Bob would have also enjoyed the political theater of Occupy Wall Street and the various Occupy camps that sprang up locally. He was a big fan of Adbusters, the organizing force behind OWS. I know he would have spent a fair amount of time at the camps.

I enjoyed how OWS took advantage of the new media: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Ustream. For all the mistakes OWS has made, we have to give them credit for getting the attention of the mainstream media and redirecting the national dialogue to the inequality of our economic system. I hope this leads to something positive in 2012.

So here is my Tech Year in Review: how I use the various social networks.

Thanks to Twitter, my WordPress blog and Tripod website have not been totally quiet. My tweets are displayed on those pages, as well as on my Facebook page. I have noticed that those posts to Facebook from Twitter get more responses on Facebook than on Twitter. To me, it indicates that Facebook is the more social of the two. I do spend more time on Twitter, however, using it mostly as a news source. When I see something that interests me, I like sharing it with others by retweeting.

I am also slowly warming up to Google Plus. I don’t share much there since there are not enough people I know on G+ to share it with. Most of the people I know are on Facebook. Occasionally someone asks me to network with them on LinkedIn. I approve the request if I know them. Otherwise, I am never on LinkedIn. Same with MySpace which I joined in 2006. I never got into it. Facebook was the first social networking site I actually found useful. Twitter was the second.

More disappointments in 2011:

For awhile I had my hopes up for a high speed train linking the Bay Area and Southern California. Those hopes are rapidly fading. Maybe someday, people will realize it is worth the investment to get people out of cars and airplanes for distances of 500 miles or less. Unfortunately, it won’t be in 2012.

The Fukushima Daiichi meltdown frightened people away from nuclear power again. The truth is that the real disaster was the tsunami. The only workers that died at the plant had drowned, except for one who died of a heart attack. The radiation exposure to people outside the plant was minor. The risks from nuclear power continue to be quite small compared to the risks from climate change. Maybe we will be able to generate enough power from wind and solar so that we won’t need nuclear power, but it has to be affordable. So called renewables are still too expensive for the poorest people of the world.

On the bright side, the bicycling community continues to grow and get stronger. A new bike crossing in South Berkeley makes it easier to ride into Emeryville and West Oakland. I am happy to be healthy enough to continue to enjoy the rides.

So goodbye 2011. Goodbye Steve Jobs. Goodbye R.E.M. Goodbye Bob, Betty, Bick, Rich, Sandra, and all the other folks who were bright lights in my life who are gone now.

Hello 2012 and the Mayans. See you on 12-21-12.

My travels with Bob started with a conversation about bicycles. When I met Bob at a party in San Diego we shared our bicycle commute stories. My story was of an 19 mile uphill ride from the beach community of Ocean Beach where I then lived to Kearny Mesa in order to start work at 6:00 am. Bob, a former Ocean Beach resident countered with his own Berkeley to San Francisco commute. Bob was then working as a loader for a small, overnight, freight airline called Zoom Zoom. Bob referred to Zoom Zoom as a hippy Marxist airline, though he wasn’t sure which Marxist faction described the operation, Groucho or Harpo. Each afternoon, Bob rode on BART with his bike from Berkeley to Daly City Station, the terminus of the BART system in San Francisco at the time. Then he rode to SFO to start his job on the graveyard shift. All night, Bob would load and unload Zoom Zoom’s fleet of DC3s that connected to various parts of the west coast. At dawn, he would catch the final flight, with his bicycle on board, from SFO to Oakland Airport. From there, he would ride to BART’s Coliseum Station. If he made it there before 6:30 am, he would take the train back to Berkeley. If he arrived after that time, he would not be able to bring his bike on board, since bicycle access was restricted during commute hours. That meant he had to pedal back home from East Oakland, almost 11 miles. This daily routine continued until the Marxist airline was, at least according to Bob, put out of business by the CIA. But that’s another story.

The dance continued when my then wife Melissa, our pre-school age daughter Dharma, and I relocated from Southern California to live with Bob in Berkeley. It stretched on for three decades. It included buying and sharing a house in West Berkeley, raising Bob and Melissa’s daughter Avila, numerous bicycle rides, weekend long Grateful Dead concerts, anti-war demonstrations, and flea market excursions to find books on obscure history and conspiracy theories. It has been a long, strange trip.

I would like to finish with one of my favorite recent quotes. It is from Joan Rivers who said, “Just laugh at everything. If you can laugh at it, you can live with it.” That describes how Bob dealt with all the insanity of the world. He laughed at it all, taking nothing or anyone seriously, including himself. After reading all those books on conspiracy theories, he finally had the answer. “It is all one big conspiracy,” Bob said, “to keep me entertained.”

Bob, the laughter we shared will live in my heart until I die. So thanks for the dancing lessons. You were a good dancing partner.

Blessed be.

I was in the closet then and was debating coming out. We had just moved to the Bay Area, and I saw attitudes toward gay people beginning to change. I had a wife and young daughter and did not want to hurt or abandon them. Then I saw the article about a mysterious gay cancer and wondered if living openly as a gay man was such a good idea. As the weeks and months past, I read more stories and became more frightened. I was frightened enough to stay in the closet for the next decade. Keep in mind that how the disease was spread among gay men remained a mystery for several years. No one knew how easy it was to transmit. Staying closeted for me meant staying alive.

The first AIDS death of someone I knew was a neighbor who had worked as a nurse. I am sad to say I did not know him well. Years later, a former housemate died of AIDS. She had serious substance abuse problems, including severe alcoholism. When I started attending New College in 1991, one of my classmates was in the last stages of the disease. I was able to get know him in the last few months of his life. He was one of the founders of the Radical Faeries. When he died, there was a lovely memorial at his flat in the Haight where his ashes were passed around for everyone to hold.

The year before I returned to college was the year I finally had the courage to come out as a gay man. Though I regret my decision to not come out earlier, I have had no regrets since then. In this month of Pride, 2011, it is good to reflect on how far we have come. AIDS still exists, but it is no longer the death sentence it was 30 years ago. It is 100% preventable and eventually will be curable. Of equal importance is the change in social attitudes toward gay people. Both public figures and everyday people are coming out with increasing frequency. Being gay is no longer controversial. Same sex marriage is slowly becoming legal, state by state. What a joy to see this happen in my lifetime.

In January of 1980, Melissa, my wife at the time, and I were in the process of making the final decision to relocate to the Bay Area. We decided to take a week’s vacation to stay with Bob in his South Berkeley basement flat. I had just finished my first full-time political job.

The previous summer, I quit a job at a contact lens factory and went to work for Bill Press. Press had left his job for Governor Jerry Brown and was wanted to qualify a ballot initiative to create a tax on the profits of oil companies. I was drawn to the initiative campaign because the money was intended to fund public transportation and alternative fuels. I was sick of seeing support for buses dwindle in San Diego, especially after the passage of Proposition 13. I wanted to live without a car, which was I found to be a heavy financial burden with my minimum wage factory job. I was happy that I was a able to ride a bike to work every day because no bus could get me there that early in the morning.

Ironically, the job of gathering voter signatures all across Southern California forced me to drive hundreds of miles each week. The job took longer than expected, as well. We stood out in front of shopping centers over Thanksgiving and then the busy Christmas shopping season. We finally finished after New Year’s, and I was exhausted. I needed a vacation and a chance to get away from the Southland.

Bob said we could sleep on his floor for a week. He knew we were seriously considering a permanent move. When we got there, I planned to just park my truck to walk and ride the bus the rest of the week. However, there was one damper to our vacation I did not take into consideration. January is the start of the rainy season, and the Bay Area gets a lot more rain than San Diego. It was raining when we got there, so we decided to wait to go out until the weather cleared up. We sat around, listened to KSAN, and read Bob’s books while he was at work. After a few days, we realized the weather was not going to clear up. We were starting to get cabin fever.

Our daughter was four years old, so we decided to take her to the San Francisco Zoo. We stopped in Chinatown and bought umbrellas that were colorfully painted and made of bamboo. We took the streetcar to the zoo where we walked all day in the pouring rain. I remember having a good time, although I learned something about the lacquer on those umbrellas we bought in Chinatown. When they get wet, the umbrellas have a strange and unpleasant chemical odor. They don’t last very long either.

It rained the entire week, but I had already decided before we left that we would be returning to Berkeley to stay. We loaded up all our possessions in our Datsun pickup and completed the move in one day. That was February 29, Leap Day, 1980.

There is a lot I could write about Bob, and I probably will. For now, I will just relay the last hours of Bob’s life, starting on the evening of Wednesday, May 18. I had just arrived home from work and discovered that Bob sitting in the living room. He had thrown up on the coffee table and said he was feeling fine until he suddenly felt the urge to vomit. He didn’t have the strength to stand up to get to the bathroom. I cleaned up the liquid which looked like spilled water, and Bob went to his room to rest. We suggested taking him to a doctor if he got worse. That night, Bob came down to the kitchen while I was cleaning up. He got himself something to eat, so I assumed he was feeling better.

The next morning after I went to work, Bob reported he was still not feeling well, but turned down offers to take him to a doctor. His daughter heard him running the water in the bathtub. Not long after, she went into Bob’s bedroom and found him sprawled out on  his bed and unresponsive. He had thrown up again. This time he had thrown up blood. Another housemate called 911 and then called me. When I arrived home, the police were there, examining Bob’s body. The coroner ruled the cause of death to be natural causes.

The family has ordered a thorough autopsy, and the results won’t be known for awhile. After the results are known, Bob’s body will be cremated, and at least some of the ashes will go to a family grave in San Diego.

Right now, I am focusing much of my attention on contacting as many of Bob’s friends as possible. Unfortunately, there are too many that I do not have phone numbers. There are people he knew at UC Berkeley, both during the Free Speech Movement and People’s Park demonstrations. There are those he worked with at the Berkeley Barb. Through the years, Bob has interacted with many transportation activists, especially bicyclists. He was a regular rider in San Francisco’s Critical Mass. There are people who have been attracted to Bob’s offbeat political activism, including a revival of the Whig Party that Bob called his 1976 bicentennial project. There were the admirers of his vast collection of books that we now have to find good homes for.

A memorial for Bob Berry will be on Friday, June 10, 2:00 PM at Berkeley Friends Church, 1600 Sacramento Street, at the corner of Cedar Street. It is walking distance from North Berkeley BART and University Avenue AC Transit bus lines.

Bob’s manager at Caltrans kindly wrote the following:

It is with great sadness and regret that I report that Robert (Bob) Berry passed away on May 19, 2011.

Bob was born in San Diego, CA on March 18, 1949 to Charles W. and Sara W. Berry. 

In the mid to late 1970s, Bob worked as a DC-3/C-47 cargo handler for Zoom Zoom Air.  Bob enjoyed sharing his fond memories of working for Zoom Zoom Air.

Bob started his Caltrans career in July 1983 as a Junior Engineering Technician in the Project Development branch.  In 1984, on Halloween Day, he transferred to the traffic branch.  Shorty after, in early 1986, Bob was promoted to Transportation Engineering Technician and transferred from Traffic Signing section to the claims section.  A year later, in August 1987, Bob was promoted to Assistant Transportation Engineer.   In May 1991 Bob transferred from Claims to the Traffic Signing section, and in March 1993, Bob began working as a Legal Liaison Engineer.

One of Bob’s finest talents was his ability to identify and find key documentation that repeatedly helped the state prevail in “deep pockets” lawsuits.  Throughout his career in the traffic office, Bob diligently provided timely, insightful, and reliable assistance to state attorneys in defending the state in lawsuits.  With his dedication, knowledge, and enthusiasm, Bob saved the state millions of dollars in settlements.

Bob was a free spirit, an avid bicyclist who did not own a car, and had a love of DC-3 and C-47 aircrafts. His life style was the 1960’s (“hippie”)

Bob was touched by many, either through a joke, a kindness, or some other positive manner.  His family would appreciate if you would email your memories of Bob to his daughter Avila and his brother Bill.  The family would like to preserve your written words as a living tribute to Bob.

Bob is survived by his brother William Berry and his daughter Avila Birch.   

The memorial service will be on Friday, June 10, 2011, 2 pm at the Berkeley Friends Church (1600 Sacramento St, Berkeley, CA 94702), corner of Cedar St.  The church is also within two blocks of the North Berkeley BART station.  The family hopes that people attending the memorial service would arrive in tie-dyed t-shirts to honor Bob’s free spirit.

Our deepest condolences and sympathy to his family. 

Now to be fair, the report does include the need for better urban planning to get people out of their cars, and past energy statements from the administration have included walking and bicycling as ways to conserve fossil fuels. Even First Lady Michelle Obama’s task force on childhood obesity included cycling and walking in their report, especially with the Safe Routes to Schools program.

Still, it would have been nice to have included bicycle planning in the 44-page report that has a lot to say about creating electric and biofuel vehicles, as well as increasing mileage on gasoline engines. The administration has shown support for bikes. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has spoken to bike advocacy groups and written of his support on his blog. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is also a regular bike rider. Maybe, the administration was assuming it has done enough to promote cycling. Or maybe the White House is worried the Blueprint would not be taken seriously if it specifically mentioned bicycles. Congressional Republicans have ridiculed past attempts to include bicycles in transit projects. To add bikes to the Blueprint may appear looney to some, but that is exactly why they need to be included. Bicyclists are a growing political constituency that is anything but looney. We are changing how our country lives and travels.

This cycling grassroots movement is well documented in Jeff Mapes Pedaling Revolution that details the rise of cycling in his hometown of Portland, Oregon.  There are a number of specific bike-friendly ideas that could be added to the Blueprint.

Bicycle Boulevards
People will ride more if they feel safe. A bicycle boulevard is not a street free of cars. It is a street with fewer cars traveling at slower speeds. Barriers are created so that bicycles have preference for the entire route. That may mean right-turn only intersections for cars or bridges where only bikes and pedestrians may cross. That way car traffic is limited to those living in the neighborhood, and those who want to get across town as quickly as possible must take other routes.
Secure Bike Parking
People will ride more if they know their bikes are safe and secure when they are parked. This could include bike parking stations at places of employment or transit stations. Individual bike lockers could be rented by the hour. Conveniently located bike racks on the street would encourage bike use for quick shopping trips in commercial districts.
Safe Routes to School
The administration could just copy and paste that section from the First Lady’s report on childhood obesity. Getting more children walking and biking to school creates a win-win situation. Children are more likely to get injured when their parents drive them in their cars. Walking or biking becomes safer when there are fewer cars trying to drop off children at school. Children are at great risk for diabetes and obesity from lack of exercise. Gas is conserved, and carbon emissions are reduced. Make that a win-win-win-win-win.
Safe Routes to Transit
Rapid transit increases the range of a person on bike. This includes the person who wants to leave a bike parked at the transit station or one who takes a bike on train or bus. Bike racks on buses and areas set aside for bikes on train cars allow people to continue their travel on bike after getting off transit. This would increase ridership on high-speed rail. It is a lot easier to take a bike on a train than on a plane.

As the Blueprint notes in several sections, there is no “one size fits all solution.” Bicycling alone will not end our dependence on foreign oil, but neither will electric cars or wind turbines.

Back to the Future
Nor are bicycles a step backwards. Technological advances in materials have made bicycles lighter and stronger. They have always been the most energy efficient form of transportation, and they are even more efficient now. The bicycles of the future onboard the trains of the future can help us “Win the Future.”

In Quaker worship, I pondered my feelings until I found a message that I shared vocally. “An earthquake can shake our beliefs. A tsunami can wash away our dreams. After that, we mourn, we learn, we rebuild.” I later tweeted the message, one my few tweets that have been retweeted.

Even as the disaster continues to play out, with each day bringing some good news alternating with more bad news, there are those who are able to put it all in perspective. One is Gwyneth Cravens in Bloomberg News, reminding us that the problem at Fukushima is just one of the catastrophic disasters that Japan is currently facing. Our news media has focused our attention on radiation and away from other health crises that the earthquake and tsunami have caused. Cravens previously published the book Power to Save the World about her own journey from antinuclear activist to nuclear power proponent. I can relate to that story, having made a similar journey: http://tfyamaguchi.tripod.com/nuclear_power.html

In reality, fossil fuel energy has proven itself far more dangerous. Let us not forget that the damage includes to our climate. Climate change continues to be a ticking time bomb. We could take our time to develop safer energy sources, particularly nuclear fusion. Unfortunately, climate change does not give us much time. Nuclear fusion won’t be feasible until later this century, if ever. Those who believe we can get all the energy we need from wind and solar are not realistically dealing with the scope of the problem. We could say those who advocate for renewables alone are as much in denial as those who believe humans have nothing to do with the rapid increase in global temperatures.

This means we will be saddled with nuclear fission for awhile, but, the goods news is that nuclear technology continues to evolve. Older reactors, such as Fukushima Daiichi that date back to the sixties, are being replaced with better designs, more resistant to natural disaster.

And so I grieve, and I learn how to respond to my grief. One response that is never productive is panic, especially the panic over traces of radiation that may be drifting over California. In looking for an appropriate model of response, I thought of columnist Dan Savage and his creation of the It Gets Better project. Savage was responding to a sudden rash of gay teen suicides. Young gays were killing themselves as the result of vicious bullying. Savage’s response was simply and positive. Let our young people know that many of us have been in their shoes. Those of us who did survive have learned that ours lives ended up OK after all, and we are glad we did not accept suicide as an option. People shared their stories on YouTube of how it got better for them, and a nation has been moved to action against bullying.

The best response includes listening, reading, and learning. A friend of mine Karen Street has been studying climate change and nuclear power for the past two decades. She publishes a blog, A Musing Environment. There is also World Nuclear News and the Energy Collective. Those pages can lead you to even more resources.

An earthquake can shake our beliefs.
A tsunami can wash away our dreams.
After that, we mourn, we learn, we rebuild.
Then we can say, “It gets better.”

Yes, my ticket to the expo was free. I took advantage of an offer that came by e-mail last summer. After filling out the registration online, I printed out the barcode on a piece of paper, and, being the cheapskate that I am, used the blank side of a previously printed page. This process is familiar to me, having used it to buy train tickets on Amtrak’s website. Scanning the printed barcode at my station’s kiosk, I received my paper ticket on the spot to board the train.

For this trip, I rode my bicycle to the North Berkeley BART station and found parking in one of the vacant bike lockers. I inserted my prepaid card into the slot of the locker. The amount on the card had been loaded online by transferring funds from my credit union account. Locker rental cost three cents per hour. I selected more hours than I needed, knowing the unused time would be refunded to me when I returned. Then I pulled my card out of the slot, and the locker door swung open, allowing me to place my bike and other personal possessions inside. After closing the door securely, I headed off for my excursion to the city.

When I entered the BART station, I waved my Clipper Card over the circle at the entry gate, which opened with in an OK message, allowing me to pass. The Clipper Card also is loaded with funds transferred from my checking account. After passing the card at the exit gate in downtown San Francisco, I walked south a few blocks to Moscone Center.

Strolling along the various booths, I picked up information about products I am considering buying in the future, probably online. After all, I am a cheapskate. Then I found one reasonably priced gadget that I decided to buy on the spot; a small microphone that fits on my iPod Touch for recording voice notes. This is something I have wanted for my iPod ever since I bought it.

My preferred credit card is my Visa provided by my credit union, since it is easy to transfer money online from my checking account to pay off the Visa. However, Bank of America has been noticing that I have not been using the MasterCard they gave me, so they keep making sweeter offers to encourage me to drag their card out of my wallet. The latest is a $50 certificate if I make $250 in purchases before March 31. I offered the MasterCard for the microphone purchase, which was cheerfully accepted.

When not strolling the aisles of vendors, I sat at the main stage, listening to the various presentations on Apple products. Then it was time to head home on BART, again paying with Clipper. Back at North Berkeley BART, I reinserted my BikeLink card into the locker’s slot. The door swung open, and I retrieved my vehicle for the ride home.

I did not give these cash-free transactions much thought until I heard a report from Haiti on NPR. “Mobile Money” is helping Haitians buy groceries with their cell phones. This is one of the few pieces of good news to come out of Haiti since the devastating earthquake hit over a year ago. Read how the phone company Voila is working with Mercy Corps to provide food assistance to the Haitians of Saint Marc.

“Paper or plastic?” When it comes to bagging my purchases, I always answer “neither,” since I remember to bring my own. When it comes to paying for those items, plastic seems fine. At least, this plastic is reusable.

Are political parties obsolete? Are there better ways to do democracy? Last June, California voters passed Proposition 14. It is the latest attempt to reform the primary process, and, if it succeeds court challenges, it will radically change how we conduct state elections.

In California, it all started with the creation of the direct primary one hundred years ago. It was one of the inventions of the Progressive movement that also gave us initiative, referendum, and recall. Before the direct primary, candidates were selected by machine party politics. The major parties, controlled by special interests, determined what candidates would be facing each other in November. The Progressives wanted to give more power directly to the voters, including choosing the nominees of each party for the various partisan offices.

The system has been a vast improvement over the “smoke-filled rooms,” though still not perfect. Until the last few decades, California has conducted closed primaries. Voters had to register with one of the state qualified parties in order to vote for that party’s candidates in June. This arrangement locks out the independent voter from having candidates to vote on in the spring. It also prevents crossing over and voting  for candidates of either party in the various contests. The parties fear a completely open primary would allow crossovers to sabotage an election by nominating a weaker candidate who could be the easiest to beat in November. Today, we have a semi-open primary. Independent voters can ask for either a Democratic or Republican ballot when they enter the polls. This is only for state and local candidates, however. Presidential primaries are still closed. A voter who wishes to select a Republican candidate for President must register Republican before the election.

Turnout in primaries has been historically low, especially in non-presidential elections. In June, when voters were deciding on Proposition 14, as well as gubernatorial and senatorial candidates, one third of registered voters actually cast ballots. This means only a small number of Californians decided what candidates would compete in November. So if you were unhappy with your choices of either Meg Whitman or Jerry Brown, or Barbara Boxer or Carly Fiorina, you were not alone. This November’s turnout was only 44%. In November, 2008 it was almost 80%.

There has been some other tinkering with the primary process that has not helped turnout. Starting in 1996, Presidential primaries have been moved up in the calendar. The complaint was that, by the time California got around to having its election in June, the contest was over, and we knew who the nominees would be. The 2008 presidential primary was moved up to February. No one could have predicted that the Democrats would still have a competitive race between Clinton and Obama in June. If so, we could have saved a lot of money by having just one primary instead of two. And the turnout at the regular June primary was just 28%.

A major complaint of our current primary system is that the voters in those elections are not representative of those who show up in the fall. They represent each party’s base; the Republicans being conservative and the Democrats being liberal. While there are more registered Democrats in California than Republicans, the biggest majority are independent voters who are politically moderate. These are the voters who are the most disappointed with the choices they get in November.

Under Proposition 14, independent voters will get a larger voice. All candidates from all parties are listed on the same ballot. The top two candidates then face each other in a November runoff. This means the possibility of having two Democrats or two Republicans in that runoff. It could also mean two candidates who are not in either party making it to the general election. Independent candidates could become more viable.

One drawback is that the smaller parties will be frozen out of the November election. There are a number of small parties that have qualified for the California ballot: American Independent, Green, Libertarian, and Peace and Freedom parties. Each currently selects candidates for the general election. Under Proposition 14, candidates representing these parties will not be on the November ballot unless they can place first or second in the primary. There can be only two candidates in the general election, and no write-ins are allowed. On the other hand, candidates of these smaller parties never had a chance to win anyway. Voting for them is just a way of protesting the lack of choices we have received from the Republicans and Democrats. In the final analysis, do we want to protest our lack of choice or do we want to be able to vote for candidates that truly represent our views and interests? That is the real choice with Proposition 14.

Now add Rank Choice Voting to the mix. Instead of two elections, we just have one. Instead of voting for the “Lesser of Two Evils” (LO2E), we can vote with both our hearts and our heads. Our hearts may be drawn to a candidate with a slim chance of winning, while our heads lead us to the candidate that has the best chance and would do the least damage. Our heart candidate would be our first rank, and our head candidate would be a second. And who knows, maybe that heart candidate could be the next Jean Quan.