Much opposition exists to our penal system, especially prisons. On one side, you have prison abolitionists, like Pamela Price, Cat Brooks, Carroll Fife and Nikki Bas, who wish to shut down all the prisons and jails, or at least greatly decarcerate them, and instead refer criminals to “counselors.” On the other side, you have a majority of Americans who want criminals—especially violent ones and repeat offenders—thrown into jail. The fight between the two sides has sucked all of us in, and is exemplified nationally in the presidential campaign and, locally, in the effort to recall Price.

You may have noticed that over the months Carroll Fife has pretended to care about pedestrian safety, which she blabs about all the time. She has nothing to say about Sheng Thao’s scandals, or Oakland’s horrendous crime rate, for which she’s partly responsible, or about the burgeoning homeless encampments that degrade the district, include all over Lakeside Park, or about the businesses that daily abandon Oakland, further eroding our tax base.

Fifty-six years ago, in 1968, my friend Michael and I heard that our college campus had been taken over by anti-Vietnam War protesters. They’d seized the administration building and effectively shut down classes for the day, if not longer.

I find myself reading every word of Derald Wing Sue’s book, “Microaggressions in Everyday Life,” with fascinated horror, like when you drive by a hideous accident on the freeway and just have to rubberneck.

Sheng Thao blew Brenda Grisham’s mind when the mayor “walked up to me,” Grisham reports on Twitter, and said, “I don’t know what I did but I’m sorry."