SFBG Blogs Archives — Page 484 of 597 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Limbaugh decries cops who want ‘special rights’

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April 9, 2008

Okay, so maybe that’s actually the phrase Rush Limbaugh uses to describe LGBT rights. But when the folks in law enforcement, mostly a conservative bunch, start demanding special treatment, shouldn’t conservative pundits hit the ceiling then, too? Of course not. That would alienate a significant portion of their listening audience.

We’ve already written in the past about police in the state of California winning special protections against publicly disclosing their personnel records. But why should their salaries be kept secret also? And their badge numbers? And, the Contra Costa Times explains in that last link, their identities?

Being a cop is tough, yeah. Just read the thousands of pages of evidence filed in Superior Court for Dennis Herrera’s gang injunctions. They read like an episode of The Wire. (Seriously, we’re surprised more reporters aren’t pouring over those records. There’s a whole lot in there about local criminal activity you haven’t seen in the news, and this is the only time you’ll have public access to so many details of what the SFPD’s Gang Task Force is up to.)

But why should salaries be kept secret, particularly when the police union’s new contract has played such a significant role in this year’s local budget deficit? All those stories from Matier & Ross about how much it costs to provide a police presence at political demonstrations would just be ruined if the police had their way. The CoCo Times and the LA Times have already been through this battle with the state Supreme Court.

Is the police lobby really that strong in Sacramento?

Tutu feted by IGLHRC

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April 9, 2008

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By Michael Leonard

Archbishop Desmond Tutu offered his sincerest thanks and gratitude on Tuesday night to the audience in Grace Cathedral as he closed a moving acceptance speech, upon receiving the OUTSPOKEN Award from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (ILGHRC).

Tutu b.jpg
All pics by Michael Leonard

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Tutu, 76, was grateful not only for the award, he said, but also the continuous support and allegiance that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and intersex persons offer to oppressed communities around the globe. “Thank you for making the world a better place,” he said.

The theme of the evening was “A Celebration of Courage.” Tutu is most definitely a living example of fearlessness, given his noted stand against apartheid in his native South Africa, as well as his outspoken support of female, as well as gay and lesbian, ordination in the Episcopal Church, a topic that has threatened a schism in that denomination. His fight against homophobia and sexual exclusivity in religion earned him the honors on this particular occasion.

“How sad, how tragic, that the Church be so concerned with this issue when God’s children all the world over are suffering,” Tutu said. “I ask for your forgiveness for the way the Church has ostracized you.”

Tutu summed up his activist persona in a statement consistent with the humorous and humble manner with which he charmed and captivated the large crowd throughout his 20-minute speech.

“I wish many times that I would or could’ve shut up. But, I could just as well try not to breath… I cannot be but as God made me.”

IranianRadio.com takes you on a drive through the Persian-pop unknown

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April 9, 2008

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By Dina Maccabee

Sometimes – when I notice I’ve developed an allergy to my entire iTunes playlist, when all my CDs are mysteriously missing from their cases, and I’m not ready to resort to listening to mix tapes from high school – the silence on my stereo can be deafening. In those dire times, I resort to iTunes radio.
Scrolling down the list of offerings, there isn’t a lot of campaigning to sway your vote. I breeze past the bland listings for Classic Rock, Electronic, and Ambient, on down to International, where if nothing else the flavors have a chance of being spicy. Still, I couldn’t say what exactly prompted me to try IranianRadio.com for the first time. “Persian traditional music,” it read, sandwiched between “The Best Mix of All Things Iranian” and “Persian Pop.” I must have been feeling anti-American.

At any rate, I was pleased to discover hours of uninterrupted Persian classical music, a tradition so stately and affecting that its surface exoticism melts away after only a few minutes. But I began to wonder, from whence, exactly, issues forth this fountain of unfamiliar yet dulcet tones? I pressed a button and suddenly linked the sounds of classical Persia with a bedroom in San Francisco in 2008.

I wanted some background color for the monochromatic iTunes radio experience – and some direction on how to explore the region’s music even further (the station’s format ranges from Persian Dance to Kurdish Pop). Fortunately a friendly service representative at IranianRadio.com, identifying himself only as Cyrus, was able to set me straight on the mysteries behind the music.

SFBG: Who programs the content of IranianRadio.com?

WMC: Giant Step gets it out in Miami

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April 9, 2008

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Ocean Drive divas. All photos by Robin Russell.

Contributing photog Robin Russell closes her WMC dispatches with a stop at Giant Step Presents Sunset Soiree at the Delano Hotel on March 29. Look for Turntables on the Hudson, out with Supreme Beings of Leisure at Mezzanine on April 18.

Nickodemus steals over to the wheels o’ steel.

Turntables on the Hudson melded classic house textures and afrobeat rhythms.

The scene down south.

Lit: A Nowtopian Q&A with Chris Carlsson

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April 8, 2008

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By Erick Lyle

Chris Carlsson, one of the founders of Critical Mass, has long been one of San Francisco’s most notable utopian tinkerers. Through projects like his magazine Processed World and his radical archive Shaping San Francisco, he has devoted much unpaid labor to investigating lost people’s history and to imagine possibilities for a better world. In 2004, he turned his attention to the future with After the Deluge, a speculative fiction novel about a post-economic San Francisco of 2157 where compulsory work has nearly been abolished and the Financial District has been submerged in rising floodwaters caused by global warming.

Carlsson’s brand-new book, Nowtopia (AK Press, 288 pages, $18.95), looks, instead, for seeds of that money-free utopia in the present, with chapters focusing on subjects as diverse as vacant-lot gardeners, the growing bio-fuels movement, the rise of Bike Kitchens across the nation, and Burning Man. Carlsson shows that as our economy, civic institutions, and faith in the system continue to break down, there are people all over the world organizing autonomously to “build the new world in the shell of the old.”

SFBG: In Nowtopia, you highlight groups of people who are doing very diverse things. How do you perceive that, say, the open source software movement, the San Francisco Bike Kitchen, and people who farm empty lots in West Oakland are related?
CHRIS CARLSSON: I tried to reduce those things to the common thread that they are all forms of self-expressive behavior that people are doing outside of work and outside of what they consider to be political. People are coming together to try to add to their depth of experience, or to make their lives worth living. All of the activities in the book also represent people who have a creative engagement with technology.

Torch Songs: A report from the ground

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April 8, 2008

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Ed Note: I was on my way from a press conference at the federal building at around 1:30 today when I saw the anti-Torch demonstrators, at least a couple hundred of them, surge out of Civic Center Plaza, across the street, and up the steps of City Hall. It was a pretty dramatic moment, with all their brightly colored flags whipping in the stiff wind and their chants echoing against the marble facade.

I stuck around for a few minutes, flanking a phalanx of bored media types and a line of motorcycle cops contendedly contemplating the overtime they were racking up, to see if anything else went down. I listened to more chanting and and watched more flag waving until a cameraman from one of the networks leaned over and said, “Maybe something will happen when Richard Gere speaks later.”

Guardian Intern Emma Lierley had a lot more stamina than I did. She followed the proceedings all day and filed the following report. – JB Powell

With the Beijing Olympic torch set to be received Wednesday, pro-Tibetan protestors ran their own torch through the streets of San Francisco Tuesday. The rally was held in multiple locations, including the UN Plaza, the steps of City Hall, and the section of Geary Street that boarders the Chinese Consulate. Hundreds of participants loudly denounced the “genocide torch” and called for a free Tibet.

The protest began Tuesday morning in the UN Plaza, as Tibetan flags snapped in the wind and a group of monks from the Gyuto Vajrayana Center in San Jose chanted a blessing over the crowd. The Buddhist monk Thupten Donyo, manager of the Gyuto Vajrayana Center, was very excited about the day’s events, and told the Guardian that never before had Tibet been given such a chance to speak to the world.

“We lost our country fifty years ago,” he said, “and we are struggling to keep our culture alive.”

Cooking for cancer

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April 8, 2008

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By Alex Felsinger

Hours after heart surgery, while still in her bed on the cardiac floor of the hospital, doctors gave Kristen Doyle’s mother a hamburger for her first meal. Doyle knew this was common practice. But as a registered and practicing nurse with an interest in nutrition and preventative medicine, she’d always been disgusted that doctors allowed patients to eat fatty, processed foods instead of directing them towards a healthier lifestyle.

In 2004, after a 12-year nursing career, Doyle could no longer stomach the hypocrisy. In search of a way to help people beyond diagnostics and treatment, she enrolled in Bauman College of Holistic Nutrition and Culinary Arts. The incident with her mother later that year confirmed what she’d suspected: she’d never use her nursing degree for traditional practices again. Now she’s a personal chef for cancer patients, diabetics, and other people with special nutritional needs.

But while the new job she started in 2005 pays the bills, Doyle wasn’t satisfied she was helping enough people. “I’m only reaching a couple of families each week,” Doyle said. “If you’re paying for a personal chef, you’re probably upper or middle class, but this information should be available to everyone.”

Doyle’s answer? A healthy, cancer-preventing diet through free weekly cooking and nutrition classes held at the Institute on Aging, UCSF, and most recently, the SOMA Whole Foods.

Photo by Glenn McElhose

Yo shred dawgs: Go home!

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April 8, 2008

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By Justin Juul

So I went to go check out the new skatepark at Potrero Del Sol last week and here’s what happened.

The security guard/construction worker did not like me.

“It’s fucking retarded dude, cause I’m a fuckin’ skater too,” he said. “But I let a couple of you little bastards through the fence last weekend and I lost half my ass for it. So go home. You can’t fucking skate here.” It was a hard thing to hear at 8:30 in the morning on a bright and sunny Tuesday, especially since I’d been dreaming about skating the new park since they started building the damn thing a year ago and I’d just gotten word that it was done. I had gathered up my board and set out my half-cabs the night before in anticipation of a solo morning session and now this asshole construction worker was harshing my mellow. But I wasn’t trying to hear it.

“What’s the big deal man?” I said. “The shit’s finished. I can see it. Can’t you just, like, look the other way and let me fuck around for a minute.” The construction worker’s eyes filled with rage as he stepped closer and grabbed hold of the chain link fence that was separating us, lifting his arm to expose some fresh ink: a prison-issue sketch of a sawed-off shotgun. I was angry about the fence at first, but now I was glad it was there. I did not want to fuck with this dude. “Listen, man.” He said. “I fucking live here [wtf] and nobody’s gonna skate this shit until July fourth. Tell all your punk-ass little friends it’s a fucking no go! I know it’s fucking retarded, but I ain’t losing my job just so you fuckers can skate.”

So there you have it. I know it’s tempting, especially for older skaters like me who don’t want to get arrested in the streets anymore, but unless you want to go toe to toe with the burliest tattooed skater/construction dude on the planet, I suggest you hold off for a while. The park’s finished and it looks pretty sick, but the grand opening isn’t until the fourth of July And. That’s. Fucking. That.

Protesting the torch

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April 8, 2008

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You have to wonder what Beijing and the International Olympic Committee were thinking.

A country with real human rights problems, involving not only the horrors in Darfur but the immensely popular, mediagenic Dalai Lama and Tibet, hosts the Olympics. The torch goes through several countries where political protests are common and there’s a large population ready to scream about China’s repressive regime. Then it stops in San Francisco, where there’s a large Chinese population and an equally large population of political activists ….

What, you didn’t think there’d be protests?

Now the IOC is actually talking about scrapping the rest of the torch tour, which would be silly. There will still be protests around the Olympics — and there should be.

If China wants the PR boost of hosting the Olympics, it will have to deal with the fact that the news media will also focus on human rights and other issues Bejing would rather ignore. The Olympics are too much of a spectacle these days; there will be too many reporters looking for stories, and protesters around the world ready to offer them.

The protests have been immensely successful so far. They’ve done exactly what they’re designed to do: Focus press attention on China, Tibet and Darfur. Nobody needs to disrupt the Olympic torch in San Francisco; in fact, it’s great that the torch is here. The torch brings media, and the more the better. Mayor Newsom needs to make public the final route in plenty of time for the activists to show up; the protesters need to be peaceful — and visible, and loud.

I love this. It’s the best tradition of this city.

John Edwards: 60,645 hurt in war

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April 8, 2008

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Thank you, former presidential candidate and former senator from North Carolina John Edwards for a great letter called “Broken Soldiers, and a Broken System” in the New York Times today.

In it, Edwards notes that the frequently reported number of the wounded in action (29,320 in March 1) does not include everyone who’s been hurt.

“The complete number of nonfatal casualties in Iraq is 60,645. Most assume the wounded number includes all, but it does not. It leaves out another 8,273 injured and 23,052 who became ill and required medical air transport from the war zone,” writes Edwards, who contends that this under reporting explains why “both the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs are unprepared to care for the service members who have been hurt in the Iraq war.”

Noting that 154,000 war vets already sleep on grates and under bridges every night, Edwards observes, “we have tens of thousands set to come hom, and we aren’t prepared. Every day we should honor the more than 4,000 lives lost: every suicide, bullet or serious accident.”
“And every day we should honor those who have been hurt. That number is 60,645 and rising.

Barack Obama-sistible

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April 8, 2008

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Another crazy day in the presidential election.
Another crazy Obama video.

Arab Strap’s Malcolm Middleton gets up the gritty magic

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April 8, 2008

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By Todd Lavoie

Charmed, I am – former Arab Strap post-folkie Malcolm Middleton has just released his fourth album, Sleight of Heart (Full Time Hobby), and it’s a corker, I’m telling you. A fitting title, too – there’s some lovely little magic at play here, fashioning such shimmers and sparkles from the sadder reaches of the emotional continuum.

Sleight of heart? Sleight of hand, while we’re at it. Middleton plays a swift game of “now you see it, now you don’t” in his songwriting, tossing up chippy-chip-chipper bluebirds of melody only to smother them in his smog-gray handkerchief with the turn of a devastating phrase. Ol’ Malcolm’s a master at such trickery, often creating a mighty impressive gulf between the listener’s initial surface-level perceptions of the song and the eventual under-the-skin burrowing that takes place later, if given the chance. Simply put, our man crafts some of the most immediately accessible brittle-hearted music you’re likely to hear anytime soon.

It’s been a curious journey for Middleton. Back in 1995, he and Aidan Moffat forged a distinctively stark, soul-baring form of epic disturbo-folk under the eyebrow-raising name Arab Strap (noun: a contraption used by a man to maintain an erection during intercourse). As the moniker would suggest, the duo didn’t shy away from matters of a carnal nature, but even more arresting was their willingness to dredge up the uglier, less flattering aspects of the human experience.

WMC: Aquabooty bash brings out the masses

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April 8, 2008

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Marcus Worgull got the crowd going. All photos by Robin Russell.

Winter Music Conference in Miami rolled onward as contributing photographer Robin Russell checked out the popular local party Aquabooty Music2 at Opium Garden on March 29. Innervsions artists like Ame, Dixon, Henrik Schwarz and Marcus Worgull appeared along with DJ Harvey and Miguel Migs.

Rich Medina spun Philly soul.

Mr. White and Marcus Worgull took the stage.

Tift Merritt takes on ‘Another Country’

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April 8, 2008

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By Nathan Baker

Tift Merritt is giving something away. It seems delicate but could be strong as steel, a gift from a solitary place but one that she openly shares. It is Another Country (Fantasy). When Lost Highway Records broke things off with the Grammy-nominated songwriter in 2006 she retired to a room in Paris to put down this portrait of a spirit that is at once resilient and vulnerable. “Sometimes you fall up these stairs,” Merritt sings on “Tender Branch,” bruised but not beaten.

If there is a bit of the expatriate in this record it is not the decadent self-destruction of Papa Hemingway but the anxiety and awe of a stranger navigating a mysterious place. In “Love is Another Country” her sentiment is simple and perfect: “I wanna go with you.”

Produced by George Drakoulias, whose clients include the Black Crowes and the Jayhawks, Another Country both reflects and refracts country music. “Tell Me Something True” and “My Heart is Free” illustrate what all the Bonnie Raitt and Lucinda Williams comparisons are for, but mostly Merritt’s is an Americana of the mind – the vernal pleasures Saint-Sulpice, a pastoral stroll along the Seine, the silver needle of a Parisian clothier pushing through a linen summer dress.

TIFT MERRITT
With Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek
April 14, 8 p.m., $16
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
(415) 885-0750

Adam Werbach makes me puke

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April 7, 2008

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I heard Adam Werbach, the onetime boy wonder of the Sierra Club, on Forum this morning, talking about how wonderful it is that Wal-Mart is starting to use special trucks that rely on batteries when they idle to save diesel fuel.

And I have to say: He made me want to puke. I wanted to jump into the radio and slap some sense into him and say:

Adam, Adam: Wal-Mart is the very definition of an unsustainable business. This is company that imports cheap shit made with near-slave labor in countries where there are no laws against putting 12-year-olds in factories, ships it to a few distribution points in the U.S. and then trucks it all over to shopping malls with giant parking lots where everyone drives. Wal-Mart cuts costs so aggressively that its employees go on public assistance, and in the process drives locally owned, independent businesses into bankruptcy.

Wal-Mart represents a fundamentally flawed economic model that is as much to blame for the problems in the American economy as the subprime mortgage meltdown. Money is sucked out of communities to profit one of the richest families in the world as main-street businesses, which might actually serve pedestrians and shoppers who take transit, businesses that keep money in the community and create and preserve decent jobs and wealth for middle-class people, are killed off.

I know Werbach thinks that moving the world’s largest retailer toward better practices is worth the effort.

But you can’t make Wal-Mart anything but an environmental train wreck and an economic disaster, and to even try gives credibility to a truly awful corporation with a horrible business model.

But I guess that’s what happens when you sell your sustainability consulting company to an ad agency.

SF’s new deal for fossil fuel plants

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April 7, 2008

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The SF Public Utilities Commission and the Board of Supervisors will soon be hearing details of a new contract to build two fossil fuel-burning power plants in the city. JPower, an Illinois-based subsidiary of the national power company of Japan, backed out of a deal to build a plant for the city when, back in October, the Board and PUC urged city staffers to pursue a city-owned operation instead.

Now a company called ICC is negotiating a deal with the city to build and run the plant, but according to PUC staff, the city would own the facility outright. The previous deal would have given JPower control of the facilities to run for profit, eventually turning ownership over to the city after 30 years. The ICC contract includes upgrading the four turbines, constructing the plants, and negotiating the land transactions, and power purchase and interconnection agreements.

The “peaker” power plant, which includes three natural gas combustion turbines generating 150 megawatts of power for “peak” needs, will be sited in the Bayview/Potrero neighborhood. A fourth turbine will be in southern San Francisco, as emergency reserve power for the airport.

The California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) has said San Francisco needs an on-demand “firm” power source for optimal grid reliability, but many have questioned the viability of that claim now that the Transbay Cable will be funneling more wattage our way and Community Choice Aggregation is coming online, a plan that would cut our electricity needs and replace much of them with renewables. The Brightline Defense Project, representing the A. Philip Randolph Institute and residents of Bayview who have been overwhelmed with power plant pollution for decades, have sued the city to stop the plant.

At last Friday’s LAFCO hearing, PUC staffer Barbara Hale offered a brief update on the contract and said it would be heard by the PUC on Tuesday and if accepted, sent on to the Board for ultimate approval. Despite a more publicly-owned and controlled plan for the plants, Supes. Ross Mirkarimi and Chris Daly are still questioning whether the city really needs then at all. “I’m just not sold on the fact that we need the peakers,” said Mirkarimi.

Daly asked about the status of closing the notoriously noxious Mirant power plant, which has been the hook for the peakers – ISO has said they’d pull the “reliability must-run” agreement that keeps Mirant open if they could count on power coming into the grid from the peakers. Back when JPower was still in the picture, Mayor Gavin Newsom negotiated a sweet deal with Mirant, which agreed to shutter in exchange for special favors from the Planning Department when they settle on a new use for the land.

Daly, citing the deal, said, “Very clearly the goal posts have been moved on the issue of Mirant.” He urged the city to move them again when it comes to the peakers, by coming together to oppose them and tell Cal-ISO we don’t want them. “I think what Sacramento is taking advantage of is we’re not together…I’m sick of getting bullied around by Sacramento bureaucrats….If we really want to wean ourselves off the dirty fossil fuel plants it’s going to take the spending of some political will.”

Mirkarimi asked Hale, if the peakers didn’t exist, what would shut Mirant. Hale said Cal-ISO only sees dispatchable, on-demand power as adequate. Intermittent renewable resources like wind and solar (though ISO may be changing their tune on solar) don’t count. “There are renewable resources that do, like geothermal.” She said the PUC was currently studying the possibility of deep-well geothermal for San Francisco.

Clubs: Anavan sans Ativan

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April 7, 2008

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Holy Spazmosis!. Jumpy young rockers Anavan drove up from Salt Lake City to play the queer (and friends!) punk monthly Trans Am at Club Eight for a rapturous beer-spurtin’ crowd last Saturday.

Anavan, “You’re Taking Me Out”

The frantic foursome greeted us with mucho fog machine, trademark hockey helmets, drum, bass, and a wall of synths. And then everything got crazy in a voices-in-your-head way (mostly thanks to the skittering, hyperactive vocals mixed waaaay back in the echo-delay mix.)

Courtesy of the muthafuckin’ LA Times

In the case of the hockey helmets, visual connections to those masked masters Daft Punk, MSTRKRFT, and occasionally (if primly painted-on facial scruff counts — yes, I’m calling those skinny French boys out) Justice might be made. And sonically they can sometimes resemble those glam-tech outfits a teeny-tad, mostly in their boppy keyboard riffs. But Anavan adds its own cymbal-crashing, wildly energetic No-Wave twist, sure to please the art school crowd (Richard Hell is all the rage again, haven’t you heard?) and dance floor maniacs as well as indie kids. I expect you’ll hear them burning down discos near you soon.

(Next month a Trans Am, Sat May 3, features SF native cuties Ex-Boyfriends — should be rocking’.)

SPORTS: Bring back Barry

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April 7, 2008

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BY A.J. Hayes

Less blah.

Enough already, we get it. Go ahead, put the cap back on the Sharpie, and step away from the bus.

That’s right, you, the graffitist/frustrated Giants fan who’s been going around town doctoring the Giants advertisements on the back of Muni coaches- making the ad copy that initially read: “All Out. All Season,” say instead: “All Outs. All Season.”

Very funny. Ha, ha. ha. Ho, ho, ho and a bottle of rum. Actually we’ll need a bottle of rum to numb the pain if the Giants get pinned with one more ugly 7-0 shutout.

It’s been only a week, but we’ve seen enough. The Giants lineup is not working. What makes it scarier is that the 1985 Giants, the club that posted the worst record in San Francisco history – 62-100 – had a lineup (featuring Chili Davis, Jeffery Leonard, Bob Brenly) that was considerably better than the current team.

This year, Giants ads have promised a grittier club that hangs together win or lose.

And while, yes, the Giants have two potential pitching aces in Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum and a couple of exciting position players, including the daring and eminently watchable Eugenio Velez, will that be enough to keep an easily distracted fan base from hanging in there?

It won’t do the Giants any good to work out any mid-season trades – who would they deal?

But it might not be a bad idea for the Giants to plant a scout in Hollywood.

That’s where they might catch a glimpse of the banished Barry Bonds eating breakfast with Larry King or taking in a Tyler Perry movie premiere. Despite batting .276, with 28 homers and 66 RBI last season, no team wanted Bonds this spring.

Bonds is ready, willing and certainly able to play another season – and it should be with San Francisco. What better way for the club to celebrate its 50th Anniversary in San Francisco than by having one of the club’s all-time greatest players knocking balls into the bay?

We say bring back San Francisco’s favorite surly slugger.

McGoldrick wants Solar funds for low-income housing

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April 7, 2008

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Sup. Jake McGoldrick just had an epiphany: install solar panels on affordable, low-income housing projects, citywide.

That way the City can green San Francisco, create local jobs and business opportunities—and eventually reduce to zero the utility bills of low-income folks.

McGoldrick’s moment of clarity came in face of increasing pressure from local solar businesses and work creation programs to support Mayor Gavin Newsom’s recently announced Solar Energy Incentive Program.

McGoldrick says he supports going green and hiring locally, but he balked at the lack of public discussion about the mayor’s program, which uses tax payer dollars to subsidize solar installation on private property.

Pitched as a pilot project, Newsom’s solar energy incentive program proposes to allocate $3 million between now and the end of June, and $3-5 million in subsequent fiscal years. That adds up to more than $50 million by 2018.

McGoldrick believes these monies would be better used subsidizing installations on public housing and non-profit-owned, low-income projects.

Supporters of Newsom’s proposed Solar Incentive program argue that could better leverage a portion of the SFPUC’s Mayor’s Energy Conservation Account, and get more out of Hetch Hetchy dollars spent in energy efficiency and solar.

But as McGoldrick observes, the Mayor’s current plan fails to address public ownership concerns.

‘That’s why I’m going to try and give these MECA funds to affordable housing projects,” McGoldrick said.. “That way, people get jobs, solar companies come here, the city goes green–and we do power purchase agreements.”

San Francisco only has a 30 percent home ownership rate. But since a portion of that percentage are absentee landlords, the City could only target an ever smaller fraction of the city’s roof tops for solar installation, under theMayor’s current Solar Energy Incentive Program.

‘Tenants can’t jump in and spend $25,000 to replace their roof, and you can’t have the question of jobs be the tail wagging the dog,” McGoldrick said.

Stop-Loss notes

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April 7, 2008

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There were only 20 people, including myself, watching Stop-Loss when it opened in Oakland on Friday night. Two of those people were my family members.

Most of us were in, or close to, tears, by the end of the movie, which refers to a provision in all military service contracts that says a service member’s duty can be involuntarily extended, won’t be a box office hit.

Much like A Mighty Heart>, Rendition and In the Valley of Elah, films dealing with the nitty gritty of war aren’t popular with the movie-going public.

But if people can’t bear to spend 120 minutes looking at realities of war, how do they expect to bring troops home?

OMG, the naked Yoga Guy is back…

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April 7, 2008

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…only this time, he’ll be carrying a torch.

“A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make an indelible statement for human rights” — naked!

“We are inviting you and your nude friends to join us,” says the invite, sent to us by former mayoral candidate George Davis, who points out that the “original Olympic Athletes participated nude.”

He also points out that the original Olympic athletes covered themselves with olive oil, and that he “will bring Baby Oil for those who wish the look.”

For more information about what to wear, where to meet, etc, read on:
“Meet: :12:30 pm sharp, near the front of Tacqueria Pancho Villa, Pier 1, the Embarcadero (waterfront side), the next building north of the Ferry Building. Look for torch(es) labeled “Human Rights”

“After the Official Run passes (estimate 1:10 pm), we will jog/walk fast to Bay/Embarcadero. When the Official Torch Run returns from the Marina District, we will follow the Official Run to the closing ceremony at Justin Herman Plaza. I estimate the total distance at a little over one mile.”

Optional: Make a faux-torch, or two, labeled “Human Rights.” If you don’t have one, don’t worry. I am happy to relay a torch to you. Note: Don’t bother with a real flame because of Fire Marshall and permit issues.

George Davis – the “naked yoga guy” – coordinator of torch run (415) 722-2968

Bureaucrats blow $375k reading Matier & Ross

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April 7, 2008

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Employees working for the city and county of San Francisco have squandered $375,000 in salaried work hours over the last 12 months reading San Francisco Chronicle columnists Matier & Ross, time that could have been spent finding cheaper ways to provide a police presence at political demonstrations and repaint parking garages located at far-flung BART stations, according to a new report by Controller Ed Harrington.

“Our analysis shows that City Hall staffers spent precious work time reading about how wasteful they are when they could have been figuring out how to make the board’s chambers ADA compliant for less money or more quickly dispatch frivolous and costly lawsuits against the city,” Harrington said.

The report shows that overpaid City Hall staffers in particular devoted seemingly endless salaried hours reading about how they and their colleagues have burdened San Francisco’s already bloated $338 million budget deficit and how Jerry Brown’s recent office redo in Sacramento cost a whole lot of taxpayer money.

“Dude, I’m totally expensive,” said one City Hall insider after reading about how much it cost for him to have a big title but few actual tasks. “And holy shit, did Don Perata’s new taxpayer-subsidized car really cost that much? No wonder we’re laying off teachers.”

Torched?

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April 7, 2008

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How is Mayor Gavin Newsom going to maneuver his way through the controversial Beijing Olympic Torch relay in San Francisco on Wednesday?

Before he read the political writing on the wall, (or listened to the protesters that gathered beneath his window at City Hall each day to chant “Mayor Newsom don’t accept China’s Bloody Torch,) Newsom tried to get Sup. Carmen Chu, his most recent appointee on the Board, to squash Sup. Chris Daly’s recommendation that San Francisco’s top official (Newsom, presumably) accept the torch “with alarm and protest.”

When that attempt backfired–and the Mayor’s Office saw Sup. Chris Daly, not Newsom, swarmed by cameras, the Mayor realized which way the political winds were blowing—and decided to met with some Tibetans.

At that point, US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (Newsom’s aunt by marriage) had already been speaking out against China’s human rights abuses and thoroughly pissed off the Chinese authorities by visiting the Dalai Lama.

And now London has protested, Paris has snuffed the torch, protesters are scaling the Golden Gate Bridge, and Hillary Clinton, who Newsom is stomping for, is calling for Bush to boycott the opening of the Beijing games.

“These events underscore why I believe the Bush administration has been wrong to downplay human rights in its policy towards China,” Clinton said.

So, will Newsom accept the torch “with alarm and protest,” after all? Or hand the job off to a surrogate and head out on vacation? Either way, sounds like Newsom is gonna need a whole lot of extra hair gel to wiggle his way through this one.

WMC: Art of Seduction shows the fest how it’s done

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April 7, 2008

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King Britt and Victor Duplaix make the scene. All photos by Robin Russell.

Contributing photog Robin Russell made a stop at the fourth annual Art of Seduction party at the Victor Hotel on March 29 during Miami’s Winter Music Conference. King Britt and Duplaix headed a bill that included DJ Rashida, Eleonora, Manchild Black, Taylor McFerrin, DJ Dozia, and Kayree.