Tearful Native Americans Not Enough To Convince Some, I Guess

While crossing San Pablo Ave. on Adeline southbound I saw a man toss his spent can of beer to the sidewalk.

People still do that?

Well, he was really more of a boy, probably somewhere in his teens. That will give you the idea of the caliber of human being here. I'm stupefied that this remains an issue in the 21st century as I thought it had been eliminated like polio--a relic of the past that our parents talk about in hushed tones. There're garbage cans on practically every corner in the city, and if not a municipal one then some shop's can or a resident's plastic bin. How hard is it to hold the can until then?

Witnessing this most preventable of hits to urban beautification irks me deeply for two reasons. First, Japan has almost zero public waste bins, so the public must hold their trash until they get home, to work or find a convenience store with a waste can out front. I "suffered" through this for three years and you know what? It's really not that big of a burden! Next, and perhaps most important, I'm really starting to like life in Oakland and it pains me to even think that I may need to move out of the city soon due to my current unemployment. But with residents not even willing to crush and stow a can in their pocket does this city have a brighter future? Thanks to, ahem, contacts in city government I've recently become privy to a good deal of the inner workings of Oakland's civic leadership and it's a bleak picture indeed. Residents and local officials have to pull together pretty soon to save Oakland from the blight it was not even fifteen years ago.

First order of business: stop littering on my damn city.