Indybay has not only survived but thrived for ten years now. On November 13th we'll be acknowledging everyone who has contributed over the last decade to the many projects of the SF Bay Area and Santa Cruz Independent Media Centers. Come and celebrate this milestone with us at the historic Continental Club in West Oakland.

From 1pm to 6pm on November 13th, 2010, Indybay will be hosting a media conference with an exciting and diverse line-up of speakers, panels, and workshops focusing on independent media's role in social and environmental justice movements. It's FREE and ALL AGES are welcome to join us at the historic Continental Club in West Oakland.

From 8pm until midnight, we are throwing a benefit party ($10 donation | cash bar, 21 and up) featuring DJ Pubic Frenemy spinning all night, the Po Poets a capella, Eddie Falcon, Ras Ceylon with Unity and Sinista Z as Gideon.Force, and Audiopharmacy.

Tell your friends to check out http://www.indybay.org/TenYearAnniversary and to be there on November 13th.

Derrick Jones was shot and killed by the Oakland Police Dept on Monday November 8th 2010 on the 5800 block of Trask Street. On November 11th, protesters took to the streets to protest the murder of another unarmed man by the police. Family members of Jones and Oscar Grant joined a demonstration on Bancroft Way before marching to the Fruitvale BART station, the site of Grant's fatal shooting. BART shut down the station for several hours during the evening commute because of the protest.

On November 8th, more than 50 people protested at the San Francisco Consulate General of India against India's banning of Richard Shapiro. Since 2006, Shapiro has regularly traveled to Kashmir, and interacted with various human rights defenders, scholars, and youth to bear witness and to learn from their experiences. Friends and Allies of Richard Shapiro point out that when academics, writers, and journalists are banned, such actions speak to the intent of the Indian State in maintaining impunity, and in deliberately isolating Kashmiris from the world, and the world from Kashmiris.

Marc Sapir writes, "The core paid staff (representing perhaps 30-50 staff people at KPFA) essentially seized control of KPFA this morning [November 9th] to rally their listener base to resist efforts that could restore KPFA to financial solvency for the first time in 2 years, and bring it back from the brink of collapse (KPFA does not now have cash income to pay the staff regularly). What goes unstated is that the majority of staff at KPFA—over 150 programmers and producers--the people who keep the station on air 24/7 are volunteers are not represented in these antics."

Update November 8th: People's Park Tree-Sit Update: Day Eight
Update November 5th: Police taking treesitters' supplies; organizers call out for immediate support.
On the evening on October 31st, Halloween night, advocates for People's Park climbed into the trees to take a stand against the ongoing destruction of the park by UC Berkeley, with the encouragement of the Telegraph Business Association, and to protest the dwindling resources available to the city's homeless population. The tree sitters have renamed the park "Muwekma," the Ohlone word for "people."

On Friday, November 5th, former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle was sentenced for the shooting death of Oscar Grant, III. Mehserle received the minimum jail sentence possible from Judge Robert Perry, two years. Subtracting the 146 days Mehserle has already been behind bars in an LA County jail and another 146 days for "good behavior," he is expected to be released from state prison in less than one year from now. Concerned community members gathered together in Frank Ogawa Plaza by Oakland City Hall to respond to the sentencing and to honor Oscar. Police arrested 152 people in a march that followed.

On Sunday November 7th, there will a benefit at 7pm in Santa Cruz for Dine (Navajo) indigenous resistance communities at Big Mountain / Black Mesa, AZ who are in their third decade of resisting the expansion of coal strip mining operations and forced relocation from their traditional homeland by the US government. This benefit is part of the 2010 Fall Caravan of Support. On November 20th, work crews from Santa Cruz and all across the country will converge in support of the indigenous resistance communities of Black Mesa / Big Mountain.

In a dramatic "October Surprise" that community activists say is certain to decrease voter turnout in Fresno County, 200 out of the normal 400 polling places have been closed. Hardest hit is southwest Fresno, which is predominantly African American and Latino, where activists say that 75% of polling places have been eliminated. Sabina Gonzalez, who is the campaign director for Communities for a New California, says some residents in SW Fresno will be forced to walk over 2 miles to find a polling place that is open.

Protests in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Berkeley at Chevron gas stations featured handmade "No on 26" placards, as environmental activists redoubled their efforts to defeat the initiative they are calling a "stealth" proposition. The demonstrations were part of a statewide action organized by the Sierra Club.

A week before the November 2nd elections, a group of artists liberated six San Francisco billboards and sixty bus shelter ads to defeat Proposition L, a ballot measure that would ban sitting on the sidewalk. The group, calling itself the Sit/Lie Posse, replaced ads throughout the city with handmade prints rendered in the style of corporate advertising. Confronting the backers of the proposition, the posse lavished attention on sites around City Hall, the Chronicle, the Haight-Ashbury district and many other neighborhoods.

On Thursday, October 28th at 7pm will be a screening at the United Presbyterian Church in Watsonville of Simon Sedillo's new documentary, The Demarest Factor: US Military Mapping of Indigenous Communities in Oaxaca, Mexico. This film and workshop presentation discusses a recent investigation into U.S. military mapping of communally owned indigenous land in Oaxaca, Mexico.

This year was the 15th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality. Throughout Northern California marches, rallies and vigils were held on October 22nd and 23rd to mark the days of action against police brutality. On October 23rd, the ILWU and other unions shut down Bay Area ports to join a Justice for Oscar Grant Rally in downtown Oakland. In Eureka, organizers announced two days of marches and rallies. Vigils and marches were held in Fresno and Modesto.

On the night of October 20th, four Santa Cruz Police Department officers ticketed a woman for spitting on Pacific Avenue. No warning was given, and she was issued a ticket for nothing more than spitting. However, the municipal code states that a person is violating 9.50.02 "after having been notified by a police officer, public officer or downtown host that he or she is in violation of the prohibition."

Environmental activists at San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network (R.A.N.) pulled off an elaborate hoax on San Ramon-headquartered Chevron on Monday. Together with spoof specialists The Yes Men, R.A.N. created a look alike web site mocking Chevron's new “We Agree” advertising campaign. The political prank included phony press releases and a slogan attributed to Chevron “We Agree: Oil companies should clean up their messes."

Larry Bensky has had a varied journalistic career, marked by his association with KPFA-FM in Berkeley. Best known as a talk show host, he is famous for anchoring the Iran Contra Hearings from Washington for the national Pacifica Network. Less well known is his early career in mainstream journalism, his activism against the Vietnam War, and his role in the struggle for People’s Park in 1969.

New Leaf, a 35-year-old San Francisco center that offered mental health and substance abuse services for low-income, queer, and trans folks, has closed. Gay Shame organized a protest in front of the Department of Public Health and dramatized their frustration with the department's lack of support for New Leaf with street theater.

A credentialed reporter, who was prominently displaying a press pass issued by the very police agency who arrested him, can be lawfully arrested for jaywalking simply for standing in a parking indentation/turnout while filming an incident on a street blocked off to traffic, according to a decision issued on October 12th by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Indybay journalist Mark Burdett's attorney Ben Rosenfeld says the ruling “confirms many people’s disgust that courts today exist to launder the bad behavior of the rich, the powerful, and the police.”

On Sunday, October 10th, a group known as Creative Housing Liberation occupied Hotel Leslie in downtown San Francisco. This occupation was planned as part of a rally and march for World Homeless Day. Over 120 people convened for this event, which began around noon at Civic Center with speakers, musicians and spoken word. Eventually, the group marched up Larkin Street to the hotel, gathering outside for more performances and speakers, food and music, tours of the abandoned building, and the eventual occupation of the building by a core group of people.

On October 7th, students, workers, & faculty gathered in solidarity to defend public education across the U.S. At UC Berkeley, supporters gathered in Sproul Plaza, marched, and later occupied the North Hall Reading Room at Doe Library. At San Francisco State, supporters rallied, with speakers including Oscar Grant's Uncle Bobby.

Recently in West Side Modesto, about 100 people gathered in protest against the police killings of Francisco Moran in early September 2010, and the recent murder of Rita Elias by a Stanislaus County Sheriff. Banners read, "RIP Francisco Moran, RIP Rita Elias," "DISARM MPD," and "From LA to Oakland to Modesto, Resist Police Terror, 209 RISE UP!" Family members and friends of Elias wore shirts with her image, and earlier that day they had helped fundraise for her funeral expenses and for her three children that she leaves behind.

On the morning of September 22nd, settler security personnel in Silwan in East Jerusalem shot and killed Samir Solhan. Solhan, a father of four, was a well known figure in Silwan. The Palestinian residents of Silwan rioted in the following days protesting the murder. Although the police readily accepted the settlers' security personnel's version that he was in fear of his life, testimonies and video tell a different story.

A new poll released Thursday by the Public Policy Institute of California shows Proposition 19 — the statewide initiative to control and tax cannabis (marijuana) — leading 52-41, with just 7 percent of likely voters still undecided. "Controlling and taxing cannabis is polling higher than anything else on California's ballot, including the gubernatorial and Senate candidates, as well as all the other initiatives," said Richard Lee, a proponent of Prop. 19.

George “Elfie” Ballis, photographer, Indybay contributor, organizer, and chronicler of Fresno’s progressive movement died Friday, September 24. He was 85. In recent years George “Elfie” Ballis spent much of his time producing video documentaries of the progressive movement in Fresno and the Central Valley. Some of his footage about Peace Fresno’s infiltration by the sheriff’s department ended up in Michael Moore’s 2004 hit movie "Fahrenheit 9/11."

On the morning of September 24th, FBI agents served grand jury subpoenas and raided the homes of several anti-war and social justice activists in Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois. The federal law cited in the search warrants prohibits, "providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations." The Supreme Court recently rejected a free speech challenge to the material support law from humanitarian aid groups.

A protest took place in San Francisco on Tuesday, September 28th at the Federal Building at 7th St. and Mission St.

Last week the Concord Coalition and the Peter G. Peterson Foundation launched their “Fiscal Solutions Tour,” a series of public forums focusing on right wing cures for the nation’s economic problems. One of their major proposals is lowering the benefits and raising the retirement age for Social Security. In San Francisco and San Jose, they were met by protesters who shouted "Hands off Social Security!"  

Nurses, teachers, and union members lined the Bayshore Freeway in front of the San Francisco Airport Hyatt-Regency on September 21st to protest a Meg Whitman fundraising event. Anti-war activists were also on hand to demonstrate against former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who endorsed Whitman for Governor in a speech at the hotel.

On September 15th, protesters gathered in front of Senator Feinstein's office in downtown San Francisco to demand full and fair employment. Federal economic stimulus funding passed by Congress last year created jobs in non-profit organizations to provide services to the community in the Jobs Now and Community Jobs Program. That funding ends September 30, 2010, and so do those jobs.