Life on the Island

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Remember: High Street Bridge to close until September

It’ll be a time of going from Point A to Point B via a detour during seismic upgrade work on the High Street Bridge from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday (beginning this Wednesday). The work will continue through Sept. 1. Most of us are on automatic pilot when it comes to our [...]


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New voice on the Alameda Journal blog

Starting this week, look for a new voice on the Alameda Journal blog. Lucinda Ryan edited the Alameda Journal from 1990 to 1996, and worked as a reporter for the paper for seven years before that. More recently she was an online news editor for the Oakland Tribune. She is currently working as a freelance [...]


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There are plenty of micro-organisms in the sea

You can’t see them, but they’re in there.
Not to dampen your Memorial Day plans, but considering this is the unofficial launch of the summer season, here is something you should know.
The blissful Bay water along our sandy shores is tempting, particularly on those red-hot days, but before dipping that first toe into the water, go [...]


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Life on the Island: Alameda Safe Schools curriculum

Life on the Island, the column I write for the Alameda Journal is up online now. This week it’s about the Alameda Unified School District’s proposed anti-bullying curriculum…the one that has generated buckets of publicity in recent months. I write, in part:
…teaching about same-gender families is no more about sex than the words “marriage” and [...]


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Alameda push poll on gay and lesbian school curriculum

A neighbor reports that she just got a phone call in which she was asked to answer a series of automated survey questions. Below is her best recollection of what she was asked:
Do you care about education in Alameda schools?
Do you believe that a curriculum explaining lesbian, gay and transgender issues should be allowed [...]


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AUSD master planning meeting tonight at Haight School

Tonight is the first of three Alameda Unified School District community meetings about the future of Alameda schools. The idea, as I understand it, is to create a master plan for the public school system in Alameda. The meeting starts at 6:30 and Superintendent Kirsten Vital as well as members of the school board will [...]


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Alameda Anti-bullying curriculum meeting continued to Monday May 18

The Alameda Journal’s report on Tuesday night’s Alameda school board meeting is here. Both KTUV and NBC came to town and did stories. Passions were high in the over-crowded council meeting room, and more than a hundred people who filled out speaker slips left without giving their two cents. At next Monday’s meeting, speakers [...]


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School board meeting tonight: Alameda’s anti-bullying curriculum tonight

So, once again, an Alameda debate has hit the regional news. And the Christian right has picked up the story and run with it. There’s also a lot of heated rhetoric swirling around (check out the comments on this Blogging Bayport post).
I have to confess that the whole debate about this tiny piece of [...]


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Layoffs of Alameda city staff expected today

Michele Ellson of The Island stayed up to watch last night’s city council meeting and has this on job cuts in the city: “…the word is that we’re getting a list of the positions to be cut today, so I’m sure there will be more to come.” She also has, for your edification, a list [...]


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In Alameda: Cleaning up after your dog

It is two or three times a week at least that I clean up dog poop from my yard, or my driveway, or the sidewalk in front of my house.
And I don’t have a dog.
At the school near where I live, there are very often piles of poop left there. I don’t blame [...]