Jerry Brown's political plans for 2006

This post appears on my public blog Old Hickory's Weblog.  But I'm including it here because there's a biographical footnote about me in it:

I've mentioned before that Jerry Brown, current Oakland mayor and former California governor, was rumored to be looking at a 2006 run for California attorney general, the state's chief law-enforcement official.

It looks like those plans are taking shape.  I just received an invitation to a fundraising cocktail party and reception for the mayor in San Francisco on June 30.  It's hosted by Ann and Gordon Getty.

I'm not going to be able to make it myself.  But, if anyone who expects to be in San Francisco at that time has $1,000 as a minimum contribution they are interested in contributing to the Brown for Attorney General campaign, you can get more information at (415) 346-6681.

I'm very glad to see that Brown plans to stay involved in public life beyond his current term as Oakland mayor.  He's been a very good mayor, too.  It's an unusual role for a former governor to take on.  But Brown has a Zen approach of "living in the moment."  And when your "moment" is being mayor, you focus on doing mayor stuff as well as you can.

One presumes at that price that the hors d'oeuvres will be outstanding.  And it doesn't say "no host bar," so presumably drinks are free.  It's probably not the kind of party where you want to get rip-roaring drunk, though.

I've been a Jerry Brown fan for a while.  In fact, I even made a cameo appearance in this 2000 New York Times article about him: Intellectual Forum Brings Jerry Brown to the Table 09/17/2000.

The seminars, alternately resembling town meetings and academic encounter groups complete with surreptitious doodling, have been drawing an eclectic following, from faithful students of Mr. [Ivan] Illich, the author of the 1970 book "Deschooling Society," which influenced the home- schooling movement, to people like Bruce Miller, a banker, who says he finds the subjects, which focus on civic engagement, "provocative."

"It's just like college," Mr. Miller said, "except that you don't have to write papers."

The Table has also attracted plenty of interlopers from nearby Berkeley, including Debbie Moore, organizer of the ninth annual Nude and Breast Freedom Parade to be held on Sunday in Peoples Park, who believes that the presence of nude bodies can soften cities and "tenderize the sidewalk," she said.

Yep, that's me.  Right between the home schoolers at the Berkeley nudists.

And, no, I don't think I appear in the picture.  That's Jerry at the far end of the table in the library at the converted warehouse where he lived until recently.