Like everyone else in San Jose, I have been following the controversy over the government’s mishandling of the friendly-fire killing of local football hero Pat Tillman with mounting incredulity. If a family with the profile and PR horsepower of the Tillmans can’t get the truth from the government, think what it must be like for the 3,300 other families of dead American soldiers. Will the exposure of the lies told to the Tillman family have any effect on the rest of America, sitting in front of our radio and TV newscasts that endlessly repeat the talking points of the White House and Pentagon snow jobs that pass for information these days?

It comes as no surprise that a recent survey conducted by Menlo Park think tank SRI International found that 89 percent of California’s schools do not meet state standards for arts education. Most of them, including the schools in the San Jose Unified School District, don’t even come close. While the immediate problem is a woeful lack of funding—a pitiful $15 per student annually at present—the underlying problem is that many parents and those who administer the state’s school system lack an understanding of the merits of a comprehensive arts education program.

I usually don’t give more than a passing glance at news about the trials and tribulations of the giant roulette wheel on Wall Street. The hollow ring of their dog-ate-my-homework excuses for dips in market values, like the reasons dreamed up by the PR departments of the oil companies to explain the rise in gas prices while the price of a barrel of oil goes down, just never seem quite credible. However, the excuses given for the recent market falls—turmoil in the mortgage “industry” and the overvalued real estate market—caught my attention because of a local story in the Mercury News on Sunday.

People do not drive nearly as well as they used to in California. That’s a fact. Stand at the intersection of Market and Santa Clara Streets for ten minutes and you will see ten obvious violations at a minimum. In nearly every light cycle, someone will run a red light, another will illegally turn through a crosswalk full of pedestrians and nearly everyone going north on Market is speeding. There is a widespread lack of common courtesy, common sense and common decency among drivers these days.

San Jose’s best annual event began its 17th year last night at the California Theatre with a Bay Area premiere showing of Indian director Mira Nair’s “The Namesake,” from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. This was quite a coup for our film festival as Nair’s previous film, “Vanity Fair,” starring Reese Witherspoon and former Cinequest honoree Gabriel Byrne, got a big Hollywood-blowout release. The filmmakers were on hand at the opening gala afterward.

Finally, our new mayor and city council have listened to the voices of San Jose’s citizens and neighborhood leaders and set budget priorities for the coming year that are in accordance with the wishes of the vast majority. In a meeting on Tuesday, the mayor, council members and their staffs made a commitment to funding the items most often mentioned on this site and in the neighborhoods. These break down into roughly three areas: public safety, public works infrastructure, and public recreational services.

For those of you who think that nothing of interest or importance ever happens in San Jose, take a wander around the San Jose Museum of Art’s current exhibitions. It’s impossible not to enjoy this fascinating local show of works by M.C. Escher and some of the seminal artists from the Op Art era. Judging by the large crowds I witnessed there over the weekend, these exhibitions are very popular and are bringing locals and visitors here alike, proving once again that our museum is a vital part of life in San Jose and the region.

When I read that the San Francisco Symphony plans to come to San Jose on October 5 and play a free concert in Chavez Plaza, I jumped for joy. They are also increasing their number of performances at the Flint Center next season by adding three family concerts, and the symphony’s Youth Orchestra will present Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” in the California Theater on December 15. This is exactly the type of regional approach that we need to take here in Bay Area. How lucky we are to have our neighboring world-class orchestra coming here to play an absolutely free concert for our community and picking up the $100,000 tab themselves.

The San Jose Water Co. supplies 1 million residents in San Jose and nearby communities from the Lexington Reservoir in the Santa Cruz Mountains. They own more than 1,000 acres of the watershed between the reservoir and Summit Road where they have stated it is their intention to start a vigorous logging operation. Their plan is to divide the area into nine sections and log one section per year on a rotating basis, removing 40 percent of all trees with a circumference of more than 24 inches. They equate this with “brush clearing” and assert that it is being done to cut down on fire danger. A one-hundred-foot-tall redwood is pretty big brush!

We seem to spend a lot of time on this site bemoaning the fact that San Jose is perceived as a second-class member of the “ten largest cities in the U.S.” club (we don’t get the big convention or we don’t get the big team). Why? In a blog earlier this week, some cynic even compared San Jose to Toledo and Omaha. The comparison might be apt if we were surrounded by the vacuum of the prairie, but we aren’t.

I would like to start by taking a different direction in the budget debate and bring up the matter of saving money at City Hall through conservation and converting San Jose into a green city fit for the 21st century. With a $3 billion budget, even a fragment of 1 percent saved would be a lot of money that could be used for other purposes. I know that steps have been taken in this direction, but a lot more could be done. Every city function should be regularly reviewed and monitored to reach and maintain maximum efficiency. I see lots of gas-guzzling SUVs and pickups with the city logo driving around. They should be replaced by hybrids or other alternative fuel vehicles as they wear out. All city buildings, works and public transportation should be converted to take advantage of modern technological innovations in cleaner, alternative power. The airport takes a huge portion of our budget and it should lead the way in conservation and green conversion. San Jose should actively set an example for our citizens and other cities around the country. This is the center of world technology. Let’s use it and show what it can do! 

Where would our South Bay community be without the philanthropy of David Packard, son of the late Silicon Valley giant? I asked myself that question yet again last Sunday after attending a screening of the 1920 silent film, “The Mark of Zorro,” with expertly assembled and performed live organ accompaniment by Dennis James (always great) at the California Theatre. The film was preserved and the showing was supported by the Packard Humanities Institute; the theater was completed and the vintage Wurlitzer organ rebuilt with funds from the same foundation. Indeed, it is doubtful whether the restoration of the California Theatre, home to Symphony Silicon Valley and the San Jose Opera, would have happened at all without Packard.

This week, a speaker at the Rotary Club noted that we all have to be prepared to do everything differently.  The world is moving on and everything we thought right once is likely to be passed over by other advances.  Long ago, there was a musical entitled “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off.”  The title seems apt now. 

Like just about everyone else, I am glad that we have a new regime at City Hall in the mayor’s office and on the council. However, in the euphoria of the demise of the old and arrival of the new, we shouldn’t forget one of the biggest accomplishments of the past few years: the Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr. Library joint venture between the city and San Jose State University and the process that is creating the new and vastly improved San Jose library system. This is a legacy worth celebrating.

The Late Ira Brilliant’s Invaluable Legacy

When real estate magnate and music scholar Ira Brilliant died at age 85 in San Jose on September 10, he left behind the most important collection of items related to the life and works of Ludwig van Beethoven in North America. Located in a cozy corner of the fifth floor of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies gives visitors a fascinating glimpse into the life of one of humankind’s greatest geniuses. It is open to the public from 11am to 6pm most days and is one of the best free rides in town.

It is a fact of life for downtown residents that Friday and Saturday nights are extremely noisy, especially if you live on or near Santa Clara Street. The constant stream of slow-cruising, high-volume subwoofer-armed cars is bad enough, but the loud music from the clubs and the groups of shouting, laughing merrymakers after midnight are just as bad. The only thing that makes it tolerable for those of us over 40 who live downtown is the fact that the police clear the streets at 2 a.m., and by 2:15, all is quiet. If it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t get any sleep on the weekends.