SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Maris and Trip the dog, Washington Square Park
Tell us about your look: “I just moved here and I’m living out of my car right now. This was the outfit I found in my car this morning.”
By Tim Redmond
John Ross, author, poet, civic honoree and longtime Bay Guardian Mexico City correspondent, will be at Modern Times Nov. 18th to read from his new book, El Monstruo.
John is a San Francisco treasure, and his events are not to be missed. Here’s the scoop:
SAN FRANCISCO (Nov. 2nd) – Poet/author/journalist/ and globe-trotting troublemaker John Ross will present his latest cult classic “El Monstruo – Dread & Redemption In Mexico City” (Nation Books) on Wednesday, November 18th at Modern Times Bookstore, 888 Valencia Street in San Francisco’s Mission District beginning at 7:00 PM.
“El Monstruo” (“The Monster”) tells the sordid tale of Mexico City, the most contaminated, corrupt, crime-ridden, and conflictive megalopolis in the Americas, where Ross has lived for the past quarter of a century. The narrative spans no less than 50,000,000 years, beginning way back in the Paleocene and time traveling all the way to last spring’s swine flu panic.
“John Ross sings a lusty corrido about a great betrayed city” writes Mike Davis, author of “City Of Quartz” and “Planet Of Slums.” “Ross has fashioned a stirring love letter and cautionary tale about his beloved Mexico City,” adds Kirkus Reviews.
John Ross is the author of ten books of fiction and non-fiction and an equal number of poetry chapbooks, the most recent of which is “Bomba!” (Calaca de Pelon, Mexico City.) “Iraqigirl”, a diary of a teenager coming of age under U.S. occupation that Ross developed and edited was published by Haymarket this July. John Ross is the winner of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Upton Sinclair Prize (The “Uppie”) for his 2005 phantasmagorical autobiography “Murdered By Capitalism – 150 Years of Life & Death On The American Left” and the 1995 American Book Award for “Rebellion From the Roots”, the first published account of the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas that the author has accompanied from its earliest hour and about which he has written four books.
In addition to Modern Times, John Ross will present “El Monstruo” at Northtown Books, 957 Street in Arcata California on Friday the 13th at 7 PM and will bring the Monster to the UC Berkeley campus when he speaks at the Center for Latino Policy Research, 2547 Channing Way, on MonsY, November 30th at Noon.
In recognition for his decades-long accomplishments as an activist and writer, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently declared May 12th “John Ross Day.”
Declaring that San Francisco has become “a sanctuary city for the rich,” Ross declined the “honor.”
By Rebecca Bowe
Yesterday, around 4 p.m., 22 union members rushed into the mayor’s office (the plush reception area on the other side of those stately double doors) and demanded to meet with Mayor Gavin Newsom. Immediately blocked by security from continuing all the way to the mayor, they vowed to wait — and remained there for about two hours. The protesters were there as representatives or supporters of SEIU Local 1021, which has launched a months-long fight against Newsom in the wake of layoffs and deep salary cuts in the Department of Public Health inflicted by city budget cuts.
In the City Hall corridor just outside the mayor’s office, scores of other SEIU members gathered in support of those inside the reception area. Chants, cheers, and the refrain from Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up” could be heard from outside. The SEIU members inside, meanwhile, circled up and prepared to be arrested. Meanwhile, the clerks working in the reception area continued diligently working away at their desks. (Each of the mayoral staffers declined to comment. At one point, mayoral spokesman Nathan Ballard walked through the room, and the union members hollered at him to please ask the mayor to show some leadership. “Will do,” he said with a smile, and disappeared behind a door.)
The mayor never showed. Nor did any clash take place between the union members and the plainclothes security officers who were coolly guarding the doors leading out to the corridor and back to the mayor’s actual office. The union members stayed until approximately 6:15 p.m., chanting, singing, delivering impromptu speeches, and resolving that they would keep up the fight. Here’s what it was like in there.
They finally negotiated an exit with the security officers, and joined the others outside the doors.
Then, they flooded into the street outside City Hall with the other workers and proceeded to circle around the intersection of Polk and McAllister. Sup. Chris Daly joined them and thanked them for their work, vowing to do what he could to restore the cuts.
At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, supervisors voted seven to four to dip into the General Fund reserve to restore the jobs of certified nursing assistants and unit clerks in the city’s Department of Public Health.
But after it was announced that the ordinance had passed on first reading, and the SEIU workers who’d packed the Board Chambers let out a celebratory whoop, some one pointed out that eight votes were needed for approval. The measure had actually failed — and the disappointment in the room was palpable.
Text by Sarah Phelan
For those brave folks who plan to read the newly released six-volume EIR for Lennar’s proposed redevelopment of the 770-acre Hunters Point Shipyard/Candlestick Point site, the holiday season promises to be a busy time.
First, you need to actually find the report, which is buried over at the San Francisco Planning Commission’s site. To help you find your way there, click here.
Nex, you need to figure out when you’ll have time to read it before two public hearing which are scheduled for Dec. 15 & 17—just ten and eight shopping days before Christmas.
And then, if you plan to make a difference, you’ll also need to figure out when you’ll have time to write and submit public comments, which will be accepted until Dec. 28 (three days after Christmas, three days before New Year)
Now, maybe this timing will work marvelously, what with the economy in the shitter, and no one having money to spend on the holidays, and more and more people unemployed and therefore in possession of the time needed to read, digest and comment on all six of these crucial tomes.
Or could it be that most people won’t be doing any of this, and especially not during and in between the biggest celebrations –in terms of family gatherings and feasts?
To motivate y’all to sit up and start tracking this plan, which promises to majorly impact the city’s southeast, may I point you to a Nov. 5 presentation on the proposed plan that was made before the San Francisco Planning Commission last week, in anticipation of the EIR’s release.
(You can watch it or read the captions, depending on your mood). in anticipation of the EIR’s release, by clicking on the Nov. 5 links listed at the Planning Commission’s site.)
What struck me when I watched it was the overall vagueness, on the part of city officials, when it came to explaining the plans, and the desperation of community members, on the one hand, to get jobs, and, on the other, to get the shipyard thoroughly cleaned up (and not just cleaned up to Lennar’s “intended use”) and to get Lennar to keep its promises, be they to monitor the dust, or build 32 percent affordable housing, or create thousands of permanent jobs. Enjoy.
By Marke B.
Sametová revoluce – předchozí demonstrace 1988-1989, záběry jednotlivců — scenes from demonstrations in Prague, 1988-1989
I spent many hours of my life standing in those crowds, in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague; their behavior was both inspiring and mysterious. What had moved these individual men and women to come out on the streets, especially in the early days, when it was not self-evidently safe to do so? What swayed them as a crowd? Who, in Prague, was the first to take a key ring out of his or her pocket, hold the keys aloft, and shake them—an action that, copied by 300,000 people, produced the most amazing sound, like massed Chinese bells?
So writes European historian Timothy Garton Ash in “1989!” — part one of his wonderfully cogent reckoning of the history of the so-called end of the cold war published in the New York Review of Books this month. (Part two, “Velvet Revolution: The Prospects,” to be published next month, just became available online.) It’s the 20th anniversary of those immense events, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, so it’s time to size up what happened and how we think of it all, I guess.
Garton Ash takes a long and involved look at how scholars have weighed the events of 1988-1989 — and 1980-1981 in Poland — from the theory that a bankrupt East Germany had no choice but to dissolve itself, as it had become too much in debt to the West, to the hilariously ludicrous notion that Reagan tore down the Berlin Wall himself, brick by brick, shirtless, in jodhpurs and suspenders, the Brill Creme streaming in manly rivulets down his unvacillating brow. Of course, new archival information is becoming available all the time, revealing shocking new things. (In one stunning instance we’re reminded that Dick Cheney was a troglodyte long before Iraq. As President George H.W. Bush’s Defense Secretary he advised that all of Glasnost, then politically melting an entire continent of policies, “may be a temporary aberration in the behavior of our foremost adversary.” He needs enemies to live.)
In any case, Garton Ash’s major recommendation is that historians approach the “fall of communism” less from the top down, digging through acreages of bureaucratic documents, and more from the bottom up — a sort of historical revitalization of crowd psychology, paying closer attention to the participation of the people within the churning movement toward democracy itself. (I wonder what he thinks of this.) So I searched around and found the video above, which really does drive home the huge cajones and audacity of hope, not to mention the sheer higglety-piggletyness, among those Velvet Revolutionaries.
(I was in Berlin in the summer of 1988 — and was almost jailed on the Eastern side for importing homosexual pornography, i.e. a Damron Gay Europe travel guide with a picture of a tacky guy with a Speedo on the cover, until they realized I was under 18 and would have too many legal problems — and it really seemed like East Germans were roiling with angst that summer, maybe more than usual. At least, they weren’t the stony-faced apolitical drones that I’d been led to believe by the American media. Hindsight, of course, is 20/20 — something Garton Ash’s essays handily take on. Really, my main observation was probably that East German dudes were way hotter than the West German ones, who were undergoing some sort of ghastly hippie fashion revival at the time.)
One more money quote from “1989!”:
The end of communism in Europe brought the most paradoxical realization of a communist dream. Poland in 1980–1981 saw a workers’ revolution—but it was against a so-called workers’ state. Communists dreamed of proletarian internationalism spreading revolution from country to country; in 1989–1991, revolution did finally spread from country to country, with the effect of dismantling communism.
The Guardian‘s Adam Michon snapped these shots of the Best dress of the Bay 09, fashioned entirely out of this year’s Best of the Bay covers at Urbanity in Berkeley — winner of “Best Place to Sell the Clothes Off Your Back.” Truly, we are flattered! Better yet, it would look great on us! Anybody got a pair of bubblegum-pink pumps?
Urbanity
1887 Solano, Berk.
(510) 524-7467
www.shopurbanity.com
Text and video by Sarah Phelan
Abigail Trillin reads a letter from an immigrant mother who wants to meet Newsom in person and hear him explain why he supports a policy that has led to her son being needlessly placed in a federal detention facility in Oregon
As the father of a newborn, Mayor Gavin Newsom is doubtless having sleepless nights and tiring days, as he learns to change diapers, burp and even bathe his young daughter, in between his duties as San Francisco’s CEO.
Presumably, he’s already gained the fiercely protective perspective of a parent–a point of view that could help him realize why it would be humane to meet with the parents of immigrant teens who have been whisked out of the city and away to federal detention facilities in other states, thanks to a policy that Newsom ordered last year.
One such mother wrote a letter requesting a meeting with the mayor to discuss why her son is sitting in a federal detention facility in Oregon, even though the SF District Attorney has dismissed all the charges in his case.
Abigail Trillin, staff attorney with Legal Services for Children, read that letter aloud at City Hall this week, shortly after the Board voted to override Newsom’s veto of amendments to the sanctuary policy (and you can listen to it, by clicking on the video above.)
The Board’s amendments seek to ensure that teens who haven’t done anything wrong aren’t turned over to the feds for possible deportation. The amendments would therefore also ensure that families aren’t needlessly put through hell, just because someone accuses their kids of doing something they never did.
But Newsom has said- indirectly through his spokespeople–that he plans to ignore the Board’s amendments, claiming that his hands are tied by federal law.
The Board believes otherwise and currently a nasty legal battle seems eminent.
In the meantime, families of immigrant children in San Francisco are left worrying if their kid is going to be the next child to be referred to the feds and disappeared to a detention facility in Oregon or Miami or Indiana or wherever for deportation to a country they never knew for a crime they never did.
So if Newsom, as a mayor and a parent, believes in his policy, then surely he is willing to defend and explain it to those directly impacted by his decisions.
Because this isn’t a game, or another piece of political theater. It’s a case of immigrant parents desperately fighting to protect their kids from needless harm, which could include death at the border or being recruited into a gang.
Now, folks tell me stuff like, well, these parents should make sure their kids don’t get into trouble in the first place.
But the truth is that some of these kids didn’t get into trouble in the first place. Or not into trouble that was so serious that it warranted being referred to the feds. And that’s why their mothers have a problem with Newsom’s current policy and want him to amend it, as he has been directed, or at the very least explain it, as mayor of San Francisco, to them in person.
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By Tim Redmond
Okay, I promise this is the last item about Jerry Brown today (two’s plenty enough).
The CA Republican Party has released an attack on on the attorney general, trying to make a huge deal out of the secret taping of reporters.
I’m not much in favor of secret taping of anyone, although some leading thinkers on First Amendment issues aren’t sure this is such a huge deal. Peter Scheer at the California First Amendment Coalition, for example, argues that
Talking to a reporter on the phone (or in person) is about as open and nonconfidential an exchange as sitting for a live television interview or typing into a blog on a public, unrestricted website. The whole point of a conversation with a print journalist is to provide her with information to be communicated to her paper’s entire readership. A genuinely confidential communication with a reporter is the rare exception, not the rule.
But that’s beside the point. Carla Marinucci at the Chron says
Ouch. The ad pounds Jerry in the same way that Jerry’s GOP guv rivals and other GOPpers did earlier this week: Point out that ordering a self-investigation will fail you in Conflict of Interest 101 every time.
But really, is this the best the GOP can do? There are so many things to criticize about Jerry Brown, and we’ll be hearing them over and over all next year. This one just seems kind of lame. I think this whole “scandal” is over, and nobody really cares anymore.
Photos and text by Ariel Soto
“Luxury Items” at ODC, starring Monique Jenkinson (aka female drag goddess Fauxnique, is a sparkling and often very funny and touching performance piece that explores the idea that beautiful objects have to show their worth. I spoke with Monique about her performance and she described it as the artist’s process of creating beauty through an imposed vow of poverty. The artist’s dilemma is to make things of priceless value, while struggling against the brutality of the profession, creating a socially conscious and frustrated aesthete. The character in the show is based more on Monique than Fauxnique, but drag is present and alive nonetheless. Monique told me that her performance is like an essay, using maps, video and movement to create each and every decadent story. Her complex and riveting vision is part of what snagged her a Guardian GOLDIE award this year. Monique says that “Luxury Items” will be repeated in February, so be on the look out!
By Tim Redmond
Newspapers that subscribe to wire services like AP have the right to condense, edit, and pretty much use the material any way they want. The results can be telling.
Witness the AP story that ran today on Jerry Brown’s campaign for governor.
You can read what appears to be the full, unedtied version here.
Then there’s the version that ran in the print edition of the Examiner. You can find that by going here and paging through to p. 17.
I got an interesting email from h. brown on the two stories. His analysis:
What was cut:
“Obama [won] the biggest margin of victory in a
California presidential election since at least
WW II.”Praise for Brown:
“opening government for women and minorities”
“Democratic party becoming increasingly diverse”
[The original story] said that Brown is: “famously independent”
The Examiner editors changed it to:
“famously erratic personality and propensity
for outlandish statements”
Again: Nothing out of the ordinary here at all, editors do this stuff every day. But it’s an interesting window into how media bias shows up in the most subtle little ways.
Text by Sarah Phelan
A newly released forensic report suggests that Hugues de la Plaza (pictured above) was murdered in San Francisco two years ago.
Francois de la Plaza, the father of deceased French-American citizen Hugues de la Plaza, sent me a copy of a report today that forensic pathologist Michael Ferenc prepared for SFPD Deputy Chief David Shinn, concluding that Hugues’s death was a homicide, as his family and the French authorities have long claimed.
“In my opinion, the death of Mr. Hugues de la Plaza is a homicide,” Ferenc writes in his report, which was prepared nine months ago, (and not in Feb. 2008, as the Guardian initially claimed, thanks to a typo on the report itself). Curiously, the SFPD has never publicized Ferenc’s findings, even though it has divulged preliminary findings from an as yet unpublished LAPD report, which allegedly supports the SF Medical Examiner’s finding that the cause of death was “undeterminable.”
Ferenc notes that SFPD Inspector Casillas gave him, “an excellent overview of the case” when he met with him and his colleagues,” earlier this year.
” It was very thorough and detailed,” Ferenc writes.
In his report, he summarizes several key points that support his murder conclusion, (based on his review of the SFPD’s crime scene photos, video and autopsy report.), before inferring, Sherlock Holmes-style, the following sequence of events:
“Mr. De La Plaza returned home from nightclubbing around 0200 hours and entered his residence,” Ferenc states. “There he ate some food and apparently made phone calls and utilized his computer (approximately during the next half hour based upon Inspector Casillas’s investigation). For some reason(s) he exited his apartment ( or at least stepped outside to answered his door). Either upon exiting or at his subsequent return, an assailant(s), who was(were) most likely positioned on the lower landing of the stair case, stabbed Mr. De La Plaza while he was on the lower steps. The victim retreated inside the apartment and the assailant(s) probably did not follow inside. The victim went to the kitchen and returned to the front room bleeding profusely all the time. He soon collapsed from hemorrhagic shock in the front room where he was found.”
To support his conclusions, Ferenc highlights the following key points:
By Tim Redmond
It’s a good thing these kids weren’t in San Francisco — they might wind up in federal prisons or getting deported.
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Linda, Union and Stockton
Tell us about your look: “My belt and boots go together.”
By Rachel Sadon
Banned in the USA, despite our love of bang … and burnt rubber
Oh TreeHugger. You’ve made my day.
Not only did the ever-relevant green blog send up the 10 Best Condom Ads Banned in the US, but they pointed out the very real societal value in effectively publicizing contraception. Intellect, wit, and raunch — what more could you possibly ask for in a blog entry (or a Friday night)?
Author Brian Merchant points out that green living is about more than just composting and hybrid cars; overpopulation is straining the planet’s resources to an unsustainable level. Not only are Americans the world’s leading polluters, we also have an unusually high rate of unplanned pregnancies. And there are a lot of people that really loathe talking about contraception, much less see it advertised effectively.
It is unclear whether the ads were restricted by a regulatory agency or self-censored by marketers in the US (the article just says they were rejected for being “too sexually explicit”). Regardless, it’s pretty clear that our notoriously prudish compatriots would get more than a bit uppity at these exercises in tongue-in-cheek advertising.
Fortunately much of the rest of the world isn’t quite so unreasonable.
Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, was awarded the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his leading role in the peaceful conclusion of the Cold War. Today, as the Founding President of Green Cross International, he is heading an international Climate Change Task Force. This column is part of the Project Syndicate news series.
To echo the demand made of me by my friend President Ronald Reagan, Mr. Obama, “tear down this wall.”
By Mikhail Gorbachev
MOSCOW – The German people, and the whole world alongside them, are celebrating a landmark date in history, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not many events remain in the collective memory as a watershed that divides two distinct periods. The dismantling of the Berlin Wall – that stark, concrete symbol of a world divided into hostile camps – is such a defining moment.
The fall of the Berlin Wall brought hope and opportunity to people everywhere, and provided the 1980’s with a truly jubilant finale. That is something to think about as this decade draws to a close – and as the chance for humanity to take another momentous leap forward appears to be slipping away.
Photos and text by Ariel Soto
Bella Ciao
Those Darn Accordions
Big Lou’s Polka Casserole
“What time is it? It’s polka time!” That’s right, it was polka time at Cafe Du Nord last Thursday night, as three different accordion bands took the stage to play not only polka, but also Broadway show tunes and even some country. The bands, which included Those Darn Accordions, Big Lou’s Polka Casserole and Ciao Bella, drew quite a diverse crowd.
Those Darn Accordions
Bella Ciao
There were some utilikilts, cowboy hats, lots of poofy skirts and in my friend L’s words “Aren’t their a lot of guys with ponytails in here?” We counted eight in total. But no matter what they were wearing, everyone seemed to be enjoying the music and several couples even took to the dance floor for a little polka dancing. And then there were all the lovely accordions, their shiny black and white keys gleaming, their bellows breathing in and out, keeping everyone in time and on time, all in the name of polka time!
By Marke B.
Fight the power, Anna Conda!
Farewell, sweet punk ‘n drag apocalypse! Just in time for 2012, beloved five-year-old Friday weekly queer meltdown Charlie Horse at the Cinch has released its gin-soaked core neutrinos and called it quits. Charlie Horse hostess, deconstructed Courtney Love, and Guardian cover girl Anna Conda blames the influx of yuppie condo-dwellers and an increasingly anti-gay agenda overtaking the once queerific Polk district for the club’s demise. Apparently, noise complaints forced the Cinch to come before the Entertainment Commission and be threatened with fines or closure if the Polk bar didn’t tone it down. The Cinch asked Anna to take a break, but she decided it was time to move on from the hostile climate.
It’s a truly tragic state of affairs — one which points up even more the continuing War on Fun that the city seems to be raging against its own origins and spirit. No real problem with drunk bachelorettes in ridiculous heels and Ed Hardy-drenched dudes squealing and puking up and down the street, but some drag queens getting incredibly creative inside a gay bar? WELL, GASP!
Charlie Horse has been a bright spot in the City’s increasingly dreary weekend club scene for half a decade, one that made of family of disparate non-wealthy queers who gagged on Gaga and wanted people to know there were amazing blackout options that didn’t involve cologne and gay cockatoo hair. It will be sorely, Horsely missed. Anna Conda’s tearful letter of farewell — and rousing vow to carry on — after the jump. (And catch her Herr-A-Chick nights every first and third Wednesday of the month at the Eagle!)
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Joel, Powell and Ellis
Tell us about your look: “I’m going to work. This outfit is very laid back cuz of the weather today.”
By Kimberly Chun
It’s been months, but I’m still reeling from the loss of the Built by Wendy boutique on 20th Street. Yeah, yeah, I know – who could afford any of those cute lil’ indie-rocker outfits? A gal can dream…
But now a few doors down from the old space, a fab mutant lovely has moved in: Bianca Starr. The brand new girl on the block – all of six weeks old – combines Painted Bird thrifty cool with a major dollop of Krystle Carrington ’80s glam. The store motto: “A women’s boutique where you leave your inhibitions at the door.”
Lighting bolt-emblazoned heels, jewel-tone silky frocks, Ferragamo pumps with baby pyramid heels, and the works, all with a distinctively Reagan-era club-kid edge. And the vintage wares are rather reasonably priced to boot – so all those pennies saved with the loss of Built by Wendy can go straight to Starr. Zoom.
BIANCA STARR
3552 20th St., SF
(415) 341-1020
www.biancastarr.com
By Andrea Nemerson. Email your questions to andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com. Read more of Andrea’s columns here.
Dear Andrea:
I get irritable with my boyfriend when he doesn’t want to have sex. This doesn’t happen that often — we’ve been together less than a year and have sex most times we’re together, which is about five days out of seven. But sometimes he’s tired or not in the mood. This should be OK, right? If I were the guy and he were the girl, everyone would say "Stop pressuring her!" But I can’t help feeling bad. What is wrong with me?
Love,
Moody
Dear Mood:
Indeed, what is wrong with you? Could it be that you are simply an irritable person, and if it were not this issue, you’d find something else about your interactions with Boyfriend Boy to make you cranky? No? Then you’re just a normal person who is acting kind of spoiled. You and BFB are occasionally out of synch. And even non-cranky people have a hard time wrapping their heads around this part, but it is nobody’s fault.
It would be a vast and silly oversimplification to say that everyone has a natural libido set-point, like the one that keeps your body-weight unsatisfactory (To you! I do not care!) no matter what changes you make to your ratio of calories-in to energy-out. People certainly do seem to have something of a tendency toward the high, middle, or low end of the libido scale, but life, moving on as it does, changes things. (Actually, body-weight set-points also shift, but shut up, it was a nice simile.) Things do calm down a bit post late-adolescence/young adulthood, and even for those who can honestly state that they feel just as driven as always by their own hormones, stuff gets in the way. And sometimes that stuff gets back out of the way eventually, the kids go to college, or a health issue resolves, or they start sleeping better, and a dampened libido can come roaring back to life. So no way am I positing that sex drive takes a long slow dispiriting slide toward oblivion as soon as we become grownups or anything, just that libido is dynamic. Even yours, sex-wanting girl, is subject to change.
By Kimberly Chun
Just what are these courageous souls queuing up for on a late Monday night on Powell Street, right outside GameStop? The new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 game, that’s what. Looks like the first-person shooter is indeed locked and loaded and poised to become one of the biggest- and fastest-selling games in history (though this string of dudes – and they were mostly dudes – was shorter than the crowd bunked down for, say, PS2.
Every week, Virginia Miller of personalized itinerary service and monthly food, drink, and travel newsletter, www.theperfectspotsf.com, shares foodie news, events, and deals. View the last installment here.
Digging into some Food for Thought
11/11-11/23 of the Mission’s best restaurants participate in "Food for Thought" to help Mission grads get to college
Do nothing but eat out at one of your favorite Mission restaurants this Wednesday night and you’ll be helping some of the neediest Mission high school grads get to college. With 23 of the ‘hood’s best restaurants participating, a portion of all dinner sales (restaurants have committed anywhere from 25-100% of that night’s sales) go to Food for Thought. In it for the long haul, Food for Thought offers, among other things, tutoring centers for elementary school kids, academic support groups in junior high, and college prep programs for high school students, working with them through each phase of schooling. There’s even raffle prizes at each restaurant, like a trip for two to Mexico. You don’t have to be told twice to eat out at Range, Mission Beach Cafe, Little Star Pizza, or Bar Bambino, do you?
11/11 regular hours at 23 Mission restaurants
List of participating restaurants: www.missiongraduates.org/foodforthought
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A Luce interior
11/11 – Luce celebrates its Michelin Star with the Frescobaldi family
It’s an honor for a chef to receive a Michelin star, especially a French chef like our own Dominique Crenn at Luce in the Intercontinental Hotel (she’s also on this season of The Next Iron Chef). Luce celebrates in a big way by cooking a 6-course Tuscan feast, Inspirations of Tuscany, with Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi’s wine estates’ executive chef, Donatella Zampoli. Frescobaldi, the legendary Italian family who even traded their wines with Michelangelo back in the day, will, naturally, be pairing their wines with dinner. Not only is this a rare, special night, but $10 of every 6-course dinner benefits CUESA, so the focus remains local as it is international. Courses include Thomas Family Farms potato gnocchi with bone marrow and lobster paired with a glass of 2006 Attems Cicinis, or sweetbread and beef tongue with potato espuma (foam to you), slow cooked egg and pancetta jus partnered with a 2005 Nipozzano Riserva Chianti Classico. Can’t make it out Wednesday? The party rolls on all month until November 21, with a 4-course Michelin Star prix-fixe menu available any night for $60 per person.
$75; $30 for wine pairings
11/11 – make a reservation during regular hours, 5-11pm
888 Howard Street
415-616-6566
www.lucewinerestaurant.com
By Steven T. Jones
In the wake of today’s Board of Supervisors vote to override Mayor Gavin Newsom’s veto of requiring due process to play out before city officials turn undocumented juveniles over to federal immigration authorities, City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent an fascinating letter to U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello, a conservative who had threatened to bring charges against employees who follow the new law.
Herrera is walking a thin line between Newsom, who unilaterally weakened the city’s long-standing Sanctuary City law last year under pressure from nativists and the San Francisco Chronicle; and supervisors and immigrant rights activists who say the mayor’s new policy violates the principle that people are innocent until proven guilty. Newsom has threatened not to enforce the new policy, which becomes law in 30 days, citing the legal threat to city employees.
But Herrera has now attempted to remove that threat by asking Russoniello to withdraw it, and issuing a threat of his own if the holdover Republican attorney doesn’t back down: San Francisco may turn to the courts to overturn Russoniello’s interpretation of federal law, which Herrera calls “broad.”
The important part of the letter states: “Because of the Board of Supervisor’s adoption of the Amendment, and in view of your earlier assertions that certain City officials may have violated federal criminal laws regarding their past handling of certain juvenile arrestees and your seemingly broad interpretation of the harboring statute, I ask that the U.S. Attorney’s Office provide an assurance that if the city proceeds to implement this Amendment in accordance with its terms, City law enforcement officers and employees will not be prosecuted for violating federal criminal laws. I would appreciate your timely response to this letter, preferably by December 7, 2009. If the U.S. Attorney’s Office does not provide us with an adequate assurance that it will not prosecute City officials or employees who would implement the Amendment, my Office may be compelled to explore with City policymakers other options regarding the implementation and enforcement of the Amendment, including the possibility of filing a declaratory relief action in federal court.”
For a complete interpretation of the frightening implications of Newsom’s policy stance, read tomorrow’s Guardian cover story.
By Tim Redmond
The golfers-against-snakes fight at Sharp Park has been in the headlines for a while, and KQED held an hour-long discussion on it Nov. 9th.
It gets really confusing and crazy: The city owns the park, although it’s in Pacficia. That means San Francisco taxpayers have to fork over the millions of dollars it costs to operate and maintain the place, while San Mateo County residents get the advantages of it.
It’s also a public golf course — and while San Francisco has other public courses, Northern California overall lacks places for people who aren’t rich to play the game. It costs about $30 to play at Sharp Park, and well over $100 at the private places.
The endangered San Francisco garter snake and the Califoria red-legged frog live at Sharp Park. The SF Rec-Park Department says we can save both the golf course and the critters
But Brent Plater, executive director of the Wild Equity Institute, which wants to turn the golf course into a hiking park with a major species-restoration element, says the snakes and frogs may be okay where they are right now and where the city wants to protect them — but when climate change causes a rise in sea level, the fresh-water species will need to retreat upland, and the fairways and greens are in the way.
And Rep. Jackie Speier, whose district includes Sharp Park, says what the hell — in 50 years, if we don’t slow climate change, San Francisco International Airport will be flooded, too, so let’s not go overboard about the fate of the garter snakes (although she told Forum that she got to hold a San Francisco garter snake the other day, and it was very beautiful).
There’s a point that gets too easily lost here, though. The course loses money; the taxpayers subsidize it. And fixing the seawall and doing all the things the city’s report suggests will cost millions more. “When we’re laying off a third of our rec directors, and shutting down recreation programs in the inner city, why are we spending millions of dollars subsidizing a golf course in San Mateo County?” Mirkarimi asked when I spoke to him this morning.. “If it’s a regional asset, why aren’t we getting any help?”
Well: Guess what? Now that the report is out, and now that Mirkarimi has made a fuss about this and there’s a real movement out there to get rid of the links altogether, the golfers and Rep. Speier are starting to talk about the need for someone other than the city to step up. Although Speier was awfully condescending and harsh on Forum (“San Francisco is the property owner, and property owners need to protect their property”), I thnk she’s got the message. If we’re going to keep Sharp Park for the golfers, then a city that has more than 700 acres of golf courses and about 30 acres of soccer fields, a city that can’t afford to keep rec centers open in neighborhoods where those facilities are lifelines for at-risk kids, ins’t going to be able to foot the entire tab.
And whatever the outcome, getting that on the radar of Congress and San Mateo County has been a public service.
