SFBG Blogs

Jerry’s bad budget

Zelda Bronstein
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19
Jerry’s bad budget

The Democrats in the Legislature did what they had to do, and passed the only budget that the governor would agree to. But Jerry’s Budget — and this will always be Jerry’s budget, since he’s the one who insisted on the terms — is pretty bad news.


I could have told the governor six months ago that he’d never, ever get Republican support for tax extensions. I could have told him that things are very different from the 1970s, when he was last governor. Back then, Republicans were actually interested in governing and would work with Democrats. Now they’re only interested in obstructing — and in sticking to a “no taxes” pledge that has severely damaged the state.


But no: Jerry had to be Jerry, and veto the budget the Democrats passed the first time, because he still thought he’d get his way.


Now he has a budget that (a) won’t work unless the economy continues to pick up and (b) protects prisons at the expense of education.


Imagine: The Democratic governor of California saying that he is willing to cut a week out of the school year — but isn’t willing to make comparable cuts in the state prison system.


Oh, and guess what? It gives Republicans the ability to crow about how California didn’t need those tax extensions in the first place.


Way to go, Guv.

SFBG Radio: Small business and jobs in SF

Zelda Bronstein
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0
SFBG Radio: Small business and jobs in SF

Today we talk about jobs in San Francisco — how the giant mega-employers of yore have left and how the public sector and small business are now the big employers in town. Listen after the jump.

TheLittleGuyWins by endorsements2010

Despite risks, Bay Area residents return to Gaza

Sasha Cuttler
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113
Despite risks, Bay Area residents return to Gaza

Kathy Sheetz says she isn’t afraid of what might happen when she sets sail again next week for Gaza. On her last trip she was welcomed by Israeli bullets, but she sees the message as more important than any possible consequences.

Her message, along with the hundreds of other activists who will be sailing to Gaza aboard 10 ships dubbed the Freedom Flotilla 2—Stay Human, is that Israel’s continued occupation of Gaza is unacceptable.

Sheetz, a 65-year-old Richmond resident, has sailed — or attempted to sail — to Gaza every year since 2008, when she and 43 other activists took two fishing boats to the shores of the Gaza. They had room only for themselves and safely arrived in Gaza. She realized the potential to come back with supplies and aid for the people. One necessity she had never thought of: hearing aids for children, some of whom are going deaf from the dropping of bombs.

Last year, the first Freedom Flotilla set sail for Gaza. Sheetz was one of many activists from around the world aboard six ships of the flotilla that were attacked by the Israeli Navy during an early morning raid in international waters.

Soldiers boarded the ships and attacked the unarmed passengers. They fired rubber bullets while a helicopter above the flotilla shot live rounds. In the end, nine activists died.

Still, she’s going back.

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Sheetz said. “(Palestinians in Gaza) seem to be paying a price and I think it’s wrong.”

Thirty-six activists, nine journalists, and four crew members will be aboard the American boat when it sets sail from an undisclosed port in Greece. Out at sea, it will meet up with nine other boats carrying activists from around the world. The port and launch date are being kept secret to avoid sabotage attempts by pro-Israeli enemies of the flotilla, said Jane Jewell, a media coordinator for the organization US Boat to Gaza.

The mission of the trip is not only to bring awareness to the situation in Gaza, but also to bring badly needed medical supplies and aid. Two of the ships in the flotilla are devoted to carrying cargo.

The American boat will only carry letters of support, though, in fear of retaliation by the U.S. government for being seen as aiding the terrorist organization Hamas.

All passengers aboard The Audacity of Hope, the name of the American boat, had to sign an awareness document that highlights the inherent dangers of the trip, including the possibility of death.

Henry Norr, 65, first visited Gaza in 2002 and has been to Palestine three times, witnessing injustices and working to spread the word. In 2005 he acted as a copy editor for the International Middle East Media Center, helping to report raids and arrests of activists.

“Everybody knows that there’s some danger,” Norr said. “We like to think that the Israelis will come to their senses.”

This will be the 10th trip made to Gaza since 2008. Of the previous nine, five arrived in Gaza successfully, three of the boats were detained in Israel and last years flotilla was outright attacked.

The Audacity of Hope, a name shared by the American boat and President Obama’s book, could signify the audaciousness of the journey or be a tongue-in-cheek joke, depending on who’s asked.

Both Jewell and Adam Shapiro, an organizer for the Free Gaza Movement, which helped organize the flotilla, felt Obama was just a puppet for Israel who does not have the courage to enact real change.

They said he backed down too easily to pressure from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Obama suggested earlier this year that Israel and Palestine revert to pre-1967 borders in an attempt to bring peace to the region.

The U.S. State Department also recently issued a statement condemning travel to Gaza.

“Previous attempts to enter Gaza by sea have been stopped by Israeli naval vessels and resulted in the injury, death, arrest, and deportation of U.S. Citizens,” said the statement. “The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem are not able to provide consular assistance in Gaza or on the high seas or coastal waters.”

Jewell, summing up the statement, said, “Americans citizens take second place to Israel.”

“They know that their American citizenship isn’t going to help them,” Jewell said of the activists.

Sheetz first found herself in Gaza in 1991 when trying to travel to Tel Aviv, Israel, for a conference. She hoped to rent a car in Rafah, Egypt, a border town with Gaza, but was instead forced onto a bus by an Israeli woman. She ended up in Tel Aviv, but not after wondering about what had happened.

“It was just a very odd experience,” Sheetz said. “I couldn’t describe it.”

Now she’s heading back, again, informed and with a mission.

“It’s not helping Israel,” Sheetz said of the occupation. “If they want security, this is not the way to go about it.”


Private cops at SF General?

Zelda Bronstein
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26
Private cops at SF General?


Truly astonishing moment at the June 23 Budget Committee hearing. The director of Public Health, Barbara Garcia, actually testified that San Francisco General Hospital would be better off with private security guards instead of sheriff’s deputies — because the deputies were only able to follow the law.


You can watch the video here. The discussion starts at 4:49. It begins with Sup. Scott Wiener, is his quiet Scott Wiener way, asking Garcia to talk about the plan to contract out hospital security.


Garcia first insisted that this was a way to save $2 million that would prevent further cuts to health programs. That’s always the primary argument for contracting out.


But then she went a step further.  An outside company, she said, could provide better security — because the (low paid, poorly trained) guards will be able to operate without the restrictions of being peace officers. “There are some restrictions on [the deputy sheriffs’] ability to restrain patients,” she said.


That wasn’t a slip of the tongue — Gregg Sass, the chief financial officer, repeated it again. “If a patient isn’t breaking the law,” he said, “a deputy sheriff won’t intervene.” More: “Private security can intervene. They’re not bound by the same limits that a deputy sheriff is bound by.”


Both Garcia and Sass noted that they wanted security officers who reported directly to them, not to an elected sheriff.


Am I the only one who thinks this is a little weird?


The money thing I understand. I don’t agree — often these supposed savings don’t show up in the end, and besides, do we really want people who get paid $13 an hour without benefits handling security at SF General? But I understand the argument.


On the other hand, the notion that peace officers have to follow rules, and so we should have people who don’t have to follow rules instead strikes me as pretty disturbing. And I’m not sure how true it is: Can a security guard hold and restrain a patient who hasn’t broken the law and isn’t covered by a legal order like a 5150?


I don’t think so. The folks at SEIU Local 1021 don’t think so, either: A flier the group put out notes that:


The issue of Sheriff’s Dept. having legal restraints applies equally to all employees. If there is no 5150 or 5250, no-one has a right to restrain the patient against their will; but a well trained Institutional Policeman can gently persuade a patient with Alzheimer’s to return to their unit.


And I have to say, the notion of having the Department of Public Health oversee a security force (instead of the Sheriff or the Police Department) is disturbing, too. The worst problems in police abuse tend to come from little fiefdoms that aren’t propertly managed — the BART Police, for example, and housing and transit cops in other jurisdictions. Nobody at DPH is trained to manage a security force.


What, exactly, are these (low paid, poorly trained) security guards going to do — grab patients who complain about waiting six hours to see a doctor and “restrain” them? What happens when somebody actually does commit a crime (or brings a gun or a knife into the hospital)? The guards can’t make an arrest. So they call the cops — who come, in due time, but maybe not quickly enough to prevent a disaster. And, of course, we then pay the cops to come and make the arrest.


I haven’t been able to reach Eileen Shields, the public information officer at the Health Department, but I can tell you: The language that her boss used at the Budget and Finance Committee was pretty frightening.


UPDATE: Shields sent me over Garcia’s memo on this, which lays out the case. It pretty much says it all: 


There are times when  patients are unable to control their behavior due to acute medical       
 illness, such as delirium or brain injury. These patients may present a   
 serious risk to their own safety as well as to the safety of other       
 patients and hospital staff.                                             
                                                                           
 These situations are not the result of – nor do they result in – illegal 
 activity. This puts the Sheriff’s deputies, whose responsibility is to   
 uphold the law, in a difficult situation when they are confronted with   
 potentially harmful (but not illegal) situations caused by acute,         
 non-psychiatric medical conditions. Outside security firms do not operate 
 under the same constraints. Instead, they function as members of the     
 health care team whose responsibility is to enforce hospital policy. They 
 are charged with ensuring a safe environment and can act with greater     
 freedom to ensure safety within the limits of the law but without the     
 additional requirements and expectations placed upon a law enforcement   
 officer.
 

Editorial: Three good initiatives for the fall ballot

Maria Poblet
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16

The progressive wing of the Board of Supervisors (including, to her credit, Sup. Jane Kim) has placed three important reform measures on the November ballot. That the measures are headed for the voters is a clear indication of the shift of power at the board — progressives no longer have a reliable six votes. But the progressives still have the ability to push issues — and in an mayoral election year, these measures will provide a valuable gauge for the candidates and create broad-based organizing opportunities.

The measures include a ban on the demolition of more than 50 units of rent-controlled housing; a ban on further admissions charges at parks or leasing park facilities to private companies; and a requirement that participants in the Care Not Cash program get an actual housing unit — not just a shelter bed — before their welfare grants are cut.

The supervisors are under immense pressure to back off from those proposals, and if two of the five supporters pull their names before the final deadline of July 14, the measures won’t make the ballot. Some argue that the controversy over the measures could threaten the mayoral campaign of progressive standard-bearer John Avalos. But Avalos told us he supports all three measures and has no interest in turning back. He’s right — the supervisors should hold firm and insist on a public vote on all three.

The Care Not Cash reform has already generated a lot of controversy. Mayor Ed Lee has denounced it, saying it will destroy the entire program, and two mayoral candidates, former Sup. Bevan Dufty and Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting, have come out against it. But the measure is pretty simple and straightforward: it says that a bed in a shelter doesn’t count as “housing.”

That’s a critical definition, because under Care Not Cash, the city tries to put homeless welfare recipients into housing, mostly single-room-occupancy hotels — and in exchange, takes back most of the welfare grants. But by law, a bed in a shelter counts as a home — so the minute the city finds someone a cot to sleep on in a noisy, sometimes dangerous shelter with no privacy and arbitrary curfews and rules, that person loses most of his or her welfare grant. Along the way, the city locks up shelter beds for people in the CNC program — so when other homeless people show up for a place to sleep, they’re told there’s no room. That’s a sign of a broken system.

The housing demolition measure comes as a response to a badly flawed proposal to rebuild Parkmerced — tearing down hundreds of rent-controlled housing units in the process. The parks measure is an attempt to stop Phil Ginsburg, head of the Recreation and Parks Department, from turning public property over to private for-profit firms in an effort to raise cash.

The community groups and grassroots sponsors of these measures have a responsibility to organize and mount serious campaigns; there’s going to be big-money opposition. But it’s worth having all three on the ballot in November.

 

Dick Meister: Can a woman beat Hoffa?

Maria Poblet
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0

 

A woman as president of the macho Teamsters Union that was once headed by supermacho Jimmy Hoffa? It could happen. 

Sandy Pope thinks so, and she’s going to try as hard as she can to make it happen – going to try as hard as she can to succeed Hoffa’s lawyer son, Jimmy junior, as head of one of the country’s largest and most powerful unions.

If a majority of delegates at the Teamster convention that opened today in Las Vegas vote for Pope to unseat Hoffa, who was first elected a dozen years ago, she’ll be only the third woman to ever head an international union.

Randi Weingarten, the highly regarded president of the American Federation of Teachers, who took office in 2008, is one of the others. The third is Mary Kay Henry, who just recently succeeded the controversial Andy Stern as president of the country’s largest union, the 1.3 million-member Service Employees International Union, the SEIU.

The Teamsters comes in at number two, with 1.2 million members. Hoffa’s supporters argue that Sandy Pope is not up to handling such a huge and diverse union. Her record, however, seems to indicate otherwise.

For 33 years, the 54-year-old Pope has held her own in the union’s macho culture, as a driver of big long haul freight trucks and as a warehouse worker.  For seven years she’s been president of a New York Teamster local of drivers and warehouse workers, one of only 16 of the Teamster’s 407 locals nationwide to be headed by a woman.

Before that, Pope was an international union representative in the Teamster’s warehouse division. She’s been a longtime leader of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), which has exposed much of the corruption that’s been common in the union since the days of Hoffa senior as president.

The TDU’s work has led to some important corrections in union operations, but much remains to be done, and it’s unlikely that Hoffa junior would do much about it.  As the incumbent, he’s running a status quo campaign. Some local level Teamster officials fear retaliation from Hoffa and his allies if they campaign for Pope.

But Pope certainly isn’t backing off one bit. She’s promising to halt or at least slow the concessions that Teamster negotiators have granted employers in recent years.  Under her, she says, the union” will close the concessions stand.”

It also would push the union’s officers off the gravy train. In one Minnesota Teamsters local closely allied with Hoffa, for instance, the principal officer is paid $200,000 a year. Hoffa himself is paid $363,000.  And that’s going on at the same time that many rank-and-file Teamsters are taking pay and benefit cuts and otherwise feeling the effects of a declining economy.

It’s what the pro-labor magazine “Labor Notes” quite accurately calls “the union leadership’s back-scratching, pocket-lining culture.”

Generally speaking, Pope’s promising to return to the basics of union operations – to build public support, mobilize the union’s current members and wage a major organizing drive to recruit new members. Pope also promises that some 20,000 of the union’s members whose jobs have been downgraded to part-time can expect a drive to make those jobs full-time.

It’s clear that, like many dissident Teamsters, Sandy Pope is “sick of having a lawyer with a big name hijack our union.”

 

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 300 of his columns.

 

Appetite: Dining with two European winemakers

Andrew Lam
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0
Appetite: Dining with two European winemakers

There’s nothing quite like dining with the person who made the wine you’re drinking — intimate and focused, it gives one a special insight into what’s in one’s glass. Earlier this month, I met with three Napa-Sonoma winemakers. Recently, I had the chance to spend time with two Europeans from the unparalleled regions of Bordeaux and Kamptal. Look for these wines in local wine shops — or ask that your shopkeeper stock them, they’re that good.

LAURENZ V., Austria – The Gruner Veltliners and Rieslings of Laurenz V.’s — whose name is pronounced “Laurenz Five” — hail from one of my favorite wine-making countries. I adore these two varietals when they come from skilled hands, and those of Laurenz Maria Moser V certainly qualify. He comes from five generations of winemaking, and his grandfather was the legendary Professor Dr. Lorenz Moser III, inventor of the Lenz Moser Hocherziehung trellising system that caught on across European vineyards.

Lunch with Moser entailed colorful stories and many a laugh — the man is hilarious. It also meant a line-up of gorgeous Gruners from a terraced landscape in the Kamptal region, north of Vienna. His wines are stainless steel-fermented, a technique which yields a crisp, bright Gruner profile.

We tasted through seven Gruners, from a juicy 2009 Laurenz und Sophie Singing to his Charming line (years 2005-2009). I was partial to the 2005, full and balanced with acidity and apple spice, as well as the 2006 with its clean nose and creamy yet mineral taste. We even sampled a honeyed 1980 (!) Gruner to witness the possibilities of a Gruner aging — contrary to popular opinion, they can mature quite prettily. 

We ended with a lively citrus-apple 2009 Prinz Von Hessen ‘H’ riesling and a lush, grapefruit-touched Johannisberger Klaus Riesling Kabinett Trocken. The two reflected the range of beautiful wines that come out of Austria. 

 

Chateau Palmer, Bordeaux, France – When one is invited to a personal dinner with a winemaker from Bordeaux, France, it’s a requirement to jump at the opportunity. During three plus hours with Bernard de Laage at Berkeley’s Claremont Hotel we tasted twelve Chateau Palmer, de Laage’s blends of equal parts merlot and cabernet sauvignon with just a touch of petit verdot. Comparing vintages side by side, we were able to gain a deeper appreciation of the inflections and strengths brought by each harvest. 

For me, the stand outs were the lush 2000 Palmer, the less aged but still bright 2005 Alter Ego — a robust, young expression of Chateau Palmer — an opulent and exuberant 1999 Palmer, and the musty, full, smoky but acidic 2002 Palmer. I actually couldn’t find a single low point in the 1998-2006 line-up.

The evening, part of Berkeley Wine Festival (check out its site for future dinners), was over the top — spectacular views of the San Francisco Bay from the back room of Claremont Hotel’s Meritage restaurant. Twinkling lights on a warm night made a brilliant partner to rising star chef Josh Thomsen‘s menu. I was duly impressed with all his dishes, and wouldn’t be surprised if we see a lot more from him in coming years. My top dish of the five course dinner was the Maine sea scallops topped with Hudson Valley foie gras. Served over rhubarb-balsamic compote and endive, it was the dining pinnacle of the night. But for sheer satisfaction, I’m giving my points to Thomsen’s succulent Creek Stone beef short rib.

All in all, a happy marriage of wine, food, people, and setting.

 

— Subscribe to Virgina’s twice monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot

 

DREAM Act would reduce deficit, strengthen military…and perhaps save the world

Mary Magee
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Last December, when the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act came up five votes short in the Senate, advocates began to worry that this seemingly modest piece of immigration reform, which offers a pathway to citizenship for undocumented youth who do well in college and/or serve in the military would not be able to get the necessary votes, even with Barack Obama as President. Rahm Emanuel, who served as Obama’s Chief of Staff up until last October, was reportedly criticized by some for allegedly not doing enough to support immigration reform. And frustration was high, as the community was forced to petition U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) each and every time they heard that a well-performing student, with no criminal record, like Steve Li or Mandeep was about to be sent to a country that they barely knew–taking their education and knowledge of the United States with them.

But six months later, the DREAMers (undocumented students who want to serve their adopted country) are refusing to take “no” for an answer. (In December, Steve Li won a reprieve, and last week ICE decided not to deport Mandeep, who was voted in high school as “most likely to save the world.” ) And now Emanuel, who was sworn in as Chicago’s mayor in May, is raising his voice in support of the DREAM Act, which Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who has been fighting for immigration reform for more than a decade, is sponsoring. And they are hoping to turn the tide and get Republicans to vote for legislation they say will reduce the deficit, build up the military and perhaps, by not deporting young U.S. trained geniuses, even save the world.

“The DREAM Act is consistent and reinforces the values of citizenship,” Emanuel said during a June 27 telephone call with reporters on the eve of the U.S. Senate’s first-ever hearing on the DREAM, which Durbin will chair June 28. “Having a DREAM Act pass at the national level will help us reinforce the right type of values,” Emanuel continued, noting that Colin Powell, a retired four-star general who was Secretary of State under President G.W. Bush, and Obama’s retiring Sec. of Defense Robert Gates, both support Durbin’s bill

Rahm was joined by Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Margaret Stock, a former professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, in arguing that the DREAM Act will stimulate the economy and benefit themilitary, by allowing thousands of top-performing U.S.-educated youth to give back to their adopted country rather than face deportation to countries they barely remember, where they could fall victim of forces that don’t have America’s interests at heart.

As former head of Chicago Public Schools, Duncan said he met plenty of students who “happened not to be born in America” but had excelled in public schools, only to find the door slammed shut, when it was time to go to college. “We need to summon the courage and political will to do the right thing for our country,” he said.

Duncan pointed to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Vargas, whose story about his life as an undocumented immigrant was turned down by the Washington Post, before the New York Times magazine published it this weekend. “How many other Pulitzer Prize winners are there out there?” he asked.

And former West Point professor Margaret Stock explained that many of the DREAMers have great potential as military recruits, but are barred from enlisting, even though some of them try to anyway, under the current system.  “They are patriotic, honorable and want to serve the country,” Stock said.

Some of these potential recruits won’t qualify, because they have asthma or physical impairments, Stock noted. But she predicted that those that do, will do very well, based on a Pentagon study that showed that legal immigrants who enlist outperform U.S. citizens. And that, Stock added, could help fill the recruitment gap that is coming, as the economy recovers, and the U.S.-born population continues to age.

Records show that the military hasn’t had any difficulty meeting its goals since the economy tanked, a few years ago. But Stock predicted that the U.S. Armed Forces will face a difficult recruitment climate, as the recession ends. Unless the DREAM Act, which would dramatically enlarge the number of potential military recruits, passes.  “It would allow us to tap into a pool of homegrown talent that is highly motivated to join,” she said.

Asked what the point of the June 28 hearing is, given that the Republican votes for the DREAM Act still don’t seem to be there, Secretary Duncan, who will testify June 28 on behalf of the DREAM Act with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and Clifford Stanley, the Pentagon Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness, replied,” to continue to raise awareness and build a groundswell of support.”

“I don’t think anyone has given up hope that we can do the right thing,” Stock added. “What may have changed is the serious talk about reducing the debt. “
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According to a December 2010 Congressional Budget Office report, enacting the DREAM Act would save an estimated $1.3 billion over the next ten years. Supporters say that in addition to helping the military, the legislation would help fill 3 million job vacancies in the fields of stem cell, science and mathematics.
And as Stock pointed out, it makes no sense to deport large numbers of U.S. educated youth to foreign countries, where they risk being recruited to work for foreign governments against the U.S.’s best interests.

Asked whether new military recruits are really needed, now that Obama has announced a troop draw down in Afghanistan, Stock said that taking troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq doesn’t really reduce the global situation. “We constantly face crises in which we need the intervention of the U.S. military,” Stock said.

“We’re not turning into an era of full peace, and we expect to see a ten percent decline in pool of eligible recruits,” she said, noting that 35 percent of the U.S. citizens who sign up for the military fail medical fitness tests, another 18 percent fail because of drug and alcohol abuse, and 5 percent have criminal conduct problems.

“So, a crisis is coming, even with the draw down,” Stock continued, noting that the population of legal green card holders remains “relatively flat” even as the numbers of those who are legally here but can’t get a green card, and the numbers of those without documents but willing to serve, grows.

Stock noted that when you deport young people to countries they barely know and where they have no social safety net, they are in danger of being recruited by folks who might be at cross purposes with the United States. “The rise of MS-13 is directly related to our deportations to Central America,” Stock said. “The gang became their social network.”

Stock acknowledged that DREAM Act eligible students are “highly educated, high quality Americanized people,” and aren’t likely to become members of a gang. But they could be of interest to foreign militaries and intelligence organizations, she warned.

Asked how many non-citizens who are in the U.S. legally enlist in the military each year, Stock said about 9,000 non-citizens. But she noted that while documented non-citizens can join the military, they are however barred from becoming officers or attending West Point. “Most jobs are not open to them,” she said.  In other words, the DREAM Act doesn’t change the military’s requirements. But it would allow a much bigger number of non-citizens to join the military and eventually become citizens, which, in turn, would open more doors to them in the military, too.

And so ended the press conference ahead of Tuesday’s first-ever Senate hearing on the DREAM Act, which reportedly is being held in a large hearing room to accommodate at least 200 student supporters, including the daughter of a family of Albanian immigrants who was valedictorian of her Michigan high school class and is currently fighting deportation.

“These are young people who have that kind of exciting look in their eyes that they want to be part of the world,” Durbin, whose mother was a Lithuanian immigrant, recently said. “But they can’t make that first move toward the life that they want to live because they are undocumented.”

Predictably, the DREAM Act is being used as a recruiting tool for conservative groups, who argue that the DREAM is tantamount to amnesty for folks whose parents broke the law. These groups are already battling state-level Dream Act legislation in Maryland, which does not provide a pathway to citizenship but provides in-state tuition for qualified undocumented students. But a poll from Opinion Research Corporation in June 2010 found that 70 percent of likely voters support the DREAM, including 60 percent of Republican likely voters.

With the next election already looming, DREAMers aren’t likely to let up the pressure any time soon…so this could be an interesting political ride. Let’s hope it ends well for all the young people who are currently stuck in the middle of this Catch 22-like situation.
 

Carrot coladas: Vegan happy hour, anyone?

Andrew Lam
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0
Carrot coladas: Vegan happy hour, anyone?

A short list of cocktails that are not vegan: Irish coffee, anything involving Drambuie or Martini and Rossi vermouth, cheese-garnished Bloody Marys. (Thanks Barnivore.)

This spring, I interviewed six SF vegans on the state of animal product-free lifestylin’ out here in the Bay. They agreed it was all pretty awesome, given the kitchen creativity and commitment to healthy eating that lives out here. But they identified one thing that our hills and valleys are lacking: a strong sense of vegan community. 

And what’s a better community builder than alcohol?A vegan — and thus more hardcore — version of worldwide sustainability boozery crew Green Drinks, Vegan Drinks SF has been gathering up meat-defeaters for the past two years, dumping them (with fair notice) on the city’s watering holes for a vegan cocktail special, scintillating mingling opportunities, and drunken event announcements to cap the whole thing off. This week, there’s a meet-up at Martuni’s on Thurs/30. We caught up with Elizabeth Castoria, the managing editor of Vegan Drinks progenitor VegNews, to find out more about the phenomenon. 

Ah, and if you’re really feeling the concept, you might try meat-free speed dating.

 

San Francisco Bay Guardian: How many meetings of Vegan Drinks SF have there been? 

Elizabeth Castoria: We started in February of 2009, and typically skip the months of November and December because since Vegan Drinks is always held on the last Thursday of the month, those two months tend to get swallowed by the holidays. If my math’s right, that’s 25 meetings so far. 

 

SFBG: Are the drinks specifically vegan? I know that animal products tend to lurk in alcoholic beverages when you least expect them.

EC: The nice thing is that the vast majority of hard liquor is vegan (it’s much more common to find beer and wine that’s been processed with animal byproducts). Our monthly drink special changes up, but it’s always a liquor-based martini. 

 

SFBG: Who are the Vegan Drinkers? How many people came to the last event? 

EC: We don’t take tickets at the door or anything, but about 50 were in attendance at the last event. The group usually ranges between around 50-ish people to 75-ish, and it’s a real mix. Most are probably between the ages of 25 and 55, and the personalities are diverse, as in any group. Most are professionals who come right from work. 

 

SFBG: Why Martuni’s for this one? Does the place have a special vegan allegiance? 

EC: When we were scouting out places, Martuni’s seemed like a really good fit because it has a fairly spacious back room that’s semi-private. Skip, the owner, has been really wonderful about coming up with creative drink specials every month. He also happens to have both a popcorn popper and a really adorable little hot dog cart, and he went out and got us a bunch of vegan hot dogs, buns, and condiments that sold for $1. It’s wonderful to partner with someone who’s so enthusiastic! 

 

SFBG: And knowing Martuni’s, there will be some amazing lounge act in the back room…

EC: Ha! Not intentionally. Though Martuni’s martinis are notoriously strong, so after a few, you never know! We do, however, have a brief announcement period at the end of every event so that anyone who has a project or opportunity to share has the chance to do so. 

 

SFBG: Drunk events announcements, love it. Why’d you start Vegan Drinks? 

EC: Vegan Drinks as an idea actually started in New York in 2008. When our staff started seeing photos from their events that looked like way too much fun, we got jealous. So we started our own chapter! The point is just to create a space for people to come together, spend time among like-minded folks, and hang out. It purposefully doesn’t have an agenda beyond “let’s have drinks and chat” because so often events are fundraisers, or outreach, or festivals, or readings, or something else that involves a level of obligation, and it’s really nice to just get together with people in the community and hang out without any pressure. 

 

SFBG: Have you seen any interesting animal product-free collaborations spring up out of these meetings? What are the hot vegan conversation topics that people are mingling over these days?

EC: Certainly some networking happens, and some projects have come from that. For example, even with Vegan Drinks itself, we started organizing the events, and then connected with the Vegansaurus bloggers, and now we co-sponsor the event with them. In terms of hot topics, food is a nearly ubiquitous theme at vegan gatherings. New restaurants, places people have eaten recently for the first time and had either good or bad experiences, new recipes people are experimenting with and those kinds of things definitely come up.

 

(Carrot colada photo by Wendall T. Webber via Food & Drink)

 

Vegan Drinks

Thurs/28 6-8 p.m., free with purchase of drink 

Martuni’s 

4 Valencia, SF

(415) 241-0205

www.sfvegandrinks.com

 

What goes around Hong Sang-soo disassembles the love triangle in “Oki’s Movie”

Sue Vaughan
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0
What goes around Hong Sang-soo disassembles the love triangle in “Oki’s Movie”

The drab realism of Hong Sang-soo’s films is more testing apparatus than window. His romantic narratives foreground structural operations (doublings, loops, intersections) in a gamely way; a set template of characters and situations also contributes to the impression of his films as moral prisms.

Oki’s Movie, one of only three movies the South Korean auteur has released in the last two years, is split into four sections of perplexing relation, but which together establish a lucid distance from a conventional love triangle. Doubters look upon Hong’s prodigious output as evidence of artistic complacency, while admirers point to the centrality of revision in his work (it’s the process by which he peels the onion of art in life and life in art). What sometimes gets lost in the discussion is that Hong’s narratives still have a delightful capacity to surprise. Oki’s Movie looks like it was shot fast and cheap, but its fluid shifts in perspective and rueful examination of the storytelling impulse are very fine indeed.

Oki’s Movie begins on a telling note of displacement when the wife of Jingu (Lee Seon-kyun) wife calls him by the wrong name as they leave their apartment. He’s the familiar Hong type: a ragingly insecure filmmaker-professor who interacts with everyone, whether stranger or wife, with the same grubby defensiveness. Within a few short scenes, we’re already launched into the inevitable whiskey-fueled meltdown, as Jingu impoliticly confronts his mentor, Professor Song (Moon Sung-guen), with another faculty member’s accusations. The pacing of this long take degradation is characteristically precise, with Jingu’s narrow perspective neatly reflected in Hong’s zooms and pans.

Jingu feels threatened by three women in the film’s first act (his wife, a stranger who snaps his photo, and a young woman who confronts him with a previous romantic entanglement during a Q&A following one of his films), but none are named Oki. By the time we begin to wonder about this, the opening credits are rolling again. Confusingly, we begin this second segment with Jingu and Song watching the end credits of a film (Jingu’s) on a computer monitor. We wonder if the previous act was a film-within-the-film, but this seems paradoxical when we realize that there has been a shift back in time. Here Jingu is Song’s student rather than his junior colleague. In any case, Oki (Jung Yumi) is just outside the door.

We can tell from her charged hello with Song that there’s something between them. A moment later Jingu lurches into his obdurate seduction. Eventually he cajoles Oki into bed, though Hong’s slipshod narrative keeps us from assigning any kind of finality to their embrace.

Even as we expect the narrative to upend the male initiative, it still comes as a tonic to have the movie turned over to Oki for the film’s final, eponymously titled act. In voiceover, Oki sets up the kind of controlled experiment Hong thrives upon: she will cut between two identical park strolls taken with both men to better judge her relationship with each.

One of Hong’s modes of indirection is to plant ideas which could easily be taken as reflections upon his own filmmaking in the mouths of all his characters. He surely identifies with both Jingu’s narcissism and Oki’s analytical rigor, in other words, but it’s only in this last segment that Hong admits a degree of lyricism into the film. The heretofore flat winter light softens and arches towards twilight. There’s real poignancy to Oki’s reflections, but it only comes when we’re most deeply embedded in the artifice of Hong’s narrative construction. “Things repeat themselves with differences I can’t understand,” she muses. Having specified the conditions of the repetitions doesn’t make resolution any less elusive. The only solution is to go on making films.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_T9f8o-HTA

The undocumented journalist at the Chron

Zelda Bronstein
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4
The undocumented journalist at the Chron

I realize Phil Bronstein has to wring his hands about hiring Jose Antonio Vargas as a reporter in 2000 not knowing the guy lacked documentation. But after I read the Vargas story in The New York Times, all I could think of was: Man, I would have been proud to be one of the editors who hired that guy.


Bronstein worries:


Am I a dupe? A felon, at least according to a new Alabama law that might find me guilty of “harboring” Vargas in my office the other day? Or am I supporting a potentially powerful new immigration movement?


There’s no way to tell for sure when immigration laws themselves are a hopeless jumble of unenforced, unenforceable or just plain unaddressed issues covering 11 million people.


The executive editor at the Washington Post proclaims that “what Jose did was wrong.”


Give me a fucking break.


Vargas came to this country at age 12. His mom sent him to live with her parents. He had no idea he was “illegal.” He didn’t figure it out until he tried to get a driver’s license at age 16. What was he supposed to do — turn himself in?


He did what he had to do, and what he had to do was figure out ways around an inhumane and unacceptable immigration system. Good for him.


I have no mixed feelings about this at all. I’m just sorry he never worked for me.


Ethics chief says “Run, Ed, Run” must register honestly

Sasha Cuttler
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24
Ethics chief says “Run, Ed, Run” must register honestly

As the pseudo-campaign to convince Mayor Ed Lee to change his mind and run for mayor prepares to open a campaign office tomorrow morning – an event with all the trappings of a real campaign but without the candidate or the regulatory controls – the Ethics Commission is asking it to re-register in a less deceptive way.

As the Examiner reported this morning, Progress for All, the group behind the Run, Ed, Run campaign – which has set up a website, bought advertising, and printed and circulated campaign materials around the sole purpose of promoting a mayoral campaign – registered as a political action committee (one not subject to campaign contribution limits or other controls) even though Ethics Director John St. Croix said it is clearly formed around a primary purpose.

Today, St. Croix tells the Guardian that he has asked Progress for All to re-register as a committee formed around the specific purpose of promoting Lee for mayor, but that “I don’t know that they responded completely in the affirmative.” Guardian calls to the group’s main contract Gordon Chin, who also runs the Chinatown Community Development Center, were not returned.

Despite statements to the Examiner by Progress for All campaign consultant Enrique Pearce that this campaign isn’t unprecedented (he cited the 1999 mayoral write-in campaign of Tom Ammiano, who was a willing participant in the effort and formed a campaign committee), St. Croix said it is unprecedented and his office is figuring out how to regulate it.

“There aren’t regulations specifically designed for a scenario like his,” he told us. “They can’t operate in the absence of regulations.”

Right now, while Progress for All lists five co-chairs of the committee, the public has no way of knowing who’s funding the group, how much individual donors have given, or how much is being spent to make the campaign appear to have popular support. That will become more clear at the end of July when the semi-annual campaign finance reports are due, and St. Croix said his office plans to “carefully examine” those filings in order to decide how to proceed.

The group’s current filings list its purpose as “general civic education and public affairs,” but St. Croix said the public has a right to know that it has actually formed around a single candidate. While the courts have struck down fundraising limits for committees like this, the group’s website seems to limit contributions to the maximum individual contribution of $500, apparently acknowledging that there are potential legal problems with its current approach.

Lee has repeatedly said that he doesn’t want to run for mayor and has not encouraged this effort, but he has done little to discourage the efforts by a group led by his closest political allies, so he could be sullied by group’s tactics if he eventually decides to run. St. Croix says that if Lee runs and his campaign has any overlap with the current efforts, it will raised troubling issues of whether there has been any collusion between the two campaigns, which is illegal.

Despite the concerns expressed by Ethics, the agency doesn’t have a great track record of being tough with powerful campaign finance violators, as a Grand Jury report released this week argues. For example, although the Guardian and Bay Citizen each reported back in October about an independent expenditure (partially funded by Willie Brown) on behalf of Jane Kim’s supervisorial campaign that was done through Pearce’s Left Coast Communications, which was Kim’s campaign consultant, that apparently illegal action was never followed up by the Ethics Commission. St. Croix has said he can’t comment on that incident, and he responded to the grand jury report by noting that its recommendations were mild even though “the report itself uses some fighting words,” and he said he was preparing a formal response.

Although some activists have argued that those expressing concerns about this stealth campaign are somehow being undemocratic, the reality is that Progress for All is the only mayoral campaign not playing by the rules. And there are rules that govern elections, rules set up precisely so the public knows who’s really behind the campaign propaganda.

PRIDE TOP 5: Bobby Viteritti’s sleaze songs

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
PRIDE TOP 5: Bobby Viteritti’s sleaze songs

DJ Bobby Viteritti, the resident DJ at San Francisco’s legendary Trocadero Transfer from 1977 – 1981, appears on the new Horse Meat Disco CD, Horse Meat Disco III — he curates a disc of favorite “sleaze songs.” And you KNOW he’s got the dance floor goods, henny. After the jump, he sleazes us up and reminds us how hot Pride used to get (and will this weekend again).

Bobby Viteritti’s Top 5 sleaze songs 

1. “Runaway Love” by Linda Clifford (Curtom), 1978 

2. “Walk the Night” by Skatt Brothers (Casablanca), 1979 

3. “Evolution” by Giorgio Moroder (Casablanca), 1978 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuGGrRXW67k

4. “Hot Butterfly” by Bionic Boogie (Polydor), 1978 

5. “Anambra” by Ozo (DJM), 1976 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhjsy5K9yr0

 

Civil Grand Jury slams shipyard development project

Mary Magee
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5
Civil Grand Jury slams shipyard development project

“The Civil Grand Jury concludes that the Hunter’s Point Shipyard redevelopment project will require more communication, more transparency, and more commitment from the City in order to achieve its goals of providing housing, jobs and economic development, tax revenue and open spaces to San Francisco and its residents, particularly those residing in the surrounding neighborhoods.”

So reads the conclusion of the Civil Grand Jury’s 2010-2011 report, which is titled, “Hunters Point Shipyard: a shifting landscape.” The report makes six findings and seven recommendation that city departments and the Board will have to respond to within the next 60-90 days. And some of these recommendations reflect problems the Guardian unearthed and highlighted during in its coverage of the development.

The jury found that the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) is not in compliance with its pledge to the California Department of Public Health to keep residents informed of developments at the Hunters Point Shipyard. As the report’s authors note, the SFDPH’s website “is not regularly updated.”

The jury also found that the City has placed itself in a potentially compromising situation with developer Lennar where in essence, “the wolf is paying the shepherd to guard the flock.”

The jury further noted that by having developer Lennar reimburse the city for monitoring expenses associated with the shipyard project, SFDPH has created a situation that “could raise doubt in the public’s mind about its commitment to proactively and impartially enforce environmental health regulations even when it might adversely impact Lennar.”

Public trust in the SFPDH has been further jeopardized by its failure to update its website in a timely manner, and its apparent reluctance to comment publicly on the best method to deal with the clean-up of Parcel E-2, which is the site of a former dump and deemed one of the most polluted parcels of land on the shipyard.

The jury found that the above concerns were “further reinforced by the recent release of email messages that purportedly showed inappropriate communications between senior officials at the SFDPH and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Lennar.”

The jury found that with the exception of Parcel A, the City has no legal control over the remaining shipyard property. “Consequently, in a technical sense, the City has no authority over matters dealing with deadlines and deliverables for environmental clean-up. However, the City does in fact have some standing in these matters via the 2004 conveyance agreement between the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA) and the Navy. The agreement stipulates that the Navy will work collaboratively with the SFRA and share information about cleanup work.”

Last but not least, the jury found the previous efforts by the City to implement workforce policies at city-funded construction projects such as the shipyard have “largely proved ineffective” as they only require contractors to make good-faith efforts, but that earlier this year, a new local hire ordinance was implemented with stricter requirements and mandates.

Based on these findings, the jury recommended that SFDPH needs to update its shipyard project website on a weekly or monthly basis, immediately stop accepting money from Lennar to pay for monitors at the shipyard and cover the costs from its own resources, rigorously enforce conflict of interest guidelines governing deals between its officials and the companies they are monitoring, and conduct its own environmental assessment of the issue of capping Parcel E-2 and make its findings available to the public for comment.

The jury also recommended that because the Navy still owns the majority of the shipyard land and therefore the city has no direct control over deadlines and deliverables, it is critical that the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and SFDPH be “particularly vigilant in monitoring clean-up activities at the shipyard.”

The jury further recommended that the City and the SFRA should have “contingency plans in place” for continuing Redevelopment-related projects, including the shipyard, “in the event State redevelopment plans are cut or eliminated.”

Last but not least, the jury recommended that to ensure that promised job creation goals for the shipyard are realized, “the City should ensure that the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement has sufficient resources to allow it to effectively enforce the provisions of the new workforce laws.”

According to the conditions of the Civil Grand Jury’s report, for each finding the responding parties must report if the recommendation has been implemented or not, whether it requires further analysis, or was not implemented because it is either unwarranted or not reasonable.

So, expect to see some fireworks in the coming weeks, given that the Mayor’s Office, the Board, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, SFDPH, the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement, the Redevelopment Agency and the BAAQMD have been named as the responding parties in this report…

Romancing queer celebrity JD Samson during Pride

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Romancing queer celebrity JD Samson during Pride

How adorable is JD Samson? As a member of the legendary electro-feminist band Le Tigre and currently the force behind MEN, her music skills alone bank winning points. When you add in that little mustache, messy hair, and big dorky glasses, Samson becomes a full-on queer sex symbol. And guess what ladies? She’s here and DJing SOM Bar‘s Saturday night Pride party. 

The dancefloor is bound to be packed with gay-weekend celebrating hotties but if Samson is truly the apple of your eye, you might have to step up your game. Her last gf was Sia, the ridiculously cool Austrailian pop-singer who never fails to spew awkwardly entertaining stories, as seen by her interview with the Bay Guardian last year. The musical couple broke up this Spring and while it’s not confirmed that Samson is/is not carting a new beau, this party could very well be your chance to romance a queer celebrity with a ridiculous cool-factor. 

;

Samson’s musical stylings are known to be eclectic but there’s no doubt her DJ choices for SOM’s “Lights Down Low” event will be electronic, hard, and very grind-able. Blur’s “Girls & Boys” will probably make a justified appearance on the playlist. Her cohorts for the evening will include Nomi Ruiz, a member of Hercules and Love Affair and Jessica 6, which plays the Pride Main Stage on Sunday.

If you’re somehow unfamiliar with Samson’s previous work or just haven’t completely been convinced of her charm, check out her It Gets Better video. Awwwww, JD!

LIGHTS DOWN LOW: ANNUAL PRIDE EDITION W/JD SAMSON AND NOMI RUIZ

Sat/25, 8 p.m., $15

SOM Bar

2925 16th Street, SF

www.Som-Bar.com

 

 

 

Fixing Care not Cash

Zelda Bronstein
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18
Fixing Care not Cash

I will admit to a bias up front: I was against Care Not Cash in 2002, when Gavin Newsom used it as a cynical play to get elected mayor by bashing the homeless. I always argued that the city would be taking away the already-tiny welfare payments from people in exchange for housing that isn’t there. Imagine living on $422 a month in San Francisco. Now imagine that’s been cut to $59 a month — because the city’s determined that you can sleep in a shelter bed. Great fucking deal.


And that’s what happens. Care not Cash allows the city to reduce a homeless person’s general assistance grant to $59 a month as soon as the city finds housing for the person. And a shelter counts as housing.


There are lots of problems with the scenario — like this and and this. In essence, the city sets aside a certain number of shelter beds for people in the CNC program, but they don’t all show up, so there are empty beds — and people who need a place to sleep can’t get them because they’re earmarked as “housing” for an anti-homeless program.


So five supervisors have come up with a ballot initiative that would make one small, but significant change in the Care Not Cash legislation. It would specify that shelters don’t count as housing. That’s it. That’s the entire amendment. (You can read the proposed law here (pdf)


It makes perfect logical sense. You want to tell a homeless person that instead of giving you welfare payments, we’re going to give you housing? Fine. Then make it housing. Wasn’t that the premise of CNC from the start?


But somehow, CNC stalwarts (including those who make money off the program) are outraged, claiming this will gut the entire effort. In the Chronicle story, Mayor Ed Lee notes that


“By removing the shelter system from the available benefits provided to Care Not Cash recipients, we dismantle this path to getting people housed, ultimately undermining the success of the nationally recognized, award-winning program.”


Of course, the proposal doesn’t remove the shelter system from the available benefits. Sup. Jane Kim, the sponsor, and her colleagues aren’t talking about shutting down shelters or kicking homeless people out. The measure just says you can’t take someone’s welfare grant away just because you found him or her a temporary cot in a noisy, often unsafe shelter that offers no privacy and operates under random rules that at lot of us would find intolerable. 


Again, my bias is against the entire premise of Care Not Cash. I think the city (and the state and the feds) ought to be providing homeless people with enough money to get a place to live and enough to eat. That’s the way it used to work — when I arrived in San Francisco, you could actually afford to rent a room in a shared house with General Assistance money, and you could live reasonably — not in luxury, but reasonably — on federal SSI payments. But the cost of housing has so outstripped the increase in welfare payments that people wind up on the streets. 


But if we’re going to do the Care Not Cash thing, shouldn’t the city be required to provide real housing before the grants get cut off?


Randy Shaw, who runs a bunch of Care Not Cash hotels under city contract, doesn’t think so. He argues that


[T]he measure repeals CNC’s central premise that homeless single adults on welfare should not get $422 per month if they refuse SRO housing. The initiative also dramatically reverses San Francisco homeless policy: it replaces a system designed to get homeless people housed with one subsidizing homeless people to live permanently in shelters. The measure increases homelessness and provides no alternative funding to make up for the millions of CNC dollars that would be eliminated from the city’s supportive housing budget.


 I understand the concern about the CNC money (some of which, again, goes to Shaw’s operation). If the city starts paying $422 a month to some people who are now only getting $59, that money will have to come from someplace. But this whole notion that the proposed change will allow the city to give cash grants to people who “refuse SRO housing” seems a bit off.


“We haven’t changed that part at all,” Jennifer Freidenbach, who runs the Coalition on Homelessness and was involved in drafting the measure, told me. “People who refuse SRO housing would still get their grants cut.”


I asked Shaw about this — and also about my understanding that there isn’t enough SRO housing for every homeless person who wants a place to live. Should people on the waiting list get their grants cut off because the city can stick them in a shelter in the meantime?


For whatever reason, my old pal Randy hasn’t responded. (I continue to be boggled by two things — Shaw never calls people before he trashes them, and he seems unwilling to have substantive debates with me when I want to talk to him. That last time I emailed him to ask why he didn’t call people for comment, he responded: “I see the issue very differently and disagree with your premise.” How is that helpful? This time he didn’t answer at all.)


The oddest thing is that Shaw — a longtime housing advocate who has spent 30 years working to help low-income people — has adopted a remarkably strident, even harsh tone that reminds me of the rhetoric that Newsom and his allies used to use. Consider:


Understand we are talking about people who have the option of accepting permanent housing but refuse. People who want to get a full city grant, live in a city-funded shelter, but want the right to pay nothing.


Jeez. Those lazy welfare bums who want “the right” to a place to live and a miniscule, tiny cash grant.


There was a time when liberals used to talk about a guaranteed national income. Now the debate in progressive San Francisco involves bashing poor people. Wow. 


 

PRIDE TOP 5: Horse Meat Disco

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
PRIDE TOP 5: Horse Meat Disco

Magical UK disco foursome Horse Meat Disco (the four horsemen of the discopocalypse?) are joining House of Stank at Juanita More’s super-kiki Pride party on Sunday — and hottie Jim Stanton from the quartet has gifted us with his Pride Top 5. Get ready to twirl, because there’s also a hot-hot Horsemeat minimix after the jump, celebrating the upcoming July 4 release of their third compilation disc, Horsemeat III (holy mirrorballs, Duck Man, just check out this track list). Get into it.

Macho, “I’m a Man” (Prelude), 1978
Macho is a proper disco song that reminds me of San Francisco because of the leather scene. It is sooo gay and hard! Perfect for that “dark room” action. Haha!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VbLB4UEFvw

Locussolus, “I Want It  (Prins Tomas Remix)” (International Feel/UK), 2011
Prins Tomas turns DJ Harvey’s celebrated epic club track into a funky Dr Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band-style work out for our new disco generation. BIG!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EDtfBDSWug


Ava Cherry, “You Never Loved Me” (RSO), 1980
EVERYTHING you want from  a disco track jam-packed into 8 minutes. Bitterness, heartache and regret? Check! Searing strings? Check! Brass section to die for? Check! And that trippy break HIT!!!

 

Run Baby Run, “Let No Man Put Asunder (Ron Hardy Edit)” (Salsoul), 1983
I love the original a lot, BUT I like Ron Hardy’s “raw” side! A proper Chicago legend. I edit this to another level. Soo ENERGETIC!!!Always in my set.


Paul Parker, Right On Target (Megatone), 1982
A muscular slab of energetic and frisky true San Francisco. Non-stop heavy action from Patrick Cowley the godfather of hi-NRG.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKqtVhcRZwU

And check out this minimix!!

 

<< <Horse Meat Disco III Mini-Mix by Strut

Our bike falls in love

Andrew Lam
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0

Our bike spotted this super clean tag in the Lower Haight the other day. It was drawn to the piece not just for its subject matter (you know how bikes tend to stick with their own kind), but also because of the composition. Check those lines! Dynamic! Hot. It was in love. 

It’s the work of Jaut Cares — we told our bike — who has been spraying two-wheelers around the Bay for a hot minute. Superlative local street art photography blog Endless Canvas has been tracking the artist since early last year, and Altar of Unanswered Prayers snapped a radtacular shot of a red, white, and blue number Jaut put up. 

Our bike didn’t have much to say in response, just recommenced scouting around for the Macaframa minibike and anything/one ever featured on Erin from Calivintage’s Bike + Babes blog. Fickle, fickle bici.

Will partisan agendas shape the redrawing of political lines? — UPDATED

Sasha Cuttler
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14
Will partisan agendas shape the redrawing of political lines? — UPDATED

UPDATED BELOW In the midst of a political realignment at City Hall that is still shaking out, the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee is today (Thurs/23) considering appointments to the Redistricting Task Force, the body that will redraw supervisorial districts using the latest census data. And its choices will say a great deal about the role of integrity and impartiality in the new “politics of civility.”

This commission will arguably have more influence on the city’s political dynamics over the next decade than any other, so overtly partisan appointees should be viewed with great suspicion. Larry Bush at CitiReport did a nice rundown of the applicants and their backgrounds, but the Rules Committee will be where the real action is.

President David Chiu stacked the committee with a conservative majority (Sups. Mark Farrell and Sean Elsbernd) and named a chair (Sup. Jane Kim) whose political loyalties are tough to peg right now. Will she seek an appointee who doesn’t have a political agenda, or will she seek to reward a partisan ally like applicant Paul Hogarth, who worked on her campaign and writes for BeyondChron.org, a propaganda outlet for Kim-backers Randy Shaw and the Willie Brown/Rose Pak/David Ho cabal that elevated Ed Lee into Room 200 and is desperately trying to keep him there.

There are other problematic applicants as well, including Potrero View Publisher Steven Moss, who ran for supervisor in D10 last year and has shown a penchant for seeking payback against his perceived enemies (including the Guardian, which ran articles questioning his residency status). Applicant Ron Dudum has also shown a vindictive streak – following up his failed D2 supervisorial campaigns with an unsuccessful lawsuit challenging the ranked-choice voting system – that would make him a worrisome figure to have on this task force.

So far, three people have been named to the body by the Elections Commission: gadfly/policy wonk David Pilpel, Google attorney Melissa Tidwell, and Mark Schreiber, the managing general partner of Cooper White & Cooper. So already, this is tilting toward a business community bias that will probably get worse once Mayor Ed Lee makes his three appointments to the nine-member commission.

Given how the Rules Committee is stacked, its three recommendations are likely to raise questions that the full board will need to put to rest when it takes the matter up on Tuesday. Voters need to have faith that partisan agendas aren’t shaping the city’s most important political lines, and now is the moment to ensure they have that confidence.

UPDATE: The committee voted unanimously to recommend Eric McDonnell, the chief operating officer of United Way of the Bay Area; Jenny Lam, director of community initiatives for Chinese for Affirmative Action and a board member of Chinatown Community Children’s Center; and Mike Alonso, a “security professional” with Corporate Security Services who got his law degree from New College in 2007 but never worked as a lawyer.

Lights Out: Taking the Royal Baths

Andrew Lam
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0
Lights Out: Taking the Royal Baths

“This music was what we wanted to hear,” explains vocalist-guitarist Jigmae Baer of the beginnings of the Royal Baths, “that we weren’t hearing anywhere else.” 

The Royal Baths formed two years ago, as Baer was coming to the end of playing with Thee Oh Sees, and guitarist-vocalist Jeremy Cox moved to San Francisco by way of Arcata. 

“When we first started, I’d been listening to a lot of finger-picking,” explains guitarist-vocalist Jeremy Cox. “So I was experimenting with open tuning, like Delta Blues, playing Willie Johnson and Skip James.”

“I remember the first song we covered was a Skip James song,” adds Bear. “And we covered a song by Nina Simone, the Carter Family, and Spaceman 3.”

The quartet plays rock ‘n’ roll with a pretty grittiness: accelerating beats makes the music frenzy-filled; staggering melodies shine through the noisy fuzz; extended psychedelic guitar jams are rough flourishes; and the duo delivery of lyrics is hypnotic in its repetition and raw in its simple truth.

“Jigmae writes all the lyrics,” Cox clarifies. “Jigmae brings his typewriter and I’ll have just a guitar, and we’ll have an idea about what we want the song to be about.” Together the pair’s dynamic — one fiddling on the guitar and the other typing away — brings about the dark and light of the Royal Bath’s music. “After we have a rough skeleton of the song, we’ll bring it into the studio and do it with the full band, says Cox. “And it changes further from there.”

In 2010, the band released its debut album Litanies (Woodsist Records). They’ve already recorded and mixed a new album. When I ask if there’s a release date for that one, Baer quips, “We would’ve liked to release it two months ago.” The pair explains that they recorded the album in February, but had to go back to the studio to redo the initial mixes. 

“This album is a lot different sounding to our ears,” explains Cox, “because our last album was more just writing the songs as we went. This album was mostly recorded live, so it’s more of a live rock and roll album.”

This is a good thing; The Royal Baths have a voltaic energy live. And if you’ve seen them play recently, then you’ve heard new material from this unreleased and unnamed album. 

In the new song “Faster and Harder,” Baer and Cox’s low and high registers harmonize the lines “I love my damaged girl/We share a wicked world.” The track has a British paisley rock undertone and like good classic rock ‘n’ roll, it is sexy and dirty. The double guitars spiral out of control as the duo chants the title lines faster and faster. 

When asked what inspires Baer’s lyrics, he replies, “It’s always a combination of being partially autobiographical and partially from my friends and what I see in them.” Baer adds, “A lot of times, I write stuff that makes me laugh.” He notes that the band is often regarded as being very serious, but in an absurdist way. “I am talking about the real fucked up problems that our friends and us have, in a very unflinching way, and trying to find the absurdity of our petty little problems.”

Beat-driven track “Burn,” explains Baer, “is just a story about our friend who went to Pill Hill and just got ripped off.”

As you wait for the release of the Royal Baths next album, catch the band’s live show at the Hemlock before they go on tour this August and begin their relocation to Brooklyn.

 

Royal Baths

With Dadfag, Nucular Animals, Psychic Feline

July 2 9:30 pm, $7

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF 

(415) 596-7777

www.hemlocktavern.com

 

Radon gas is a leading cause of cancer

Mary Magee
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Radon gas is a leading cause of cancer

Remember how we were all freaking out a few months ago about radiation, in the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan that led to releases of radioactive material from Japan’s stricken Fukushiima Daiichi nuclear plant? Well, now comes news that the leading cause of non-smoking lung cancer in the United States is radon gas, a radioactive gas that comes from the natural decay of uranium found in nearly all soils. And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which says radon gas leads to an estimated 21,000 deaths each year, apparently wants to help you test for it in your home.Typically, radon moves up through the ground to the air above and into people’s home through cracks and other holes in the foundation. In other words, your home can end up trapping and building up radon inside. This can happen in new and old homes, well-sealed and drafty homes, and homes with or without basements. And Sometimes radon can enter your home through well water, and occasionally building materials give off radon, too.

So, now U.S. EPA has announced a plan, which includes strategies to reach low-income families, many of whom, as the feds note, “do not have the resources to make the simple fixes necessary to protect their homes and loved ones.”

“With nearly one in 15 homes affected by elevated levels of radon and thousands dying each year from radon-induced cancer, it’s time to step up our actions in the federal government,” EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said. “Through the Federal Radon Action Plan, we’re working with partner agencies to raise awareness about the threat of radon in our homes and to take steps to mitigate this hazard. Together our efforts will help reduce radon exposure and make our homes, schools and communities healthier places to live, learn, work and play.”

To learn more, check out the fed’s Radon Plan website, or call 1-800-SOS-RADON.

PRIDE TOP 5: House of Stank

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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PRIDE TOP 5: House of Stank

House of Stank is coming to town for Pride, playing Sunday at Juanita More!’s infamous pool party. We asked the NYC house and tech duo — W. Jeremy, who many will recognize from his years in SF, and Christy Love — for a top 5 list of their favorite Pride tracks, from booty-tech to old-school End Up classics.

5. “Big Freek (DJ Deeon Remix),” Freak Nik

— Christy Love first discovered Booty House while living in SF and this song is one of her all-time faves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a80csXQ3-kQ

 

4. “I Feel Good Things For You,” Daddy’s Favourite

— End-Up classic that samples Patrice Rushen.

 

3. “In and Out of My Life,” Adeva

— Jeremy is from New Jersey. Adeva is from New Jersey. ‘Nuff said.

 

2. “Do Ya Wanna Funk,” Patrick Cowley feat. Sylvester

— Two Bay Area Disco Legends on one track.  Every time we hear this song it reminds us of SF Pride.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6yLwhKYVHY

 

1. “Day By Day (Green Velvet Mix)” – Dajae

— We are so excited to play alongside Dajae at Juanita MORE!’s Pride party!

 

W. Jeremy says: “2011 has been a busy year for us. The thing that we’re most excited about is our new record label, Get Up Recordings. We’re gearing up for our third release, a track called ‘Tonite’ by Honey Dijon and Sebastian Manuel, which is definitely going to be a future classic house track. We’re super excited about our upcoming roster, which will feature releases from Severino (Horse Meat Disco) and Nico Deceglia, also known as Hyena Stomp, the SF/Bay Area’s David Harness and another release from us. We just finished up a remix for The Two Bears for a track called “Bear Hug” on Southern Fried Records. We’re playing Cielo NYC for the first time in July with Tedd Patterson which is very exciting because of the club’s Funktion One sound system.”

WORLD PREMIERE: Shannon and the Clams, “Tired of Being Bad”

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Fierce and bluesy East Bay garage rockers Shannnon and the Clams premiere the new video for “Tired of Being Bad” from their “Sleep Talk” album, animated by Owen Cook, in this SFBG exclusive. (And check out their recent revealing interview with us.)

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