It wasn’t a big surprise to anyone that the California Supreme Court ruled today that Proposition 8 was indeed a legal amendment to the California Constitution. The Court ruled that Prop 8  does not alter the constitution’s fundamental framework as the challengers contended. In fact, the voter-approved amendment establishes the denomination of marriage as exclusively for heterosexual couples and doesn’t do much else. Gays still have domestic partnerships which are similar to marriage in everything but name.

See the Court’s opinion here.

So why so much fuss about the denomination? It’s the simple argument that the exclusion of gay couples from marriage under the California Constituion institutionalizes inequality. The Court ruled that because all of the rights remain the same, there is no inequality at all.

So what’s next? ROUND FOUR! I got a major education on this from KQED today.

Gay marriage proponents have vowed to bring the gay rights initiative back to the voters. Statistically, this will eventually work. Young voters tend to support equal marriage rights for gay couples while  older voters tend to oppose these rights. To paraphrase a commentator’s euphemism, there’s reason to believe that in a few years, many older voters may not be able to get to the ballot box.

The only question is when to put the initiative on the ballot: 2010, or 2012. Strategists suggest that waiting a few more years for the next presidential election in 2012 would be the best strategy because California’s overwhelmingly democratic turnout in Presidential elections would likely benefit the proposition. On the other hand, all of the democratic front runners for California Governor in 2010 are outspoken supporters of Prop 8 so the issue would be directly tied to other highly funded campaigns. The downside, of course,  is that if the new pro-marriage prop fails in 2010, then the movement for marriage equality loses a lot of steam.

Why not take this to the Federal Supreme Court? Because it doesn’t have a chance. Federal equal protection jurisprudence hasn’t progressed to the point where marriage proponents think they have a good case.

A final note: Have you ever checked out Class A homophobe Peter LaBarbera’s group, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality? It’s a riot.

I went to Interior Secretary Salazar’s San Francisco hearing on offshore drilling to cover the protest outside.   From the SFBG:

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar was welcomed to San Francisco last Thursday by a host of activists dressed as marine creatures, including a few diehards in head-to-toe polar bear costumes who were probably becoming endangered species themselves by standing out in the sun. At a public hearing called to solicit comments about a federal plan for new offshore-oil development, environmentalists and elected officials demanded that the new interior secretary reject new leases for oil drilling off the California coast.

One of the “die hards” in dressed in a six-foot- tall polar bear costume was Brian Nowicki, a policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

There’s lots of folks here saying no drilling, clean safe energy now, however, at the same time, we are in the middle of that period where the deadline where Secretary Salazar can restore endangered species protections to the polar bear and species threatened by global warming.

The occasion of the offshore drilling hearing drew more than 30 environmental groups under the slogan “Not the Answer.” Offshore drilling is a rallying point because, as Nowicki points out, drilling is a symbollic battle for a myriad of interconnected  environmental issues.

Offshore Drilling is a double  barreled threat for the polar bear and species threatened by global warming. On the first hand you have off shore oil rigs development potentially going right into the offshore habitat for the polar bear. On the other side you have the greenhouse gas emissions coming from the burning of those fossil fuels that contributes very directly to the global warming that is the primary threat to polar bears and the species threatened by global warming.

More photos after the jump…

See the whole album on Flickr.

Popping Mad: Legendary Pop Music Producer’s second murder trial ended last week. According to the LA Times, he may have to wait a long time for his verdict. While he waits,  someone can let him know that looking like a homicidal maniac doesn’t help your case.

Oakland Cops: Ok, the Oscar Grant murder on New Years Day was bullshit, but I was deeply saddened by the murder of four Oakland police officers last week. No matter how you feel about the cops, these guys were just just doing their jobs, and four families lost fathers thanks to the inexcusable actions of a criminal.

Always the opportunists,  Ella Baker Center won’t lay off their  (pedantic?) grind even for a respectful minute. they’ve taken this tragic event as an opportunity to point out the many failures of the criminal justice system.   They didn’t post it on their website, they sent it in an email. Smooth and sneaky, I like it. Tasteless? You decide.  If you are interested, I’ll post the whole letter After the Jump.

Young, Hapless Criminals: Speaking of the criminal justice system, I  enjoyed [sic] this article in the Chicago Tribune about Jessie Rankins and Tykese Johnson.  15 years ago, the two young men were the youngest innmates in the country: convicted of murder and at the ages of 10 and 11 respectively for dropiing 5-year-old Eric Morse out a window.  The story is a follow up piece that points out some of the flaws of in the “justice” system.

Profit-Oriented: My current intern-masters and local NPR affiliate  KQED Public Radio is back in the news again thanks to complaints about  CEO Jeff Clarke’s very high salery. The bottom line? Turns out that relative to other CEOs of similarly sized Bay-Area non-profits… not so big. It’s still sad and quiet around the newsroom though.

Nation Rules: I love the Nation. They did some great reporting in last weeks issue about how great reporting is going to go out the window if someone doesn’t do something about the flailing newspaper industry soon.

NRA S-U-X: As a DC Native, I’ve been closely following the DC Voting Rights Ammendment that was derailed by the NRA’s underhanded tactics. It’s absolutely ridiculous. The AP has taken a closer look at the NRA’s legislative “scoring” system and how it gives them so much clout in moderate congressional ditrcts. It’s a very disturibing undermining of democracy… But everyone’s always known that about lobbyists.

John “hash pipe” Stossel: American Libratarianism’s favorite cheerleader pulled his head out his ass just long enough to make some good points on the foolishness of United States drug policy.  This comes on the heels of President Obama’s move to stop prosecuting state-sanctioned medical dispenseries.

Twitter @Newsom: It seems San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is being very selective about who can see his tweets. Blocking the media he doesn’t like doesn’t seem like a very good idea to me… but what do I know? Bug Newsom at his Twitter right here.

Email from Jakada Imani at Ella Baker Center:

At the Ella Baker Center, we’re stunned and deeply saddened by the tragic events that unfolded here in Oakland last Saturday.

Here’s what we know: a deeply troubled Lovelle Mixon shot and killed four police officers before he was killed in a firefight.  As more information about Mixon has come to light, the extent of his alleged crimes has shifted the focus from how and why this tragedy occurred — and how it might have been prevented — to judgment about Mixon’s character.

Make no mistake — Lovelle Mixon alone was responsible for the choices he made.  But we’re asking people to resist the urge to shrug off Mixon as a “monster” and use his actions as justification for ratcheting up arrests on our streets.  What happened on Saturday was the culmination of countless missed opportunities within a terribly flawed “justice” system, and it was almost certainly predictable — and thus preventable.  What happened here in Oakland could happen anywhere, and it could happen again.

Just as our community must work to hold individuals responsible for their actions, we must also work to eliminate the root causes of violence: isolation, fear, sub-standard education, poverty, nagging hopelessness and despair. Only then can we end the violence that has claimed the lives of far too many in our cities, including these four officers.

We must not allow the deaths of so many members of our community to be in vain.  There’s something to be learned here, and we can’t afford to miss this opportunity to re-evaluate the city’s approach to community safety.

Many of us are struggling — in the same way that you might be struggling — with how to move forward in a way that makes sense and honors the many different voices of Oakland.  We want to be real about what we’re hearing out on the streets.  Many people are afraid… afraid of the cops, afraid of the kids on the corner, afraid of what the added tension will bring.  Some feel like they’ve been abused by the police department, and that the shooting of these four officers was vindicated in the wake of Oscar Grant’s death on New Year’s Day.  Others have wondered why the nation doesn’t seem to care when scores of young people of color are killed, but the spotlight comes out when it’s the police who suffer a loss.  Most of us are confused.  One common theme has emerged, however: everyone wants the killing to stop.

It’s going to take a lot of work to reconcile the swirling emotions about this tragedy, and we don’t know yet what the best next steps are.  But we do know that we have to work together to solve the problems of our community.

To do that, we’d like to hear from you.  It’s time to take the risk and speak up, then respect your neighbors for doing the same. The truth is complicated, but it’s worth knowing. We all have a stake in this, and we must honor the experiences of everyone who is proud to call Oakland home.

What do you think can be done to bring peace to Oakland? What’s being done right, and what’s being done wrong? Click here to tell us:
http://www.ellabakercenter.org/?p=hope_in_oakland

We’ll compile your responses and share them sometime in the weeks or months ahead — we’re not quite sure what that’s going to look like, but we know that listening to each other is the right thing to do right now.

Oakland has faced a challenging start to the year, but we believe that by putting our heads together, we’ll find a way to create a community that is safe for ALL of us, from police officers to inner-city youth.  Thank you for your insight, your honesty, and your openness.

Forward ever,

Jakada Imani
Executive Director

In a two part series called “The New Green Gridlock” for KQED’s Climate Watch, Rob Schmitz looks into the  development of renewable energy sources in Southern California. Part 1, which aired today, looks at the “green rush” of proprietors and investors. . Solar plants are the only idea cooking in the desert sun of Imperial County: Schmitz also checks out other  sources like wind and geothermal energy.

As I mentioned last week, producing renewable energy is only the first step. The second is getting  energy out of the desert, into the grid and finally  to population centers. Part 2, set to air next week, looks at these challenges.

Our century-old power grid is the largest interconnected machine on Earth, so massively complex and inextricably linked to human involvement and endeavor that it has alternately (and appropriately) been called an ecosystem. It consists of more than 9,200 electric generating units with more than 1,000,000 megawatts of generating capacity connected to more than 300,000 miles of transmission lines.

So the grid is a mind-numbingly huge system. And that’s the pre-Obama administration lingo.  I can’t wait for the forthcoming  Classical allusions.

“Smart Grid” proponents say the grid is unweildy and inefficient. Using “smart grid technologies” 1) improves our accesss to renewable energy, 2) will save us billions of dollars, 3) will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 4) create new business opportunities.

What are smart grid technologies? Basically, they (sort of) allow the grid to think for itself. Like Terminator.

Read more in this post over at The Green Life…