The Golden Ticket

My latest opinion piece in the Marina Times, in which I probably anger some well-paid people and their enablers.

At least the original Robin Hood was
into forcible trickle-down economics. Photo: andscene

OPINION
The Golden Ticket
City's reverse Robin Hood spending
By John Zipperer
December 2012

For years, there has been a movement to convince cable television providers to charge for their channels on an a la carte basis. You can select each of the channels you want and pay for only those.  

If we took that same approach to public budgets, what do you think would be the result? It’s not an entirely serious question; there are certain things that people don’t like but that need to be paid for

Read the entire article ... 

Free Audio: Politics, Climate, Supreme Court, and More

Here's a link to the free audio for my Week to Week program from Friday, June 29, 2012.

The panel (shown in the rather poorly lit photo above; my apologies) were (left to right) John Diaz, editorial page editor of the San Francisco Chronicle; Dr. Larry Gerston, San Jose State University professor, political analyst for NBC 11, and author of Not So Golden After All: The Rise and Fall of California; and Greg Dalton, founder and host of Climate One.

Naturally, we spent a lot of time on the Supreme Court's health-care ruling, so much so that we never got to the really important stuff, such as Tom and Katie's divorce.

Helping the Examiner Find Its Voice: Opinion from Northside San Francisco

From the February 2012 issues of Northside San Francisco and The Marina Times:

OPINION COLUMN
Help the San Francisco Examiner Find Its Voice
By John Zipperer 

On a typical day in January, San Francisco Examiner readers picked up their paper and found something missing: an editorial page. It is something that is missing frequently from that tabloid, and though it might not be missed as much as an AWOL sports section or a celebrity gossip column, it is more important than either.  

Many San Franciscans are used to not having a voice in the media. Though this city is famously known as a liberal town, there is a working majority of moderates that regularly gets its way in mayoral elections, although it is ignored by most of the politicians and local press the rest of the time.

Read the entire article

Lou Dobbs Leaves CNN Again, but Wolf Blitzer Lets the Opinions Fly

For the second time in his career (if I'm keeping count correctly), Lou Dobbs is high-tailing it out of CNN-land. The TV host has been under increasing fire for his unending crusade on immigration policy -- bordering on racism, in some people's eyes -- and more recently for apparently pushing the lunatic birther movement.

Whether he's headed to Fox News or some other warren of media wolves (just go with me here) is unknown at this time. But it does mark one more feather in CNN's cap that they let him out of his contract and didn't try to keep him.

Now, what the heck was going through CNN's mind earlier today, when Wolf Blitzer unleashed some incredibly amatuerish bile at the lawyer defending the man who shot those soldiers at Fort Hood? Look, nobody I know of is thinking kind thoughts about that clearly deluded murderer. But when the lawyer said it was his job to see that the defendent got a fair trial, Blitzer tried to end the conversation by saying that that was at least more than the people who were gunned down received. Is Blitzer angling for a Fox News invitation? An MSNBC timeslot?

Try doing the news, sir, and leave the opinion to others. The lawyer -- a retired military lawyer, in fact -- was not making wild or ridiculous statements that deserved rudeness. He said nothing to disrespect the murdered soldiers or their loved ones. He was simply stating the obvious and answering Blitzer's earlier question about whether he had qualms defending this man. If Blitzer has a better idea about how military justice should work, I look forward to reading his learned treatise on the topic. But this was embarrassing, and from CNN, no less.

To Blitzer's minimal credit, he did let the lawyer respond, after it became apparent that the lawyer was taken aback by Blitzer's grandstanding. But I lost quite a bit of respect for a news host today.