(Edwards in Allendale, S.C. 4/26/07 Photo by Rachel Feierman.)
By Tim Redmond
I’ve been dubious all along of a candidate who wasn’t exactly a left-wing leader when he was in the U.S. Senate. But these days he’s at least willing to talk about taxing the very rich. And I just read an interesting diary on daily kos that looks at his record in some depth. Granted, it’s by an out-front Edwards supporter, but it’s worth a read.
By Tim Redmond
Supervisor Chris Daly is calling for a convention June 2nd to nominate a progressive candidate for mayor. It’s a nice idea, and I’m all for it — except that it would be a pretty major bust if we didn’t have anyone prepared to acutally run for mayor at that point.
So the convention forces the left to get its act together and sets a deadline for someone to come forward and agree to be the nominee. At this point, I’m seeing Ross Mirkarimi and Daly as the only two viable options, and I’m not yet entirely sure either one of them wants to do it. If Matt Gonzalez is going to run, it won’t be at this convention; he’s nowhere near ready to announce anything yet, and he tells me the only way he’d get in the race is later on, if there’s no viable candidate. (If either Daly or Mirkarimi is in the race, he won’t run at all.)
Paul Hogarth at BeyondChron argues that perhaps we shouldn’t bother at all; Newsom hasn’t been able to do all that much damage since he’s so weak, and every now and then he does something decent, so
“progressives should consider what part of their issue-based agenda is really getting stalled. It’s frustrating to have a Mayor who won’t even attend Question Time after the voters approved it, but the real question is whether progressives are better off letting Newsom be a lame duck for the next five years – than awakening a vindictive Mayor who would be more formidable after his re-election.”
I think there’s just too much coming up in the next four years (including the wholesale rezoning of the eastern neighborhoos, which is the last battle for blue-collar jobs and affordable housing in San Francisco) to let Newsom win without a fight. We might as well get on with it.
Guardian contributor George Chen writes in: So Fall Out Boy is holding a contest to have people open for them when they are on tour. Robin Williams on Fire is vying for that honor. The idea of these kids opening for a ridiculous pop punk band is too funny to pass up.
Fall Out Boy won’t know what hit ’em.
Make the Bay Area band’s dreams come true! Go to www.mylocalbands.com/promos/fobcivic/vote.asp# and select Concord, Calif., and vote for Robin Williams on Fire. You’ll be glad you did.
Robin Williams on Fire wants to light one under a certain Boy’s bee-hind.
By Tim Redmond
So Rep. Jerry McNerny, who ran against Richard Pombo and told us all he was against the war, voted against withdrawing from Iraq. This has created a fascinating discussion on Calitics, which shows both how seriously the bloggers take their politics — and how forums like this have become THE place for political discussions of this sort.
And in the end, this is pretty fucking brilliant.
By Tim Redmond
The Chronicle was a day late with the news of what went on at the Police Commission Wednesday night, and its story today was stunning in how it missed the point. Is it not at all worthy of mention that, for the first time in the history of the United States, a transgender person became president of a big-city police commission?
No, apparently not for the Chron, which instead refered to new president Theresa Sparks as “chief executive officer of sex-toy retailer Good Vibrations.” The person who she defeated for the top job, Joe Marshall, was referred to as “a nationwide expert on juvenile justice.”
No mention in this story of Sparks rather remarkable life and her qualifications for the job. (That info couldn’t have been too hard to find; it was right in the Chron’s own archives.)
My opinion? Outgoing president Louise Renne has been trying to marginalize Sparks and undermine her authority before she can even get started. Robert Haaland has a nice analysis in Leftinsf.
Full disclosure: My domestic partner is acting director of the Office of Citizen Complaints, which means she works for the Police Commission.
By Bruce B. Brugmann
CNN today was drumming on with news of Tony Blair going and Gordon Brown coming in as prime minister of Great Britain. The Turkish Press was reporting that the national elections here had been moved up three months to July 22, and this surprised the political parties, who were alarmed and said they were forced to bring in the professionals to help them carry on effective campaigns during the short period left before the election. The Turkish Daily News, Turkey’s English daily, reported that there was no space left on the TV stations or on the billboards and that campaign ads would be competing with ice cream manufacturers.
On the plane coming in, Spiro Vryonis sat next to associate pubublisher Jean Dibble and filled her in on the elections from his perspective as a Byzantine scholar. Vryonis, retired director of the center for the study of Hellenism in Sacramento, told her that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan supported his Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul for president. “They get along like two dogs until someone throws a bone between them,” he said.
Meanwhile, I found good advice in Time Out Istanbul, the city-living guide in English. It wrote about the art of Keyif, which translates as “a pleasurable state of idle relaxation.” The article said that Keyif has been honed down to an art form by the Trurks and laid out 10 ways of experiencing Keyif the Turkish way. My favorite was the idea of walking aimlessly along the Bosthorus, the body of water seperating Asia from Europe. It said that “you’ll be surprised how relaxing the Oriental art of walking around with no destination is.” The 58th International Press Institute world congress and general assembly starts tomorrow. So I think I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon doing Keyif. B3
UPDATE: The Weekly finanlly ran a shortened version of this letter May 23.
This is a letter I sent over to the SF Weekly last week in response to a story on the Reilly lawsuit settlement. Somehow, the Weekly couldn’t manage to get the letter into print, so we’re posting it here on the Bruce Blog:
To the Weekly: (for publication as a letter to the editor in the next edition: since the Weekly and apparently all VVM papers have blocked emails from the Guardian, I am sending this by fax and by hand)
In my Bruce/B3 blog at SFBG.com commenting on the Reilly victory in his Hearst/Singleton antitrust case, I wrote that a reporter had asked me for comment on the settlement of the litigation.
The reporter was Michael Stoll and he told me in an email that he was doing a piece on the settlement for the “SUCKA FREE CITY” page for the SF Weekly/New Times/VVM chain paper. I purposely didn’t identify the reporter or the column (appropriately named) or the paper because I didn’t think the Weekly would run my comments that I had quickly written up and sent to him by email. Then I wrote my Weekly comments in my blog.
By Tim Redmond
The mayor’s office is still mum on this, but we’ve heard today from several good sources that Mayor Gavin Newsom is planning to veto Sup. Chris Daly’s $28 million affordable housing package.
This after the mayor made a big deal of saying he wants to spend money helping children and families.
The mayor, our sources say, has also indicated that if the board overrides his veto, he will simply refuse to spend the money.
None of this will go over well with the supervisors, particularly Daly, who chairs the Budget Committee and thus will be overseeing Newsom’s budget.
Guardian staffer Ben Hopfer hit Mistah FAB’s CD release party, presented by Stash magazine, at Fat City last night, May 10. Here’s his report and pics on the local rap star-studded fete:
Mistah FAB soaks up the limelight. All photos by Ben Hopfer.
San Quinn opened up the night with his protege Hollywood. They performed “Hell Yeah,” some classics, and a cut off his upcoming album, which I think, is titled Rock Star.
Mistah FAB came out and thanked everyone for showing up, then proceeded to shout out the entire Bay Area. He brought, like, half of Oakland onto the stage. What was really cool was that he let the other rappers perform their songs onstage with him., giving so much shine to everybody else that they ran out of time for him to perform his own single.
Big Rich strikes a pose.
By Steven T. Jones
Just as I was writing about wanting to get back into covering the fantastic alternative energy creations now being developed by Burning Man artists, Berkeley officials were in the process of shutting down an important hub for this work. The Shipyard is a live-work industrial arts space just off Ashby Avenue built from steel shipping containers, which city officials apparently don’t think is safe, so they’ve ordered the artists out and the place shut down immediately, with owner Jim Mason risking $2500 per day fines until he can get out. “It’s a major blow to the underground arts community,” Burning Man’s environmental director Tom Price told me this morning. Even worse, it’s a blow to Mason’s main project for the year, Mechabolic, a gasification system that turns garbage into usable energy without producing carbon or greenhouse gases, the very thing that Berkeley officials claim to support. We’re just diving into this developing story now, so check back for the complete story next week. Or if you want to help them break down many years of funky hard work, stop by the shop at 1010 Murray Street this weekend.
By Steven T. Jones
Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean fired up the party faithful during a fundraiser at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco last night, displaying the passionate oratory that inspired the grassroots but prompted the mainstream media to turn on him during his run for president in 2004.
File photo from the Guardian of London
He said the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994 started “a national nightmare,” but with the Democrats retaking Congress in November, “we are on the way back.” He implored party activists that the power to fundamentally transform the country is in their hands. “It is all about grassroots and knocking on doors,” Dean said. “The 30-second ads are not going to cut it anymore.”
Yet for all his rhetoric about the superiority of Democratic Party values — such as environmentalism and opposition to poverty and war — there was something unsettlingly simplistic in Dean’s tendency to label Democrats good and Republicans bad.
By Molly Freedenberg
We get press releases all the time asking us to consume things, listen to things, attend things, write about things – from the International Conference of This and Such (no, I usually don’t go) to caffeinated vodka (damn straight I’m going to try that one…). But unless these releases have something to do with what I’m working on right this second — as in, I’m invited to a press conference on proper pool enjoyment techniques the week I’m doing Summer Guide — or they’re offering me something I actually really want — as in, Hey! Have this pair of oxblood knee-high boots from Fluevog for free! — they usually go into the Pile o’ Papers to be Looked at and Thrown Away Later.
Forty feet o’ spa goodness
But not when I got the invite for a mini-facial, skin consultation, and make-up application from the cosmetics company L’Bel. I mean, hey. The release said “Mobile Spa.” I imagined it something like a fancy pizza delivery service: “Hello, I’d like to order a facial, a hand massage, and some flattery. Please hold the speech about how quitting smoking would be better for my skin. Please drop these off at 135 Mississippi in Potrero Hill at 2pm. Oh, wait. That’s nap time. How about 3?” Who can resist that? Not me, the girl whose vanity (I mean, uh, whose dedication to the health of her skin) is only matched by her supreme laziness.
Ain’t no trash in this trailer
By G.W. Schulz
Remember how when Nancy Pelosi ascended to the speakership of the House, you were all proud because it happened in your lifetime? “A woman has come mightily close to the presidency,” you told yourself. “Slowly but surely, we’ll get over this whole ‘women in positions of power scare the living shit out of us, but we’re afraid to admit it’ thing.’”
But remember, too, how that cynical voice inside of you also said “Yeah, sure, it happened in my lifetime, but Pelosi is as cold and calculating as every other creep inside the beltway. How much of this should I be proud of?”
You have something else to be proud of now with a little less cynicism, and Washington is a long way from achieving what your city has.
A transgendered woman with a strong head for reform has taken over the top seat at the San Francisco Police Commission. Her name is Theresa Sparks. You may know her as CEO of Good Vibrations, the sex shop. Hell yeah.
Last year more than 100 journalists were killed while on reporting duty, making it the bloodiest year on record for journalism, according to IPI’s statistics.
Of the 100 journalists killed last year, forty-eight were killed in the Middle East and North Africa alone. 46 of which were killed in Iraq, once again proving Iraq to be the most dangerous country in the world for journalists.
I am off to an assembly for the International Press Institute (IPI), an international free press organization, meeting in Istanbul. We’ll soon be starting a special section called Journalists Under Fire that will feature communiques and alerts from IPI and other international press organizations involving suppression of journalists in countries all over the world.
Here is the latest press release from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) concerning the recent murder of three journalists in Iraq.
The SF Weekly’s obsession (jealous much?) with our 5/2 cover story on Vincent Gallo and the Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival is forcing me to put one of my credos – “Don’t make me cut you!” – into practice.
I read, or at least glance at, the Weekly. It’s one of the less rewarding requirements of my current job. So I couldn’t help but notice that its Sucka Free City column has launched two successive attacks on a recent profile I wrote about Gallo. Got that? That’s two different Weekly articles about one alleged “puff piece.” I guess there must be something to what we’re doing for them to be so strangely fixated.
I have better things to do, and better work to put in the paper, but I’ll use this blog to pick these Sucka Free City articles off one by one, talk a little about misogyny and lame Cro-Magnon straight journalist dude posturing – a relevant topic here – and then add some real observation about the state of arts journalism as executed, and I mean executed, by the SF Weekly and their overlords at the New Times, excuse me, Voice Media.
The SF Weekly’s obsession (jealous much?) with our 5/2 cover story on Vincent Gallo and the Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival is forcing me to put one of my credos – “Don’t make me cut you!” – into practice.
I read, or at least glance at, the Weekly. It’s one of the less rewarding requirements of my current job. So I couldn’t help but notice that its Sucka Free City column has launched two successive attacks on a recent profile I wrote about Gallo. Got that? That’s two different Weekly articles about one alleged “puff piece.” I guess there must be something to what we’re doing for them to be so strangely fixated.
I have better things to do, and better work to put in the paper, but I’ll use this blog to pick these Sucka Free City articles off one by one, talk a little about misogyny and lame Cro-Magnon straight journalist dude posturing – a relevant topic here – and then add some real observation about the state of arts journalism as executed, and I mean executed, by the SF Weekly and their overlords at the New Times, excuse me, Voice Media.
UPDATE: I ADORE all the controversy this post is causing (thanks BeyondChron!). Admittedly I wrote this almost a month ago, then hightailed it to the jungles of Peru — just as the facts of the case were becoming clearer. Steve Jones elaborated on the case later in the game here. It’s encouraging that Sixth Street residents are organizing to protect their living conditions, but the reality is that Club Six is zoned properly and obeying the rules, as far as I know. And I stand by my opinion that Six is one of the liveliest clubs in the city. Also admittedly, I jumped to some distasteful conclusions right away (although I was acting at the time on the info available — like any good hothead blogger). But that’s the fun of being a drama queen.
So now some whiny “Not In My Backyard” folks are after one of the best big hip-hop/dubwize/ragga/house spots in the Bay — the six-and-a-half year-old Club Six.
I love Six — the subterranean downtown-ness of it — definitely a little rough around the edges, but nice and soft inside. The irony of this whole sad affair is that the complaining neighbors are saying that Six is too loud — ON SIXTH STREET! Bwahahaha! Are they kidding? Not only has Six’s owner, Angel Cruz, invested a ton o’ duckets into soundproofing the place, but — C’MON! –it’s Sixth Street. The rowdies on the street fart louder than Club Six.
Still, Six faces its license getting pulled for a month, which would break the place. Click here to read an open letter from Angel to the nightlife community, and see how you can help (PDF). Folks like us helped save Hole in the Wall last week — let’s pitch in and keep nightlife diverse in the Bay!
Photo by Terri Loewenthal
The Golden Messenger String Band (an augmented Hiss
Golden Messenger lineup) will be performing at The
Rickshaw Stop on Thursday evening as part of this
year’s Mission Creek Music Festival. HGM plays about
9:00 or so (second on the bill). Also on the bill are
Caves, Michael Zapruder’s Rain Of Frogs, Harbours, and
Rykarda Parasol. That’s a lot of fantastic music for
$10. Expect some long tones.
Thursday, May 10th
$10 8 PM show start
@ The Rickshaw Stop – 155 Fell Street
Also, the fully electric version of Hiss Golden
Messenger will be playing some Northwest shows next
week. These are as follows:
Thursday, May 17th @ The Tractor Tavern, Seattle, WA
Friday, May 18th @ Doug Fir Loung, Portland, OR
Saturday, May 19th @ River City Saloon, Hood River, OR
All of these shows are in support of our good friends
The Mother Hips, who have a fantastic new record out.
Tell a friend.
I hope to see you there.
-M.C. Taylor
P.S. I will also be sitting in on a few songs with my
friend P.G. Six on Saturday, May 12th, at the Swedish
American Hall, in support of Gary Higgins. This is
also part of the Mission Creek Music Festival. P.G.
also has a fantastic new record out.
By Steven T. Jones
The New York Times has noted Burning Man’s burgeoning environmental activism, which is building to a head for the Green Man themed event this August. Most talking heads in the NYT piece — as well as the green push itself — will already be familiar to regular Guardian readers.
Artist rendering of the Man’s green platform from www.burningman.com.
But the article reminds me that I’m long overdue to get back onto the Burning Man beat and start writing about some of the wonderful environmental projects now underway around town, including Jim Mason’s gasification project (in which he turns coffee grounds and other garbage into fuel), something he has successfully applied to Chicken John’s truck and will be turning into a giant garbage-eating slug called Mechabolic with the help of artist Michael Christian (whose Flock piece was displayed in Civic Center Plaza in 2005). So there’s that, the homegrown Cooling Man project, Tom Price’s manic push to green the burn, and lots of other exciting projects that are being birthed here and will make an appearance on the playa before taking over the world. Stay tuned.
by Amanda Witherell
I don’t know how you were feeling after you saw Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, but my first thought was, “Wow, I’m definitely not having children. The year 2050 is going to suck for them.”
Some Brits agree.
By Steven T. Jones
The New York Times has noted Burning Man’s burgeoning environmental activism, which is building to a head for the Green Man themed event this August. Most talking heads in the NYT piece — as well as the green push itself — will already be familiar to regular Guardian readers.
Artist rendering of the Man’s green platform from www.burningman.com.
But the article reminds me that I’m long overdue to get back onto the Burning Man beat and start writing about some of the wonderful environmental projects now underway around town, including Jim Mason’s gasification project (in which he turns coffee grounds and other garbage into fuel), something he has successfully applied to Chicken John’s truck and will be turning into a giant garbage-eating slug called Mechabolic with the help of artist Michael Christian (whose Flock piece was displayed in Civic Center Plaza in 2005). So there’s that, the homegrown Cooling Man project, Tom Price’s manic push to green the burn, and lots of other exciting projects that are being birthed here and will make an appearance on the playa before taking over the world. Stay tuned.
By Tim Redmond
Rep. Nancy Pelosi is going to announce an energy independence plan by July 4.
Gee: I wonder if she’ll include a gas tax, which even Business Week thinks is a smart move.
By Steven T. Jones
After being called out by the Guardian as the main obstacle to building a high-speed rail system in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote an op-ed in the Fresno Bee over the weekend claiming to enthusiastically support the project. That’s good news and a sign that project supporters are making progress. Unfortunately, the op-ed continues the governor’s deceptive approach to the issue as it omits inconvenient facts and makes false claims.
By Sarah Phelan
Slow is how I was feeling in all this heat, as I drove towards the Bay Bridge, direction San Francisco, and maybe it was because I was driving slowly, too, that I saw the huge illuminated “Don’t Trash California” sign that’s been newly installed on the approach to the toll gates.
Brought to us by Toll Roads, an Orange County and SoCal-based organization that has partnered with Caltrans, the sign is obviously intended to stop people trashing our state (at least physically, if not verbally).
Nice touch, I thought, as the driver in front of me tapped cigarette ash out of his window, and a plastic bag flew across six lanes of freeway traffic. It’s time people stopped dumping shit out of car windows. Maybe if they could see where their shit ends up, they’d give more of a shit about their shit.Maybe we need Al Gore to make another documentary, following the path of a fast food wrapper from your car and into someone else’s lneighborhoods and into the waterways that lead to the giant silver mobius that is the World’s Ocean.
Or maybe we could just use our friggin’ imaginations. The kids in West Oakland WON’T enjoy finding your beer can in their back yard. Nor will the sea lions at Pier 39. And it won’t help feed the starving polar bears.
And if the California Department of Transportation, Division of Maintenance, didn’t have to spend more than $40 million just to clean up litter on freeways and highways, maybe they’d have more dough for fixing the pot holes that drivers are always complaining about.
