Wednesday is Hump day, half-way through the week, and this Weds is also strike and demo day, it seems.  The Ella Baker Center is holding a community convergence for climate action tonight. There'll be live green hip hop, a theatrical performance on climate by high school-aged youth, and a report-back from Oakland community residents who attended climate workshops in the flat lands of East and West Oakland--and we'll be there, too--and at the Afterparty ( there is always a party) at The Monkey Lounge.

At the same time, students are urging a walkout at UC Berkeley  to protest the fee increases being discussed at the UC Regents meeting happening at UCLA this week

Last night in Oakland, the City Council voted to allow Clear Channel and the East Bay Municipal Utility District to move forward on a plan to place a new billboard on the approach to the Bay Bridge. As part of the agreement, Clear Channel would remove 33 of its billboards in neighborhoods throughout Oakland neighborhoods--and give West Oakland a new hella big billboard.

And Council Member Desley Brooks went home from the meeting, it seems, only to have someone throw a rock through the window of her 2001 Jag, right outside her house, no less. A BANG story has Brooks telling the reporter she thinks this is the same thief who broke into her car on Nov. 1

And as as the BART people-mover, aka the airport connector, moves ahead, the Federal Transit Administration's Office of Civil Right says it is conducting a civil rights review of BART service and fares in part because of a complaint that a planned rail extension to the Oakland International Airport would unfairly benefit affluent airline travelers over minority public transit riders. In other words, this is yet someone else asking whether the funds for this project would be better spent on more buses.

On a lighter note, Oakland travel writer and cool person Lauren Quinn gets profiled in The Travel Nerd and  Oakland Local's story on The Golden Snail and other KSW steam wonders continues to delight (as does the photo gallery)

City Homestead has a great post about local tomato plants and winter gardening and Genie Gratto talks juicy, piquant red peppers (can you tell I am writing this before breakfast?

Oh, and you know what? Blue Bottle coffee finally opened at 300 Webster Street--hours are 7-5 am, M-F. (And what's your fav coffee shop, anyway?)