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James O'Brien
Jan 172 min read
Project Diary: crowing muted by resurgent violence
As Oakland politicians were set to crow about a 34% drop in homicides from 2023 to 2024, violence surges at the year's turning...


James O'Brien
Dec 17, 20242 min read
Project Diary: staring into the eyes of a city
I remember a very stern-faced and serious KD, his bold, confrontational eyes staring into the eyes of a city...


James O'Brien
Dec 4, 20242 min read
Project Diary: no due process for the dead
No trial, no hearing, there is no due process for the dead.


James O'Brien
Aug 27, 20241 min read
Project Diary: foreshadowing in Sarasota
She had raised this person who possessed the vision necessary to discover, and deliver a previously unrecognized human right


James O'Brien
Aug 21, 20241 min read
Project Diary: The Oakland Quartet
Four of the pieces I wrote for San Francisco Magazine about Oakland. Together, they present a picture of a fascinating, complicated,...


James O'Brien
Jun 26, 20242 min read
Project Diary: at the funeral of a 16-year-old victim
Apparently the City feels it has no connection to its dead children, no responsibility for their safety, and none for their destruction.


James O'Brien
Jun 24, 20242 min read
Project Diary: my West Oakland blues
I can't seem to get over the destruction -- spiritual, cultural, literal -- of West Oakland.


James O'Brien
Jun 20, 20242 min read
Project Diary: in West Oakland, historic opportunism disguised as optimism
Every folder on West Oakland is full of plans for its revitalization and each plan implies the failure of the last, right up to today.


James O'Brien
Jun 17, 20241 min read
Project Diary: "I know he was on loan from God"
I’m not a foolish woman. I know he was on loan from God for a short period of time. It’s never going to be long enough.


James O'Brien
Jun 14, 20242 min read
Project Diary: they called it "going out"
To a dark deserted back country of the mind...

James O'Brien
Jun 14, 20241 min read
Project Diary: "God sent me to her, God sent me to her. Or sent her to me"
He'd seen her on the news, talking about her lost son, about what the city needed to do for its wounded and traumatized families...


obrien-jim
Jun 14, 20241 min read
Project Diary: "you're 18, it's summer, you graduated"
Even that night that K didn’t come home -- that early August night in 2000 -- when you hear his sister describe it, you realize how...


obrien-jim
Jun 14, 20241 min read
Project Diary: newsworthy
Back when Khadafy Washington was killed, at age 18, in August of 2000, the violent killing of a black man in Oakland seems often to have...


James O'Brien
Jun 13, 20241 min read
Project Diary: "you might as well come out nekked"
I think Marilyn discovered a previously-unrecognized human right to support after the violent death of a loved one...


James O'Brien
Jun 13, 20242 min read
Project Diary: this is a story
The book is a story of people surviving what at the outset appeared to be impossible to survive.


James O'Brien
Mar 14, 20242 min read
The Most Meaningful Thing...
... goes unmentioned - In terms of covering each homicide, and especially each homicide victim and his or her family’s plight, things in...
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