Berkeley

Remembering Joe Neilands

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John Brian “Joe” Neilands: September 11, 1921 – October 23, 2008

by Juanita, Torsten and Dianne Neilands

J.B. Neilands was born in Glen Valley, British Columbia to Thomas Abraham Neilands and Mary Rebecca Neilands (nee Harpur), immigrants from the Belfast area of Northern Ireland. He grew up on a modest family dairy farm and saw many depression-era hobos riding the trains that ran across the farm, something that left an indelible impression upon him of the follies of rampant capitalism and concentration of wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. He obtained an undergraduate degree at the University of Guelph in Ontario in 1944 where he had planned to become an agricultural representative to farmers, but an elective course in microbiology opened a new and fascinating world of micro-organisms to him. He served in World War II as a stoker, second class, aboard a submarine chaser based in Halifax and completed his master’s degree in 1946 at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He then obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1949, completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Stockholm, Sweden and then took a position as an assistant professor at UC Berkeley in 1951. In 1958 he married Juanita L’Esperance and they hand-built a house together in Berkeley.

During his scientific career J.B. Neilands published numerous scientific papers in his area of research, microbial iron transport, and mentored many graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, including Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis (though Neilands would be the first to say that he had little to do with Mullis’s discovery). In his career Neilands published a seminal textbook, “Outlines of Enzyme Chemistry” and co-authored a text on the dangers of defoliants and herbicides (“Harvest of Death”).

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J. B. Neilands in his laboratory at UC Berkeley

The trouble with hairy

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HALLOWEEN SCREENING What’s most shocking about Oliver Stone’s W. — beyond anything in the too-mild movie itself — is that it’s simply dramatizing a still-seated US president. That still feels like a breach in our near-extinct public decorum, however much Shrub has degraded the office’s dignity.

Yet there’s precedent: one prior era brought a slew of movies about its Disaster-in-Chief. Once Watergate broke, filmmakers from late radical-left documentarian Emile de Antonio to future Roller Boogie (1979) director Mark L. Lester weighed in with parodies.

Little-noticed then, these films have only grown more obscure since. But one gets revived as the Pacific Film Archive’s Halloween choice this year. Despite all its flaws, it remains one of the more hilarious metaphors ever for political corruption. We’re talking The Werewolf of Washington.

Werewolf was the second and last feature by writer-director Milton Moses Ginsberg, whose Coming Apart (Rip Torn as a psychiatrist having sex with his female patients) created a minor splash in 1969. That film was an early exercise in faux-found footage narrative à la The Blair Witch Project (1999). By contrast, his hairy 1973 follow-up looks as stylistically square as the Nixon White House, last bastion of political Lawrence Welk-dom.

This is one of those movies hinged entirely on a crazed lead performance. Dean Stockwell, old-Hollywood child actor turned counterculture collage artist turned weirdo cult actor (1986’s Blue Velvet, 1984’s Dune) plays Jack Whittier, youngest member of the White House press corps. Sweetheart to the president’s daughter, Whittier jilts her by taking an assignment in Hungary — where something not-quite-human bites his ass. Returning stateside, he’s recruited as press secretary to a president (Biff McGuire) unlike Tricky Dick in look or manner.

But Werewolf‘s satire is indirect, if not exactly subtle. Despite pleas to be fired — even arrested — Whittier keeps getting kicked upstairs. He’s too much an asset to a paranoid administration under scandalized fire. That value is not unrelated to mysterious man-beast slayings of various loudmouths exposing the administration’s ethical canyon-gaps. Victims include critical journalists, inconvenient political wives, and ill-fated DC residents who stumble across supernatural murder scenes.

The Werewolf of Washington is crude, sloppy, aesthetically ugly, and deliberately ridiculous. But Stockwell is hilarious, particularly during those twitchy lycanthropic transformations where he turns shock-white haired and fanged. This genius turn floats an otherwise flimsy film.

THE WEREWOLF OF WASHINGTON

Fri/31, 8 p.m., $5.50-$9.50

Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, Berk.

(510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Xbox activism

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> a&eletters@sfbg.com

REVIEW The day after the last 2008 presidential debate, the stock market rollercoastered, however tenuously, to a high point, and oil prices plummeted. One would think those would be hopeful omens — on NPR, a woman interviewed on the street claimed lower gas prices were akin to a miracle. Yet the current ability to get the news the moment it happens — where would we be without e-alerts regarding daily Wall Street dramas? — has conditioned us to believe tomorrow might offer a radically different story. When OPEC calls an emergency meeting, and the US feds hold a global economic summit, who knows which side of the economic seesaw we’ll occupy at sunset?

Right now, you could say the economy is a form of conceptual art writ large, with real world implications. The numbers are based on shifts in mood and degrees of confidence, rather than anything you could really put your finger on (like cold hard cash). Apparently the idea that the earth’s thermostat is dialed up to a higher temperature is similarly conceptual. A surprising number of Americans — about 50 percent in a Pew Research Center poll taken last summer — believe there’s no such thing as global warming, and if there were, its causes cannot be scientifically determined. (Say bye-bye to the king penguin.)

Volatile situations have a way of generating free-floating cultural anxiety, and perhaps one of art’s jobs is to assuage it, or at least render it in unexpected terms and media. Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung’s Internet-based game project Gas Zappers does both. Using a colorful cast of characters wrested from online news outlets, it maintains a brash, interactive appeal as it tackles the implications of global warning and shifty petroleum economies. An animated digital collage, it takes two forms — a single-channel digital video, and a series of interactive computer games that can be viewed and played on a large flat screen monitor. It’s also accessible online.

The most attractive aspect of Gas Zappers‘ video version is its amped-up lucidity. Hung may be trafficking in environmental activism, but his vision of green takes on the gloriously corrosive hue of antifreeze. The piece is rendered in a color scheme you could describe as a toxic chemical rainbow. Art with social intent is often deemed didactic, but Hung steers clear of such charges with unabashed satire that plays like John Heartfield — the master of Hitler-hating WWII photomontage — meets South Park on YouTube.

Gas Zappers‘ appeal stems partly from the zeal with which Hung tosses cultural and political references. A polar bear, cast from its frozen habitat, navigates through a global landscape of energy issues — and celebrity spokespeople. Leonardo DiCaprio’s there, as is George W. Bush (as a barbecue grillmaster) and Al Gore (in a polar bear costume accessorized with Nobel bling). Al gags the prez on a compact fluorescent bulb and then sits on his face, issuing a forceful invitation: "Try my greenhouse gas, sucker."

Hung, who studied at San Francisco State University and showed an equally brash Internet-critique piece in Bay Area Now 3, is an artist of our moment. With this project, he has devised perhaps the perfect, time-filling, politically astute work for Berkeley tree-sitters — and those of us who wish we had the time and gumption to get up off our asses and make a difference.

GAS ZAPPERS

Through Feb. 8, 2009

Berkeley Art Museum

2626 Bancroft, Berk.

(510) 642-0808

www,bampfa.berkeley.edu

www.gaszappers.com

Family act

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> sarah@sfbg.com

District 3 supervisorial candidate Joe Alioto Jr., 36, has stated repeatedly on the campaign trail that he is not running on his family’s name.

But his lack of policy or political experience, combined with his campaign’s close ties to his sister, District 2 Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier — the most conservative and reactionary member of the Board of Supervisors — has progressives fearing he’ll be even more hostile to their values than his sister if he is elected this fall.

Records show that Alioto-Pier, 40, who was appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2004, consistently votes against the interests of tenants, workers and low-income folks. She recently sponsored legislation that passes increased water and sewer rates along to tenants. In the past, she has voted against relocation money for no-fault evictions and against limits on condominium conversions. And that’s just her record on tenants’ rights.

"Michela makes Sup. Sean Elsbernd look like a progressive," said Board President Aaron Peskin, who is termed out as D3 supervisor and has endorsed David Chiu as his preferred candidate to represent this diverse district, which encompasses Chinatown, North Beach, Fisherman’s Wharf and Telegraph Hill.

Alioto, who bought a $1.3 million Telegraph Hill condominium in 2004, has said in debates that he was proud to serve on the Telegraph Hill Dwellers Board for three years, citing his alleged involvement in stopping the Mills Corporation’s development at Piers 27 and 31, improving the Broadway corridor, and working on neighborhood parks.

But a former THD Board member says Alioto’s claims are wildly overstated.

"He did not achieve anything in North Beach as a board member," our source said. "His attendance was poor, he lacked leadership, and when he was asked to head a Broadway corridor subcommittee to tackle the Saturday night issue, he said no, he was too busy. He was on the opposite side of all our policies and goals. There were even questions whether he was residing in the district, when he house-sat for his parents in the East Bay."

In a March 2006 e-mail to THD members, Alioto acknowledges that he and his wife had indeed been house-sitting in the East Bay for months while his parents were in Italy. "Of course, I have never intended to stay in the East Bay, my being there for simply a temporary period," Alioto wrote, referring to the Supreme Court’s definition of residency, which he said he "relied on to continue to contribute to THD activities."

THD board members aren’t the only ones accusing Alioto of stretching the truth.

The Sierra Club’s John Rizzo is irate over the use of the club’s name in a recent Alioto campaign mailer in which Alioto claims that he helped create the San Francisco Climate Challenge "in collaboration with the Sierra Club and DF Environment."

"What he says is highly misleading," Rizzo told the Guardian. "It makes it sound like an ongoing effort he cofounded with the Sierra Club, but it was a one-time effort that, while worthwhile, only lasted a month and is over and done with."

Rizzo further noted that Alioto did not complete or return the Sierra Club’s candidate questionnaire, as is requested of candidates seeking the club’s political endorsement. Alioto also has ruffled feathers by claiming that he prosecuted criminal cases while working in the Alameda County District Attorney’s office in 1999.

Alameda County Senior Deputy District Attorney Kevin Dunleavy told the Guardian that Alioto was, in fact, "a summer intern, a student law clerk working under supervision" in 1999. "He got to prosecute a few cases under our supervision, including a misdemeanor jury trial, but he never worked as an actual deputy DA," Dunleavy said.

But Alioto’s alleged distortions have tenants’ rights advocates like Ted Gullicksen of the San Francisco Tenants Union wondering if Alioto will preserve rent control and try to abolish the Ellis Act, as he has promised on the campaign trail. Alioto never completed a Tenants Union candidate endorsement questionnaire, and has a massive amount of financial backing from the same downtown real estate and business interests that support his anti-tenant sister, Alioto-Pier.

Campaign disclosures show that Alioto’s campaign consultant, Stephanie Roumeliotes, led the Committee to Reelect Michela Alioto-Pier in 2006. Roumeliotes is also working on two other political campaigns this fall: No on B, which opposes the affordable housing set-aside, and Yes on P, which supports giving Mayor Newsom even greater control of how transportation funds are allocated and spent, and which even Alioto-Pier joined the Board of Supervisors in unanimously opposing.

Public records show that the Alioto siblings have 160 of the same campaign contributors. These include Gap founder Donald Fisher, wealthy socialite Dede Wilsey, and Nathan Nayman, former executive director of the Committee on Jobs, a downtown political action committee funneling big money into preferred candidates like Alioto.

All of which has progressives worrying that Alioto and his sister could become the Donny and Marie Osmond tag team for the same Republican downtown interests that are seeking to overturn the city’s universal health care and municipal identity card programs.

Talking by phone last week after months of stonewalling the Guardian’s requests for an interview, Alioto told us that he admires his sister very much, but that does not mean he shares her beliefs. "She has been through more in her relatively short life than most of us, and she does a great job representing her district," Alioto said. "But we are not the same people. Just because we are siblings does not mean we think the same."

Noting that, unlike his sister, he supports Proposition M, (which would protect tenants from landlord harassment), Alioto said, "If Michela ever proposed legislation that I thought was bad for the district and city, I’d vote against it."

Asked why he opposes the affordable housing measure Prop. B, Alioto told us that he doesn’t think that "locking away any more of our money helps … but I support affordable housing for low-income folks, including rental units, and we need more middle-income housing for police officers, firefighters, nurses and teachers."

As for his endorsement by the rabidly anti-rent control SF Small Property Owners, Alioto said, "I think people are supporting me because I’d be fair and reasonable."

Alioto, who attended Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley and works as an antitrust lawyer at the Alioto Law Firm with brother-in-law Tom Pier, insists that he never claimed he’d been a deputy DA, "but I have a proven record of being interested in putting criminals behind bars."

Noting that he supports the property tax measures on the ballot, "notwithstanding the fact that some real estate interests supporting my campaign are opposed," Alioto further claimed that estimates that a third of his campaign money is from real estate interests are "severely overblown."

"I think they must have been including architects," he told us.

Asked about the Golden Gate Restaurant Association’s lawsuit against the city’s universal health care ordinance, Alioto said he supports Healthy San Francisco, "but I am concerned a little about putting the burden on small business."

Claiming that he supports the mayor’s community justice center as well as "funding for whatever programs it diverts people to," Alioto talked about kick-starting the economy in blighted areas by creating jobs and incentives for small businesses in those districts. Alioto, who just saw the San Francisco Small Business Advocates kick down $9,500 in support of his campaign, also said he wants to increase the number of entertainment permits, add a movie theater, and decrease parking fees in Chinatown.

"And I support the [Chinatown] night markets," Alioto said, referring to a pet project of Pius Lee, whose Chinatown neighborhood association was found, during a 2006 audit instigated by Peskin, to have received excess city funds and allowed unlicensed merchants to participate in the markets.

But Lee is evidently now in good standing with Alioto and Mayor Gavin Newsom, since he accompanied both on a recent walkabout to boost Alioto’s standing with Chinatown merchants. And Alioto’s election is apparently very important to Newsom, given that the first public appearance the mayor made after returning from his African honeymoon was on behalf of Alioto’s campaign.

All of which seems to confirm progressives’ worst fears that Alioto, just like his sister before him, will become yet another Newsom call-up vote on the board. Three ethics complaints were filed against the Alioto campaign this week, and his detractors say he has a long history of questionable behavior, going back to 1996 when he had a severe ethical lapse while working on his sister’s campaign for Congress.

According to a July 27, 1996 Chronicle article, Alioto, who was then his sister’s campaign adviser, and their cousin, college student Steve Cannata, admitted they conspired to intercept the campaign material of Michela’s congressional opponent, Frank Riggs.

"If Miss Alioto tolerates this sort of deceit in her campaign, it is frightening to imagine how she would behave if ever elected," Riggs wrote at the time. Alioto-Pier lost that race. But if her brother wins this November, can progressives help but be a little frightened to imagine just how the Alioto siblings might behave?

As one observer who preferred to remain anonymous told us, "Alioto may be all Joe Personality on the campaign trail, and have the same photogenic smile as his sister, but in reality, he is a fraud."

The Clean Slate 2008

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>>CLICK HERE FOR OUR LIVE ELECTION NIGHT COVERAGE!

NATIONAL AND STATE RACES
President: Barack Obama
Congress, District 6: Lynn Woolsey
Congress, District 7: George Miller
Congress, District 8: Cindy Sheehan
Congress, District 13: Pete Stark
Superior Court, Seat 12: Gerardo Sandoval
State Senate, District 3: Mark Leno
State Senate, District 9: Loni Hancock
State Assembly, District 12: Fiona Ma
State Assembly, District 13: Tom Ammiano
State Assembly, District 14: Nancy Skinner

STATE PROPOSITIONS
Proposition 1A: YES, YES, YES
Proposition 2: YES
Proposition 3: NO
Proposition 4: NO, NO, NO
Proposition 5: YES
Proposition 6: NO, NO, NO
Proposition 7: NO
Proposition 8: NO, NO, NO
Proposition 9: NO, NO, NO
Proposition 10: NO
Proposition 11: NO
Proposition 12: YES

SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
District 1: Eric Mar
District 3: 1. David Chiu; 2. Denise McCarthy; 3. Tony Gantner
District 4: Dave Ferguson
District 5: Ross Mirkarimi
District 7: Sean Elsbernd
District 9: 1. David Campos; 2. Eric Quezada; 3. Mark Sanchez
District 11: 1. John Avalos; 2. Randy Knox; 3. Julio Ramos

BOARD OF EDUCATION
Sandra Fewer, Norman Yee, Barbara Lopez, Kimberly Wicoff

COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD
Milton Marks, Chris Jackson, Bruce Wolfe

BART BOARD OF DIRECTORS
District 7: Lynette Sweet
District 9: Tom Radulovich

SAN FRANCISCO MEASURES
Proposition A: YES, YES, YES
Proposition B: YES, YES, YES
Proposition C: NO
Proposition D: YES
Proposition E: YES
Proposition F: YES
Proposition G: YES
Proposition H: YES, YES, YES
Proposition I: NO
Proposition J: YES
Proposition K: YES
Proposition L: NO
Proposition M: YES
Proposition N: YES, YES, YES
Proposition O: YES, YES, YES
Proposition P: NO, NO, NO
Proposition Q: YES, YES, YES
Proposition R: NO
Proposition S: NO
Proposition T: YES
Proposition U: YES
Proposition V: NO, NO, NO

EAST BAY RACES
Alameda County Superior Court Judge, seat 9: Dennis Hayashi
Berkelely Mayor: Tom Bates

BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL
District 2: Darryl Moore
District 3: Max Anderson
District 4: Jesse Arreguin
District 5: Sophie Hahn
District 6: Phoebe Ann Sorgen

BERKELEY SCHOOL BOARD
John Selawksy
Beatriz Levya-Cutler

AC TRANSIT BOARD OF DIRECTORS
At-large: Chris Peeples
Ward 2: Greg Harper

EAST BAY MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT
Director, Ward 5: Doug Linney
Director, Ward 6: Bob Feinbaum

EAST BAY REGIONAL PARKS DISTRICT
Director, Ward 1: Norman LaForce

EAST BAY MEASURES
Berkeley Measure FF: YES
Berkeley Measure GG: YES
Berkeley Measure HH: YES
Berkeley Measure II: YES
Berkeley Measure JJ: YES
Berkeley Measure KK: NO
Berkeley Measure LL: NO

Oakland City Council (At Large): Rebecca Kaplan
Oakland Measure N: YES
Oakland Measure OO: YES

ALAMEDA COUNTY MEASURES
Measure VV: YES
Measure WW: YES

>>CLICK HERE FOR PRINTOUT VERSION.

>>READ OUR COMPLETE 2008 ENDORSEMENTS HERE.

Are you worried yet?

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My daughter says she say fliers everywhere in Berkeley yesterday, announcing that there will be no Halloween in the Castro.

Wait a minute! Does that mean that Berkeley is now home to the gang bangers and gay bashers that the Newsom administration reportedly wants to stop from coming to the Castro?

It makes you wonder just what is going on in the Mayor’s mind. Especially since it’s almost impossible to get a straight answer from his handlers. And especially if you had to sit through last week’s report to the Board of Supervisors on the impacts of the global economic meltdown on the San Francisco economy. There were lots of charts and statistics, mostly showing roller coaster plunges of one financial stripe or another, even though we were assured that there is no need to panic. At least not just yet.

But one of the predicted outcome, (In between fairly severe reductions to the City’s property tax transfer revenues, as people stop flipping homes so fast, I guess.), was a drop in international and business tourism, as European visitors and convention traffic are forced, for credit freeze reasons, to stay home or go elsewhere.

I listened as the Mayor’s people described how they want to attract local Bay Area residents, instead.

Joe Neilands’ final words: Yes on H

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Joe Neilands, the University of California-Berkeley biochemistry professor who broke the PG&E/Raker Act scandal story in the Bay Guardian in 1969, died Thursday night of a rare form of tuberculosis at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley. He was 87.

His son Torsten reported his death in an email to me and asked that a memorial box be placed in the Guardian with this copy:

“J. B. Neilands

September 11, 1921 -October 23, 2008

Final Words: Vote yes on Prop H!”

We will proudly publish the memorial box in the Wednesday (10/25/2008) of the Guardian, our last edition before the Nov. 4 election and the vote on the Clean Energy Act (Prop H). There will be no services. His family suggested that donations should be made to SFCleanEnergy.com.

He was Professor J. B. Neilands, a distinguished professor of biochemistry at UC Berkeley, but to his many friends, colleagues, and fellow activists he was just plain Joe. To the Guardian and to the clean energy/public power constituency, he was the consummate independent political activist. His independent political activities span the trajectory of progressive politics in the Bay Area for more than 50 years, from his successful underdog battle in the early 1960s to keep the Pacific Gas & Electric Company from building a nuclear power plant upwind of San Francisco on Bodega Bay, through the free speech movement at Cal, to the fight against the Vietnam War, to the passionate and unending battle to enforce the federal Raker Act, bring public Hetch Hetchy power to San Francisco, and buy out PG&E.

His specialty was taking on the pioneering great cause himself, personally, when the appropriate institution would not do it. And that’s how he got his scandal story about PG&E into the Guardian and helped make it our signature story through the decades. It all started in Joe’s living room in the Berkeley Hills.

Nostalgia

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› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com

CHEAP EATS Now that I am once again all chipper and cheerful and shit, albeit without wheels or money or, you know, prospects, I reckon I can return to writing about food. Anyway, I’m going to try.

My happiness is speculative. I figure, in a world with Alice Shaw and her biscuits in it, all things are not only possible, but likely. Right now, for example, I am lying outside in my tiny patch of woodsy sunshine, dreaming about becoming Canadian, if for no other reason because their Thanksgiving comes earlier than ours, and who wouldn’t want that?

What I love about sunbathing in the woods in October is that you don’t need to wear sunscreen. Or anything.

What I love about Canada …

What I love about fall is sitting in a pile of dead leaves on a sidewalk in Berkeley with Clara de la Cooter, wiggling our legs.

A couple weeks ago, when I was still engaging in defeatist activities such as dating, I was asked, over coffee, what my favorite restaurant was. I don’t believe the asker even knew I was a chicken farmer, let alone the chicken farmer, and that, therefore, my favorite restaurant was wherever I happened to be eating.

So it surprised me more than him when, instead of saying "all of them!" I waxed nostalgic over a particular one, Gravy’s, which has been boarded up for at least five years. If anything I should have said Penny’s Caribbean Café, which has been boarded up for less than one, and which I drive by once a week in the wild hope that she will have resurrected out of the flour and chickpea dust in her cluttered back-room kitchen on Sacramento Street.

Nostalgia happens. Fall’s a good time for it. It’s not a good or a bad thing. It’s nostalgia. It means that at one point in time, at least, you enjoyed life, and that your memory function is functioning. Unfortunately, it also implies that right now things aren’t so bacon for you. For example, you have no idea, say, where to get a good curry goat roti.

There’s a very plastic dollar-fitty-a-thing Chinese joint where Ann’s Café was. I went in there a couple months ago, and got it to go. What was Ann’s Café, in its entirety, is now just the kitchen. The grease on the walls back there looked familiar. I’ve been meaning to write about it.

Maybe next week.

Anything can happen. I have a recurring dream about Ann’s reopening in a food court kind of setting, a small, square, open-air restaurant with Her, Fran, in the middle, holding court and slinging omelets. It’s the same feeling as the one I have when I dream about my closest comrade ever, who died 20 years ago: that this is just wonderful, and not at all, not-even-the-slightest-bit real, like heaven.

While I dream of food courts, by way of conceptualizing a nonexistent afterlife, or bullshit reincarnation, some people get to have children!

Take my other old favorite restaurant, Yamo Thai Kitchen, or Mean-Lady Thai as its ardent fans affectionately called it. Of course, Yamo still stands, in name, reincarnated as Yamo, a Burmese joint.

What you may not know is that Yamo’s son and daughter-in-law (who used to cook at Yamo, near the end) have opened a Thai restaurant in the Excelsior District, hooray! My last first-date ever, the guy who asked me what my favorite restaurant was, launching this nostalgic fit … he not only knew this but had eaten there, turns out. I excused myself.

Outside I called Earl Butter on my cell phone and said, "Let’s go."

We went. My new favorite restaurant is Zabb. Familiarly great Thai food for familiarly cheap prices. Diehard fans of Yamo might miss the tight quarters and sweet tension of watching your meal happen from a front-row counter seat, but I liked Zabb’s atmosphere too. Spacious, unpretentious, and very friendly. They definitely put more effort into presentation. The spring rolls were, if anything, better than Mom’s. The choo-chee curry was fantastic. And they also serve my old Yamo favorites, red curry duck, and chef noodles. All this … this is good news, for me. *

ZABB

Wed.–Mon., 11 a.m.–9:30 p.m.

4440 Mission, SF

(415) 586-2455

Beer & wine

Anniversary Issue: First, do no harm

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> sarah@sfbg.com

Mayor Gavin Newsom announced last week that San Francisco is "on pace" to build a historic number of homes in a five-year period.

"Despite the housing crisis facing the nation, San Francisco is bucking the trends and creating a record number of homes," Newsom said. "Once again, San Francisco is leading the way."

But where?

Newsom notes that his housing-development plans will triple what San Francisco produced in the ’90s, and double the past decade’s housing production. He claims that he has increased the city’s production of affordable housing for low- and very-low-income households to the highest levels ever.

But he doesn’t point out that most people who work in San Francisco won’t be able to afford the 54,000 housing units coming down the planning pipeline.

The truth is that, under Newsom’s current plans, San Francisco is on pace to expand its role as Silicon Valley’s bedroom community, further displace its lower- and middle-income workers, and thereby increase the city’s carbon footprint. All in the supposed name of combating global warming.

So, what can we do to create a truly sustainable land-use plan for San Francisco?

•<\!s> Vote Yes on Prop. B

In an Oct. 16 San Francisco Chronicle article, Newsom tried to criticize the Board of Supervisors for not redirecting more money to affordable housing, and for placing an affordable housing set-aside on the ballot.

"There’s nothing stopping the Board of Supervisors from redirecting money for more affordable housing," Newsom claimed. "Why didn’t they redirect money to affordable housing this year if they care so much about it?"

Ah, but they did. Newsom refused to spend the $33 million that a veto-proof majority of the Board appropriated for affordable housing last year. Which is why eight supervisors placed Prop. B, an annual budget allocation for the next 15 years, on the Nov. 2008 ballot.

•<\!s> Radically redirect sprawl

The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association’s executive director, Gabriel Metcalf, notes that existing Northern California cities —San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose — already have street, sewer, and transit grids, and mixed-use development in place.

"So we don’t have to allow one more inch of suburban sprawl. We could channel 100 percent of regional growth into cities. Instead, we hold workshops and ask ‘How much growth can we accommodate?‘ The answer is none, because no one likes to change."

Metcalf said he believes people should be able to work where they want, provided that it’s reachable by public transit.

"What’s wrong with taking BART to Oakland and Berkeley, or Caltrain to San Jose?" Metcalf said.

•<\!s> Don’t do dumbass growth

Housing activist and Prop. B supporter Calvin Welch rails at what he describes as "the perversion of smart growth in local planning circles."

The essence of smart growth is that you cut down the distance between where people work and live, Welch explains.

"But that makes the assumption that the price of the housing you build along transit corridors is affordable to the workforce that you want to get onto public transit," Welch adds. "If it’s not, it’s unlikely they’ll get out of their cars. Worse, if you produce housing that is only affordable to the community that works in Silicon Valley, you create a big problem in reverse, a regional transit shortage. Because you are building housing for folks who work in a place that is not connected to San Francisco by public transit."

Welch says the city also needs to invest more in transit infrastructure.

Pointing to Market-Octavia and the Eastern Neighborhoods, Welch notes that while the City Planning Department is calling for increased density there, Muni is proposing service cuts.

"This is beyond bizarre," Welch said. "It will result in dramatic increases in density in areas that are poorly served by transit. That’s the dumbest kind of growth."

Welch says sustainable land use has local employment opportunities at its heart.

Noting that 70 percent of residents worked in San Francisco 20 years ago, Welch says that only a little over 50 percent of local jobs are held by San Franciscans today.

"Most local jobs are held by people who live outside San Francisco, and most San Franciscans have to go elsewhere to find work. It’s environmentally catastrophic."

•<\!s> Protect endangered communities

Earlier this year, members of a mayoral task force reported that San Francisco is losing its black population faster than any other large US city. That decline will continue, the task force warned, unless immediate steps are taken.

Ironically, the task force’s findings weren’t made public until after voters green-lighted Lennar’s plan to develop 10,000 (predominantly luxury) units in Bayview-Hunters Point, one of the last African American communities in town.

San Francisco Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Fred Blackwell has since recommended expanding his agency’s certificate of preference program to give people displaced by redevelopment access to all of the city’s affordable housing programs, an idea that the Board of Supervisors gave its initial nod to in early October. But that’s just a Band-Aid.

And community leader and Nation of Islam Minister Christopher Muhammad has suggested creating "endangered community zones" — places where residents are protected from displacement — in Bayview-Hunters Point and the Western Addition.

"It’s revolutionary, but doable," Muhammad said at the out-migration task force hearing.

•<\!s> Don’t build car-oriented developments

BART director and Livable City executive Tom Radulovich predicts a silver lining in the current economic crisis: "The city will probably lose Lennar."

He’s talking about two million square feet of office space and 6,000 square feet of retail space that Lennar Corp., the financially troubled developer, is proposing in Southeast San Francisco.

"We should not be building an automobile-oriented office park in the Bayview," Radulovich said. "Well-meaning folks in the Planning Department are saying we need walkable cities, but Michael Cohen in the Mayor’s Office is planning an Orange County-style sprawl that will undo any good we do elsewhere. This is the Jekyll and Hyde of city planning."

•<\!s> Buy housing

Ted Gullicksen at the San Francisco Tenants Union says that since land in San Francisco only increases in value, the city should buy up apartment buildings and turn them into co-ops and land-trust housing.

"The city should try to get as much housing off-market as possible, grab it now, while it’s coming up for sale, especially foreclosed properties," Gullicksen said. "That’s way quicker than trying to build, which takes years. And by retaining ownership, the city also retains control over what happens to the land."

•<\!s> Work with nonprofit developers

Gullicksen said that the city should work with small nonprofits, and not big master developers, to create interesting, diverse neighborhoods.

Local architect David Baker says nonprofits are more likely to build affordable housing than private developers, even when the city mandates that a certain percentage of new housing must be sold below market rate.

"Thanks to the market crash, very little market rate housing is going to be built in the next five years, which means almost no inclusionary," Baker explains. "During a housing boom, you can jack up that percentage rate to 15 percent, or 20 percent, but then the boom crashes, and nothing gets built."

Gullicksen says the good news is that planners are beginning to think about how to create walkable, vibrant, and safe cities.

"They are thinking about pedestrian-oriented entrances and transparent storefronts, about hiding parking and leaving no blank walls on ground floors. Corner stores, which are prohibited in most neighborhoods, are a great amenity.

"San Francisco needs to figure out where it can put housing without destroying existing neighborhoods, or encroaching on lands appropriate for jobs."

•<\!s> Design whole neighborhoods

Jim Meko, chair of the SoMa Leadership Council, was part of a community planning task force for the Western SoMa neighborhood. He told us that one of the most important things his group did was think about development and preservation in a holistic way.

"WSOMA’s idea is to plan a whole neighborhood, rather than simply re-zoning an area, which is how the Eastern Neighborhoods plan started," Meko said. "Re-zoning translates into figuring out how many units you can build and how many jobs you will lose. That’s a failed approach. It’s not smart growth. If you displace jobs, the economic vitality goes elsewhere, and people have to leave their neighborhood to find parks, recreational facilities and schools."

Meko noted that "housing has become an international investment. It’s why people from all around the world are snapping up condos along the eastern waterfront. But they are not building a neighborhood."

San Francisco, Meko said, "has the worst record of any US city when it comes to setting aside space for jobs in the service and light industrial sector. But those are exactly the kinds of jobs we need. The Financial District needs people to clean their buildings, and I need people to repair my printing press. But I don’t like having to pay them $165 an hour travel time."

•<\!s> Practice low-impact development

Baker recommends that the city stop allowing air-conditioned offices.

"We’ve got great weather, we need to retrofit buildings with openable windows," he said. "We should stop analyzing the environmental impact of our buildings based on national tables. This stops us from making more pedestrian friendly streets. And people should have to pay a carbon fee to build a parking space."

A citywide green building ordinance goes into effect Nov. 3 and new storm water provisions follow in January, according to the SFPUC’s Rosey Jencks.

This greening impetus comes in response to San Francisco’s uniquely inconvenient truth: surrounded by rising seas on three sides, the city has a combined sewer system. That means that the more we green our city, the more we slow down the rate at which runoff mixes with sewage, the more we reduce the risk of floods and overflows, and the more we reduce the rate at which we’ll have to pump SoMa, as rising seas threaten to inundate our sewage system.

The SFPUC also appears committed to replacing ten seismically challenged and stinky digesters at its southeast plant.

•<\!s> Strictly control the type of new housing

Marc Salomon, who served with Meko on the task force, told us he thinks the city needs to create a "boom-proof" development plan, "a Prop. M for housing." That’s a reference to the landmark 1986 measure that strictly limited new commercial office development and forced developers to compete for permits by offering amenities to the city.

The city’s General Plan currently mandates that roughly two-thirds of all new housing be affordable — but the city’s nowhere near that goal. And building a city where the vast majority of the population is rich is almost the definition of unsustainability.

"Too much construction is not sustainable at any one time, nor is too much uniform development," Salomon said. "If we see too many banks, coffee shops or dot-com offices coming in, we need hearings. We need to adopt tools now, so can stop and get things under control next time one of these waves hits. And since infrastructure and city services are in the economic hole, we need to make sure that new development pays for itself." *

Haruki Murakami likes Radiohead

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By Chloe Schildhause

Haruki Murakami’s discussion in Berkeley earlier this month could make a fan out of those who have never even read his work, but his sense of humor, quick wit, and sharp philosophy definitely enhanced one’s appreciation of his writing. Because Murakami allegedly hates having his picture taken, and because he only agreed to three interviews while in the U.S., I expected a reclusive, anti-social man, but he was full of laughs and charismatic.

Murakami’s interview with moderator Roland Kelts drew a sold-out crowd of over 2,000 people. Longtime fans got a chance to see the persona of the man behind great novels such as The Elephant Vanishes, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and the recent memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Knopf, 175 pages, $21). Turns out that Murakami is a man who likes beer and jazz and is obsessed with cats, refrigerators, wells, ears, and elephants.

murakami.jpg
A good pic of a man who hates having his picture taken

Sung and spoken wit

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PREVIEW Last year saw the re-release of performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson’s 1982 debut, Big Science (Warner Bros.). What a heady nostalgia its lo-fi cover invokes, a confidence now gone quaint with the one-time fad of robotic gestures, lab coats, and test-tube weirdness. It’s just cute the way the ’80s were catching up with the future.

But recently the recording’s opening track, the eerie and wacky "From the Air," has been on shuffle rotation in the iPod of the brain as one of the more apt commentaries on present madness. It’s hard to think of a better metaphor for the situation we find ourselves in than a surprise crash landing that seems somehow not to be a surprise at all. And while we’re at it, neither has time bled any of the force from "O Superman," the disc’s surprise chart-topper. How good to know Anderson is still successfully tackling this machine mother of an illusion, "America," in her latest venture: a witty, haunting, and even uncharacteristically irate collection of sung and spoken pieces under the spot-on title of Homeland. The tour makes its way to UC Berkeley this week. Possible bonus: punk rock’s grouchy godfather and Anderson’s companion, Lou Reed, reportedly has shadowed her shows and sat in on a couple of numbers.

LAURIE ANDERSON’S HOMELAND Fri/24-Sat/25, 8 p.m., $28–$56. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, Berk. (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu

CFAC’s Sunshine and Darkness awards

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OPEN-GOVERNMENT GROUP GIVES “DARKNESS” AWARDS ZAPPING ORANGE COUNTY
JUDGE, CAPISTRANO SCHOOL BOARD, SAN BERNARDINO ASSESSOR

The California First Amendment Coalition has named the 2008 recipients of its “Darkness Award,” given in recognition of conduct that thwarts freedom of speech and the public’s right to know. The awards, to be presented Saturday, October 18 at UC Berkeley, are given to:

— Riverside Superior Court Judge David C. Velasquez, who attempted to bar the Orange County Register from covering public testimony in a lawsuit against the paper. His attempt to impose government censorship in the form of a prior restraint was quickly knocked down by the Court of Appeal.

— San Bernardino County Assessor Bill Postmus, a former chairman of the Board of Supervisors who: 1) refused to disclose his activities and e-mails during a two-week period when wildfires raged in the county, 2) as assessor hired an “executive support staff” that, according to the Grand Jury, did “public image work for him, and 3) employed an aide who is being prosecuted by the District Attorney for alleged destruction of public records.

— The Capistrano Unified School Board, which was so indifferent to anti-secrecy laws that the Orange County District Attorney issued a public report outlining the board’s many violations of the Ralph M. Brown public meetings law. In a follow-up inquiry, the District Attorney found further violations and concluded that the board had proven itself “incapable or unwilling” of complying with the law.

In contrast to the Darkness Awards, CFAC also today named the 2008 winners of awards that affirmatively honor service in the cause of free speech, open government and the public’s right to know. Attorney Hal Fuson, the Chauncey Bailey Project, the San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press reporter Linda Deutsch, and legislative advocate Jim Ewert are being recognized for their dedication to First Amendment principles.

—Hal Fuson, vice president and chief legal counsel of Copley Press, will receive the annual Bill Farr Award, presented jointly by CFAC and the California Society of Newspaper Editors. The award recognizes Fuson’s career-long contributions to the principles of free speech,
free press and public access to government.

—The Chauncey Bailey Project and the San Francisco Chronicle will receive CFAC’s Beacon Award. The Chauncey Bailey Project, representing 25 journalists from multiple Bay Area news organizations and journalism schools, produced more than 140 stories that
illuminated the circumstances around the 2007 assassination of Chauncey Bailey, an editor for the Oakland Post who was investigating Your Black Muslim Bakery. Working independently but likewise relying heavily on public records, the San Francisco Chronicle generated 103 stories and probed deeply into the case.

—Linda Deutsch, the legendary court reporter for the Association Press, is a Beacon Award winner. Ms. Deutsch has not only brought some of the nation’s most celebrated trials to our doorsteps, she has fought valiantly for openness and press freedom, earning among other things the Society of Professional Journalists’ First Amendment Award.

—Jim Ewert, legal counsel and legislative advocate for the California Newspaper Publishers Association, is being honored with a Beacon Award. Ewert is in his second decade of protecting reporters, standing up to censorship, and elevating the rights of student
journalists and their advisers.

The awards will be presented at CFAC’s annual Free Speech and Open Government Assembly, to be held this Friday and Saturday at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The award presentation is on Saturday. The program and free online registration are available here:

The full citations for all awards follow.

Doc workers

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More DocFest:

>>A cockeyed view of a kooky country

>>Musical outsider may be genius, werewolf

>>DocFest Web site

> cheryl@sfbg.com

The first thing I noticed about the 2008 San Francisco International Documentary Film Festival was its enormous size. Well, OK, I actually squealed in delight over the inclusion of a Bigfoot doc. Then I took stock of how many films were contained in this year’s program. DocFest’s seventh incarnation is actually larger than its parent fest, the San Francisco Independent Film Festival. Along with the Another Hole in the Head horror festival, both are headed up by founder Jeff Ross.

"It’s the biggest festival I’ve ever done — it’s three weeks long, 48 programs, 107 screenings altogether," Ross explains. This year, DocFest also unfurls a week of films at Berkeley’s Shattuck Cinemas. "I think there’s going to be a strong audience in Berkeley. I just moved to the East Bay, so it’s kind of part of my personal agenda to bring more of my stuff over there." For the first time Ross is also giving an award, naming filmmaker Melody Gilbert "Someone To Watch" based on the strength of her small but growing body of work.

DocFest’s 2008 line-up represents the work of programmers Bill Banning (owner of the Roxie Cinema, the chief venue for Ross’ festivals) and Fay Dearborn, a former programmer at Cape Cod’s Woods Hole Film Festival. She met Ross while working at IndieFest; after what she calls "one of those festival romances," the two married earlier this year.

Dearborn and Ross are obviously in synch, but Dearborn and Banning are also complementary, at least in terms of their programming styles. Banning culls most of his picks from films he scouts at fests like Washington, DC’s Silverdocs, while Dearborn sifts through DocFest’s hundreds of unsolicited submissions.

"I think Fay found most of the fun docs, though [I chose] Hi My Name is Ryan, which is really fun. I saw it at Silverdocs, and the audience was literally in stitches," Banning says. "The idea is to mix it up. There were two really good boxing films I saw at Silverdocs, and we took the better of the two, Kassim the Dream, which is an incredible film. But we’re also looking for good docs from the Bay Area, and there are a number of them in [this year’s program.]"

Banning and Ross agree that the increasing popularity of documentaries is due to multiple factors. "Digital filmmaking has totally changed the documentary landscape," Banning says. "It used to cost so much money to shoot 10 minutes of film on 16mm film. Now you can buy a really great camera for $6,000 and shoot forever on it."

Ross points to films like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Super Size Me (both 2004) — as well as past DocFest hit Spellbound (2002) — as exposing non-narrative films to a wider audience. But as Dearborn explains, the DocFest audience isn’t necessarily looking for films that have mainstream appeal. "I think there’s a certain core DocFest watcher who comes to see slice-of-life documentaries about people who are just inherently interesting, but not in a National Geographic kind of way — sort of a human interest story that’s maybe a little more offbeat," she says, citing the weirdly compelling Elvis in East Peoria and Bunnyland (both 2007) as films she’s particularly excited to screen.

For the first time, DocFest has a presenting sponsor in San Francisco-based Current TV, a doc-focused channel co-founded by Al Gore. Ross sees the partnership as a good match, but he’s hesitant to predict what’s ahead for DocFest. Despite the sponsorship, Ross says that DocFest and IndieFest are still funded 85 percent from their ticket sales, "which is unheard-of in the film festival world."

"I do not have a plan for 2009," he says. "I’d like to see how the festival works [at a larger size]. Everything I do is kind of an experiment. We try different things — this year’s it’s the expansion to Berkeley, so we’ll see how it goes."


THE SEVENTH SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL runs Oct. 17–Nov. 6 at the Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF and the Shattuck, 2230 Shattuck, Berk. For tickets (most shows $10.50) and more information, visit www.sfindie.com>.

Writing on the Wallpaper

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SONIC REDUCER Everyone knows sex sells. But who knew, so many years ago, when hip-hop was still reporting from the streets and dance music revolved round the love and stardust thrown off those glittering mirrored balls, that overt consumption itself would sell just as well? So much of today’s mainstream pop and hip-hop continues to hobble along on the crutch of an all-glam, imagination-free, Benjamin-flaunting, daydream-stoking, showroom/showoff mentality, which masquerades as genuine energy and originality. Check, for instance, T.I.’s Cinderella-fantasy "Whatever You Like" video. Still, is Britney Spears ushering in a recession-era pop backlash against gimme-gimme materialism with her recent "Womanizer" clip? Its up-to-the-millisecond, dashed-off put-down of Wall Street traders ‘n’ traitors is delivered nekkid from a detoxing, rehab-ready sauna.

And you know the East Bay’s dance-pop provocateur Wallpaper is on that tip — with his own ironic-hip-cat zazu. The Wallpaper project itself, says mastermind Eric Frederic, is "a device to critique pop music but also popular culture, and I think things are getting exponentially worse — as far as consumer culture, cell phone culture, the culture of me goes. Even for those of us who think we understand it and are separate from it."

Take, for example, texting — my least favorite thing to watch in a dark movie theater and the subject of Wallpaper’s "Txt Me Yr Love" off its T Rex EP (Eenie Meenie). "That song is obviously a knock on text-obsessed people," Frederic continues. "But I probably send 100 text messages a day. I do it way more than I want to and way more than I’m comfortable with, and that represents, again, an inner struggle with this kind of stuff."

Fighting, thought-provoking words from a sharp, very funny mind. I first caught Wallpaper a while back at Bottom of the Hill, and Frederic’s uncanny pop hooks and cheesy-hilarious way of styling his performance — delivered in character, from a vinyl La-Z-Boy, as the egocentric would-be-superstar Ricky Reed, alongside drummer Arjun Singh — made me bookmark him for better or worse. Whether you catch the two live or Frederic in one of his wittily clueless video blog entries, you’ll find that Wallpaper brings that sense of humor so sorely missing from local pop, dance, and indie rock scenes.

And rest assured, the tousled-haired songwriter, who just graduated with a degree in composition from UC Berkeley, is nothing like his satirical persona.

"The character is a real jerk, and I don’t want to be anything like him or embody him in my daily life at all," says the Bay Area native while tackling a turkey sandwich at Brainwash Cafe. "He’s arrogant, and he’s chauvinistic, and he’s material-obsessed. He just represents everything that bums me out." Frederic laughs. "He’s not very bright. He doesn’t really get it, and he doesn’t realize that the joke’s on him half the time." Hence the surprised reactions from fans — apparently Wallpaper blew minds during their ’08 Brooklyn and Philadelphia shows — when they approach Frederic. "Usually the first response is, ‘I didn’t think you were going to be so nice to me!’"

He’s nice and hard-working apparently: Frederic toiled on the EP, played alongside party-starters like Dan Deacon, and did some requisite remixes while completing work on his degree, and now he’s deep into making an album, a form that he’s studying intently.

"It’s definitely hard because with today’s music culture or climate, you have to do remixes and video blogs and stuff just to keep people’s attention. Making a really intensive, really smart full-length record while doing all that stuff with a short period of time is really challenging," he says. Frederic’s happy with what he has, but "I put a lot of pressure on myself," says the songwriter who, in one hilarious video blog, threatened to quit the biz if Wallpaper’s EP was outsold by Grand Theft Audio IV. "I’ve been listening to Thriller about every other day. If you don’t set your goals to be the best, what are you going to do? Just be mediocre or halfway to the median? There’s no reason why anybody should not be trying to make timeless records." And who would get the last laugh if this semi-joke band made one of those? *

WALLPAPER

Fri/17, 10 p.m., $10–$15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

www.rickshawstop.com


BARACK OUT OR …

LAIKA AND THE COSMONAUTS
Wipe…out! The Finnish surf combo bids, "Aloha," with this farewell tour. With Pollo Del Mar and the Go Going Gone Girls. Thurs/16, 8 p.m., $12. Rickshaw Stop.

GRUPO FANTASMA
Austin’s funky jamkins meld reggae, cumbia, and salsa grooves to a great din of buzz. With Boca Do Rio. Fri/17, 9 p.m., $15. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.independentsf.com

MARY J. BLIGE
More drama, puleeze. With Robin Thicke. Sat/18, 7:30 p.m., $33.75–$119.75. Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass, Concord. www.livenation.com

TINA TURNER
Love’s got everything to do with it when it came to adding another show to the leggy legend’s San Jose stand. Sun/19-Mon/20, 7 p.m., $59.50–$150. HP Pavilion, 525 W. Santa Clara, San Jose. www.apeconcerts.com
KILLERS
Will the upcoming Day and Age (Island) be another Bruce’s — I mean —Sam’s Town (Island, 2006)? Tues/21, 8 p.m., $37.50. Warfield, 982 Market, SF. www.goldenvoice.com

Secrecy: a root cause of the financial crisis

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This piece by Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, is one of the best I’ve seen on the financial meltdown. Scroll down to register for the free CFAC assembly this Saturday at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California-Berkeley.

Disclosure–or the lack of it–is a root cause of the current financial crisis

By Peter Scheer

Economists and historians will be debating for years the causes of the financial crisis that, like a global array of dominoes, now threatens to take down the “real” economies of countries big and small, both “developed” and “emerging,” in a massive flight from investment risk unlike anything experienced since 1929.

To the experts’ lists of causes, let me add a lack of information–specifically, the systemic failure of lenders to disclose ample information about the risks of the mortgage loans being made to thousands of borrowers whose homes have since tanked in value, resulting in unprecedented rates of default. These defaults leave the holders of the affected mortgage investments–primarily banks around the world–with sizeable loan portfolios that they can’t value and for which there is no functioning market.

Click here to continue reading.

Feast: The fixe is in

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› paulr@sfbg.com

In the horse race of American shibboleths, it’s neck and neck between "choice" and "democracy" down the unending stretch. But maybe not in the kitchen. Well-settled folk wisdom teaches that the best kitchens more closely resemble autocracies or fiefs than serene republics. "A kitchen is not a democracy" — what sage said this, or should have? And out there in the dining room, it can be equally true that choice is sometimes more a burden than a benefit. Many of us have known the quiet horror of sitting down in a Chinese restaurant and being handed a menu whose numbered items run into the hundreds and whose heft is like that of an appropriations bill. Choice is not always for the faint of heart.

One of the reasons I retain a particular affection for Chez Panisse in Berkeley is its fixed menu. It changes every night, but on any given night, they serve what they serve. The presentation of the menu card is something of a formality, a polite advisory. You are being clued in but not actually consulted. And, in a strange way, you relax, as if you’re strapping yourself into an airline seat. You surrender your autonomy, say your little prayer, and trust in the fates to take you (and your luggage) where you want to go. And that’s what happens. There’s no point worrying, since it’s out of your hands. You’re free to direct your energies elsewhere.

As far as I know, Chez Panisse is the only restaurant in the Bay Area that uses this kind of absolutely set menu, the king of the prix-fixes. (And only downstairs. If it’s choice you seek, upstairs you must go, to the excellent café.) But in recent years, I have noticed a gentle bloom of lesser prix-fixes: some offered beside a regular à la carte menu, others that give a few options for each course. While quite a few of the restaurants are French, as we would expect, an increasing number aren’t — so you won’t necessarily get stuck with crème brûlée for dessert.

The prix-fixe isn’t for everybody all the time, of course. There have been moments when I’ve forsaken a tempting one because I didn’t want dessert (which is almost always one of the courses offered). At other times, a dish on the regular menu strongly appealed. Prix-fixe dishes have long seemed quite mainstream to me; they’re the kind of things a kitchen can produce without too much struggle that appeals to a broad swath of customers. In return, you generally do get more for your money. The greatest prix-fixe deal I ever came across was at Hawthorne Lane, in the autumn of 2001: three courses for $28 at one of the best restaurants in the city, where even the modest dishes were memorable. Those were strange days, true, and the restaurant itself is no more, having morphed into Two. But silently, with only my lips moving, I compare all subsequent prix-fixes to that one.

The George W. Bush Wirtschaftswunder has brought, among other delights, steady upward pressure on prices, especially food prices. Yet there is at least one restaurant in the city where you can get three courses for less than $20 — only a nickel less, but still. The restaurant is Le P’tit Laurent (699 Chenery, SF. 415-334-3235, www.leptitlaurent.com), an atmospheric bistro in the heart of the Glen Park village. On nights when rain smears the windows, the street scene looks almost Parisian. Inside it’s warm and cozy, with bustle. The prix-fixe is available until 7 p.m. and includes soup or salad, a main dish (perhaps sautéed prawns or roasted veal), and a dessert from the dessert menu, maybe the sublime profiteroles. My lone sorrow here is that if you want the restaurant’s excellent cassoulet, you’ll probably end up having to order it à la carte.

Only slightly more expensive, at $23.50, is the three-course prix-fixe at Zazie (941 Cole, SF. 415-564-5332, www.zazisf.com), another bistro that feels authentically French, though more Provençal than Parisian. The prix-fixe possibilities here are marked on the menu card with asterisks; soup, salad, mussels, salmon, and chocolate pots de crème are some of the staples. Quite like France. A bonus draw is the restaurant’s large rear garden, which is made habitable even on chilly winter nights by those heating trees you often see at ski lodges.

In a much more urban quartier we find Le Charm (315 Fifth St., SF. 415-546-6128, www.lecharm.com), which since the mid-1990s has been an oasis of civilized clattering in the scruffy heart of SoMa. The prix-fixe is a little pricier here — $30 for three courses — but the cooking might also be a bit more urbane. Recent starter choices included salmon carpaccio and escargot, while among the desserts lurked a financier and a sablé. The restaurant also has a small patio for the al fresco–minded, and let’s not forget that SoMa tends to be warmer and less windy than the city’s more westerly neighborhoods.

Not all prix-fixes must be French. One of the better deals of the non-Gallic — indeed, of any — sort going at the moment can be found at Roy’s (575 Mission, SF. 415-777-0277, www.roysrestaurant.com), an outpost of the Hawaiian-fusion chain. The restaurant’s three-course set menu changes seasonally and, at the moment, costs $35 — making it something of a successor to the $28 Hawthorne Lane bonanza. There is typically a choice among two or three starters and a like number of desserts, with a slightly greater variety (perhaps three or four possibilities) among main courses. The San Francisco version of Roy’s doesn’t much resemble its older siblings on the islands; those places are rustically elegant, while ours is unmistakably urban, with a lot of glass, hard surfaces, high ceilings, and gloss. But the food is excellent, and at $35 for a full dinner in such a stylish setting, it’s a bit of a steal.

Firefly (4288 24th St., SF. 415-821-7652, www.fireflyrestaurant.com), which turns 15 this fall, has been well worth seeking out all these years, prix-fixe or no. (The prix-fixe — $35 for any starter, main course, and dessert — is a post-millennium wrinkle.) From the beginning, the restaurant has offered its wondrous shrimp-and-scallop potstickers while providing for the tastes of vegetarians and flesheaters alike, with no apparent fuss. It’s as good as a neighborhood restaurant could be, in a gastronomically-minded city where many of the best restaurants are in the neighborhoods. And with a prix-fixe option allowing a full range of motion across a supple and changeable bill of fare, it’s also an enduringly good deal.

Far to the west, near the shores of the sea, we find Pisces (3414 Judah, SF. 415-564-2233, www.piscessf.com), a seafood house with a minimalist look (including a bold black facade) New Yorkers would call "downtown." The twist here is not one but two prix-fixes, one for $23, the other for $33. What does the extra $10 buy you? A choice of desserts, for one thing; the $23 folk must settle for, say, vanilla-bean crème brûlée. A little ordinary, but there are worse fates, surely; how often do bad crèmes brûlées turn up? The price premium also results in somewhat tonier savory dishes — Dungeness crab cake rather than clam chowder as a first course, for instance, or ahi rather than salmon as a main course. On the other hand, if you want cioppino, the famous seafood stew, you might end up spending less, since sometimes, even in America, less is more.

Lately one has heard a good deal of crashing and clatter coming not from restaurant kitchens but from Wall Street. The great leviathans of finance seem to be going down like torpedoed battleships, while the press struggles to decide if the nation is — pick your cliché — "drifting," "stumbling," or "sinking" into a recession. Whatever. Are we there yet? I would not be so bold as to suggest that prix-fixes are the answer to the many and large problems afoot in this land, but I do think prix-fixe menus are about value, and value is a value from which we stray at our peril. The last time the economic sky looked quite this ominous was seven years ago, after a terror attack and the popping of the dot-com bubble. We began to take a bit less for granted in that strange autumn, and people seemed to awaken for the first time in years to the understanding that champagne did not, in fact, flow from their taps. It made sense to spend more prudently, to look for deals. That was then and this is now, and suddenly now is looking a lot like then. While the high and mighty ponder their big fixes, the rest of us can once again enjoy our small ones.

>>More Feast: The Guardian Guide to Bay Area Dining and Drinking

Endorsements 2008: East Bay races and measures

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EAST BAY RACES

Alameda County Superior Court judge, Seat 9

DENNIS HAYASHI


A public interest lawyer with a focus on civil rights, Dennis Hayashi has worked for years with the Asian Law Caucus. He was co-counsel in the historic case that challenged Fred Korematsu’s conviction for refusing to report to a Japanese internment camp during World War II. He’s run the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing and was a civil rights lawyer in the Clinton administration. He has spent much of his life serving the public interest and would make a fine addition to the bench.

Berkeley mayor

TOM BATES


Tom Bates was a stellar member of the State Assembly once upon a time, and is seen in many quarters as a progressive icon in the East Bay. But he’s been a bit of a disappointment at times as mayor. He’s been dragging his feet on a Berkeley sunshine ordinance, he’s way too friendly with developers, and he helped gut the landmarks-preservation law. He’s supported some terrible candidates (like Gordon Wozniak).

Still, Bates has made some strides on workforce housing and on creating green jobs. He’s fought the University of California over its development plans. And he’s far, far better than his opponent, Shirley Dean.

Dean is even more pro-development than Bates. She’s terrible on tenant issues and won’t be able to work at all with the progressives on the council. We have reservations with Bates, but he’s the better choice.

Berkeley City Council

District 2

DARRYL MOORE


Moore came to the Berkeley City Council with a great track record. We endorsed him for this post in 2004, as did the Green Party. He supports instant-runoff voting and a sunshine ordinance. But he’s been awfully close to the developers and brags that he’s proud to have a high rating from the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. His opponent, John Crowder, isn’t a serious contender, so we’ll go with Moore, with reservations.

District 3

MAX ANDERSON


Max Anderson is one of two real progressives on the council (the other is Kriss Worthington). Anderson, an ex-Marine, was one of the leaders in the battle against Marine recruitment in Berkeley and has been strong on environmental issues, particularly the fight against spraying the light brown apple moth. He deserves another term.

District 4

JESSE ARREGUIN


Dona Spring, who ably represented District 4 and was a strong progressive voice on the council, died in July, leaving a huge gap in Berkeley politics. The best choice to replace her is Jesse Arreguin, who currently works in the office of Councilmember Kriss Worthington.

Arreguin is the chair of the Rent Stabilization Board and has served on the Zoning Appeals Board and the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee, where he out-organized the moderates and pro-development sorts. He supports sustainable, community-based planning and would be an excellent addition to the council

District 5

SOPHIE HAHN


This is a fairly moderate district, and incumbent Laurie Capitelli is the clear favorite. But Capitelli has been terrible on development issues and is too willing to go along with the mayor on land use. Sophie Hahn, a lawyer, is a bit cautious (she didn’t like the city’s involvement in the Marine recruitment center battle), but she’s a strong environmentalist who’s pushing a more aggressive bicycle policy. And she’s a big supporter of local small businesses and wants to promote a "shop local" program in Berkeley. She’s the better choice.

District 6

PHOEBE ANN SORGEN


Incumbent Betty Olds — one of the most conservative members of the city council — is retiring, and she’s endorsed her council aide, Susan Wengraf, for the seat. It’s not a district that tends to elect progressives, and Wengraf, former president of the moderate (and often pro-landlord) Berkeley Democratic Club, is the odds-on favorite.

We’re supporting Phoebe Ann Sorgen, who is probably more progressive than the district and lacks experience in city politics but who is solid on the issues. A member of the Peace and Justice Commission and the KPFA board, she’s pushing alternative-fuel shuttles between the neighborhoods and is, like Sophie Hahn, a proponent of shop-local policies.

Berkeley School Board

JOHN SELAWSKY


BEATRIZ LEVYA-CUTLER


Incumbent John Selawsky has, by almost every account and by almost any standard, done a great job on the school board. He’s mixed progressive politics with fiscal discipline and helped pull the district out of a financial mess a few years back. He knows how to work with administrators, teachers, and neighbors. He richly deserves another term.

Beatriz Levya-Cutler is a parent of a Berkeley High School student and has run a nonprofit that provides preschool care and supplemental education to Berkeley kids. She has the support of everyone from Tom Bates to Kriss Worthington. We’ll endorse her too.

Berkeley Rent Board

NICOLE DRAKE


JACK HARRISON


JUDY SHELTON


JESSE TOWNLEY


IGOR TREGUB


The Berkeley left doesn’t always agree on everything, but there’s a pretty strong consensus in favor of this five-member slate for the Berkeley Rent Board. The five were nominated at an open convention, all have pledged to support tenant rights, and they will keep the board from losing it’s generally progressive slant.

Oakland City Council, at-large

REBECCA KAPLAN


Rebecca Kaplan, an AC Transit Board member, came in first in the June primary for this seat, well ahead of Kerry Hamill, but she fell short of 50 percent, so the two are in a runoff.

Hamill is the candidate of state Sen.(and East Bay kingmaker) Don Perata. Political committees with links to Perata have poured tens of thousands of dollars into a pro-Hamill campaign, and city council member Ignacio de la Fuente, a Perata ally, is raising money for Hamill too.

Kaplan is independent of the Perata political machine. She’s an energetic progressive with lots of good ideas — and a proven track record in office. While on the AC Transit Board, Kaplan pushed for free bus passes for low-income youths. When she decided she wanted the district to offer all-night transit service from San Francisco, she found a way to work with both her own board and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to iron out the jurisdiction issues and get it done. Her platform calls for affordable housing, rational development, and effective community policing. She’s exactly the kind of candidate Oakland needs, and we’re happy to endorse her.

AC Transit Board of Directors

At large

CHRIS PEEPLES


Chris Peeples was appointed to an open seat in 1997, elected in 1998, and reelected in 2000 and 2004. A longtime advocate for public transit, and AC Transit bus service in particular, Peeples is a widely respected board member who helped secure free transit for lower-income youths and the current low-cost youth passes. Involved in the AC Bus Riders Union, Alliance for AC Transit, Regional Alliance for Transit, Alliance for Sensible Transit, Coalition for a One-Stop Terminal, and many other transit groups, Peeples has served on the Oakland Ethics Commission and is active in the meetings of the Transportation Research Board and the American Public Transportation Association.

Peeples was also involved in the mess that was the Van Hool bus contract, in which AC Transit bought buses from a Belgian company that were poorly designed and had to be changed. Joyce Roy, who is well known in the East Bay for her lawsuit against the Oak to Ninth proposed development and her participation in the ensuing referendum effort, is challenging Peeples because of his support of the Van Hool buses. A retired architect and local public transit advocate, Roy lost the 2004 race for the AC Transit Board, Ward 2, post to current incumbent Greg Harper. But now she is running a stronger race because she has the support of the drivers and passengers, especially the seniors and the disabled, who find these buses uncomfortable and unsafe.

But given Peeples’s long history and generally good record, we’ll endorse him for another term.

Ward 2

GREG HARPER


An East Bay attorney and former Emeryville mayor, Greg Harper was elected in November 2000 and reelected in 2004 to represent Ward 2. Harper appears committed to ridership growth and has become increasingly critical of the district’s attempts to increase fares, not to mention the much maligned decision to purchase Van Hool buses. Harper is in favor of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and has a strong record of listening and being responsive to community concerns. He has said that if Berkeley votes to stop BRT-dedicated lanes, he’d only try to implement BRT in his district, if its makes sense.

East Bay Municipal Utility District

Director, Ward 5

DOUG LINNEY


With the East Bay falling short of targeted water savings, it’s increasingly vital that voters elect environmentally conscious EBMUD directors. Doug Linney fits the bill. First elected in 2002 and reelected in 2004, Linney is a solid progressive. Opposed to reservoir expansion, Linney wants to promote water conservation and is open to groundwater storage and water transfers, but only if no environmental damage is done.

Director, Ward 6

BOB FEINBAUM


Incumbent William Patterson has supported dam and reservoir expansion, groundwater storage, wastewater recycling, and desalinization. He has opposed large water transfers from agricultural districts and rate changes that would promote conservation.

His opponent, Bob Feinbaum, is a solid environmentalist who supports water transfers, opposes desalinization and reservoir expansion, and offers promising and sustainable ideas in terms of managing the drought that include setting fair rates for big users and protecting low-income users. He deserves support.

East Bay Regional Parks District

Director, Ward 1

NORMAN LA FORCE


A longtime environmental advocate, Norman La Force has shown a commitment to expanding and preserving parks and open space and tenacity in balancing the public’s desire for recreational facilities and the need for habitat protection for wildlife. We’re happy to endorse him for this office.

EAST BAY MEASURES

Berkeley Measure FF

Library bonds

YES


Measure FF would authorize $26 million in bonds to improve and bring up to code branch libraries in a city where the branches get heavy use and are a crucial part of the neighborhoods. Vote yes.

Berkeley Measure GG

Emergency medical response tax

YES


A proposed tiny tax on improvements in residential and commercial property would fund emergency medical response and disaster preparedness. Vote yes.

Berkeley Measure HH

Park taxes

YES


A legal technicality, Measure HH allows the city to raise the limit on spending so it can allocate taxes that have already been approved to pay for parks, libraries, and other key services.

Berkeley Measure II

Redistricting schedule

YES


This noncontroversial measure would give the city an additional year after the decennial census is completed to finish work on drawing new council districts. After the 2000 census, which undercounted urban populations, Berkeley (and other cities) had to fight to get the numbers adjusted, and that pushed the city up against a statutory limit for redistricting. Measure II would allow a bit more flexibility if, once again, the census numbers are hinky.

Berkeley Measure JJ

Medical marijuana zoning

YES


Berkeley law allows for only three medical marijuana clinics, and this wouldn’t change that limit. But Measure JJ would make pot clinics a defined and permitted use under local zoning laws. Since it’s hard — sometimes almost impossible — to find a site for a pot club now, this measure would allow existing clinics to stay in business if they have to move. Vote yes.

Berkeley Measure KK

Repealing bus-only lanes

NO


Yes, there are problems with the bus-only lanes in Berkeley (they don’t connect to the ferries, for example), but the idea is right. Measure KK would mandate voter approval of all new transit lanes; that’s crazy and would make it much harder for the city to create what most planners agree are essential new modes of public transit. Vote no.

Berkeley Measure LL

Landmarks preservation

NO


Developers in Berkeley (and, sad to say, Mayor Tom Bates) see the Landmarks Preservation Commission as an obstacle to development, and they want to limit its powers. This is a referendum on the mayor’s new rules; if you vote no, you preserve the ability of the landmarks board to protect property from development.

Oakland Measure N

School tax

YES


This is a parcel tax to fund Oakland public schools. San Francisco just passed a similar measure, aimed at providing better pay for teachers. Parcel taxes aren’t the most progressive money source — people who own modest homes pay the same per parcel as the owners of posh commercial buildings — but given the lack of funding choices in California today, Measure N is a decent way to pay for better school programs. Vote yes.

Oakland Measure OO

Children and youth services

YES


This is a set-aside to fund children and youth services. We’re always wary about set-asides, but kids are a special case: children can’t vote, and services for young people are often tossed aside in the budget process. San Francisco’s version of this law has worked well. Vote yes.

ALAMEDA COUNTY MEASURES

Measure VV

AC Transit parcel tax

YES


In face of rising fuel costs and cuts in state funding, AC Transit wants to increase local funding to avoid fare increases and service cuts. Measure VV seeks to authorize an annual special parcel tax of $96 per year for 10 years, starting in 2009.

The money is intended for the operation and maintenance of the bus service. Two-thirds voter approval is needed. If passed, a community oversight committee would monitor how the money is being spent.

The measure has the support of the Sierra Club’s San Francisco Bay Chapter and the League of Women Voters.

Measure WW

Extension of existing East Bay Park District bond

YES


The East Bay Regional Park District operates 65 regional parks and more than a thousand miles of trails. It’s an amazing system and a wonderful resource for local residents. But the district needs ongoing sources of money to keep this system in good shape. Measure WW would reauthorize an existing East Bay Park District bond. This means that the owner of a $500,000 home would continue to pay $50 a year for the next 20 years.

One quarter of the monies raised would go to cities, special park and recreation districts, and county service areas. The remaining 75 percent would go toward park acquisitions and capital projects. The bonds constitute a moderate burden on property owners but seem like a small price to ensure access to open space for people of all economic backgrounds. Vote yes.

>>More Guardian Endorsements 2008

Endorsements 2008: National and state races

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NATIONAL RACES

President

BARACK OBAMA


This is the most important presidential election of our lives.

The nation is in a state of political and financial meltdown. The war in Iraq drags on, sucking money out of the US Treasury and costing more and more lives. The gap between the rich and the poor has risen to unsustainable levels, global warming threatens to permanently alter the ecology of the globe … and all the Republican candidate offers is more of the same. It’s scary.

The Democrat we proudly endorsed in the California primary isn’t the exact same candidate who’s trying to get elected president today. Barack Obama, like just about all Democrats at this stage of a campaign, has moved a bit to the right. He supported the $700 million Wall Street bailout that’s essentially a huge giveaway to the same people who caused the problem. He talks about promoting "safe nuclear energy" and "clean coal" — oxymora if there ever were any.

Back in February, we noted that "our biggest problem with Obama is that he talks as if all the nation needs to do is come together in some sort of grand coalition of Democrats and Republicans, of ‘blue states and red states.’ But some of us have no interest in making common cause with the religious right or Dick Cheney or Halliburton or Don Fisher. There are forces and interests in the United States that need to be opposed, defeated, consigned to the dustbin of history, and for all of Obama’s talk of unity, we worry that he lacks the interest in or ability to take on a tough, bloody fight against an entrenched political foe."

But Obama remains one of the most inspirational candidates for high office we’ve ever seen. He’s energized a generation of young voters, he’s electrified communities of color, and he’s given millions of Americans a chance to hope that Washington can once again be a friend, not an enemy, to progressive values at home and abroad.

His tax proposals are pretty good. He’s always been against the war. His health care plan isn’t perfect, but it’s at least a step toward universal coverage.

And frankly, the nation can’t afford another four years of Bush-style policies.

The election is a turning point for the United States. It’s about a movement that can change the direction of the country; it’s about mobilizing people in large numbers to reject the failed right-wing policies of Bush and the Republican Party. We’re pleased to endorse Barack Obama as the standard-bearer of that movement.

Congress, District 6

LYNN WOOLSEY


Lynn Woolsey comes from the more moderate suburbs, and she’s far better than Nancy Pelosi, who represents liberal San Francisco. Just look at the bailout: Pelosi wants to prop up the Wall Street banks, and Woolsey wanted to fund any bailout with a modest tax on risky financial instruments. Woolsey richly deserves reelection.

Congress, District 7

GEORGE MILLER


George Miller, who has represented this East Bay district since 1974, is an effective legislator and strong environmentalist. Sometimes he’s too willing to compromise — he worked with the George W. Bush administration on No Child Left Behind, a disaster of an education bill — but he’s a solid opponent of the war, and we’ll endorse him for another term.

Congress District 8

CINDY SHEEHAN


The antiwar leader and Gold Star mom who put George Bush on the defensive is at best a long shot to unseat the Speaker of the House. Cindy Sheehan has only recently moved to the district, has no local political experience, and is taking on one of the most powerful politicians in the United States.

But we can’t endorse Nancy Pelosi, who has consistently supported funding the war (and has refused to meet with antiwar protesters camped out in front of her house). Pelosi pushed the Wall Street bailout and privatized the Presidio.

Sheehan wants a fast withdrawal from Iraq, opposes any bailout for the big financial institutions, and is a voice against business as usual in Congress. This is a protest vote, but a valid one.

Congress, District 13

PETE STARK


After 32 years, Pete Stark has become in some ways the most radical member of the Bay Area congressional delegation. He’s furious with the war and shows no patience for the Bush administration’s nonsense. He is the only member of Congress who admits he’s an atheist. We just hope he doesn’t decide to retire any time soon.

NONPARTISAN OFFICES

Superior Court, Seat 12

GERARDO SANDOVAL


It’s unusual to see contested races for judge in San Francisco. Most of the time, incumbents retire midterm to allow the governor to appoint a replacement, and almost nobody ever challenges a sitting judge. So the San Francisco bench has been shaped more by Republican governors than by the overwhelmingly Democratic electorate.

So we were pleased to see Gerardo Sandoval, a termed-out supervisor and former public defender, file to run against Judge Thomas Mellon. A conservative Republican appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson in 1994, Mellon has a lackluster record, at best. California Courts and Judges, a legal journal, calls him unreasonable and cantankerous. In 2000, the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office sought to have him removed from all criminal cases because of his anti-defendant bias. He needed a challenge, and he’s got one: in the June primary, Sandoval came in well ahead, but because there were three candidates, this contest has gone to a November runoff.

Sandoval has been a generally progressive member of the Board of Supervisors, although we were critical of some of his votes. But he would bring the perspective of a public defender to a bench dominated by former prosecutors and big-firm civil lawyers. Vote for Sandoval.

STATE RACES

State Senate, District 3

MARK LENO


The drama in this race took place back in June, when Leno beat incumbent Carole Migden and former Marin Assemblymember Joe Nation in the Democratic primary. Like most Bay Area Democrats, he’s a shoo-in for the general election. But it’s worth noting that Leno has an extensive record in the Assembly and has demonstrated an ability to get things done. Long before the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage the law of the state, Leno got both houses of the Legislature to approve marriage equality bills (which the governor then vetoed). He got the Ellis Act, that terrible law that allows landlords to evict all their tenants and sell their buildings as condos, amended to protect seniors and disabled people. And while we were worried in the spring that Leno might be too close to Mayor Newsom when it came to local endorsements, he’s shown both independence and progressive leanings. He has been a strong, visible and effective backer of Prop. H, the Clean Energy Act and has endorsed Mark Sanchez for supervisor in District 9, breaking with Newsom (and the moderates) who backed Eva Royale. We expect Leno will go on to a stellar record in the state Senate and we’re happy to endorse him.

State Senate, District 9

LONI HANCOCK


A part of Berkeley politics since she first ran successfully for city council in 1971, Lori Hancock has spent the past six years in the State Assembly. She defeated Wilma Chan in a heated primary for this State Senate seat and faces little opposition in November. She’s one of the most experienced progressives in California and has a solid grip on the state’s budget issues. We wish she wasn’t so willing to back more moderate candidates for local office, but we’re happy to see her move up to the senate.

State Assembly, District 12

FIONA MA


Fiona Ma has been a pleasant surprise. We didn’t support her for this post two years ago, but she’s become a leading advocate of high-speed rail, a foe of plans to privatize the Cow Palace, and a visible, out-front backer of the Clean Energy Act. We hope she continues to evolve into a progressive leader in Sacramento.

State Assembly, District 13

TOM AMMIANO


The only problem with Tom Ammiano moving up to Sacramento is that we’ll miss his presence at City Hall. Ammiano’s record is stellar — although he was once nearly a lone voice for progressives on the Board of Supervisors, he’s become one of its most effective members, with a long list of groundbreaking legislation. Ammiano authored the city’s domestic partners law. He created Healthy San Francisco, the universal health care program. He sponsored the 2001 and 2002 public power measures. He created the Children’s Fund and the Rainy Day Fund, which is now saving programs in the public schools.

He’s also responsible — as much as any one person ever can be — for dramatically changing the climate of San Francisco politics. Ammiano’s 1999 mayoral challenge to incumbent Willie Brown brought the progressives together in ways we hadn’t seen in years, and the district-elections measure Ammiano authored brought a completely new Board of Supervisors into office a year later.

We’re happy to see Ammiano move on to Sacramento.

State Assembly, District 14

NANCY SKINNER


Nancy Skinner won the June primary for this seat, and while we supported her opponent, Kriss Worthington, we acknowledged that she would make an excellent assembly member. Skinner has plenty of experience: she was on the Berkeley City Council from 1984 to 1992 and has founded and run a nonprofit that helps cities establish sustainable environmental policies. She understands state budget issues, is a strong advocate for education, and will hit the ground running.

>>More Guardian Endorsements 2008

The Most Censored Story in SF History

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The Most Censored Story in SF History

How the PG&E/ Raker Act scandal has kept cheap clean Hetch Hetchy Public Power out of San Francisco for decades and cost the rate payers billions of dollars.

It’s PG&E that has the blank check. Scroll down for a chronology of the PG&E/Raker Act scandal from 1848-1988, with an added update through 2001.

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Ah, yes, you say, as attentive readers of the Guardian since 1969 and the almost famous Bruce blog know, the most censored story in San Francisco history has to be the PG&E/ Raker Act scandal.

It is the biggest ongoing urban scandal in U.S. History. It has cost the city tens of billions of dollars over the decades. It has cost business and residential rate payers hundreds of millions of dollars in extortionate high rates, lousy service, vicious collection practices, and unreliable power. It has corrupted City Hall and local politics for decades and continues to do so to this very day as PG&E presses its multi-million dollar blitz against the Clean Energy act on the November ballot.

And the local media, led by the Hearst – owned San Francisco Chronicle, has censored and marginalized the scandal in every way possible every since the shameful Hearst deal with a PG&E – controlled bank in the late 1920’s.

Hearst was once a major supporter of public Hetch Hetchy power and the federal Raker Act that allowed San Francisco to dam a beautiful valley (Hetch Hetchy in beautiful Yosemite National Park) for the city’s public water and power supply.

Hearst even placed a copy of his pro-Raker Act editorial on the desk of every Congressperson on the day of the critical 1913 vote on the Raker Act. Hearst won the vote, the dam was built, and Hearst continued his strong support of the Hetch Hetchy project up until the late 1920’s PG&E bank deal with it’s historic sell out condition.

The deal was that PG&E gave Hearst much needed capital in return for a multi-billion dollar capitulation: Hearst would reverse his historic pro-public power position to support PG&E’s private power monopoly in San Francisco.

To it’s everlasting shame, Hearst corporate has marched in lock steps everlatter with PG&E and against the city and county of San Francisco and its residents and businesses. It has kept San Francisco in violation of the Raker Act and it’s public power mandates and has thus jeopardized the entire Hetch Hetchy system to the Tear-the-dam-movement.

And Hearst kept the story out of the news in San Francisco until Professor Joe Neilands of UC Berkeley revived the scandal in his famous 1969 story in the Guardian.

Here are a few of the stories that demonstrate that the PG&E/Raker Act Scandal is indeed the most censored story in San Francisco history:

*Chronology of Raker Act Scandal

*The 1969 Neilands story

*The Hearst/PG&E deal

*Project Censored 2008

Manifestos and sodas

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

INTERVIEW Joshua Clover is probably just as well known as alter ego jane dark. It’s the pseudonym under which s/he writes sugarhigh! (janedark.com), which makes equal space for dialectical thinking, pop and country music, and film. I’ve spent time talking with friends about his criticism and his two books of poetry, 2006’s The Totality for Kids (UC Press, 76 pages, $16.95) and 1997’s Madonna anno domini (Louisiana State University Press). On the page and in person, he radiates the kind of information-density that encompasses everything from Gossip Girl to Karl Marx, Taylor Swift to John Ashbery.

Clover grew up in Berkeley, went to school there and graduated, then went to Iowa and graduated, then spent a period as an "indigent, unskilled worker" before the first, extremely limited-run issue of sugarhigh! landed him a job writing for Village Voice and, soon after, Spin. Which he did for a couple of years, until he didn’t like it anymore and began teaching at UC Davis. When I approached him about this Q&A, he — perhaps slightly jokingly — agreed on the condition that we talk about the economy.

SFBG You’ve written about the value-density of art — as the economy has gotten less stable, works from a Damien Hirst or Francis Bacon go for record prices. This makes me think of the value-density of poetry relative to visual art, and what Wittgenstein wrote about poetry not being involved in the "language-game of giving information" that’s connected to the functioning of capitalism. Is poetry’s struggle for a popular audience connected with the fact that it explicitly undermines the structure of capitalism?

JOSHUA CLOVER That’s a very noble way to frame poetry that’s politically righteous — like it can’t be swallowed by the maw of capitalism and spat out. But one of the best-selling books of poetry in the 20th century, Howl by Allen Ginsberg, is an explicitly brutal critique of different kinds of domination, including economic domination.

The sad fact about poetry in the US [today] is not that political poetry cannot be swallowed, but that it can be swallowed quite easily. There are always a couple pages in Poetry magazine set aside for left liberal carping. Poetry is having an event for the 100th anniversary of Filippo Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto, asking various writers to write manifestos to be read at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The obvious irony is that any manifesto worth its salt would be a manifesto against Poetry, the kind of poetry they publish there, their $150 million [donated by Ruth Lilly], and their alliance with MOMA. It’s a lovely museum, but it lives because manifestos died.

We haven’t had many famous manifestos since the great ironic manifesto that is Frank O’Hara’s "Personism" [1959]. The period of famous, powerful, persuasive, well-known manifestos — from 1905 to 1925 or 1930 — was an age of desperate terror and unhappiness at the historical victory of the bourgeoisie. That victory is complete now.

Political poetry is popular in other countries not because America is apathetic or has forgotten how to read poetry, but because those are countries where political closure hasn’t happened, where social relations can change. From the right and the left, there are poets who’ve filled coliseums in Poland in the ’80s or in South America now. If people want politically powerful poetry that’s popular, they have to produce situations of political openness — then poetry that was true all along will have its opportunity to be true on a mass scale.

SFBG Here’s one question I’ve long wanted to ask you: is there any chance of convincing you to write a 33 1/3 book on Cupid & Psyche ’85 (Warner Bros., 1985)?

JC I would think about it. Scritti Politti is truly great and I had the opportunity to spend some time on the phone with Green Gartside. We talked about what you’d expect — Derrida and Hegel. Although the one time I met Keanu Reeves we talked about Schopenhauer, so you’d be surprised who’s smart. If I were to do one of those books, it wouldn’t be about Scritti Politti —

SFBG — [Neneh Cherry’s] Raw Like Sushi (Virgin, 1989)?

JC Wow, that’d be great. Since [Prince’s] Sign o’ the Times (Warner Bros., 1987) has already been done by Michelangelo Matos, I’d try to do Girly Sound, the non-record of demos that Liz Phair made while she was at Oberlin. It circulated as a tape in several different versions. It has some of the songs that later appeared on her first record, Exile in Guyville (Matador, 1993), and other songs that didn’t. It can be reassembled. I’m interested in albums that don’t quite exist, so another possibility would be … is the Guns N’ Roses album called Chinese Arithmetic?

SFBG It’s Chinese Democracy.

JC Chinese Democracy. "Chinese Arithmetic" is an Eric B. and Rakim song. The Guns N’ Roses CD which has been in the offing for 15 years — I think that would be a fun one to write a book about as well.

LIT CRAWL 2008: THE BEST OF THE BELIEVER

with Joshua Clover, Jessica Fisher, Troy Jollimore, and Melinda Mellis

Sat/11, 8:30–9:30 p.m.

Latin American Club

3286 22nd St., SF

www.litquake.org

“Istanbul-Berkeley”

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REVIEW When veteran Istanbulite Orhan Pamuk received the Nobel Prize in literature two years ago, the committee complimented his "quest for the melancholic soul of his native city." Melancholic? The world’s third largest city has one big, melancholic soul? I think Pamuk, of all people, would disagree. The 10th International Istanbul Biennial, which was curated by über-busy San Francisco Art Institute faculty member Hou Hanru in 2007, took a more caustic if not realistic theme: "Not Only Possible, But Also Necessary: Optimism in the Age of Global War." The organizers of the "Orienting Istanbul" conference at Berkeley this week have produced a truly interdisciplinary (and free to the public) conference that cuts through the jargon and confronts big ideas head-on. Nonetheless, I’m glad they snuck in some actual art, including "Istanbul-Berkeley," Hanru’s selection of video works from the biennial.

Much of Hanru’s curatorial work has focused on urbanization and living, breathing cities. The chosen videos do not disappoint. They address spatiality in radically different ways. Sulukule, the oldest Roma neighborhood in Turkey, has recently been subject to changes alternately referred to as "urban renewal" and "forced gentrification." Wong Hoy-Cheong involved his subjects — Roma children — in the production of Darling Sulukule, Please Sulukule (2007), creating a hyperrealism caught between a flashback to childhood and a dream of the future. Emre Hüner’s textural Panopticon (2007) has a healthy tinge of mysticism, making it a good balance to the disorienting Boumont (2006), also by Hüner. Taking interpretation of urban life beyond Istanbul, Cities of Production (2006), by MAP Office (www.map-office.com), the thrilling collaboration between architect-artists Laurent Gutierrez and Valérie Portefaix, brings a startling sense of playfulness to factory life in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta.

ISTANBUL-BERKELEY Wed/24–Sun/28. Wurster Hall, first floor foyer, University of California Berkeley campus, Berk. www.ced.berkeley.edu/istanbulconference

No Berkeley Bowl for You!

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sept 23 the_soup_nazi017.jpg
Hats off to Mike Sugarman over at CBS-5 for his story about the Berkeley Bowl’s draconian sampling policies. In short, if you get caught sipping the soup du jour or nibbling on some dried fruit before you purchase said items, you’re likely to get detained, hassled, and eventually ostracized from the East Bay grocery mecca.

I actually got a tip about this a few months ago, but got too busy to cover it. A lifetime Berkeley Bowl patron (not one of the people Sugarman profiled) called me up and told me that for years, he had tasted the Bowl’s self-serve soup on offer near the deli counter to make sure he liked it before (usually) purchasing a bowl. Then one foul day, Bowl security swooped down on him mid-taste and frogmarched him into a little room, threatened him with arrest, took his picture, and – after a couple of hours – finally let him go with a warning that he never return.

I did make a trip across the bay to look into it and what I found was a bit shocking. In short, the general manager of the Bowl – I can’t remember his name or find my notes on the conversation – told me that he could not recall the specific incident in question (which led me to wonder – how many times does this happen, every day? Week?) but that he believed that people who get banned from the Bowl definitely, no doubt about it deserve their fate. Beware, East Bay soup slurpers and serial bulk-bin pilferers. Don’t let the tie dye fool you. The dude was serious. Berkeley Bowl will regulate …

(image courtesy of dissonanced.wordpress.com)

Daddy’s girl

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› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com

CHEAP EATS My dad was here, and, like a lot of daughters, I tried to impress him. Like a lot of fathers, he worries about me, his far out (and up and away) California girl. I just wanted to show him that, look, I’m fine. I’m doing well. No need to worry. All quiet on the western front.

I moved all my garbage from the front seat to the back of my crumbling, windshield-cracked, transmissionally-challenged vehicle, and went to get him at the airport, calling several times on my cell phone to let him know that, essentially, I had a cell phone. Finally.

I also have an iPod Touch, so before I left I tickled up directions to the airport, even though I knew how to get there, and I wedged this into my ashtray to resemble, as closely as possible, a GPS device.

On our way away from the airport, windows rolled down against the 100-plus degree heat, I made sure to mention quite casually that, although my 22-year-old, three-cylinder pickup truck gets better mileage than his Prius, I am saving money to buy a new car.

I took him to work with me, just for three hours, and while he wasn’t paying attention I quite quietly lost that job. Or found out that I will have, come November. To my credit, I didn’t start crying until much later, after midnight, in the woods, trying to fall asleep in the hammock.

On the way home we’d stolen a chicken from a backyard in East Oakland. My dad had held the flashlight, and I’m pretty sure he was impressed with the speed, dexterity, and fearlessness with which I snatched the beast from its sleep and stuffed it beak-first into a cardboard box.

I know he was impressed with my shack because he said as much. He said he’d pictured it much smaller. And he liked my stuff. He hadn’t taken me up on my offer to stop at a drug store on the way home, boxed chicken squawking between suitcases, and buy a shower curtain for my shower-turned-litter-box-slash-storage-space. He’d take his baths outside on the porch, just like me!

What a dad. Jetlagged and overfed, he fell asleep as soon as his gray hairs touched the pillow on my fold-out futon. I made love to Weirdo the Cat on the carpet for a while, and then grabbed my sleeping bag and went outside. It was too hot for sleeping bags. Luckily, and weirdly, it was too hot for mosquitoes, too.

I lay in the redwood-strung hammock, where I usually sleep very soundly, thank you, and I tossed and turned and sniffed and sobbed and howled, albeit very quietly, at the moon. The chicken, which I’d moved from the cardboard box to a cat carrier on an old rusty oil drum next to me, peeked out of its air holes and tossed and turned and pecked at the moon.

Between the two of us, we woke up squirrels, but not my dad.

Who, when he saw my woods and ways in the refreshing (to him) daylight, was even more impressed! He kinda liked bathing outside, and marveled at my outdoor desk, and complimented my apples, which I love but most people find too tart.

Most impressively, though, and he, being his daughter’s father, elaborated at some (if not chicken farmerly) length … the old man couldn’t stop crapping the whole time he was here.

"I seem to have that effect on people," I said. It’s true. I have friends who call me when they’re constipated. They claim the sound of my voice has a laxative effect. Which I take as a compliment.

My dad, who leans toward constipation himself, attributed it more to my healthy diet. His word: "healthy." What we ate: jambalaya with three kinds of meat and two kinds of seafood in it. Omelets. Barbecued eggs. Smoked chickens. Fried clams. Clam chowder. And a Zachary’s stuffed pizza with anchovies.

And if that’s all health food, you gotta wonder, kind of broken-heartedly, what people are eating in Ohio.

—————————-

My new favorite restaurant is Guerilla Café in Berkeley. They have a waffle-of-the-day, and on this day it was cardamom, buckwheat, and dates. Couple of fresh organic strawberries, three or four thin slices of pear, a bloop of crème, one pat of butter, thimble of syrup … bam! $7.25. And a $2 cup of Blue Bottle coffee with no free refill. Justice, Berkeley-style. Hip, righteous, artsy, and expensive, it’s immersion therapy for a chicken farmer come to town.

GUERILLA CAFÉ

1620 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 845-2233

Tue.–Fri., 7 a.m.–6 p.m.

Sat.–Sun., 8 a.m.–6 p.m.

No alcohol

MC/V

Mao and Coca-Cola

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› johnny@sfbg.com

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is in the grip of full-on Fridamania when I first pay a visit to "Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection." Nonetheless, Yue Minjun’s terracotta warriors attract photo-ops: a little girl poses next to a solitary Yue sculpture with his hands behind his neck, while five other Yue statues (each a life-size body — barefoot in white T-shirt and blue jeans — with an enormous head: eyes closed, mouth frozen in anxious "smile") stand in formation near the exhibition’s threshold.

A single Yue also welcomes visitors to the quieter, more expansive "Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection" at the Berkeley Art Museum, where 25 more Yue statues (from the 2000 installation 2000 A.D.) and numerous oil-on-canvas renderings of Yue — including a chain of 13-or-so Yues looking down on everyone — await inside. A decision to use this icon of cynical realism as a host of sorts unites the SFMOMA and BAM shows, which also feature a number of the same artists: Bird’s Nest Stadium designer and provocateur Ai Weiwei; satirical painter Yu Youhan; gay gazer Zeng Fanzhi; repetitious self-portrait specialist (like Yue) Fang Lijun; disturbing dreamer Yang Shaobin; chilly portraitist Zhang Xiaogang; candid snapper Liu Xiaodong; mordant physical observer and landscape artist Liu Wei; Tiananmen Square lookout Yin Zhaoyang; and Li Songsong, who coats memory in cake icing.

A collection of work dating from 1988 to 2008 by 25 artists, "Half-Life of a Dream" is less expansive than "Mahjong," which draws from Uli Sigg’s world’s-largest collection of contemporary Chinese art and dates back to the late stages of the Cultural Revolution. Its conceit is also more specific and restrictive: digging beneath the Beijing Olympics slogan "One World, One Dream," the SFMOMA exhibition taps into the myriad dream facets or "masks, shadows, ghosts, reveries" (to quote from Jeff Kelley’s titular essay) that drift through pre- and especially post-Mao China.

This dream theme is clear and to the forefront in paintings such as Liu Xiaodong’s 2007 Xiaomei and Zhang Xiaogang’s 2005-6 Untitled, but it grows strained when applied to, say, Liu Dafang’s urban photorealism. At times, it obfuscates the layers of a work, as when the complex mother-daughter vision of Yu Hong’s 2006 She — White Collar Worker is summarized with the quasifeminist remark that "women remain trapped in dreams of themselves." Regardless, "Half-Life" presents more than a few standout works: Gu Wenda’s hair-raising united nations — babel of the millennium (1999) and Sheng Qi’s autobiographical political memorial My Left Hand (2001) are especially formidable. Its dream analysis fits most snugly and dramatically around one of the most recent pieces — and the exhibition’s climax of sorts — Sui Jianguo’s The Sleep of Reason. There, an eternally resting Mao is surrounded by multicolored masses of toy dinosaurs.

Here’s a Mao, there’s a Mao, everywhere’s a papa-oom-Mao-Mao in the relatively playful "Mahjong," where Sun Guoqi’s 1973 Chairman Mao with the New National Emblems greets viewers with false cheer at the first of five floors (leaving aside the lower levels and snaky hallways, where some of the most provocative work resides). This traditional view of Mao is quickly punctured by Yu Youhan’s hilarious 2005 Warhol pun Untitled (Mao/Marilyn), the young androgyne Mao of Li Shan’s 1995 Rouge–Flower, the Nintendo Mao of Feng Mengbo’s 1994 Taxi Taxi, the decaying Mao of the Gao brothers’ acerbically watchful 2000 An Installation on Tiananmen, the art connoisseur Mao of Shi Xinning’s 2000-01 Duchamp Retrospective Exhibition in China, and the flirtatious Mao of the same artist’s 2001 Dialogue, to name but a handful.

Strong currents of irreverence surge throughout "Mahjong," thanks to children of Mao and Coca-Cola such as the Luo brothers, whose vulgar, comedic keepsakes of fast-food capitalism enliven "Dialogue China Part II," a group show at Elins/Eagles-Smith Gallery. (Also at Elins/Eagles-Smith, Xing Danwen’s urban fiction dioramas bring the post-human romance of Tsai Ming-liang’s 1994 Vive L’<0x2009>Amour to mind.) The exhibition’s sub-strands of subject matter include militarization and the "little emperors" and troubled girls of China’s one-child policy.

While mahjong might not be the deepest or most revelatory thematic motif for an exhibition devoted to a nation, it more than suits both BAM’s multitiered or tiled space and the rich varieties of the Sigg collection. "Mahjong" doesn’t have to beg for repeat viewings — the magnitude of the show and quirks of its arrangement demand it. In general, contemporary Chinese painters tend toward large-scale representation, perhaps most successfully when — as with Zhou Tiehai’s looks at Joe Camel — one gets the sense that the grand gesture itself is being mocked. But one of the exhibition’s best works is also its tiniest: Lu Hao’s A Grain of Sand (2003) is a 1/4-by-1/4-inch memorial to the individual, a figure perpetually under assault — whether by communism or hypercapitalism.

DIALOGUE CHINA PART II

Through Sept. 30

Elins/Eagles-Smith Gallery

49 Geary, Suite 520, SF

(415) 981-1080

www.eesgallery.com

HALF-LIFE OF A DREAM: CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART FROM THE LOGAN COLLECTION

Through Oct. 5

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

MAHJONG: CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART FROM THE SIGG COLLECTION

Through Jan. 4, 2009

Berkeley Art Museum

2626 Bancroft, Berk.

(510) 642-0808

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

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