By Steven T. Jones
Last night’s Critical Mass was big — a population that was also swelled by way too many cops — but other than that, it was pretty normal. As usual, there weren’t any major incidents. As usual, the atmosphere was festive. As usual, the only aggressive behavior that I saw came from overentitled car drivers. These basic, predictable facts seemed to surprise the writers at the Chronicle, who apparently actually believed their own bicyclists-gone-wild bullshit. So once they finally went on a ride, we were rewarded with the headline “Critical Mass pedals politely through S.F.”
Yet the real problem remained, the one the Chron still hasn’t been able to comprehend. My friend Tim got his bike run over by a car last night simply because it was in the path of an impatient motorist who was trying to drive into a crowd of bikes. And as usual, despite the 40 cops on the ride, the police refused to take a report or get involved. Critical Mass is many things to many people, but one of those things is an assertion of our rights to the road, which we’re legally entitled to whether or not we have the blessing of the Chron, the SFPD, and the rest of this city’s power structure.
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Perfect storm for Critical Mass
By Steven T. Jones
It’s a beautiful day for a bike ride! And San Francisco’s daily newspapers are helping set the scene for the biggest Critical Mass ride in years. The latest promotion was the screamer headline on the cover of today’s Examiner, “Critical Mass veterans make push for civility.” The article was far better than the Chron coverage has been, although it did erroneously note that CM intends to stop at red lights, which has never been part of the deal. All that would do is slow the mass down and place cars in the center of it, which isn’t good for them or us (remember, the woman who got her car window broken last month freaked out over being “swarmed” by bikes, which would happen over and over again if a crowd of thousands of bikes kept getting broken up by stoplights). My only concern tonight is with the anger being expressed toward CM among online commenters in places like SFist. But I and others will be out there documenting what happens, so check back to this blog to see how it all went.
Time to ride
By Steven T. Jones
Despite the article’s deeply flawed premise, it was nice to see the Chron’s Matier and Ross promote this Friday’s Critical Mass ride.
After the duo whipped drivers into an ill-informed frenzy earlier this month and caused the SFPD to double the promised police presence, we bicyclists will need big numbers on our side to keep the mass moving and show that we won’t be shamed or threatened into abandoning this important social protest event. And from what I’m hearing, people are more committed than ever to Critical Mass, creating the possibility that this Friday’s event will be huge and fun. Personally, I can’t wait.
Yet it’s too bad the M&R keep getting things so wrong, such as when they say Mayor Gavin Newsom “has a lot riding on this event…the basic question being whether he can control the city’s streets come Friday night..” That’s bullshit. On this issue, Newsom has been wise enough to avoid taking the Chron’s bait and calling for a Critical Mass crackdown. He never promised to “control” Critical Mass and therefore has nothing riding on this Friday’s outcome, unless the police get aggressive and cause problems. The only test we’ll see this Friday is of M&R’s mass-gone-mad fable, which are like to be shown for the one-sided, self-serving sensationalism that it was.
NYC throws down the green gauntlet
By Steven T. Jones
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (who happens to be a Republican) yesterday unveiled a bold plan to have his city become the most energy efficient and environmentally sustainable big city in the country.
C’mon, San Francisco, are we going to take that? Maybe it’s time for Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Board of Supervisors to finally step up and go big (or to actually act on some of the big ideas that have been thrown out, from tidal power to a completed bicycle network to more solar rooftops) . At the very least, we should support Sup. Jake McGoldrick’s plan for a congestion pricing system for those driving into the downtown core, which London has done successfully and Bloomberg is now proposing for NYC.
I Dream of Muni
by Guardian intern Sam Devine
While watching Land use & Economic development committee meeting on SFGTV the other day, I caught a bit of public comment on the whole Healthy Saturday thing and had the thought: “Maybe this is more about providing public transportation to public places than it is about bicycles.”.
At the meeting, parents said they couldn’t get to the museum for family programs, and museum staff complained about getting to work without being able to park on the street. The parking garage, at $3/hour, is cost prohibitive.
Nan Tucker McEvoy, granddaughter of museum founder M.H. de Young, spoke in opposition to closing JFK on Saturdays. “When my great grandfather gave the museum to the city, he gave it to all the people of the city, not just the ones who ride bicycles or can walk great distances,” she said
Pandora Needs Help
by Amanda Witherell
We just got a letter from Tim Westergren, one of the founders of Pandora, the supercool website that builds you a radio station by tracing the musical genes of song or musician you like and connecting it to others with similar aural DNA.
Tim says Washington’s cracking down and wants to hike licensing fees for internet radio sites to unfair and scary levels for this little Oakland-based music genome project. He’s worked up a petition and needs some signatures. A word from Tim to all rabble-rousers, after the jump…
The fun keeps dying
By Steven T. Jones
How Weird Street Faire’s fate got even worse since my last post, with the San Francisco cops now saying the organizers need to cough up $23,833 in fees, to be paid before the May 6 event. What is this, a shakedown? Somebody call a cop. Or maybe someone at City Hall should call off the cops.
Unfortunately, the city’s punitive approach to its most beloved street fairs and festivals only got worse last night when Recreation and Park Department staff convened members of the Outdoor Events Coalition to say they’re recommending substantially increased special event fees, so big that events like Bay to Breakers, Love Fest and other events could cease to exist. Rec and Park, an increasingly incompetent department that has bungled its way into a $2 million budget deficit, say they need big bucks to cover their costs and wipe out the red ink. Their proposal calls for charging $50,000 to use the Golden Gate Park polo field, $25,000 for Civic Center Plaza, and $12,000 for Mission Dolores Park. And on top of all this, the city has banned booze from the Haight Ashbury Street Faire of all places. Last year, we warned that fun in the city was under siege. Now it’s starting to look comatose.
How Weird gets walloped…again
By Steven T. Jones
When the How Weird Street Fair last month barely survived the city permit process to get the OK for one final gathering on Howard Street on May 6, I warned that they were likely to have a hard time with the cops. After all, Southern Station Capt. Denis O’Leary, the guy charged with setting their police fees, had come right out and sided with the handful of neighbors who were trying to kill the popular event. O’Leary promised to be fair. But now, How Weird organizer Brad Olsen tells the Guardian that the cops have more than doubled his fees, demanding $17,700 for beefed up patrols. That’s despite the fact that this year’s event ends two hours earlier than last year (another city demand), has never had significant law enforcement problems, and it’s fee last year was $7,700. O’Leary hasn’t yet returned my telephone call asking what this is about, but it doesn’t sound like he’s living up to his comment to me, “I’m very fair.” Meanwhile, the newly formed Outdoor Events Coalition is pushing City Hall to ease the administrative crackdown on street fairs. Stay tuned.
People do
By Steven T. Jones
Do people really praise a company for polluting the planet and local ecosystems, exploiting indigenous people and propping up corrupt regimes around the world, and making $17 billion in annual profits in the process? People do, and those people write for the business pages at the San Francisco Chronicle, which has just named Chevron its company of the year.
This is astonishing beyond words and surely a sign that the Chron doesn’t hold anything close to San Francisco values, which extend far beyond just corporate bottom lines. Consider that Chevron is a company that helped get us into the disastrous war in Iraq. It is a company waging economic warfare against people around the world. It is a company that has gouged American consumers to reap record profits and spend them against the public will.
This is the best company in the Bay Area? It’s closer to the worst.
Gore speaks, conveniently
Intern Sam Devine snuck into Al Gore’s recent local event. Here’s his report
On Tuesday night Former Vice President Al Gore appeared at the Nob Hill Masonic Center in an event sponsored by City Arts and Lectures and the California Academy of Sciences. He spoke in discussion with John McCosker, Chair of Aquatic Biology at the Academy, on the recently championed topic of global climate change.
Copies of Gore’s books, including “An Inconvenient Truth”, were for sale in the lobby. A few minutes after 8p.m. the lights went down in the sold-out Masonic Auditorium. Greg Farrington, Executive Director of the California Academy of Sciences, gave a brief introduction; noting that the Academies’ soon-to-be Golden Gate Park building will be one of the first publicly owned “green” buildings in the nation.
Gore and moderator McCosker took the stage and sat down in the artificial living room habitat – cushy red chairs and a round wooden coffee table with tulips. Gore wore a blue suit with the standard democrat blue tie and choice Tennessee footwear – cowboy boots. It’s safe to say that no one can recall the clothing McCosker wore -– his black-and-white Wicked-Witch-of-the-West socks eclipsed all else.
Ranting Gore
Photo from uglydemocrats.com
Did Critical Mass really go crazy?
By Steven T. Jones
The Chronicle’s Matier & Ross would have us believe that Critical Mass riders went nuts on Friday and started attacking a poor innocent family. I was on the ride and know how ridiculous that story was so I wrote Andy Ross (a colleague of mine on the City Desk NewsHour cable television program) the following e-mail. I’ll let you know how he responds.
THE COCKS OF CORPORATE WOLVERINES: Punk’s Not Dead. It’s just rotting in Dede Wilsey’s asshole.
By G.W. Schulz
Poor 7×7 magazine. They try so hard to sound authoritative on all the subjects they cover. And to be sure, they’re quite good at publishing photo spreads of wealthy philanthropists forcing bleached-white terrified grins like hostages hearing a your momma joke from a bank robber.
But if the subject doesn’t involve skin-tight “Juicy Couture” maternity jeans (page 16 in the April issue), or how to get naked with a stranger using feng shui (page 54 in the April issue – it’s not nearly as exciting as it sounds), then their coverage is likelier to fall flat on its face with an embarrassing thud.
For instance, punk rock is all the rage these days at San Francisco’s rag for the richest. A magazine like 7×7 understands counterculture and punk rock about as well as a dog understands irony. They’ll just never quite get it. (Do we really have to point any of this out?)
But with the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park hosting an exhibit for queen-of-the-punk-aesthetic fashion guru Vivienne Westwood, and the documentary Punk’s Not Dead appearing at the upcoming SF International Film Festival, the city’s opulently rich have decided shit is all about curling your lips and pumping your Prada purses defiantly in the air.
Another one bites the dust
By Steven T. Jones
Charlie Goodyear, a veteran political reporter for the Chronicle and my colleague on the City Desk NewsHour, has resigned from his journalism jobs to work for high powered flack Sam Singer, whose clients include Lennar Corp., the 49ers, and former Newsom consorts Alex and Ruby Tourk. I like Charlie and have respected his work, so it’s sad to see yet another experienced journalist leave the business. Like most who have done so, Charlie was pushed out by the increasingly unhappy environment at the Chronicle, which is pursuing yet another round of staff reductions, and pulled by the lure of big money offered by the public relations industry.
Jerry Brown loses his records
By Tim Redmond
The CoCo Times has this beauty of a report on the missing records from the mayoral administration of Jerry Brown. This kind of crap has been commonplace in San Francisco — exiting officials grab anything that might be negative or incriminating and flee with it — but I didn’t expect that from Jerry, who is not the state’s attorney general. Bad news.
Alice Club endorsement — no debate?
By Tim Redmond
The Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club may wind up endorsing Mark Leno for state Senate next month without even hearing from his opponent, Carole Migden.
The club voted March 12 to go ahead and suspend the normal rules to allow an early endorsement of Leno, who is challenging Migden for state Senate. Frankly, it’s not a big surprise — everyone knew that Alice would wind up backing Leno. That club is very much his political base.
Still, some club members thought that there ought to at least be a candidate’s forum before the final vote, where Migden would have a chance to show up and make her case. A motion to make the early endorsement contingent on that was handily defeated.
Now, club president Rebecca Prozan is scrambling to pull a forum together before the final endorement vote in April — but there’s guarantee it will happen. Prozan told me she thinks Migden should have been invited to speak before the final vote, “but the membership rejected that position.”
This strikes me as a bit unfair — and not a terribly productive way to go about local politics right now. Sure, Leno’s the club favorite, and that’s fine — but Migden is also a legitmate LGBT community leader with a credible record and constituency, and a queer San Francisco political organization in a potentially divisive race like this ought to go out of its way to be fair to all involved and not to leave anyone with bitter feelings.
Jerry Brown loses his records
By Tim Redmond
The CoCo Times has this beauty of a report target=”blank” on the missing records from the mayoral administration of Jerry Brown. This kind of crap has been commonplace in San Francisco — exiting officials grab anything that might be negative or incriminating and flee with it — but I didn’t expect that from Jerry, who is not the state’s attorney general. Bad news.
SF Port to Vote (and maybe cash in) on the Trans Bay Cable
By JB Powell
Tomorrow could be ‘show me the money’ day for the SF Port Commission. Commissioners there will vote on the Trans Bay Cable, a privately financed, $300 million power cord that would run underwater from Pittsburg. For weeks, staff members from the port as well as various other city agencies have been hammering out the details of a community benefits package with the cable’s developer, Australian financial firm, Babcock and Brown. The Guardian has obtained a staff report with details of the proposed benefits package. Several officials had already told us it was “significant” and they were right. If the deal goes through, the port will reap millions in rent and licensing fees, a needed cash-infusion for the strapped agency. The package also includes hefty sums for waterfront open space and, in perhaps the biggest news for the city, millions of dollars for the SF Public Utilities Commission. The SFPUC plans to use the funds to bankroll sustainable energy projects, including solar, wind, and tidal initiatives.
Why the largesse? Many of the cable’s shore-side facilities would be on port land. That means Babcock and Brown needs port commission approval before the project can move on to the last local regulatory step, the Board of Supervisors. If the cable goes through, it would plug the city’s electrical grid into 400 megawatts of power from plants in and around Pittsburg. But green power advocates claim the “59 mile extension cord” would be a “waste of resources.” Their biggest fear is that bringing all those relatively cheap megawatts into the city from fossil-fuel burning plants across the bay will derail the city’s plans to rely on more eco-friendly energy.
But the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) insists the city needs the cable or it will see blackouts in the future. Cal-ISO is the “public benefit corporation” in charge of the state’s grid. Sources in and around city hall have described the bind local leaders are in: they would rather look to greener power projects to solve the city’s energy needs, but electricity can be the third rail of California politics. Just ask Gray Davis. So, in an attempt to have their megawatts and eat them too, staff from the mayor’s office and several supervisors, as well as the port and SFPUC, pushed hard for the best “benefits package” they could get from the developer. It remains to be seen if the money for renewable energy projects will placate the activist community. Stay tuned to the Guardian for more coverage on the issue in the coming weeks.
More layoffs at the Chronicle?
By Steven T. Jones
steve@sfbg.com
Sources at the San Francisco Chronicle say that Editor Phil Bronstein and Hearst Corp. executives yesterday convened an hour-long emergency meeting at the paper to warn that more layoffs and other cost-cutting measures are on the way. They provided Chronicle staffers with few details, except to say that all temporary employees would be terminated at the end of the current pay period. Employees were simply told that the paper would be getting smaller and that more details on what that means would be coming in the near future.
Employee morale at the paper isn’t high right now, with this new round of cutbacks following a major staff reduction in 2005 (done primary through optional buyouts), new labor union contracts approved last year that significantly eroded employee rights and essentially broke the Pressman’s Union, an unseemly partnership between Hearst Corp. and competitor MediaNews, and the Chronicle’s recent decision to include advertising on the front of its Bay Area section and occasionally even on its front page.
We’ll have more on this unfolding story as it develops.
Death of Fun Redux
by Amanda Witherell
It’s almost fair and festival season in San Francisco, but we’ll see if some actually get a chance to be staged in the neighborhoods where they were born.
The North Beach Festival had a setback yesterday at the Operations Committee of the Recreation and Park Commission. According to festival organizer, Marsha Garland, commissioners Megan Levitan and Tom Harrison expressed concern about alcohol being consumed in city parks and the committee decided to kick the issue up to the full commission. Last year the same issues came up and Garland had made some changes to her proposal — no sale of booze in the park and more fencing of the masses — in order to mitigate concerns that the park and surrounding neighborhood are adversely affected rather during the two days of the festival. Garland and many merchants and citizens consider the festival a boon, bringing additional commerce and attention to their area of the city. An anti-group thinks the hood doesn’t need it.
Meanwhile, the future of the Haight Street Fair is being discussed tonight at the Park Branch Library, from 7 to 9 pm. Some key city and neighborhood planners will be there and it’s sponsored by the HAIGHT ASHBURY NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL (For more information, call Karen Fishkin, 921-2032).
The road looked like a ski slope…
By Kimberly Chun
Thought me and my pal were going to recreate the Donner Party’s flesh-chomping shenanigans this past weekend: we were caught in the snow storm over Highway 80 on Feb. 25, heading from Reno and the Who’s Feb. 23 US tour kickoff concert back to frisky ole Frisco. Scary, snow-slick road conditions and worse, frightening near-standstill traffic. We left Reno at 1 p.m. and at around 6 or 7 p.m. finally, carefully pulled into a slippery, icy, snowed-in Truckee – about five or six hours after we spotted a “Truckee: 12 miles” sign.
A winter wonderland for skiiers and fresh-air fiends – a nightmare for motorists.
The freeway resembled a ski run.
Californians really are equipped for “weather” conditions!
Check the dude in the T-shirt in the middle of a blizzard.
Fighters in City Hall
By Steven T. Jones
San Francisco City Hall hosted a different breed of fighters today as boxers Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather held a high-profile press conference for their May 5 bout in Las Vegas. The event was open to the public and hundreds of boxing fans seized the opportunity to take part in the spectacle, including Sal Anguiano, who traveled from Los Banos to start the line at 7 a.m. for the noon event. Like a majority of the crowd, Anguiano was rooting for De La Hoya and predicted his boy would knock the mouthy Mayweather out in the third round. While Mayweather spoke, the crowd broke into a chant of “Oscar, Oscar, Oscar.” A highly animated Mayweather, wearing a long sleeved brown shirt and huge crucifix made of diamonds, clowned his way through event, taunting the crowd and De La Hoya, promising to “beat his ass” and even shoving his opponent at one point. But De La Hoya, dressed in sweater and sharp gray suit, was all class, absorbing the taunts and saving his attacks for the ring. “Come May 5, I will be in the best shape of my life,” said De La Hoya, a 10-time world champion from East LA who is a cult hero, especially among Latinos. “He is considered the best fighter pound for pound, and come May 5, I’ll be ready for it.”
Middle of the Pack
by Amanda Witherell
The Earth Day Network just released its Urban Environment Report ranking the environmental conditions of the top 72 cities in the US. The study takes into account 200 different factors and ranks for best conditions regarding toxics and waste, air quality, health and human services, parks and recreation, quality of life, drinking water, and global climate change. Oh boy, you’re thinking. It’s going to be so cool to see how San Francisco stands out, with a Mayor who brags about how clean and green the city is.
Good thing he’s pledged to make it better. According to the weighted rankings, we’re just above average. See for yourself.
At least we beat Detroit!
How Weird is on — probably — for one last year
By Steven T. Jones
The How Weird Street Faire, which had its permits denied by city officials a couple weeks ago, won a bittersweet victory this morning at an appeals hearing before Department of Parking and Transportation administrator Bond Yee. “It’s clear to me this event is popular, and that’s a good thing, but that’s also a bad thing,” Yee said after hearing from supporters of the event and neighbors who complained that it’s just too big and loud. So he cut the baby in two by agreeing that it was too late to find a new venue for the May 6 event and awarding its permits for this year, but attaching several restrictive conditions (most notably, cutting the music off at 6 pm rather than 8) and ruling that this is the last year the event can be held in the neighborhood. “It’s my opinion that the event is too big for this venue,” Yee said. Yet even if event promoters can meet Yee’s conditions, they must still meet pending requirements from the San Francisco Police Department, whose commander for the region, Capt. Dennis O’Leary, spoke against the event at the hearing. “I support the community in this matter and I hear their voices. They don’t want it to happen,” he said. Yet event organizers submitted a petition signed by 100 people from the Howard Street neighborhood that support the event, whereas those complaining about the event number less than 10, although many are quite upset about having up to 10,000 descend on their neighborhood for the day. Last year’s event almost got canceled after police tried to double their security fees from the previous year, although higher-ups intervened and they were brought back down to reasonable levels. Asked by the Guardian about his apparent bias against this event, O’Leary said he wouldn’t be unduly harsh with How Weird promoters: “That’s not my reputation. I’m very fair.” Yet he also said, “I haven’t made up my mind as to staffing levels.”
Stay tuned.
UCSF Welcomes 28,000 Pound Scanner
By Cara Cutter
Whether you agree with coach Jimmy Dugan’s facetious comment in “A League of Their Own” that the brain is simply “the lump that’s three feet above your ass,” or take the more reverent view that it is the most extraordinary and complex creation in the universe, there is little doubt that the human brain is a subject of great interest to all of us. As the organ that orchestrates the symphony of our consciousness, it dictates our motions and emotions, our passions and purposes, and has garnered much public attention. President George W. Bush, in Presidential Proclamation 6158, declared the 1990’s as “the Decade of the Brain.” Time Magazine’s January 29, 2007, cover featured a compartmentalized brain and the headline, “The Brain: A User’s Guide.” The brain is fascinating!
