Andrew Alden

page of a letter with exceptionally bold handwriting and supportive intent

Snow Park discard

Even a dyslexic can tell it's junk, Governor.

Wait a minute, won't the 96 serve Brooklyn Basin starting next week?

I'm leading a free one-way walk Saturday from Fruitvale BART to the Laurel Street Fair through some of East Oakland's interesting neighborhoods, three stream valleys and Oakland's newest parks. Still room for you!

Here in Oakland the American dream (owning a home) is a daydream

Newspaper ad for Standard Gasoline shows a well-dressed couple getting ready to smooch. Caption says, "SCENE: Same as when you had your first crush on Somebody. Think of velvet -- and you'll have a picture of the smooth power of STANDARD Gasoline with Tetrethyl Lead anti-knock fluid."

1934: Lead in your gasoline is great

The last house taken Down, Geary at Scott

SF Chronicle Jan 21, 1962 - The Band Plays on in Western Addition Ruins The Lewis Family of 1419 Scott Street still held daily music practice every morning on the almost empty block.

Last House on Scott Street, circa 1962
Redevelopment had claimed every other home on Scott between Geary and O'Farrell, but the Lewis family still remained at 1419 Scott. #sfhistory (Cecil Hurd Photo, Courtesy of his grandson Tony)

Oakland Tribune 1917: Federal FDA urges cities to graze sheep on public grasslands; Oakland's parkland "would permit the grazing of some 8000 animals. Those at the present price of mutton and wool, would realize a handsome profit to the city for upkeep, it is claimed."

Sheep coulda safely grazed

Sequoyah Country Club plans to cut 175 redwoods. Some neighbors are opposed The club says its new landscape will be more environmentally friendly and boost the “health, safety, and beauty” of the entire East Oakland hills neighborhood.

Resident's view of stressed and sick redwoods, planted in the wrong habitat 100 years ago on private land out of misguided pastoralism, outweighs all other considerations oaklandside.org/2025/07/30/s...

Maybe look at bsky.app/profile/rsim...

Tsunamis travel great-circle routes, modified by continental shelves and other seafloor features. (Geologist hat off now)

Zipcar's nearby EV keeps being rejected/switched whenever I try to book it.

Finally put 2+2 together: www.instagram.com/oakland.bio/

Part 1 of an 11-panel SMBC comic update where aliens attack Earth with an alien virus, and kindergarten teachers discover they have immunity from it due to being sneezed on by children for 20 years. The teachers fight back.

Part 2 of an 11-panel SMBC comic update where aliens attack Earth with an alien virus, and kindergarten teachers discover they have immunity from it due to being sneezed on by children for 20 years. The teachers fight back.

Part 3 of an 11-panel SMBC comic update where aliens attack Earth with an alien virus, and kindergarten teachers discover they have immunity from it due to being sneezed on by children for 20 years. The teachers fight back.

Part 4 of an 11-panel SMBC comic update where aliens attack Earth with an alien virus, and kindergarten teachers discover they have immunity from it due to being sneezed on by children for 20 years. The teachers fight back.

Hollywood, call me. I can have this script done on a weekend.

COMIC ◆ www.smbc-comics.com/comic/lesson
PATREON ◆ www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersm...
STORE ◆ smbc-store.myshopify.com

Letter to the editor from "E. T. J.", Oakland Tribune, 31 May 1932: "Linda Vista Park, a small gully lying off of Oakland avenue, is to be "beautified" with an $8600 rose garden by the city park board. The $8600 is an initial cost and a total expenditure of $40,000 is contemplated before the work is completed. What sort of business is this in slack times when food instead of roses is the need of a great number of our people. The park is so situated that not one person out a hundred can find it and not one out of ten thousands in the city ever heard of it. Yet the park board suddmely decides to make it the rose garden of the world. Is it surprising that property owners who scrimp to make tax payments begin to fret and wonder why? Confidence in city official wanes rapidly when $8600 goes for roses, with an initial payment of $400 to a landscape gardener to design the layout. Of course it is listed as an "unemployment relief" measure but that looks like hooey to tax payers who shoulder the burden."

Oakland Rose Garden had its grouches from day one

Meet The Locals: California Live Oak Introducing Bay Area Current’s guide to your local native species and why they matter.

The fight against capitalism's destruction of the environment is a fight to preserve the entire natural world.

Introducing Bay Area Current’s guide to your local native species and why they matter. Our first installment: California Live Oak. bayareacurrent.com/meet-the-loc...

Oakland city hall seen through the 15th Street extension to Ogawa Plaza, flanked by high buildings, with strings of lights and planter baskets hung from high posts backed by a brilliant 7 pm summer sky with scattered white Bay clouds

Nice to have the evening sun back

I think "marked for redaction" s/b "marked for retribution" here

Maybe they've learned "partying" is overrated

Do you have any missing from the SFPL? sfpl.org/locations/ma...

Mayor Barbara Lee announces major investment in Oakland sidewalks and curb ramps The city will make a "historic investment" over the next 25 years to ensure streets and sidewalks are more accessible to disabled people as part of a legal settlement.

This new rule for big sidewalk contracts will be good mainly for Gallagher & Burk à la their West Oakland contract. Whatever gets the job done. oaklandside.org/2025/07/18/m...

Graffiti-style signature on the wide sidewalk at Tele/22d. The same guy signed the new outdoor fixture at Kinfolx but the owner didn't like it.

quite a johnhancock

Oakland Review of Books calendar of (not just) literary events, July 15 – July 21 up against the wall

Oakland Review of Books calendar of (not just) literary events, July 15 – July 21: www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/oakland-revi...

Line of floats across the head of Lake Merritt, near the new aerator, with gulls, brown pelican and two Great Blue Herons. Lakeside Park in the background.

Coupla great blues hanging with the pelicans last week

cute matching pair of step-fronted small warehouses; the one on the left has fresh lilac paint with trim being touched up and a bright red door with a semicircle doorway and round glass window.

pair on 25th street

first blackberry of the year!

This is the first bylined ORB piece. Are you shedding your anonymity?

Thanks for reporting!

"A live nation can always cut a deep mark and can have the best authority the cheapest . . . namely from its own soul." Walt Whitman, published this day in 1855

Forget "alligator [whatever]," it's Gator Gulag to me from now on.