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Articles by David E. Thigpen
Some residents call for more than a memorial in Dearing case
Ten speakers came forward to comment on the ongoing litigation between the City of Piedmont and a member of the Dearing family during public forum at the Oct. 19 Piedmont City Council meeting. The Ackerman vs.
Hunter’s Moon, Saturn and Orionids meteors | The Exedra’s Monthly Almanac for October 2026
A compendium of useful information for local residents October brings Piedmont its clearest, most golden weather of the year, even as the hills keep losing daylight. At night, look for Saturn on October 4 — rising at dusk and setting at dawn, just opposite the sun. Later in the month, following the Orionids meteor shower on October 21-22, the full moon on the 25th is known as the Hunter’s Moon, once a gift to hunters tracking game by moonlight.
A doc and a panel of experts take on the Artificial Intelligence revolution
Panel discussion moderated by Emily Chang (far left) of Bloomberg News featured (left to right) Merve Lapus, VP of Common Sense Media, Meta and Salesforce veteran Clara Shih (now of the New Work Foundation), and Microsoft’s Marco Casalaina. It’s the question of the hour, alright: Will AI Save or End the World?
Piedmont profile: Podcaster Adam Fishman talks to dads
“Startup Dad” shines its light on the dad side of being a tech exec In today’s teeming media landscape, you’re unlikely to find voices as wonderfully ego-free and informative as the ones Adam Fishman brings to the microphone for his popular podcast, “Startup Dad”.
Harvest Moon and the autumnal equinox | The Exedra’s Monthly Almanac for September 2026
A compendium of useful information for local residents Look for the autumnal equinox on the Sept. 22 when the sun crosses the celestial equator heading south marking astronomical fall. Day and night stand close to even; from here nights outpace days all the way to the winter solstice. The Harvest Moon follows on Sept. 26 and true to its name, climbs the eastern sky at nearly the same time on several successive evenings — a gift to anyone finishing the harvest by moonlight.
Piedmont Profile | Alder Yarrow, wine writer
So let’s say you’ve learned your way around a few pinots or cabernets. If you’re really good, perhaps you’ve even added an upstart new chardonnay to your repertoire. But what do you know about “blouges”, the hot new things setting the wine world on fire? And while we’re asking, can you recommend something from one of those hot new vineyards in Croatia? The wine world is a vast and fast-moving place, ever innovating, ever pouring out surprises.
Sturgeon Moon Eclipse and more | The Exedra’s Monthly Almanac for August 2026
A compendium of useful information for local residents August carries the year’s best Perseid meteor shower — and the steepest slide toward autumn. The sun’s decline accelerates now, gathering speed toward the equinox. Over the month, Piedmont will lose about 64 minutes of daylight. The Exedra Monthly Almanac is an experiment in using AI (in this case, Claude specifically) to create content that might be of interest to local residents.
Buck Moon and more | The Exedra’s Monthly Almanac for July 2026
Named for the new antlers male deer grow this time of year, this month’s moon peaks at 7:36 am, often glowing amber through the summer haze above the Oakland Hills. A compendium of useful information for local residents, the Exedra Monthly Almanac is an experiment in using AI (in this case, Claude specifically) to create content that might be of interest to local residents.
Piedmont profile: Rick Smith on civil grand juries
As a senior non-profit executive with broad experience in civic causes, Rick Smith has long enjoyed a close-up view of new and old “civic technologies” — a phrase used to describe effective innovations in communications and other methods used by citizens and governments to solve problems together.
SWMRS | How Piedmont’s best-known punk band remade itself
Cole, Max and Cade Becker, aka SWMRS Scaling the ladder in rock music is a perilous climb alright, but there’s no disputing that three Piedmonters cleared a higher new rung last week. The boost came courtesy of a giant new billboard lighting up high above New York City’s Times Square. The billboard is a Soundcloud promo and features the artists behind the Piedmont-based punk band SWMRS — brothers Max, Cole and Cade Becker.
Strawberry Moon and more: The Exedra’s Monthly Almanac for June 2026
The Exedra Monthly Almanac is an experiment in using AI (in this case, Claude specifically) to create content that might be of interest to local residents. While Claude was instructed to use trustworthy sources, please shoot us an email at news@piedmontexedra.com if you spot anything amiss or if you have thoughts on other ways to use AI in community news. To download a pdf of the June 2026 Exedra Almanac, please click HERE.
Piedmont Profile | Tracey Woodruff on why microplastics are everywhere, and not going away soon
Along the not always friendly border between science and science policy, Tracey Woodruff has managed to build a career crossing back and forth between both worlds, influencing both policy development and clinical practice.
Exit Interview | Director of Planning and Building Kevin Jackson says farewell to Piedmont
This week marks the retirement of Piedmont’s long time Director of Planning and Building, Kevin Jackson. On May 4 Piedmont Mayor Betsy Smegal Andersen issued a statement in honor of Jackson’s work, and he was praised by present and past city council members. On the eve of his May 8 departure from City Hall, Jackson sat down to speak to the Exedra. David Thigpen: What does a Director of Planning and Building do?
Flower Moon and more: Introducing The Exedra’s Monthly Almanac
Welcome to The Exedra Monthly Almanac, an experiment in using AI (in this case, Claude specifically) to create content that might be of interest to local residents. While Claude was instructed to use trustworthy sources, please shoot us an email at news@piedmontexedra.com if you spot anything amiss or if you have thoughts on other ways to use AI in community news. Download as a separate PDF HERE.
Piedmont Profile | David Oppenheimer, ‘Diversity Principle’ author and Cal law professor
Is the diversity movement purely ideological? Does it arise out of partisan political ambitions, a Trojan horse in the hands of ethnic minorities and the dispossessed as part of a selfish quest to seize greater power, wealth and status Or is it a nuanced socio-political perspective with deep academic and historical roots, and aspirations reaching toward some universal social good?
City anticipates Dearing Memorial to be completed by end of 2026
The city-commissioned public art sculpture honoring Piedmont’s first African-American residents is moving forward with a goal of completion before the end of 2026, according to the office of the Piedmont City Administrator. In the first of three phases that will eventually see a sculpture rise in Triangle Park adjacent to the Dearing family’s former residence, landscape architect Walter Hood has begun working with Coastland Engineering to create schematic drawings of the project.
Piedmont Profile | Larry Tramutola, political strategist and organizer
On a side street a short jaunt from Piedmont Avenue you climb a flight of stairs to the front door of a tidy frame house. The door is wide open. Inside, seated at a well- organized desk is Larry Tramutola. “Come in. Relax. Have a seat,” he says. Wearing jeans and a lightweight black sports shirt, and with his silvery head of hair, Tramutola looks like he would not be out of place in a humanities faculty lounge at Berkeley or Stanford.
A journalist and a lawyer advise communities how to fight back against infringements of press freedoms
At the Hillside Club in Berkeley Monday night, a packed house assembled to hear journalist Joe Dworetzky and First Amendment lawyer David Snyder dig into an issue affecting not just towns such as Berkeley and Piedmont, but the entire country: how do we resist the ongoing wave of attacks on freedom of the press?
Debunking a Myth About Black Men and Health Care
Debunking a Myth About Black Men and Health Care - California Health Care Foundation
Finn, forever | Neighbors remember a one-of-a-kind cat
Whenever the Prendergast family sat down to watch a movie, play a game of Scrabble, or tackle a jigsaw puzzle, they made room for Finn. This might not sound so unusual except for one thing: Finn was a cat. Finn’s endearing, human-like interests, and off-the-scale cuteness factor which he expertly used to charm everyone he came in contact with, made this orange Tabbby something of a legend not just in the Prendergast home but in many homes up and down Lakeview Avenue.
California Health Care Foundation
What ever happened to the independent practitioners — those pillars of primary care and community trust who cared for generations of Black families? Listening to Black Californians In 2021, CHCF funded a major research project to understand the health and health care experiences of Black Californians. The Phase I report summarized in-depth interviews with 100 Black Californians that took place in the summer of 2021.
Reflection | Finding inspiration in a complicated and flawed world
At first his voice seemed as if it was coming from a lonely place in a wilderness, far from the festivities of the day. But as guest speaker Jeff Bleich addressed the PHS Class of 2022, their families, and the larger Piedmont community during the graduation ceremony Thursday at Witter Field, his message, delivered in the smooth cadences of a diplomat, brought an attentive stillness to the audience. It was clear to see there was something deeply resonant in his words.
Obituary | Kye Moffat 1996-2022
Youngest sons carry a heavy load. Twice so in families of all boys. The hand-me-down clothes, being relegated to the back of the chow line, enduring the vise-grip of an older brother’s headlock – these are just a few of the eternal rites of brotherhood, and the way boys bond. One of the wonderful things about Kye Moffat was his way of carrying these weights, and others, as if they were as light as air. Kye, 25, passed away last week in a solo skiing accident at Palisades Tahoe.
Black Californians Diagnose Structural Obstacles to Equitable Health Care
Corona, California, resident Princess Murray had difficulty finding medical care that is respectful of people who are both gender nonconforming and Black. Photo: Harrison Hill For Black Americans, good health is a cornerstone value. Surveys show they are one of the racial/ethnic groups most likely to prioritize health in their daily lives.
Piedmonter among nominees as CNN “Hero”
Each fall CNN invites viewers to nominate ten individuals the cable news network describes as “everyday people changing the world.” Among this year’s nominees for CNN’s Hero of the Year is Piedmonter David Flink. Flink is co-founder of Eye to Eye, an education non-profit that has helped change the way educators and the public view dyslexia and other learning differences. Flink spoke to Exedra editor David E. Thigpen. Q: What is the inspiration behind Eye to Eye?
Guest Column: A perspective on George Floyd from a former Minneapolis resident
I had an odd experience that happened recently during the Black Lives Matter protests this summer. I purchased something in Oxford, and while the payment was processing, the Black woman behind the counter grabbed the stuff I purchased to help me take it to the car. When I asked her why, she said it was something to do. The United States is complicated when it comes to the relationship between different groups, but small moments like that make me think that we are not that far apart.
Melt Down
Peter Browne thought he was ready. All summer, the engineer from Mooresville, North Carolina, had trained in warm weather for the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon under the supervision of a marathon coach, hoping to crack three hours for the first time. Browne had a huge emotional investment, too; race week marked the 20th anniversary of a motorcycle crash that had broken his back. He had worked all the way back from paralysis.
Making Black Lives Matter
Historian and political activist Barbara Ransby is professor and director of the Social Justice Initiative at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In her newest book, Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the 21st Century, Ransby examines the emergent Black Lives Matter Movement, discussing its roots and motivations, its politics and its future as part of what she calls a new Black Freedom movement.
Universal basic income could redress the high cost of underemployment in Chicago
President Barack Obama has spoken favorably about it. So has Facebook leader Mark Zuckerberg. So the path seemed smoothed for Ald. Ameya Pawar when he introduced a resolution this summer calling on the City Council to consider a universal basic income plan for Chicagoans. The idea of a universal basic income (UBI) has been around for decades, but in recent years it has spilled out from think tanks and universities into the real world.
UN Unanimously Rejects Blockade as US Abstains for First Time
In a historic step toward lifting the blockade on Cuba, the United States abstained Wednesday in the United Nations general assembly vote unamimously calling for the end of the Cold War measure for the 25th consecutive year. IN DEPTH: US Blockade on Cuba "The United States has always voted against this resolution," said U.S. representative to the U.N. Samantha Power.
Melt Down | Runner's World
But at mile 20, weakened by the intense heat, Browne began to slow. By mile 23, he was gripped by leg cramps. Less than a mile from the finish he was only a few minutes past his ambitious three-hour goal, but he began staggering and was caught by race volunteers who pulled him to the curb. "I sat down," Browne recalls, "and then just passed out." He wound up in an ambulance and then the emergency room at Mercy Hospital, where he spent the night being treated for dehydration and heat exhaustion.
Turkey Arrests Co-Mayors of Kurds' Most Important City
The two co-mayors of Diyarbakir, the biggest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey, were arrested Tuesday as part of a "terrorism" inquiry, security officials said. OPINION:Turkey Government Wants to Label Kurds and Critics Terrorists There was a heavy police presence around the town hall following the arrests of Gultan Kisanak and Firat Anli, who co-run the city that has been at the center of clashes between security forces and the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
Path Of A Falling Star
With so many professional athletes in jail or on trial for crimes of sex and violence, cynics have joked that the diamonds on the Super Bowl ring should be replaced by a tiny set of shackles. So what allegedly happened on April 9, 2000, in a suburban Milwaukee, Wis., home would have been part of the familiar litany of testosterone and ego-fueled misbehavior--were it not for the reputation of the accused.
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