Religion
You’ve seen the May 21 billboards. Maybe you’ve heard the radio station. Now here’s a look inside the world of Harold Camping and his Oakland-based Family Radio media group, who predict that Judgment Day is coming — this weekend.
Dough is tossed into a vat of oil and floats to the top once it’s gold. Drenched in honey and sprinkled with walnuts and cinnamon, each bite bursts with sweet liquid as it deflates and dissolves. Loukomades, or honey-dipped pastry puffs, are not a typical dessert in Northern California. But on one weekend in May, Oakland residents are granted the opportunity to explore Greece — and without the purchase of a plane ticket.
On a hot spring afternoon, Javier Delgado Jimenez kneels on the grass in Mountain View Cemetery. He is poised over a flat gravestone wearing a gas mask, knee guards, long work gloves and a white hood with a clear plastic visor. With intense concentration, he aims a rod attached to a round metal canister at the face of the gravestone and plumes of red dust billow into the air.
Though Saturday ended with rainfall, the early afternoon hours were sunny and the perfect weather for this year’s annual Old Fashioned Egg Hunt & Games at Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate. Children of all ages roamed the meadow in search of Easter eggs (which they later traded in for Pixy Stix and chocolate), had their face painted, and took a ride on the ponies.
On Saturday, the Oakland Museum of California will kick off its new show Splendors of Faith/ Scars of Conquest, which features 110 pieces of art from the mission churches that dot the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. This is the first time many of the artworks will be seen outside of their original locations.
A crowd of Bay Area Rapid Transit employees and community members filled up the Kaiser Center Auditorium in downtown Oakland on Wednesday. They were there to celebrate and remember the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dozens of wooden crosses, painted white with a number and name hand-written across the front, stood in the front lawn of St. Columba Catholic Church on Friday. Behind, a big cement cross was hung with a pine wreath and a sign that read: “These crosses represent those killed by homicide in Oakland this year.” There were 94 crosses in total.
For Christmas this year, Leo Keegan set out to create a nativity spectacle at the Cathedral of Christ the Light, the seat of the Catholic Diocese of Oakland. The result was the Starlight Festival: seventeen unique displays of the crèche, or nativity scene, each an interpretation of the biblical story of Jesus’ birth
Though psychic storefronts are ubiquitous in Oakland, little is known about this mystical community. Do their abilities hold weight in the scientific community, or is the phenomenon just smoke and mirrors?