Tonight I was invited to enjoy a wonderful celebration of Passover at Temple Beth El in San Mateo. The event was opened to the interfaith community as Christians and Muslims joined the program.  Discussions of the faith community addressing poverty took over the tables.

Several presentations were made during the evening by various organization working on issues of poverty, hunger and homelessness in San Mateo county.  One particular presentation was by a young woman affected by sudden homelessness as a result of the death of a parent when she was in high school. It was a stark reminder many living in poverty and those who are homeless are people who are our neighbors. Their kids go to school with our kids.

Many in our communities are simply one paycheck away from a heartbreaking situation. So on this evening – it was a thought of responsibility to our communities and those in need which permeated the celebration.  All in attendence were filled with good food and plenty of food for thought.

To the hosts this evening: Shalom.

Let’s start with a few points:

• Everyone has interests, points of view and causes they advocate
• Listening to folks and understanding those points is a critical function of public officials

The fact is, I am “lobbied” everyday by constituents. I have joked it takes me an extra half hour to buy groceries because I am usually stopped and engaged in conversation. I truly love these exchanges with you. This is the job of elected officials and the responsibility of citizens. Your advocacy, your “lobbying” is a crucial act of citizenship.

Last night I expressed extreme displeasure in certain aspects of lobbying by vendors fighting to get a contract. So why did I get bent about this case? The hour of the meeting and my stamina prevented a complete explanation. The government does a lot of business, and officials should meet with vendors to ensure correctness of contracts, quality of work and other duties required for the public interest. But the vendors last night were different…

Specifically, these vendors are advocating their position regarding the contract for Facilities Operation services related to the new Shoreway recycling center which will open in 2011. On the surface – this seems fine, but the issues go deeper. The process by which a vendor was selected was a public process. Here is my understanding:

1. There was a public RFP process
2. There was a public meeting which the vendors were allowed to present
3. There was a public scoring of the proposal with the committee names made public
4. The score sheets are public
5. The recommendation and reasons for selection were public

Further, my understanding is the agency in charge (SBWMA), member cities (and county), elected officials, vendors making proposals, and most importantly, you the public were told of the process and how decisions were to be made. In each and every step, the public work was done “in the sunshine.” From my perspective, this public process is a promise all the member agencies have made to the public.

Given the vendors agreed to a public process, and the public’s expectation set, the integrity of the public process must remain intact.

Now we can get to the specific reason I got bent: I believe the integrity of this process and the promise made to the public would be thrown aside when vendors present materials or have meetings outside the public eye as it relates to this contract.

I have no problem with a vendor fighting hard and advocating their position – but in this case especially – those arguments must be in the public view. I will not cast aspersions on those who feel otherwise – there is nothing “wrong” about a lobbyist meeting with public officials. I bring this up as a point of personal ethics and feel it is mandatory to ensure the trust of those I serve.

I like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. It’s the visual equivalent of the the comic section of the newspapers I used to read. Early cartoons weren’t the lovable Beetle Baily or Peanuts – they were serious commentary. Serious commentary and critique seem to have left the news reporting channels and floated down to a place where, apparently, only in jest can we raise tough issues.

CNBC is a channel I wake up to. For some reason I like to watch the opening bell of the markets and prefer an early morning “feel” for the markets.

Stewart has been skewering CNBC and Jim Cramer in particular over the issues in the network financial news, and specifically CNBC:

• Did not do any diligence before “reporting” their news
• Did not take the consumer interest to heart, but rather the advertisers

Give credit to Jim Cramer – the guy came out into hostile territory and tried to defend the bizarre journalism delivered by CNBC. Further, Cramer has neither claimed to be a reporter nor a journalist. He considers himself an entertainer. Fair enough – but when news organizations are hiring entertainers is the public interest being served?

Take this guy for instance. Howard Stern is an entertainer. He likes bathroom humor and exhibits all the tact of a teenage boy hopped up on his first experience with puberty. But give Stern points for never pushing beyond what he is – an entertainer. He has been honest in his persona and what he provides if you decide to listen to his show. He will rant about topics of the day, but has neither overstated his credibility nor position in his commentary. I mean, you’d never think his opinions on dealing with a difficult policy issue are serious – you’d recognize them as entertainment and move on.

So what about these other entertainers? Why are they given a microphone and platform within news outlets to spew brainless opinions like an ape hurls feces? Simply put – it is a lot cheaper to hire these blowhards than journalists who do honest work.

The larger issue we must all take to heart is recognizing entertainers do not serve the public when we are faced with issues requiring critical thinking, fact checking and a reasonable degree of understanding. Hyperbole, yelling and rants are pure fluff simply driving hyperactive ratings and starving our intelligence of thoughtful discourse. We desperately need to comprehend the complexities of our increasingly complex world, and these clowns don’t help.

I hope you’ll join me in writing to the advertisers of these shows and asking them to explain why they want to be associated with those engaged in bait-and-switch “journalism?” One can hope folks will desire something better – but we won’t get it until the public demands journalism be practiced by professionals and not posers.

OK – that’s a little grand – but I’ve been on Twitter for a while now. Now many may be asking, “What is Twitter and why would I care?”

A quick definition:

Twitter is a service which allows you answer the question, “What are you doing/thinking?” by sending short text messages 140 characters in length, called “tweets”, to those subscribing to your message stream.

So why am I using it? I’ve found some interesting uses for the stream.

• I have found it useful to post thoughts which have become blog posts. The idea for March 8′s posting came as a result of folks reading and responding to my twitter feed.
• Twitter has allowed me to quickly tell folks in one fast message of an interesting event and enjoy a spontaneous get-together.
• I prefer this to email as I only get streams from folks I know and the spam-factor is low.

I’m asking you to join in this experiment of better communication – join my twitter feed and (perhaps) get the view of our city through a different set of eyes!

Simply stated – this is one of the best presentations of the complex credit crisis I have seen.  This is worth 11 minutes of your time.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.