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Oakland Unwrapped Dead Dogs and Live Politics By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor I missed most of KQED's "The Celebrity & The City" broadcast, which was supposed to be about Mayor Jerry Brown's impact on Oakland. The only part I caught, Brown was going into a building and got stopped by NAACP Presi-dent/State Republican Secretary Shannon Reeves, who adjusted the Mayor's tie for him. Reeves probably didn't under-stand the implications. A lot of African-Americans my age grew up on images of black man-servants, whose only role was to make sure that "Big Maw'se" was presentable. Reeves' gesture was not as bad as Sammy Davis Jr.'s infamous bearhug of President Nixon but, still, it made a few folks wince. Leave the Mayor's clothes alone, Shannon. Jerry's got plenty of paid folks who can straighten out his stuff. That's what City staff seems to be for, these days. All the political gossip around town, by the way, is that Reeves is lining up for a run against Barbara Lee for Congress. Reeves, at least, was putting out feelers for a run against Lee way before the Congressmember's war-on-terrorism-vote-of-conscience. Can't say that about Audie Bock. Ms. Bock is fast gaining the label that all politicians dread: a political opportunist with no known principles. Those around here without short-term memory loss will recall that Bock once got elected (unexpectedly) to Lee's old Assembly seat on the Green Party platform of no corporate campaign contribu-tions, and then abandoned that platform (and the Green Party itself) as soon it was time to run for re-election. At least for now, her campaign against Barbara Lee is based solely on Lee's single vote against Bush's War on Terror. This, after Bock initially praised Lee for that vote (Bock explains that by saying she didn't read the fine print on the resolution before making the call to Lee). Oh, and on the slogan "It's OK to Love America." Okay. I love my children, but that doesn't stop me from telling them when I think they're wrong. My guess? If the war on terror goes well, Lee's vote of caution won't mean much. If the war on terror goes badly, Lee will be lauded by many, nationally, as a courageous visionary. Either way, I doubt if that single issue will mean much in the primary or the general election. Meanwhile, a thought: 1. Oakland wants to help in the anti-terrorist efforts. 2. Somebody is spreading terror in this country by using the anthrax virus. 3. The anthrax virus forms in dead animals. So ... you think that maybe in these difficult times, Oakland could do its part in the national effort by getting those dead animals off our streets a bit quicker? That way, nobody could harvest any anthrax spores from those dead bodies. And it might help out with the tourism, too, so there's an added economic benefit. Used to be that a cat could get run over on E14th Street at 10 in the morning, and before noon someone from Animal Control was disposing it up. Now, dead animals can stay on the streets for days. Especially the side streets, in neighborhoods that are not politically connected. One morning a few years ago, when I was working at an East Oakland grocery store, a 50 pound dog with a paper bag over its head turned up in front of our door. Why the dog had a paper bag over its head I don't know, since I did not look, but that sort of confirmed the fact that the dog was pretty much dead. We called Oakland Animal Control and they promised to come out as soon as they could. It was summer. The dog stayed out there all day. No Animal Control officer came. We called again. They promised to come. They didn't. One thing I learned that day ... a dead dog lying in the gutter in front of a grocery store is pretty much a deterrent to customers. Sometime after midnight, we went back down to the store and hooked a rope on one of the dog's legs and hauled it down to the front of another business which we thought had better connec-tions at City Hall. They did. By the time we got to work the next morning, the dog was gone. Oakland, my Oakland .... J. Douglas Allen-Taylor is an author, a journalist, and a graduate of Castlemont High School. He can be reached at www.safero.org and [email protected]. [ East Bay | Metroactive | Archives ]