Lee.org

(This originally appeared on my non-blog website but is reposted here to make it easy to find.)

This is a review and commentary of the supplies I took to Burning Man 2004 – 2008. I hope you
(and I) can benefit from it!

2004: I had my gear shipped out in a train container with Thesticknyc.org. Mad props! I slept in my own tent in my own camp on Neptune at about 5:20.

2005: I drove out from San Francisco (!!). Everything fit in my 1998 Chrysler Sebring, + a passenger and luggage from Reno to the playa. Again, I went "light". I ended up joining up with Barry’s Octopelvis crowd.

2006-2008: Drove out from San Francisco, hauling everything in my 1998 Chrysler
Sebring. In 2006 and 2007 Charlotte and I drove together, fitting everything in the car.
In 2008, we went in separate cars.

Bike

• Bike – It’s 1,800 feet from 6:00 & Sedna/Hysteria to center camp. 4,200 feet from 3:00 & Esplanade to 9:00 and Esplanade… in the hot hot burning sun. I felt my bike was essential. Consider making your bike into art. Big nobby tires are essential. In 2008 my bike had 1 1/2″ road tires and it often got bogged

  down in rough patches :-(. Ways to get a bike there: Buy a $80 bike at Walmart in Reno. Buy it used and ship it out in a container (I did that one year). Participate in a bike borrowing or rental plan with one of the Burning Man groups. Rent a bike from a company in Reno. Stick it on the back of your car.

• Replacement bike tube (the most likely thing to break). I haven’t needed one yet .
• Bike Flashers – 1 for front, 1 for back. Sciplus.com "Safety Flasher" $3. Essential for night riding and finding your bike where you left it at night. I left both flashing in groovy pattern #6 of 8 all night most nights for a week and never ran the 2 AA batteries dead
• Bike pannier – I tried to travel around with a milk crate on the back of my bike but owing to the high winds and soft ground I’d often have to lie the bike down
  and everything would fall out of the milk crate. Everything I generally needed for the day
  fit in 1 cloth framed, zippered pannier just fine.
• Bike lock – for peace of mind, especially when going to big events "I can’t find my bike but I know it wasn’t stolen, :-)"

On My Person

• Head lamp– Essential at night. sciplus.com LED "Head Lamp" item 92190 $9 just as good as the $40 Petzel lamp. 3 AAA batteries kept me going all week. It’s built to slide off the head-mount and stick with a magnet as well but I glued it in place with a drop of glue. A non-LED light would give better color rendition but I’m so happy with how light, cheap, & long lasting this lamp is, I might never use my regular flashlight again. Another downside: the light can’t be focused so range is limited to about 30′.
• Respirator/dust mask – Bring at least three. I lost one and wore one out. I used a fancier respirator that I had lying around from my days worrying about the end of the world, post-9/11. A 3M 8511. It costs $6 at Home Depot for 1 or $19 for 10 at Uline.com. Buy 10. Paint them with magic markers and give them away to friends. It worked great except that the rubber straps broke several times (it had been sitting in my emergency drawer for 3 years). After 2 days + 1 dust storm, it was getting difficult to draw air through it. Even in a dust storm, it drew perfectly clean air. :-) Draw pretty pictures and funny noses on it! The super-cheap dust masks work ok but they don’t give a good seal on my big face so I have to hold it on for the most comfort.
• Sunglasses – I never use sunglasses… except in the desert at 3,900 feet. I wear prescription glasses so I got $12 spring loaded over-sunglasses from some nice Chinese lady at a rest stop on the NY Thruway. Worked great.
• Goggles – 40mph dust storm vs. eyes: Dust wins. The $1.75 ones from Sciplus.com didn’t cover my entire (large, eyeglass laden) face but were way better than nothing. Get goggles you like. You’ll meet lots of people while wearing them. $9 MSA safety goggles from Home Depot worked well enough. They fit over my glasses (I STILL haven’t found cool goggles that can go over glasses). I only noticed that they don’t seal when in high winds; pressing them to my face was a fine workaround.
• Glasses wipes – I normally just wash my glasses in a sink but these things are great after a dust storm or whatnot on my glasses and goggles.
• Good Camera kept in a plastic bag – Some years I take 400 pictures. One year I took 24 (my good camera was stolen before I got to the event, leaving me with just my disposable). Bring a camera. Keep it in a plastic bag or the dust will kill your camera dead in a matter of hours.
• Disposable Camera – Take it out to photograph dust storms and crazy things..
• Personal Cards. It’s an easy way to hand someone your phone number and email address in the default world.
• Lip balm – I didn’t need it much as long as I kept hydrated. Helpful though.
• Compass. A friend told me a story where she was stuck in a dust storm white-out in the middle of the playa (imagine you’re 1,000 feet from any landmarks and visibility is 5 feet!). She found her way back home with the help of another friend with a compass. Every time I’ve been stuck in a dust storm, 3 hours one time,

  I’ve just waited it out. Still, it sounds like a good idea to have one in the bottom of your bag.

• Presents – If you see someone you appreciate, you might want to give something of yourself to them. Make it personal. Put your contact information on your
  presents! It’s nice getting presents. It’s even nicer knowing who gave them to you. I have many gifts
  that I’d love to be able to track down the giver. But then, I suppose that’s part of the fun…
• Some say you should take a mug with you but my mug got all playa-muddy after just one use :-(.
• Skip the FRS radios – Marah’s snazzy "5 mile" 1 watt Motorola FRS radios only had range from Center Camp to 7:30 & Delirium…. about 1/2 mile. :-((. That’s not nearly

  enough coverage to make them useful.

• Watch – Without cell phones, we have to rely on that old standard, "I’ll meet you back here at n o’clock.". Wear a watch!!
• Important phone numbers & calling card number on paper, not in your PDA or cell phone. Just in case.

Clothing

• Hat – essential! I quickly fell in love with my old Stetson all over again. Large brim essential to keep the sun off, a cord so the wind doesn’t carry it away. At night, I sometimes used a winter hat to keep me warm.
• Good sneakers / footwear & socks. If playa-foot is 1/2 as bad as the cracked and painful playa-hands I got, I would have really suffered! If it had rained, I would have wanted the second pair of shoes that I had packed
• Playa-wear – That’s anything from a giant neo-octo-bunny costume to just a jar of paint.
• Cold weather gear. IE one night it was 60 degrees at midnight and 45 degrees at 4am. Another night didn’t fall below 70.
• Rain gear. It didn’t rain when I was there but it COULD be 45 and raining, which TOTALLY SUCKS if you’re only wearing a tank top.
• Sunscreen. Trust me on the sunscreen.
• Blinky lights to be seen at night. The playa is lovely, dark and deep and you don’t want to be run over by a bike or art car.
• Gloves in a Bottle – It’s this weird stuff that goes on like hand moisturizer… then it goes away and protects your skin pretty well from playa-fication for about 4 hours. At the end of each event, my hands are still a bit beat-up but it really helped keep the playa out. "Invisible Gloves" is a similar product.

Camp

• For 2009, maybe I’ll get some No Rinse Shampoo. Tacoboy says it’s available at
  drugstores and works well.

• Hudson Sprayer 1 liter or so. $7 at Home Depot. I could take a "perfectly adequate" shower with under 1 1/2 liters of water. Evaporation pond? Ha! During a full shower, I just relocated about 4 times so I wouldn’t be standing in mud. By the end of the shower, the mud in the first position was already dry. It probably wouldn’t do as adequate a job if I had long hair. I had to wait until the day warmed up (11 or noon) before showering because the water in it didn’t warm up even when I set it on top of my black jacket. Warning: don’t shower after sundown. It gets COOOOLD quick! BRRRR! Also, a Hudson Sprayer makes an excellent water pistol, shooting about 20 feet. I gave well appreciated drive-by spritzes on the playa on the hot day. The mister is also excellent. I gave many mistings to pedestrians and several people commented on how pleasant the gentle mist was compared to other misters they’ve had on them.
• I  have a 3 man, 3 season Eureka tent and ground sheet. It performed just peachy though one of the mounts snapped during a (really) windy day. I’m glad it was tied down and had 5 other mounts.
• 18" rebar tent stakes. I tried using 8" plastic tent stakes as an experiment & they were pulled out by the wind in 5 minutes flat!
• 8′ x 10′ silver tarp from tarps.com to cover the tent. (gemplers.com is another seller) This kept the sun off the tent, making it much more livable for late morning rising and afternoon naps. I was lazy the first day of 2005 and was reminded forcefully at 9am Tuesday morning that I had neglected this crucial piece of equipment. Have you

  ever tried to camp on the surface of the sun? BLAH!

• I used the SUV we rented in 2004 to shield the tent from wind, which worked pretty well.
• Someone had recommended mylar emergency blankets as a sun shield but there is NO WAY that these paper thin blankets would survive the wind. Using them as sleeping blanket is a bad idea as well because they don’t breathe… it’d get very clammy. Use a tarp instead!
• Elastic tie downs to hold the tarp in place. They look like a loop of bungee cord with a big ball for you to hook them on. Get some 3", some 12".
• Sleeping bag. 4am temperatures might be in the 70’s or the 30’s.
• Aerobed  :-). The air mattress part is terrific but I sweated a bit sleeping on this big plastic bag-thing in 2004, even with a blanket under me. In 2005-2008 I justed used a camping mattress pad and was fine. Your milage may vary.
• Thick cotton blanket (non-itchy) (goes between me and Aerobed to prevent sweating against the plastic). Thanks to Marah for lending it to me!
• Pillow (comfort from home. Cover it with the sleeping bag during the day to reduce dust)
• Aerobed repair kit (didn’t need to use it :-)
• 50′ extension cord (for Aerobed)
• Power inverter (for Aerobed)
• Sheets
• Fold-up captain’s chair (those snazzy $15 carbon fiber and fabric ones are great)
• On-the-ground camping chair. It was only useful inside the tent because the ground is too uncomfortably dusty. It could have been useful if I was stuck in my tent due to rain or dust. It’s also an OK sleeping pad.
• Shade structure. My 10′ x 20′ tarp-covering-the-car-and-me was torn by constant 30 mph winds on one day in 2004. You can do better than I did but you’ll need a lot of rebar and rope!
• 75′ thin rope to mount structures and strap things to other things, including tying down your garbage to your car on the way out. Twine is too thin.
• Mallet to pound the rebar stakes. Minimum 5 lb head, not a rubber mallet (they just ‘boing’ off the rebar and don’t drive them in any more) and not a regular 1 lb wood claw hammer because they don’t have enough force behind them.
• Tennis balls or something to put on top of tent stakes, preventing leg injuries.
• Single ply toilet paper in case the potties run out, 1 roll of the cheap stuff.
  “Good” TP shouldn’t be used in the porta-johns because it clogs up the works. I’ve had to use
  my own TP a couple times and was glad to have it!
• Condoms, lube & rubber gloves. There is now some woman’s bike held together partially with rubber gloves. Bring lube even if you don’t normally b/c the super-low humidity can dry everything out.
• Soap & Shampoo – I used up only part of a travel soap b/c I was showering with the hudson sprayer. My hair was pretty yucky by the end, but I always wore a hat. Heck, call it "Playa hair" and it’s a fashion statement!
• Toiletries – toothpaste, toothbrush, hairbrush, razor, nail clippers, small mirror.
• Vitamins
• Blindfold & earplugs for sleeping – My camp was quiet at night but the theme camps (and potentially anywhere on the playa) blast loud music and light shows all night (ask me about my sunrise raver pictures)
• 30 Plastic baggies – 1 gallon size. For putting dust intolerant items in (like cameras), keeping camp organized (in the tent I had a little garbage bag and a little take-home bag), bringing souvenirs home (like playa dust). I went through 4 baggies for my camera for the week.
• Packing Tape – I used most of a roll to repack my 8 boxes taking 37 cubic feet back into the Container in 2004. It’s also a first aid supply.
• Hand and Foot moisturizer – After showering, I’d get my feet soggy with moisturizer just before putting my socks on. I had happy feet all week. My hands got badly cracked despite my moisturizing efforts. Next year I might try Invisible Glove.
• Honda Generator – I had no power in my camp but if I did, it would be one of the Honda generators. They are much much much quieter than any other generator I saw or HEARD. They’re worth the extra cost. The Hondas are as loud as an in-wall air conditioner, every other one except for the industrial 10,000 watt+ generators sounded like a

  chain saw on idle, or worse.

• Or going solar is popular! Every year a good friend takes the panels off his roof,
  a small charge controller and inverter and does quite well for electric lighting. He dusts them off after big
  dust storms and does peachy.
• LED lighting can work well. I built this LED light with some LEDs and resistors and a 12 volt battery
  that keeps my tent well lit enough all week. Though such lighting can get expensive.
• Garbage bags – for garbage, duh. Bring more than you think you need. I brought about 5 and used 3.
• Portable radio – Several radio stations are in BRC. I lived on 5:15 and Neptune in 2004 so it was pretty quiet. The radio kept me feeling more in touch when I went back for lunch and such.
• Nasal spray – to keep your sinuses moist. My first 2 days in 2004, I had hard blood boogers (yuck!). I used my tried and true trick of inhaling water into my nose carefully, which helped. I didn’t have any more trouble after that, probably because I drank so much water (1 gallon/day). In 2005 I brought Nasovisc (saline with extra moisture-goop for your nose). It worked well.
• Extra car keys – losing your keys on the playa would SUCK!
• First aid kit – moleskin, antibacterial wipes, band-aids, small sharp knife, large sterile pads, triple antibiotic ointment, sticky tape. Common issues: foot blisters, scrapes, cracked and bleeding hands and feet, lacerations from walking into rebar tent stakes at night.
• Butane powered soldering iron – I am such a geek. Iron from Radio Shack, with a lighter taped to the cap because their sparker thing is so wimpy. Some extra wire, electrical tape, a Leatherman and some solder rounds out that list.

Food

I’ve tried bringing my camp stove but I’m just not into cooking out there. I’ve been very happy
bringing food that didn’t need cooking. I just want to eat and get back out there. I’ve never lit my stove. I might if it gets cold, rainy, and not too windy to cook.

Food Packing Misc:

• Can opener
• Utensils – Lexan or metal or whatever.
• Plastic bowl – no plate, too much hassle for me.
• Baby wipes – good for washing the dish, cleaning utensils, hands, & face
• A mesh garbage bag – All yucky wet waste goes in the bag, on the playa. In two days, my banana peels and empty tuna cans were perfectly dried (instead of stinking up the place!)
• Coleman collapsible 5 gallon water containers, $4 each at ??. 15 gallons per person. So far I’ve always had extra water at the end but it’s better to have extra than to DIE OF
  DEHYDRATION. I note that in 2005 1 of my collapsable water containers sprung a leak after 2 years and very little use :-(.

Food I packed and liked:

• Cytomax sport drink. I am a convert! After a few hours in the sun on the first day, I was feeling woozy, even after drinking water. 5 min after a big swig of this and I was really noticeably refreshed. Whatever magic is in it really works. It’s good that it’s a mixable power and not liquid. Downside: when I drank too much, I got really gassy. It’s expensive: I drank 1/2 of a $20 container in a week. The usual recommendation is to have 2 bottles, 1 with water, 1 with Cytomax. Drink from whichever you feel like, taste-wise and energy-wise. Excellent stuff!
• Goobers Peanut Butter and Jelly together – Yummy taste from home. Actually, Goobers isn’t my favorite but the label doesn’t say that it requires refrigeration (I don’t really want to know how they got the jelly to keep at room temperature). I ate 1 1/3 jars of the stuff.
• Trader Joes Instant Mashed Potatoes. You don’t need to boil them, just pour water on, mix and wait 2 minutes. Sure, the mashed potatoes will be cold but, sheesh, it’s hot enough already out there!
• Natures Path Optimum Power cereal. It’s this organic cereal from Sam’s Club. It looks like twigs and rocks but the mouth-feel and taste are just great. It’s my favorite cereal at home so having it on the playa is a touchstone.
• Better Than Milk – Powered soy. It dissolves in water quicker than other soy milks, indefinite shelf life, good. I think it’s better than milk.
• PowerBars – some people like ’em, some don’t. They were moderately goopy in the sun but recovered when cool.
• GenSoy bars – The chocolate coating got really yucky in the sun but they recovered when cool.
• Tiger Bars – Yummy! Yummie. They even take the heat pretty well.
• Canned tuna – if you like it straight out of the can, it’s easy and nutritious. I put the can in my bowl to catch the potentially yucky tuna water.
• Bananas – I had them for 3 days… They kept just fine in the heat.
• Bread – The temperature was moderate so it kept for 4 days while I finished it with…
• Raisins – in the little Sun Maid boxes. Yum.
• Instant mashed potatoes – I hope this doesn’t gross you out but I just mix warm water
  with it and eat. It tastes great. I like the garlic and onion variety.
• Tasty Bites – Those indian meals in a packet. Yum
• Canned vegetables and soups like corn, peas, chicken soup, refried beans,
  minestrone… all that good stuff is Mmm mmm good

Food I packed and didn’t use (probably would have been good)

• Matzo – This was going to sub for bread but I never needed to resort to it.
• Couscous and Raisins – I was going to cook it but never cooked.
• Instant Pasta dish – One of those "just add boiling water and stir" deals.

Food I packed and didn’t like:

• Nature Valley Granola bars – It’s a dry granola bar. I felt like I was eating playa dust. I’ll be wary of bringing totally dry food in the future.
• All-nut bars – various brands. All of the bars that are mostly nuts are held together with sugar and/or honey. They get totally totally gooey on the playa and pretty much stay that way.
• Entenmann’s Donut Holes – I dunno, sweet, fat & greasy donuts on the playa just don’t work for me.
• Entenmann’s Brownies – Like the Donut Holes, they just didn’t taste good on the playa.

Reno

• In 2004, I stayed at Circus Circus inbound $80 Saturday, $30 Sunday. Outbound, stayed at the Golden Phoenix. The Burner vibe was much more present at the Golden Phoenix so I’ll be staying there inbound and outbound next time. The midway in Circus Circus is moderately fun though. Real circus acts every 1/2 hr all day and night. In 2005, Golden Phoenix all the way. Their wireless high speed internet is worthless. The burner vibe was only barely there in 2005… Who’da thought…
• But water at Simply Water in Reno. I’m glad we did. It tastes better than the tap water. To me, the tap water tastes "dusty". $11 for 30 gallons.
• The Circus Circus Sunday Brunch is awful and expensive.
• Victoria Station Buffet near the Silver Legacy is AWFUL and EXPENSIVE. $20 and I honestly couldn’t find a single good thing on their menu.
• Pneumatic Diner – I think it might be the only good food in Reno. I ate there 3 times in the 4 days I spent in Reno. Veggie, friendly, great vibe. Nuff said.
• Truckee River – They made the river into a (class 0.75) kayaking park downtown. The water sounds and feels great after the desert.

Other Stuff

• Before leaving home, I printed a list of all camps and locations (of course, I forgot it at home too….)
• Liquor for gifts at bars (if you’re into going to bars on the playa) – try to get it in plastic
• beer (if that’s your thing) – Cans, not bottles!
• Pack your "survival bag" before you hit they playa, you will be ready to go the instant you get there!
• Clothing – optional

In 2004

I spent 35,000 Continental Onepass miles to fly round-trip from Newark, NJ to Reno, with a layover in Detroit. I ordered my tickets on 7-11-04 for travel on August 28th and September 8th. I had to pad my trip by 2 days on both ends in order to keep the pricetag down to 35,000 miles. (The cheapest flights are 25,000 miles round-trip). The extra 10,000 miles bought me a 1st class ticket on the way home.

Some of my sources:

http://www.ae-zone.org/Tips/playamenu.html

http://www.ae-zone.org/Tips/clothingtwo.html

http://www.ae-zone.org/Tips/tips.html

http://www.ae-zone.org/Tips/bmcamplist.html

http://www.cieux.com/bm/things.html

Into to Artificial Intelligence, a class taught at Stanford is being taught, free and open, online, October thru December, with graded tests and everything.

http://www.ai-class.com/

Looks completely groovy.

I’ll be driving to LA on a weekend in October or November to teach a Flame Effects class. Would you like to share the ride down and back? I’m leaving San Francisco Friday afternoon for Echo Park, returning Sunday night or Monday morning. Email me, Lee at Lee dat org.

I recently got a washing machine for my apartment, a Haier HLP021-WM. It’s! So! Awesome! I got it used on Craigslist for $100, you can get them new from Walmart and other places for under $250. It is a 0.97 cubic feet washer.

I had been looking at more well known brands like Kenmore but with a retail price of $760 for their portable machine and favorable but mixed reviews, I had all but given up. I thought, “If an established brand can’t make a unit that is fairly similarly priced, the cheap one is probably junk.” Wrong was I, young Skywalker!

I just did yet another a load of laundry this morning and it was so easy. I dread going to a laundromat. I dread running out of clothes, having stinky clothes in the closet, letting stains set for weeks on end, spending 3 hours doing a stupid task, but most of all I dread hauling 40 pounds of laundry out of the house and into the car just so I can bring it back a few hours later. Those days are gone. It’s such a simple thing but it makes me so happy.

Oh, and the other essential thing I got with the washing machine from the lady on Craigslist was a small dryer, a Hamilton Beach Quick Dry Garment Drying Station. It works like a champ. It takes 2-8 hours to dry a load of clothes but it’s small, cheap to run (it’s just a fan), convenient and I don’t have piles of drying clothes hanging all over the apartment. She threw it in for $20.

I don’t like smelly laundry soap. I absolutely hate Tide laundry soap. Tide burns my nose in a way not unlike ammonia. I’ve had clothes washed in Tide that after a few hours I had to take off, they were so awful and distracting and headache inducing. There is a guy at a previous job that used Tide (hi Matt Gr!) and if he approached my desk slow enough, I my nose would burn that characteristic Matt Gr smell before I could see him.

I’ve found 2 soaps that I like. Trader Joe’s powdered laundry detergent and All Small & Mighty Free Clear. The liquid soap works better in the Haier washing machine because if the powdered soap has clumped, some of the clumps stay on the clothes. I fixed this problem by straining the powered soap (which I often leave in my clump-inducing humid garage), but I’d rather not have to do that.

(Subject line hat-tip to Scarlett O’hara)

Finally, a promising panorama viewing plugin for WordPress!
WP-PhotoNav by Fabian Moser lets you mouse-over a large image in a smaller window so you can scroll around a large panorama.

To use, I make photo links like so:

(right-bracket)photonav url=’http://lee.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/udvar-hazy.jpg’]

You can use features like so:
(right-bracket)photonav url=’http://lee.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/udvar-hazy.jpg’ popup=colorbox container_height=450]

The plugin adds a panorama button next to the other Upload buttons, this aids in creating good code.

(from his site)
The following parameters are used:

• container_height  — Defines the height of the displayed frame (hence the container). If the image is higher than the given height, vertical scrolling (or dragging) is enabled. The unit is one pixel. There is also the parameter container_width in case you don’t want the frame to fill the horizontal space available in the post or page.
• mode  — Specifies one of the following modes:  move,  drag  or  drag360  where move is the default mode and doesn’t have to be specified. The drag mode allows the user to navigate the panorama by dragging it inside the frame. The drag360 mode is similar, but generates the illusion of an vertically infinite image. This is useful for 360 ° panoramas where the user can turn around in each direction infinitely.
• popup  — If specified, enables a popup for enlarged view. The only valid popup type at the moment is  colorbox, which only works if the  ColorBox  plugin for jQuery is available. It is provided e.g. by the  jQuery Colorbox plugin. You have to install this plugin separately to make use of the popup functionality.
• animate  — If this option is enabled, the panorama will be rotated automatically until either the user interacts with it (by scrolling in move mode or dragging in drag mode) or the image is scrolled through entierely once. This allows to attract the users attention to the additional functionality of the panorama compared to a simple, still image. Please note that the animation (like everything else) is accomplished using JavaScript and might not be 100% fluid on all systems and browsers.

[photonav url=’http://lee.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/udvar-hazy.jpg’ popup=colorbox container_height=450]

[photonav url=’http://lee.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/2011-06-26-17.08.29-Briones-2011-06-26-17.jpg’ popup=colorbox container_height=450]

SMBC Theater’s “Dating Solutions”. Fiction is funnier than truth, or something like that.

local version:

There have been 2 days of protests inside the BART system. On Thursday Aug 11, protests got off to a slower than anticipated start when BART turned off the cell phones in all the downtown stations, making Flash-Mob style organizing impossible. Today, protesters roamed around downtown, causing BART to close all the stations from Civic Center to Embarcadero.

On Thursday, protesters tried to forcibly disrupt train service in protest to all the recent BART police killings. More about that later but I say that disruptive actions like this should certainly not be the first act of a civil disobedience group. It shows a lack of maturity, strength of character, and moral high ground.

Now let’s discuss all the recent BART police killings.

The No Justice No BART website has this on their homepage

DISBAND THE BART POLICE!
No Justice No BART is a campaign of protests targeting the BART system. We are fighting for justice for Charles Hill, Oscar Grant, Fred Collins, Bruce Seward, Jerrold Hall, Robert Greer, and all victims of BART police violence and murder. We demand that BART disband its murderous, inept, corrupt police department.

Who are all these victims? Let’s find out. Tell me how you feel about BART after reading their stories.

(much of the text below was lifted directly from the mentioned news outlets)

Charles Hill was shot and killed July 3. The BART survellence video shows the officer shooting and then a knife with a 4″ blade skittering across the floor at the officer. I would conjecture that Mr Hill was holding the knife high and the shock of being shot caused him to throw it down forcefully. I don’t know how close Mr Hill was to the officer but the video implies the officer did the right thing as a dangerous attacker approached the uniformed officer wielding a knife despite being told to drop it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v2WnPxwNAo

.

Oscar Grant was shot and killed Jan 1, 2009. BART officer Mehserle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to two years, minus time served. He served his time in the Los Angeles County Jail, occupying a private cell away from other prisoners. He was released on June 13, 2011 and is now on parole. Video of the shooting shows Mehserle and the officers around him very surprised and distraught immediately after the shot; it didn’t look like Mehserle intended to shoot him, he likely thought he was reaching for his Taser. A horrible, tragic mistake.

.

Fred Collins was shot and killed on Saturday July 19th, 2010 by Oakland and BART police officers after charging against them with knives in each hand … The incident began when a 911 call alerted Oakland police to a man wielding a knife in the 3200 block of East 12th Street… Upon seeing the BART police officers approach him, one witness said, Collins began screaming “shoot me, shoot me, shoot me” and took off running, Thomason said… Oakland police Officer Jeff Thomason said Collins had been arrested in the past for prior incidents of assaults on officers, terrorist threats and resisting arrest.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/19/BAPG1EGADV.DTL

.

Bruce Seward
Officer David Betancourt, a 22-year law enforcement veteran, shot a naked Bruce Seward outside the Hayward BART station before dawn on Memorial Day in 2001. Seward, 42, was asleep on a bench and appeared unconscious. After calling for an ambulance, Betancourt approached when Seward woke up, grabbed the officer’s nightstick and swung, smacking the patrol car, police said. Betancourt used pepper spray on Seward, but it had no effect, police said. Family members and mental health advocates decried the shooting, but a BART review cleared Betancourt of wrongdoing.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oakland-bart-shooting-headlines/ci_11369405

.

Jerrold Hall
A tragic story of a boy who was possibly murdered by a BART police officer and the corrupt coverup where the officer got away… November 15th, 1992.
http://www.sfbg.com/2009/01/05/lethal-force?page=0,0

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Robert Greer… I can’t find any information about him

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And there is one more they left off the list, shot by SF Police while getting off the Muni:
Kenneth Harding
Shot and killed by San Francisco police July 16th, 2011 after getting off a Muni train.
Convicted of trying to force a 14 year old into prostitution, wanted for questioning in connection with a recent murder in Seattle, he ran from police and shot at them when they questioned him for fare evasion. The police returned fire but he may have accidentally or intentionally killed himself. Officers were firing .40 caliber bullets but he was killed by a .380 bullet and they found a .380 caliber bullet in his jacket, the gun was stolen from the scene (because, hey, free gun!) so they don’t know. Read the article.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/21/kenneth-harding-shooting-self-inflicted-killing_n_906356.html

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Correct me if I’m wrong but it looks like the score that No Justice No BART is trying to settle is:

* Drunk guy threatening officer with a knife gets shot in 2011
* Crazy guy with a knife attacking people gets shot in 2010
* Mistaken use of a gun by an officer, paid for with a year in jail in 2009
* Crazy guy swinging a club at officer is maced and shot in 2001
* A very suspicious, corrupt shooting by an officer in 1992
* Robert Greer ???

It doesn’t seem like a very high score.

March 1 thru August 16th homicides in the Bay Area

Have you seen how violent San Francisco and Oakland are and what the police deal with? Take a look at Crimemapping. From March 1 til today, there were at least 75 reported murders in the Bay Area. Over the three day July 4th weekend there were some 200 assaults (I would try to measure a longer period but the mapping website can only put a maximum of 800 dots on a map). To be clear, I am not saying anything like “come on, give the police a break”, I am saying that we are living in a violent, dynamic world and we shouldn’t be surprised when we see violent, dangerous behavior met with strongly.

July 4th weekend assaults

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If you disagree with where I’m going with this, all I ask is that you counter my argument with facts. And if I have swayed you, tell a friend.

(I wrote most of this yesterday but updated enough that I want you to notice this is a new version, hence “Redux” in the title.)

The Udvar-Hazy National Air and Space Museum
Mouse-over this panorama! (yes, I took this with my phone and stitched it together)
[photonav url=’http://lee.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/udvar-hazy.jpg’ popup=colorbox container_height=450]

Or look at the whole image:

A 2 hour long docent tour flew by in just a few moments in this phenomenal hall.

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Infinity Nets Yellow by Yayoi Kusama. These images don’t do it justice. Standing in front of the painting, the patterns swirl with a mix of intention and abandon.

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No More Dry Runs by Kim Rugg. A close inspection shows that an actual newspaper was cut into thousands of pieces. Complete nonsense (?) was born of sense.

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I saw parts of Goddard’s first rocket at the National Air and Space Museum… the first liquid fueled rocket. That filled me with glee. And I was amazed at seeing the backup Hubble mirror, one of the most perfectly formed objects ever built. What set me most at ease though were a pair of giant war rockets at the entrance to the National Air and Space Museum. A Pershing II and SS-20 missile, so large their noses almost touch the 4 story ceiling of the museum. Each missile carried multi-kiloton nuclear warheads, launched 3,000 miles from their target, delivering their payload in just a few minutes, travelling so fast they were essentially unstoppable. These two hulks sit, stripped of their innards because they were outlawed by international treaty. The world doesn’t need mutually assured destruction. I am so glad the Cold War is over.
I framed the picture a little off. I took the photo with my right hand and I’m giving a big thumbs-up with my left.

I just got back from a trip to Washington DC to see a long time friend Maura.
* Meeting at the airport… it’s always good to see old friends!
* Waffles (from the super-snazzy Chef’s Choice WafflePro Express waffle maker I got Maura for Christmas)
* Fun
* A fine and fun (and free) tour of historic Gadsby’s Tavern in Alexandria Virginia, that included seeing people in period dress, gadgetry, and English Country Dancing (which was far more fun than I had originally been led to believe by my previous examinations into the subject)
* got candy at Candy’s Candy
* Saw Jamey Turner the glass harmonica guy in front of the Torpedo Factory
* Grilled cheese at Cheesetique for dinner!
* We sadly had not left room for ice cream, but that’s ok.

Went to the Udvar-Hazy National Air and Space Center. We spent 2 hours on the most amazing tour of everything! Some highlights: The Enola Gay, Space Shuttle Enterprise, WWII Corsair & Hurricane & Spitfire, Gemini capsules, Joint Strike Fighter Vertical Takeoff engine (I have no idea how they fit that giant thing inside the plane!)

Went to the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art. I needed to see the giant Calder mobile because I never really liked it. But Maura tells me that he practically invented the art mobile… well not really but it was pretty revolutionary when he did his. I like his work now :-). Upstairs in one of the towers there was this pretty awesome art exhibit by Nam June Paik, a real candle at one end of the room was in front of a camera and it’s live image was projected up on the walls. Definitely cool. On a table, an egg was being videoed. Next to the egg was a small television with the live image of the egg. And next to that there was another small television with the tube removed, replaced with an egg. Totally groovy.

Went to Mitsitam inside the Museum of the American Indian on the mall for lunch. I highly recommend it. It’s cafeteria style and you can walk up to the “Mezoamerica” area to get food from that region, “Northern Woodlands” has crab apples and potatoes, “Great Plains” has other native foods. It was a living, tastable food adventure! Check out their menu!

Went to National Air and Space Museum… saw parts of Goddard’s first rocket, saw 2 ICBMs; Russian and American; now outlawed; ending the Cold War, saw the actual Hubble backup mirror; one of the most carefully shaped objects in the world.

Went to a popup restaurant, America Eats. Actually it is more of a temporary art installation of a restaurant. With things like the world’s first gaspacho soup, Waldorf salad, and “vermiccelli prepared like pudding” which is (probably rightfully) claimed to be macaroni and cheese’s grandfather. The restaurant is a complimentary part of a Library of Congress exhibit.

Went to the National Portrait Gallery… saw a tiny photo of a young Lincoln and then another 4 years later, ouch the presidency made him old quick. Saw the Lansdowne portrait of Washington. We both wondered WTF was up with the crappy rainbow in the upper right corner: the colors are crappy and all in the wrong order and the direction of the sun is wrong. It was such an afterthought!

Saw the Calder wireframes, which were pretty awesome. Saw the originals of the paintings on the $20 and $100 bill. Heard stories about Singer (of sewing machine fame), the founder of the girl scouts (who lost her hearing due to rice in her ear on her wedding day, hurumph!), and Walt Witman, saw a young George Washington portrait. And heard the story of Sequoyah, a Cherokee who invented the Cherokee syllabary in 1819, by 1830 Cherokee literacy had gone from 0% to 90%! Talk about an idea who’s time had come!

No, it won’t be televised. It’ll be live at The Dark Room in September!

local version: