “They have to do something. For building owners and tenants, they should have a very specific and realistic plan, so we can comply with it.” The city also has to regularly inspect such buildings.

Name Love, an artist, is considering moving out of the Bay Area. “People who find these weird communities are usually people who feel rejected…people who don’t conform and are used to being kicked out.” A woman who identifies herself as an artist, dancer, juggler and object manipulator, said that grieving for lost artists is compounded by the loss of community spaces. She hopes “that the Oakland City Council will want to work with us and our landlords to support these spaces.”

If not, where will the artists go, and if the do, will they with take some of the Bay Area creativity with them?

THE BEGINNING OR THE END?

Along with the attorney hired by the man who leased the warehouse and rented out the living and working spaces, in late December the owner of the Ghost Ship retained a Southern California-based attorney. The owner owns multiple properties in Oakland, and records indicated that she had paid more than $20,000 in code enforcement fees between 2008 and 2014.

The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office had its own investigation going, and was contemplating whether or not criminal liability is attached to this fire.

The families of two victims have filed lawsuits against the building's owner, the Ghost Ship landlord, and those responsible for promoting and hosting the performance. The families have also sued the city of Oakland and Alameda County, but per the California Tort Claims Act, those government entities were listed in a separate lawsuit. In that suit, the families cite "negligence" on the part of city officials to shut down the art space, which lacked the necessary permits to conduct shows.

                                                  Neither Rhyme Nor Reason

Rags galore, treasures small, stairs of palettes, piles of wood.

All consumed in pyre ashes, in the Fruitvale neighborhood.

Was it a leaky propane tank? Was it a loose electrical wire?

That helped to quickly ignite, Oakland’s most deadly fire?

Thirty-six humans were consumed in the flame.

Fingers still pointing, at someone else to blame.

The Ghost Ship has sailed away, to a far, far distant shore.

Passengers are lost forever, gone to a land of never more.

THIS & THAT #17

AKA — THE GREEN GROPER

THE PAST HAS PASSED

In the 2014-15 National Basketball Association Championship, the Golden State Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers four games to two, and won their first title since 1975.

FOR THE RECORDS

The following season, 2015-16, they seemed even more potent setting a record starting the season 24-0. They had just begun setting records, and set a new record winning an astonishing seventy-three regular season games.

FOR THE RECORD

The Warriors made it to the 2015-16 NBA title match once again, and were leading the Cavaliers three games to one, winning game four on Cleveland’s home court. If they won game five, they would repeat as champions, and people were talking about a Warriors’ dynasty. The Warriors were playing game five in the friendly confines of their home court, where they had amassed a 39-2 record at home during the regular season.

FOR THE WRECKER

Draymond Green 6’7”, 230-lb. man-child of twenty-five semi-mature years, had developed a bad habit on the basketball court. After too many plays, he would either kick his nearest opponent in the groin, or make a grab for that anatomical area.

Coach Steve Kerr and Warrior teammates dismissed it as being Green’s aggressive, winning style of playing. Unfortunately, the NBA and its referees did not agree.

NOT CHAMPIONSHIP FORM

As long the Warriors stayed focused and let nothing distract them, they were already planning another victory parade around Oakland’s Lake Merritt. However, Green’s crotch-kicking peccadillo was about to be recognized.

Green was suspended after receiving a flagrant foul 1 for his actions in Game 4. Green and Cleveland’s LeBron James got tangled and when Green fell to the court, he swung his arm and appeared to make contact with James' groin area.

That was Green’s fourth flagrant foul point of the playoffs, which carries an automatic suspension. He was docked a game paycheck, which cost him about $140,000. Earlier in the postseason, Green was assessed a flagrant 2 and fined $25,000 for kicking the Oklahoma City Thunder center between the legs.

THE MISSING CENTER

Not only did Green’s suspension throw the Warriors off track, but with their number one center Andrew Bogut injured and out of the lineup, his two replacements combined for only one point and one rebound in his absence.

NO SPLASHING

As if the Green hex had spread to the entire starting lineup, the potent splash brothers, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, hardly made a ripple with their shooting in game seven. Curry had averaged 30.1 points and Thompson 22.1 points during the regular season, but in the Warriors’ final game, Curry managed to score only seventeen points on six for nineteen shooting (.316), and Klay sunk just six of seventeen shots (.353), for fourteen points.

RESSURECTION, TOO LATE

The Warriors had been out of sync since Green’s fifth game suspension, although in game seven, he contributed mightily, albeit two games too late, amassing thirty-two points, fifteen rebounds and nine assists.

HE GO WITH EGO

Green’s salary for the 2016-17 season is $15,330,435, and in September 2015, he generously gave $3.1 million to his alma mater’s athletic department. As a Michigan State alum, Green was in his old college town, when in the early hours of July 10, he admitted to slapping a 185-lb. Spartan football cornerback. After the altercation, Green allegedly uttered, “Do you know who I am? I pay for ni**gas like you scholarships.” Afterwards, Green issued a statement saying, “As a public figure, I just can’t put myself in certain situations. It’s something I’ll learn from and just move on.” Hopefully “on” and not “up.”

NO PREFERENCE FOR ATHLETES?

Green agreed to a plea deal, where charges against him were reduced to a noise violation, which allowed him to avoid jail time. However, he was burdened with a $500 fine and a $60 restitution fee, which if you look at his salary, that is equivalent to a few minutes of his playing time salary. His attorney said that this is “akin to a parking ticket.”

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON?

At 3:55 am PST on December 22, 2016, Draymond Jamal Green Jr. was born, and it is rumored that he entered the world kicking and screaming. Time will tell whether he will carry on his father’s tradition, and for how long.

THE APPRENTICE

Apparently, the famed Duke University basketball team has at least one player who is trying to emulate Green’s activity. On December 21, Grayson Allen was suspended from the team, one day after deliberately tripping an opponent for the third time in a year. Allen was quoted as saying, 'There’s no excuse for it.” If he wants to make it in the pros, he will have to sets his sights higher.

REPEAT PERFORMANCE

In their first meeting since the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors on June 19, 2016 in Oakland to win the NBA Championship, the two teams met in Cleveland on Christmas Day.

Two-and-one-half minutes into the game, Green had thrown the ball away and fouled two Cleveland players while they were shooting. After his second foul, Green lost it, was given a technical foul, and was screaming as he headed toward the Warrior bench. He was grabbed by teammates trying to calm him and avoid a second technical, and an automatic ejection.

Kyrie Irving of the Cavs scored a point as he made the technical free throw.

That one point was the difference in the Warriors loss to the Cavs, 108-109.

When will he ever learn, when will he learn?  .....apologies to Pete Seeger.

THIS & THAT #16

THERE’S MORE BLAME, JUST

CHANGE THE PARTY'S NAME

PART TWO — THE DEMOCRATS

Former President Clinton was quoted in a weekly newspaper near to where he and Hillary live, that President-elect Donald Trump “doesn’t know much,” but “one thing he does know is how to get angry, white men to vote for him.”

Bill is now an angry white man, and probably laments the fact that he didn’t do quite enough to earn the title “First Man.” The same goes for the Democratic National Committee and Hillary’s inept advisors, but let’s start with the DNC — aka, “the Crooked DNC.”

DISTORTED VIEW FROM ABOVE 

The Democrats were in a “d” mode by being devious, deceptive, deceitful, duplicitous, and dishonest. Let’s look and try and determine who and or what were to blame for their election loss?

DEMOCRATS

DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign in July, after WikiLeaks e-mails revealed that top DNC staff members had plotted to sabotage Bernie Sanders.

Using all of her years of accumulated political wisdom, Hillary immediately tried to placate Sanders’ people by first lauding Debbie for her contributions, and then appointing her as Hillary’s honorary campaign chair.

JEW AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO

The DNC’s CFO Brad Marshall suggested in a leaked email that Sanders’ Jewish ethnicity and his atheist beliefs could be exposed to Southern Democratic voters, who would then turn to Hillary in the primaries.

The DNC also briefly shut off Sanders’ access to the part’s key list of likely Democratic voters.

HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY

Longtime Democratic strategist Donna Brazile took over as interim chair, and keeping with the DNC’s policy of screwing up whenever possible, she was accused of feeding Hillary debate questions before her CNN-sponsored debate in Flint. Donna was later dropped as a CNN contributor.

Donald you were absolutely right, the election was rigged.

NOW THE FUND BEGINS

How did Hillary lose college-educated white women, and more importantly, how did she lose the non-college-educated white male vote? In the third quarter, Trump’s average campaign contribution was $50.46, so sayeth the campaign, with checks as small as $10.

MAKING AMERICA GREAT

ONE HUGE RALLY AT A TIME

From November 6 through the 8th, Donald J. rode a wave of enthusiasm at eleven rallies in ten states, from one in Sioux City, Iowa to a final one in New York City. His campaign events excited voters wherever they took place — in convention centers, college student unions, arenas, airport hangers, or fairgrounds.

YOU HAVE GOT TO

HAND IT TO HILLARY

Hillary held one public rally in August in Reno, Nevada, for that wasn’t where the rich Mother Lode existed. She held seven fund raising soirees in California in August in just three days, five more in affluent homes in Martha’s Vineyards, and nine in wealthy East Hampton. She did mine northern California once again in September, where donors paid up to $50,000 to schmooze with the first woman who wouldn’t be nominated once again to be President. At one such event, guests who purchased the priciest tickets or raised $100,000, could not only attend a reception, but also receive a “commemorative keepsake.”

THE SOUTH WILL RAISE AGAIN

One August night, she attended two fundraisers in Beverly Hills, California, with a limited, invited audience at each. One was at the home of NBA legend Magic Johnson, and the other at the home of billionaire Haim Saban, where each guests had to contribute or raise $27,000.

YOU CAN BANK ON HILLARY

While Donald held rallies where people were enthusiastically rooting for him, Hillary was giving speeches at financial firms such as Goldman Sachs and being paid $225,000 for each of them. Was Hillary trying to influence Goldman Sachs, or were they buying influence with her? As with the content of Donald’s income taxes, no one really knows what magical words were woven into Hillary’s talks.

COME ON, HILLARY

Her campaign didn’t seem to have a cohesive plan, and whoever was in charge decided that it was more important to stay isolated away from the common people.

Those were the ones in the red states that helped determine that the Clinton Dynasty is over, as is the Bush Dynasty, and you can’t blame those neglected voters for Hillary’s loss.

THIS & THAT # 15

PRELUDE

After being worn out about the thought that there’s too much to write about, I took a brief hiatus from writing and publishing. There’s still too much to write about, and yet it’s a long-overdue time to start. As Alexander Portnoy’s psychiatrist said after their last session, “So. Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?”

THE NAME OF THE GAME

IS WHOM DO YOU BLAME?

There always seems to be a myriad of people and groups who rush for recognition when something goes right, even when they didn’t contribute anything to the outcome. On the other hand, there’s a definite dearth of individuals around to admit to their inadequacies and speak up when anything goes woefully wrong.

This extends to most everything in our world from the outcome of elections, to other man-made disasters, to mistakes in the world of sports of gigantic proportions. At times, there seems to be equally attributable woman-made mistakes.

ELECTION TIME BLAME

Both the Republicans and the Democrats can stake claim to their share of the blame, as to what went wrong during the 2016 Presidential Election.

PART ONE — THE GOP

As you may have learned, Donald J. Trump won the Electoral College vote and is now the President-Elect of the entire country, including Guam. In all honesty, can you blame Donald J. for being an egomaniacal, narcissistic, self-promoting, bombastic, crude, and unrefined provocateur? Those characteristics and his bending of the truth are what helped get him elected.

Can you blame him for seeming to be off-script and out of control at his rallies, for that attribute made him an American idol to his fans. Those who did not vote for him are praying that during his term he doesn’t disrupt their lives and the country too much. They would be pleased to see him as an American idle.

When it comes to blame, Donald J. and his satraps have consistently pounded on their number one enemy — “the media.”

With Donald leading the attack, his campaign made sure that his voting bloc knew that “the media” were a major source of their personal woes. They, and Hillary, became the common enemies, and he said so wherever and whenever he spoke.

I was in Las Vegas in December 2015, and while strolling through my hotel, I noticed a large group of people waiting to enter one ballroom, which turned out to be where a Trump rally was being held. I entered and found an inconspicuous place in the back, behind what could be described as a holding pen — like a cattle pen in a stockyard. But this pen was filled with reporters. In front of the pen, was a ten-foot platform crowded with camera-laden media people from local and national television outlets.

When Trump came on stage to perform, he immediately told his followers to turn around and look toward the pen and the platform. He announced, “These are our enemies. Yet they are clamoring to cover our great movement.” If on cue, his people started to loudly boo the media, and that became part of his act on the road.

NO DOUBT ABOUT "THEM"

During his campaign rallies Trump has described “the media” in a myriad of derisive terms, such as “sleazy,” “unfair,” “not good people,” ”slime,” “dishonest slime,” “disgusting,” “weak,” “clueless,” “scum,” “ridiculous,” unfair,” and finally he truly and deeply hurt them and inflamed his loyal supporters by calling the media “bad.”

At his rallies, he always points to the media in the back as he labels then “the most dishonest people in the world. They are the worst.” He reiterates his point and retaliates against “them,” by telling his people that “I am not running against crooked Hillary.  I’m running against the crooked media.”

SAYING IS BELIEVING

Because Donald J. has elevated the media to the top of his hit list, eighty-seven percent of Trump’s supporters see the media as biased against him. Which translates into the media being against them, and therefore the media can’t be trusted.

Trump may become the most anti-media President since Richard Milhous Nixon unleashed his attack dog Spiro T. Agnew. Both men were forced to leave office because of their crooked dealings — we can only hope. Don’t forget Nixon’s two main men H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, who were both forced to take early retirements.

He plans no press conferences, much like Hillary, summoned top media executives to bow before his throne in the Trump Tower, and has hinted of plans to open up libel laws against his enemies.

PART TWO – COMING DISTRACTIONS

Stay tuned for more on the Democrats and their role in losing the election, and who should take the blame for their failure. It will appear in an upcoming blog, as well as whom to blame for the Oakland fire and the Warriors loss in the last NBA championship.