California

Local Artist of the Week: Renee Gertler

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LOCAL ARTIST Renée Gertler

TITLE Instability collapses (gold leaf, acrylic paint, expandable foam, bass wood; 17 by 11 inches)

THE STORY "Modality Room" muses on the magnitude of nothingness, black holes, wormholes, and outer space. Building from the impossibility of fully understanding such complex concepts, Gertler constructs a domestic setting as the environment in which to explore these mysteries.

BIO Gertler was born in Santa Barbara and currently lives and works in San Francisco. She received her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2007. She is participating in upcoming group shows at Ping Pong Gallery and Southern Exposure.

SHOW "Modality Room," Sat/21 (reception Sat/21, 7–10pm) through April 17. Sat.–Mon., noon–5 p.m.; first Fridays, 7–10 p.m. Blank Space, 2208 San Pablo, Oakl. (510) 547-6608. www.blankspacegallery.com.

WEB www.web.mac.com/reneegertler

Should California be split up?

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By Tim Redmond

It’s an interesting question. Nothing new, really — folks up in the northern part of the state have been talking about secession since the 1940s.

But these days, the talk has shifted from North-South to Central Valley-Coast.

There’s plenty of discussion going on — the New York Times
reports on a move by farmers in Visalia, who say those of us in the more liberal western regions don’t understand what it’s like in the center of the state:

Frustrated by what they call uninformed urban voters dictating faulty farm policy, Mr. Rogers and the other members of the movement have proposed splitting off 13 counties on the state’s coast, leaving the remaining 45, mostly inland, counties as the “real” California.

The reason, they say, is that people in those coastal counties, which include San Francisco and Los Angeles, simply do not understand what life is like in areas where the sea breezes do not reach.
“They think fish are more important than people, that pigs are treated mean and chickens should run loose,” said Mr. Rogers, who said he hitched a ride in 1940 to Visalia from Oklahoma to escape the Dust Bowl, with his wife and baby son in tow. “City people just don’t know what it takes to get food on their table.”

A former Assembly member is pushing a vertical split, too :

“Citizens of our once Golden State are frustrated and desperately concerned about the imposition of burdensome regulations, taxation, fees, fees and more fees, and bureaucratic intrusion into our daily lives and businesses,” declares downsizeca.org, the movement’s website.

And all of this comes as reformers form both the left and the right are talking about a new Constitutional Convention.

Athough some of the proponents are clearly nutty, the idea isn’t. As the noted political economist Gar Alperovitz wrote two years ago

The United States is almost certainly too big to be a meaningful democracy. What does “participatory democracy” mean in a continent? Sooner or later, a profound, probably regional, decentralization of the federal system may be all but inevitable.

He was talking about California becoming its own nation, but I’d argue that the same problem applies here. The budget crisis, the gridlock in Sacramento … all of it suggests that maybe California itself is too big to govern. There’s also clear evidence of dramatic regional differences. If you take the Central Valley from about Redding on down, and wrap in Orange County, you have a red state within a blue state where most of the residents say they want lower taxes and smaller government. Along the coast from about Sonoma County down to the southern part of Los Angeles County, you have people who generally would like to see taxes pay for public services. If the coast were a state, we could repeal Prop. 13 and build world-class schools. We’d have same-sex marriage and single-payer health insurance. And we’d still be one of the biggest states in America.

Now, I’m not sure the people in the central valley quite realize the problem with their plans, which is illustrated in this wonderful chart that comes from the office of Assemblywoman Noreen Evans of Santa Rosa (PDF):

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The chart shows that the people who dislike and distrust government and don’t want to pay taxes are in fact the beneficiaries of the tax dollars that the rest of us pay. In California, tax money from the coast winds up paying for services in the central valley.

But that’s okay — if they don’t want our money any more, maybe we should tell them we’re fine with that. Maybe we should split the state not just in two but into three: Let the northern counties become the state of Jefferson, where pot will be legal and the residents will be so wealthy from taxes and exports of that cash crop that they’ll make oil-richAlaskans seem like paupers. Pot will be legal in the coastal communities, too, and will generate tax revenue.

We’ll have a Democratic governor, and overwhelmingly Democratic legislature, fewer prisons, better schools, cleaner air, no Ellis Act, rent controls on vacant apartments, more money for transit, strict gun control, support for immigrant rights … and no more of these ugly battles over budgets held hostage by right-wing Republicans.

And in the central valley, they can have their low taxes and conservative values, and watch their roads, schools, and public services go to hell. Maybe eventually they’ll figure it out.

Of course, we’d have to figure out the water rights. The folks in Jefferson would have control over much of the water that now goes South, and there would have to be some long-term water contracts between the states, but that shouldn’t be an insurmountable roadblock.

And the solution would create its own problems; The GOP would control the central state, and would move to abolish the Agricultural Labor Relations Act and make life even more miserable for farmworkers. But then, maybe Jefferson would turn off the water and big agribusiness would be SOL anyway.

As part of the break-up, all parties would have to agree to create a special relocation fund to help lonely, sad liberals from Modesto come west and to help lonely, sad Republicans in San Francisco to move east. I wonder which way the net migration would go.

Meanwhile, Evans has introduced my favorite tax bill of the year, AB 1342, and it’s related to this entire discussion. She wants to allow counties to levy their own income taxes and vehicle license fees. “We went through this difficult process of trying to arrive at a budget,” her spokesperson, Anthony Matthews, told me. “For those communities that have a different view of government [than the Republicans], this bill would let them raise their own taxes to fund their priorities.”

Nurses’ union sues Sutter’s CPMC

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By Steven T. Jones and Joe Sciarrillo

The California Nurses Association (CNA) today filed a federal lawsuit to compel the California Pacific Medical Center to comply with two previous binding arbitration rulings and restore healthcare benefits that the unions says the Sutter Health-affiliated facility illegally cut.

The arbitration helped resolve last year’s CNA strikes at CPMC facilities, and they came against the backdrop of other controversies involving CPMC in San Francisco, including efforts to scale back primary care services at St. Luke’s Hospital, which serves poor Mission residents, while trying to open a high-end hospital on Cathedral Hill.

Sutter and CPMC have long tried to break its outspoken nurses union, which has pushed progressive reforms such as single-payer health care and high nurse-to-patient ratios. A March 2008 CPMC press release (PDF) criticizing the CNA strikes quoted a nurse claiming that employee conditions were fine. “During the time I’ve been working here the conditions have been great,” said Rosangel Klein, R.N., an oncology nurse at the Pacific campus.

But Nato Green, the labor representative for the CNA nurses at CPMC and St. Luke’s hospital, believes that CPMC is acting like an elite employer out of step with San Francisco values. He claims that it is “the worst non-profit hospital when it comes to charity care,” and he also fault its for union busting and rejection of recent arbitrations.

Despite CPMC’s refusal to uphold healthcare contracts and reimburse nurses’ medical payments, the Guardian has reported that its parent organization enjoyed a net income in 2006 of more than $500 million and employed sketchy tactics to pocket millions while maintaining its non-profit tax status.

Guild votes 10-1 to accept Hearst proposal

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The California Media Workers Guild voted today to accept a proposal that Hearst Corp. says is necessary to avoid closing the 144-year-old San Francisco Chronicle.

You can read the full proposal at the Guild’s website at http://mediaworkers.org/index.php?ID=6223.

Feinstein MIA on Employee Free Choice Act

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By Tim Redmond

So why is Sen. Feinstein the only Democrat in the California delegation who hasn’t signed on as a cosponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, labor’s number one priority for the year?

Curious — she supported it in 2007, and it’s exactly the same bill. I called her press office, and they promised to get back to me. Haven’t heard yet, but I’ll let you know.

Meanwhile, Steve Smith, a spokesperson for the AFL-CIO in California, told me that Feinstein “has said nothing one way or the other in public. But she was very clear in her support for the bill two years ago, and we fully expect she will support it in 2009.”

Let’s keep on eye on her, eh?

UPDATE: Feinstein’s office got back to me with this statement:

Senator Feinstein has supported the Employee Free Choice Act in the past. She is not a co-sponsor of the current bill at this point, but is considering it very carefully. She is concerned about this extraordinarily difficult economy and is taking a very serious look at the legislation.

So .. maybe she’s backsliding a bit. We’ll be watching.

Talk about Chron’s demise, binge on green beer

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Text by Sarah Phelan

Just kidding about the binge drinking. But the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists has chosen St. Patrick’s Day to sponsor “A Conversation about the Chronicle,” a public discussion about the severe cutbacks and threatened closure of the Chronicle, and the impacts those developments will have for Bay Area readers.

And it’s likely that this meeting, (5:30-7:30 p.m, Tuesday, March 17, Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin St.) will leave folks tempted to hit the bottle, given the grim situation that newspapers face nationwide.

Or maybe it will be an upper, in which folks will come together, figure out a way to buy the Chron and every other hurting paper in the nation, and we can all go drink champagne, along with our green beer. Which brings me to my dream of a world where everyone is literate and able to digest newspaper articles, online and in print.

Before we get to that, it’s worth reading David Carr’s analysis of the newspaper industry’s current problem. (Or at least, read Carr’s first suggestion, since research suggests that online readers only read part of an article before jumping to another link.)

Carr’s first suggestion–that there should be “no more free content”–is a tempting, but unlikely prospect, given that folks are already sucking for free on the Internet’s ever ready teat. Not unless someone sells the next generation and their parents on the need to pay for the news equivalent of an iPod– the “iPad,” if you will–if they want to avoid being brainwashed and brainshrunk by PR firms, Fox News and other celebrity news outlets.

Take, for instance, today’s second most read online story. It’s about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s 18 year-old daughter Bristol breaking up with the father of her baby.

Now, while it’s true, as TMZ’s celebrity news guru Harvey Lezin points out, that stories about Rihanna raise “all kinds of issues about domestic violence,” (and therefore Bristol’s breakup raises all kinds of issues about the inefficacy of politicians who promote celibacy and oppose birth control, n’est-ce-pas?) does this mean that the future of the news industry hinges on the reality that most people really just want to sit and look at pictures and articles that prove that the stars really are just like them, black eyes, teenage pregnancies, and dating boys who aren’t ready to be men, and all?

And what about those folks who can’t afford a computer at home? Or like to read the newspaper in the bath? Can’t the newspaper industry find ways to reduce the cost of newsprint, so that print products remain fiscally viable? California is already talking about legalizing cannabis, so why not talk about hemp as a low cost, environmentally friendly alternative to cutting down trees for newsprint?

If you are reading this and thinking you have a better idea, great: come on down to the SF Public Library on Tuesday and share your hopes and fears. Journalists the world over will be glad to hear that you cared.

Opening up

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› sarah@sfbg.com

Shortly after his election in November 2008, President Barack Obama received a letter from Public Citizen and 59 other nonprofit groups noting that the public’s access to information about the government had been shut down under President George W. Bush.

The groups urged Obama to help "by issuing a presidential memorandum on Day One that makes clear that government information belongs to the people and that directs federal agencies to harness technology and personnel skills to ensure maximum accessibility of government records, consistent with law, regulation, and administrative orders."

Obama responded to these concerns on his second day as president by sending a memo to heads of executive departments and agencies that committed his administration to more transparency and unprecedented disclosures of information.

"In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act, which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open government," Obama said, noting that FOIA "should be administered with a clear presumption: in the face of doubt, openness prevails."

Open government advocates warmly welcomed Obama’s announcement. But 50 days later, as they wait for U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to issue new FOIA implementation guidelines, some worry that the new administration may still need more prodding.

Peter Scheer, executive director of the San Rafael–based California First Amendment Coalition (one of the letter’s signatories), told the Guardian that it remains to be seen how Obama’s directive will be implemented.

"The directive is good. The spirit is right. But what really matters is whether more information is turned over to the public on a timely basis," said Scheer, who hopes the Obama administration will explore ways to change the FOIA incentive structure so that agencies have a genuine bias in favor of giving out more information, not less.

"Right now, the incentives are all in favor of withholding information," Scheer explained.

Lucy Dalglish of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press told the Guardian that she is looking forward to the U.S. Attorney General’s new FOIA guidelines. "I imagine they will say, ‘If you have discretion to disclose information do so, make a greater effort to meet FOIA deadlines, and put an emphasis on proactively posting stuff online,’" Dalglish predicted.

"The difficulty I see lying ahead is a lack of money to help agencies tackle the backlog of FOIA requests," Dalglish said. "But otherwise, I think we’re going to be in pretty good shape."

Scheer was happy about the Obama administration’s March 2 release of nine highly controversial memoranda and legal opinions that the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel prepared under Bush in the aftermath of 9/11, purporting to authorize warrantless national security wiretaps on U.S. citizens, extrajudicial detention of US citizens suspected of terrorism, and use of the military to conduct counterterrorist operations in the U.S.

In the last days of the Bush administration, DOJ officials claimed that most of these opinions were withdrawn by 2003, but open-government advocates believe their release helps prove the extent to which the Bush regime violated the constitution.

"Let’s just hope Obama is just as amenable to releasing his own legal memoranda, four years from now, as he is to release the prior administration’s more embarrassing documents," added Scheer.

He would also like to see an acceleration of the process for declassifying older national security materials and Federal Bureau of Investigation materials, and hopes that a review of Bush–era DOJ use of the state secrets privilege will "result in a modification or abandonment of that policy, except where absolutely necessary to protect vital national security interests.

"I think everyone became quite reasonably suspicious during the Bush years, when a privilege that was previously rarely invoked was popping up in literally dozens of cases and clearly being overused," Scheer explained.

Yet Dalglish fears that sunshine gains under Obama could be offset by the demise of mainstream newspapers.

"If the San Francisco Chronicle and Seattle Post-Intelligencer join Denver’s Rocky Mountain News in closing this year, the United States will be in a world of trouble in the future in terms of fighting for greater openness and transparency in government," Dalglish opined. "For the last 50 years, the mainstream media, not the alternative press, has been waging most of these battles pushing for open government."

Transbay Terminal still lacks rail solution

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By Steven T. Jones

It’s still an open question whether the trains will ever arrive at the new Transbay Terminal, an impasse that the Transbay Joint Powers Authority Board of Directors will discuss tomorrow morning in City Hall.
After breaking ground on the new terminal in December, the project was thrown into doubt last week with surprise revelations that officials with both the California High-Speed Rail Authority and Caltrain say there are fatal design flaws that could preclude their use of the multi-modal transportation hub.
Since then, there’s been lots of finger-pointing but no real progress, frustrating city officials and transportation advocates. As Dave Snyder, transportation policy coordinator for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), told the Guardian, “The most important thing really is that the different agencies stop fighting and figure it out so we can get this downtown extension.”

Colibri

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› paulr@sfbg.com

The biggest shadow hanging over many a pre-theater dinner is anxiety about getting to the show on time. Will the service be prompt, is there time for dessert, where is the check, can we cover four blocks in two minutes? The human element in these sorts of situations is always incalculable, but it does help if your pre-theater restaurant is across the street from the theater. That’s brick-and-mortar reassurance. And if we’re talking the Geary Theater and Colibrí Mexican Bistro, I mean right across street. But don’t jaywalk; the street (Geary) is insanely busy.

"Mexican bistro" is a phrase I would like to see more often. We have plenty of taquerías, a surfeit of them, but, perhaps, not enough restaurants that do justice to the sophistication and variety of Mexican cooking. Mexico is a huge land of deserts, seashores, mountains, plateaus, and tropical jungles, each of which produces a distinct set of ingredients. And, like its huge neighbor to the north, it’s a mishmash of cultures from old world and new. The result is a cuisine not quite like any other in the world, and Colibrí offers a nice sampling of it.

The restaurant (whose name means "hummingbird") opened a little more than four years ago in a space once held by a California Pizza Kitchen. The layout is a little awkward, especially at the front; the entryway is narrow and the huge bar bulges toward the door, so incoming guests must negotiate a series of tight curves before things open up farther back, toward the display kitchen. The look is that of a quietly stylish cantina, with plenty of wood, hand-painted ceramic tiles, and rustic tchotchkes — a water pitcher, say, perched at the edge of a booth.

For a sense of Mexican cooking’s singularity, we need look no further than to the nopales asados ($7.50), strips of young cactus leaf that have been marinated in olive oil, garlic, and herbs, then grilled and served with mushrooms and oregano. There could hardly be a greater symbol of the desert than the cactus, but the grilled leaves have distinctive tartness and plump texture a world removed from sandy desiccation.

Many dishes one has often seen on other menus benefit from little extra touches. Queso fundido ($12), a kind of Mexican cheese fondue, is frequently enlivened with chorizo (the chili sausage that leaks its signature orange grease everywhere) — and so it is at Colibrí, with the added attraction of mushroom slices, for a bit of extra heft without extra fat. Quesadillas ($9) are enhanced with your choice of either strips of fire-roasted poblano peppers or epazote. Even ceviche in the style of Veracruz ($16), a standard combination of cubed white fish, lime juice, cilantro, onion, jalapeño pepper, and olive oil, gets a sly tweak from green olives.

(Fungus-lovers, incidentally, will not only find mushrooms popping up in various dishes but also a canny deployment of huitlacoche, the fungus that grows on corn and is sometimes considered a kind of Mexican truffle, the very breath of the earth. Here it is stuffed into a chicken breast, along with some other savories.)

Several of the larger plates are sauced with a verve and style that would do a good French restaurant proud. Although the pan-seared duck breast in the pato en pipián ($18) was cooked a little more than I would have preferred, the sauce — a green mole of pumpkin seeds and tomatillos, peppery and fruity — was brilliant and singular. So was the tamarind mole, a caramel-colored elixir of dark, tart intensity, pooled around a clutch of sautéed prawns ($17). That plate included, for comic relief, a corn cake, like the last pillow someone forgot to pick up and put away after a sleep-over pillow fight.

The kitchen also offers a regional Mexican specialty that rotates monthly. We probably tend not to think of the Distrito Federal as a region; it’s the capital and center and a sprawling, smoggy megalopolis. But it’s also the home of peneques ($16), batter-fried dough pockets stuffed here with beans, set on a bed of corn kernels and zucchini dice with meanderings of black-bean purée, and topped with a blood-red tomato-chipotle sauce, some chunks of queso fresco, and a large rivulet of crema. The dish simultaneously suggests the bounty of Mexico and the culinary legacy of the Indians (whose agricultural trinity consisted of corn, beans, and squash), while giving vegetarians something to enjoy without having to make do with small plates raked up from the fringes of the menu.

The desserts are more routine but do go beyond flan. Pastel de tres leches ($8) is a little too much like Mexican tiramisù for my comfort, but Colibrí’s version manages not to overdouse the sponge cake while coating it with white meringue frosting and (a nice touch) shavings of white chocolate.

The nearest thing to a contemporary, postmodern dessert is probably negro y blanco ($8), a fine chocolate mousse served with whipped cream in a coffee cup beside what the menu calls a "white chocolate confection": basically a pointed cap of white chocolate filled with ice cream. The confection was tasty and visually striking, but the white chocolate seemed to have been child-proofed and was difficult to crack open and eat gracefully. There is always an element of theater to having dinner out, of course, and even the act of eating itself can offer moments of excitement and visual interest. But when theater becomes spectacle, with white-chocolate shrapnel skittering across the table and ice cream squirting onto neighboring lapels, you know it’s time to make like a hummingbird and whiz gracefully away.

COLIBRÍ

Mon.–Thurs., 11:30 a.m.–10 p.m.; Fri., 11:30 a.m.–11 p.m.

Sat., 10 a.m.–11 p.m.; Sun., 10 a.m.–10 p.m.

438 Geary, SF

(415) 440-2737

www.colibrimexicanbistro.com

Full bar

AE/MC/V

Moderately noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Shokushu Goukan!

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Readers:

It’s a dull, drippy week in California and when the weather gets like this a writer’s fancy turns to tentacles.

Manifestly untrue, I know, but mine did. Recently while researching something else (the famous Sybian ride-on sex toy, the one whose dealer claims it will "cause a female to literally explode on it" — I hate it when that happens!) I came upon a repository of tentacle porn, and boy did that take me back. Once upon a time I had somehow managed never to hear of tentacle porn until one night when I was hanging out with my friend Annalee Newitz, the high tech high-weirdness expert and she was all, "Oh, blah blah blah this weird thing and that weird thing and tentacles" and I was all, "Wait, what was that last thing again?"

It’s tentacle porn. It’s Japanese. Extremely Japanese. Innocent schoolgirl types, drawn anime/hentai fashion with giant eyes and giant boobs and teensy little bodies clad in teensy little schoolgirl uniforms, until they’re not, get non-consensually multipenetrated by … tentacles. How did you think that sentence was going to end?

Anyway, I got the idea and I stored it away and brought it out occasionally to amuse or shock people and I totally forgot I’d still never seen any myself until I went looking for something else and somehow stumbled over the tentacles (another "I hate it when that happens" thing) and it all came back to me.

It’s the dullest thing ever. I’d seen enough hentai (anime porn) to expect this (it tends to be weirdly slow and standardized and repetitive and badly dubbed). It’s not the easiest sort of porn to project yourself into, even for a person who likes porn more than I do. And that’s the stuff without tentacles. The odd thing about the tentacles, beyond the fact that they exist at all (they were invented to get around restrictions on depictions of non-tentacular intercourse), is that they are so … uninspired. They never seem to be attached to an interesting monster with any motivations besides rape, and they have a very limited repertoire of sexual acts. They’re very "bad teenage date" — stick it in, stick it in, stick it in, but unlike a bad teenage date, they can do all the sticking-in at the same time. Whoopty-do.

Here’s what I do like about tentacle porn:

1) Making fun of it has turned into a sort of online cottage industry, and if you look around you can find some hilarious examples, like the grumpy beasties at Ghastly’s Ghastly Comic: Tentacle Monsters and the Women Who Love Them (www.ghastlycomic.com) who are offended that anyone might think they’d commit an act of "bestiality." See also "How To Avoid Tentacle Rape" (uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/HowTo:Avoid_tentacle_rape) or Dwight Schrute’s blog (www.nbc.com/The_Office/dwights-blog/2008/05/the-curious-rise-of-tentacle-sex-in-manga).

I think Cthulhu might like it, and whatever keeps Cthulhu happy … It has its own soda (www.tentaclegrape.com).

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

I found some very weird porn on my boyfriend’s computer (I swear I wasn’t snooping!) It’s bondage stuff with Japanese girls and really, I don’t know what’s going on. He’s never even mentioned an interest in anything like this! Does he want to tie me up? (Not my thing.) Does he wish I was Japanese? Help!
Love,

Tall, blonde, not tied up

Dear Blondie:

I‘m sorry! I don’t believe you weren’t snooping, mind you, but I’m still sorry. Please don’t take this too much to heart, though. Boys will be boys, and boys will look at bondage porn.

You have two ways to go here. The first is to ask him about it and (probably) feel better when he (probably) insists that he likes you just the way you are, and if he wanted a Japanese bondage girl he would have tried to date them back when he was dating, and he’s sorry he freaked you out. The second is to just shrug and go about your business. I do kind of have a preference for the latter, but I will understand if you can’t let it go and feel like you have to confront.

Just practice telling yourself that fantasy is fantasy and reality is reality and many people harbor fantasies they not only can’t act out, but wouldn’t even want to given the opportunity. Make sure you believe this yourself before you confront him. Otherwise your skepticism is sure to show, and he will get defensive and end up accusing you of not trusting him and going through his stuff — and that is not somewhere you want to be. See why I’d pick the second option, assuming you gave me ultimate power over your decision-making processes?

What? No, I don’t have creepy power fantasies about running your life, but even if I did I wouldn’t tell you about them, and I’d thank you not to go looking for them on my computer.

Love,

Andrea

Don’t forget to read Carnal Nation (carnalnation.com) for more Andrea and other cool stuff.

Guardian lawyers win major award

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California’s chief justice presented the Guardian‘s lawyers with a major statewide award March 2, recognizing our predatory-pricing case against SF Weekly as one of the most important cases of 2008.

In a ceremony at the Carnelian Room atop the Bank of America Building, Chief Justice Ron George recognized Ralph Alldredge, Richard Hill, and E. Craig Moody as recipients of California Lawyer magazine’s California Lawyers of the Year Awards. The magazine chose 22 cases from the many thousands filed, litigated, and arbitrated every year in the state, saying the lawyers "made a profound impact."

Alldredge, Hill, and Moody handled the five-week trial that ended with the Guardian winning a $6.4 million judgment against the Weekly and its parent company, New Times (now owned by Village Voice Media). A jury found that the Weekly had sold ads below cost in an effort to drive the Guardian out of business.

Judge Marla Miller later raised the award to more than $18 million. The case is on appeal.

"In a David-and-Goliath face-off between San Francisco’s two man rival alternative weeklies, this legal team deftly made the unfair competition case for the San Francisco Bay Guardian," the award citation read.

Congratulations to Ralph, Rich, and Craig, who fought an uphill battle for years against a bigger and better-financed opponent.

Spin vs. substance

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› rebeccab@sfbg.com

Hollywood paparazzi crews are beginning to follow high-profile politicians, such as Mayor Gavin Newsom, the same way they track the likes of Britney Spears, the San Francisco Chronicle reported recently. And when a celebrity gossip photographer surreptitiously aims the lens at a political leader, the picture that emerges isn’t always flattering.

Likewise, the documents that can be extracted through public records laws — including the federal Freedom of Information Act, California Public Records Act, and San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance — don’t always paint political figures in the most favorable light.

Both end products leave the same impression of a glimpse behind the curtain — consumers feel they’re privy to the raw, unpackaged truth. But while photos may show politicians looking silly or meeting with controversial power brokers, documents show how the people’s business is being conducted. So the willingness of officials to promptly comply with requests for documents and information says a great deal about whether their public statements match their private deeds.

Nathan Ballard, Newsom’s press secretary, characterizes (through e-mail, the medium through which he insists on dealing with the Guardian) the mayor’s commitment to open government as being "as strong or stronger than any public official in this country."

But to hear some proponents of open government tell it — and in our experience here at the Guardian — the Newsom administration keeps much of the mayor’s business under wraps, leaving many info-seekers in the dark or reliant on Ballard’s spin. Responses to requests for public records tend to be delayed and incomplete, and queries directed to the mayor’s office of communications are often returned with terse, one-line e-mails that obscure more than illuminate.

Rick Knee, a longtime member of the city’s Sunshine Ordinance Task Force — the city body charged with upholding the open-government rule — says Newsom has been in violation of the Sunshine Ordinance on several occasions. "Mayor Newsom’s actual practices regarding Sunshine have been, shall we say, less than what one would desire of him," Knee says. Despite those violations, he adds, the mayor "continues to refuse to provide what remedies the task force calls for on his part."

Under Proposition 59, a state constitutional amendment that won overwhelming voter approval in 2004, the records kept by public officials are considered to be "the people’s business." In practice, however, it doesn’t always pan out that way.

For example, a group of citizens informally known as the Sunshine Posse who have made it a personal quest to improve government transparency by peppering city departments with Sunshine requests, have sounded alarm bells over the mayor’s refusal to release a more detailed daily calendar. One Sunshine Posse member began seeking more fleshed-out mayoral itineraries back in 2006, according to group member Christian Holmer, to gain an understanding of whom the mayor had met with and what had been discussed.

But he quickly ran into a slew of difficulties. "The Mayor’s Office ignored our simple request for 255 days," Holmer told the Guardian. "We sent weekly reminders to most of his staff and key members of the city attorney’s executive and government teams for months and months." After bringing the matter to the attention of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, Holmer says, a new set of problems cropped up. "For the Mayor’s Office, it was an ongoing tale of crashed hard drives, changing office personnel, lost documents, overt/covert confusion, and best intentions."

Nearly three years later, the scrutinizing crew remains frustrated with the results, saying the Mayor’s Office has only come forth with a watered-down schedule, called the Prop. G calendar ("scrubbed" and "virtually useless," in Holmer’s opinion), rather than the more descriptive document known as the working calendar. Many days, Newsom’s Prop. G calendar is blank, and seldom is there more than a few hours worth of activities, each one usually described in just a few words.

The Prop. G calendar seeks to comply with the minimum standards for calendars set forth in the city’s 1999 sunshine law: "The mayor … shall keep or cause to be kept a daily calendar wherein is recorded the time and place of each meeting or event attended by that official…. For meetings not otherwise publicly recorded, the calendar shall include a general statement of issues discussed."

The working calendar is a confidential document, the Mayor’s Office held in a letter responding to the Sunshine Posse’s complaint that the mayor was withholding public information. "The Mayor’s Office prepares a working calendar that is extremely detailed and accounts for his time from departure from home until his return in the evening," the letter states. "The working calendar contains not only the mayor’s meeting schedule, but also confidential information such as the officers assigned to protect him, security contact numbers, the mayor’s private schedule, details of his travel [etc.]. As with past administrations, the mayor’s staff keeps the working calendar and its contents confidential…. The computer system automatically deletes the working calendar after five days."

Despite this defense, the task force determined that the working calendar is in fact a public document that should be provided to the citizens. Doug Comstock was task force chair when the issue was heard. "We made it very clear that they have to turn over those documents," he says. "If there’s a document that’s being created using public monies and public funds, that is a more specific calendar, that’s the document that needs to be provided." Comstock also noted that it is possible for the Mayor’s Office to redact sensitive information that could pose a security risk. Nonetheless, he says, three years have passed and "the real calendar remains hidden from view."

When asked about the complaints regarding the calendar, Ballard responded, "Their criticism is baseless. We exceed far [sic] the requirements of the Sunshine Ordinance with the level of disclosure that we provide."

Erica Craven, an attorney who sits on the task force, believes there’s room for improvement on the mayor’s practices regarding sunshine. "My instinct is that there are a lot of people who work in the Mayor’s Office who are committed to open government," she says. "But there are some troubling things we’ve seen as well, such as complaints where the Mayor’s Office hasn’t sent a representative to respond to allegations. I would like to see a little bit more commitment and leadership on open government from the Mayor’s Office — I think it would set a good tone in City Hall."

In recent weeks, interest in the mayor’s schedule has intensified once again in light of the city’s financial predicament. In the face of a looming budget deficit of unprecedented size and with the economy in shambles and jobs at stake, journalists and affected citizens are seeking details about how the conundrum is being dealt with inside City Hall.

Last month, the Guardian filed a request under the Sunshine Ordinance for details on the mayor’s meetings about the budget, asking for "a list of all the labor and business leaders and supervisors that he’s met with about the budget, the dates of those meetings and how long they lasted, all documents associated with those meetings (including any agendas, communications to set up those meetings and follow-up communications after the meetings), and summaries of what was discussed at those meetings, including any outcomes or agreements."

Under the Sunshine Ordinance, such "immediate disclosure" requests are supposed be honored in two days’ time, but it took five days and a Guardian reminder for the Mayor’s Office to respond via e-mail, saying: "As you know, the Sunshine Ordinance does not require us to create documents. If you can point to a specific document that you’re seeking, I’d be happy to try and locate it for you."

Three days later, the Mayor’s Office forwarded the Prop. G calendar, which revealed that the mayor booked 7.5 hours of meetings about the budget crisis over the course of 17 days, none with labor representatives (whom Ballard said Newsom had met with). It included one-line entries disclosing whom he met with and when, but no information concerning the substance of the discussion. When the Guardian pressed for more information, the Mayor’s Office said there were no other documents associated with those meetings or any other information they were willing to provide.

Similarly, just last week, the Guardian tried to find out what the Mayor’s Office was doing about reports that Caltrain and the California High-Speed Rail Authority were balking at using the Transbay Terminal, citing technical concerns. On March 6, we asked who was working on the issue, what communications there had been with these agencies, and other basic information.

Ballard would say only that "The mayor is fully engaged in finding a comprehensive regional solution that ensures that high speed rail will come to the Transbay Terminal," and denied further requests for more substantive information.

Ballard acknowledges that the Mayor’s Office has "occasionally" been found to be in violation of the city’s Sunshine Ordinance. However, he noted, "I can’t remember a time when the Ethics Commission did not overturn a task force decision against our office. In other words, most if not all task force decisions against us have, upon review, been found to be without merit."

Actually, the chronically under-funded Ethics Commission isn’t charged with judging whether SOTF findings have merit. The SOTF is the arbiter of whether the Sunshine Ordinance was violated, but it has no enforcement authority and therefore must rely on Ethics to pursue violations — if it has the will and resources to do so.

This touches on a trend that Knee says is a fundamental challenge to upholding the Sunshine Ordinance. "If the [task force] finds that there has been a willful violation … we can refer our findings to any or all of four entities: Ethics, the Board of Supervisors, the District Attorney, and the California Attorney General," Knee explains. "At one time or another we have made referrals to any or all of those organizations. And every single time, those entities have thrown out our findings. Not one complaint we have submitted has been upheld."

To remedy this, he says, a package of proposed reforms is in the works. "We want to give the task force some teeth," he says. "We want enforcement power of our own."

Steven T. Jones contributed to this report.

Think globally, shop locally

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› culture@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY When we say a product is "eco-friendly," what we really mean is "eco-friendlier," as in "less ecologically damaging to the environment than available alternatives." The manufacturing process always has some negative effect on the environment, and while products may be labeled organic, biodegradable, recycled, acid free, ecospun, fair-trade, unbleached, vegetable-based, cruelty-free, or all-natural — they all require land, unclean energy, and unrenewable resources to produce.

The easiest way to start thinking eco-friendliest is to take into account the enormous amount of energy used in distribution. Sure, it’s unrealistic to expect all of our products to come from California, because certain things, like lifesaving medicine or Belgian ale, don’t have homegrown substitutes. But some items do have nearby equivalents. Here’s a guide to some of our favorite stylish eco-stops for locally manufactured gems.

For eco-friendly home goods, make sure you stop by Russian Hill’s Spring (2162 Polk, SF. 415-673-2065, www.springhome.com), where you can get your Coyuchi organic cotton sheets, Method home care products, Sara Paloma vases, International Orange spa goodies, Erbaviva homeopathic baby products, Naya bath salts, Nectar Essence aromatherapy sprays, and EO bath and body things, all in one trip. Did I mention that all these companies are California-based?

Another favorite on the spendy eco-boutique front is Eco Citizen (1488 Vallejo, SF. 415-614-0100, www.ecocitizenonline.com), which carries sustainable high-end clothing and showcases several talented local designers, including Sara Shepherd, the San Francisco clothier who creates conceptual, modern styles in black and white. While you’re there, be sure to ask about Jules Elin, a designer from Novato who works solely with organic and recycled fabric, and whose feminine, whimsical jackets are perfect for life in a perpetually spring-like city.

If you’re shopping for tomorrow’s green warriors, try Mabuhay‘s (1195 Church, SF. 415-970-0369, www.mabuhaykids.com) eco-friendly children’s clothing, featuring San Franciscan lines like Smallville by Jimin Mannick, who hand-sews lovely little garments for boys and girls. Jasper Hearts Wren play clothes for toddlers are decorated with charming details like rocket ships and birds crafted from felt made entirely from postconsumer recycled plastic bottles, and are made by Oakland’s Heather Jennings and Lisa Schwartz.

And speaking of kids, Ladita‘s (827 Cortland, SF. 415-648-4397, www.shopladita.com) owner, Christine Kay, has been wanting to open a boutique since she was a kid herself. At the sweet little boutique, whose storefront reads "Eco-friendly of course," check out Kim White’s handbags created with vintage fabrics pulled from automobile upholstery, like a clutch made from a 1980s Camaro. Also keep an eye out for regenerated cotton socks by Love & Socks, made here.

Other places to keep on your radar? Eco Boutique (4035 18th St., SF. 415-252-0898, www.shopecoboutique.com) offers glass products by Dharma, a Fort Bragg company — think wonderful little glass straws you can use instead of plastic disposable ones. EcoLogiQue (141 Gough, SF. 415-621-2431, www.ecologiquesf.com) offers 100 percent made-in-California T-shirts by Naked Cotton using organic cotton grown in the San Joaquin Valley. If you want to commission your own messenger bag, contact Rickshaw Bagworks (904 22nd St., SF. 415-904-8368, www.rickshawbags.com) and have a designer make one out of your own material, or choose from the on-hand selection of 100-percent postconsumer waste fabric. Rickshaw Bagworks makes each bag to order, so no unused bags sit around a showroom. Clary Sage Organics (2241 Fillmore, SF. 415-673-7300, www.clarysageorganics.com) offers a staff-designed, locally made line of yoga gear fashioned from ecologically sustainable materials. SF-based online retailer Branch (245 South Van Ness, SF. 415-626-1012, www.branchhome.com) offers plenty of eco-friendly furniture designed and produced in the city, including bamboo lamps by Schmidtt Design, recycled rubber coasters and placemats by JoshJakus, and recycled cork trays by Urbana Designs.

Freeing the press

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Norwin S. Yoffie Career Achievement Award

ROBERT PORTERFIELD


Bob Porterfield is a shit-disturber, an old-fashioned investigative reporter who has no favorites, no sacred cows, and no fear of offending anyone. Since his first story — a profile of a YMCA social program published in Eugene, Ore.’s The Register-Guard in 1959, when he was 15 — Porterfield has had ink in his veins. He’s shared two Pulitzer Prizes (first for an Anchorage Daily News report on the Teamsters Union in 1975 and then for a series on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority for The Boston Globe), won more than two dozen other prizes and worked on a long list of major investigative projects.

He has become something of an expert in computer-assisted reporting and information systems — but is still a down-to-earth guy who never forgot the value of traditional, hands-on digging. Back in 1986, he was on a team at Newsday looking into the federal Synfuels Corp., a scandal-plagued agency that was shut down in the wake of his stories.

"I remember once we were looking for property records on a Synfuels Corp. project linked to [former CIA Director) Bill Casey," he told me. "I wound up going down to Plymouth, N.C., (population 4,000), and I found this musty old office with two older women sitting there, knitting. There was no index book, nothing computerized. But when I explained what I was looking for, one of the women remembered the parcel of land I was talking about and pulled out the exact documents for me."

Porterfield has devoted a tremendous amount of time to teaching and mentoring, showing young reporters how to use public records to find stories. "I’m glad to see [President Obama’s] new directive on openness, but I hope it trickles down to the independent agencies," he said. "Because there’s been way, way too much secrecy." (Tim Redmond)

Beverly Kees Educator Award

ALAN GIBSON


Alan Gibson is reclaiming the Founding Fathers from conservatives with

his recent book Understanding the Founding: The Crucial Questions (University Press of Kansas, 2007). It examines the progressive ideals that guided early American political thought.

"The Founding Fathers are often captured by conservatives," Gibson told the Guardian. "But there is no clear line of legacy. It is much more complex than that. Conservative restoration politics are dangerous and not historically accurate."

As an undergraduate, Gibson cultivated an interest in issues of separation of church and state, which led to doctoral studies on James Madison, the namesake of the Society of Professional Journalists’ annual Freedom of Information awards. "Madison was the most progressive of all [the Founding Fathers] when it comes to freedom of the press," Gibson said. "He helped develop the idea that American government should be responsive to public opinion, and the role of newspapers was to make sure that an authentic public opinion was set forth." Gibson, a political science professor at California State University-Chico, lectures at various colleges across the country. Understanding the Founding will be published in paperback later this year. (Laura Peach)

Professional Journalists

MARJIE LUNDSTROM


Journalists often get alarming tips about practices within Child Protective Services (CPS) agencies, but it has always been a nearly impossible task to overcome privacy protections and get even basic information about how CPS handles reports of child abuse or neglect.

"It’s a difficult agency to write about, for some good reasons," Sacramento Bee reporter Marjie Lundstrom, who set out in 2007 to investigate complaints about Sacramento’s CPS, told the Guardian. "They operate in such a vacuum with very little public scrutiny."

She had started to piece together some information from coroner’s records and other public documents when Senate Bill 39 went into effect in January 2008, "and it was just amazing what it opened up."

The bill reveals CPS files in cases where the child has died, allowing Lundstrom to expose the negligence of CPS workers in responding to abuse reports, even those from doctors. "I do feel like what we were able to show, because of the law, where workers made flagrant mistakes that costs kids their lives," she said.

But many CPS records are still secret. Next, after writing several stories about CPS that sparked a grand jury investigation, Lundstrom intends to expose problems within the internal accountability procedures at CPS. (Steven T. Jones)

HILARY COSTA AND JOHN SIMERMAN


When the news broke last September that 15-year-old Jazzmin Davis had been murdered by her aunt after suffering months of abuse and neglect in her Antioch home, Bay Area News Group reporters Hilary Costa and John Simerman submitted a public records request about the girl’s case history with the San Francisco Human Services Agency.

The city denied the request for nearly two months, using a privacy claim. Undeterred, the journalists took the step of testing out Senate Bill 39, a relatively new piece of legislation that mandates public disclosure of findings and information about children who have died of abuse or neglect. A judge eventually ordered that the records be released.

Although highly redacted, the nearly 700-page paper trail told the girl’s story in the form of hand-written notes, report cards, medical records, caseworker visits, and other detailed documents. The records led to a package of stories that exposed a series of failures and violations of state regulations by an HSA social worker, raising questions about agency practices and spurring a review of hundreds of other foster care cases.

"This story’s been so important to me," Costa told the Guardian. "It felt like somebody owed it to Jazzmin to find out what happened to her." (Rebecca Bowe)

Interactive Media

AUTUMN CRUZ AND MITCHELL BROOKS


Sacramento Bee photographer Autumn Cruz had been covering the trial of three-year-old K.C. Balbuena’s murder for several months when she came up with the concept of creating an interactive online courtroom. With the help of Bee graphic journalist Mitchell Brooks, Cruz made public the essential pieces of evidence and information to those outside the courtroom doors.

Viewers can take a virtual tour of the exhibits and documents, along with video and audio statements and interrogations. "As a journalist, you’re fighting every day for your right to information," Cruz told the Guardian.

Although Balbuena’s mother and roommate were found guilty of the murder in early 2008, Cruz laments her inability to bring back the child she grew to know so intimately only after his life was cut short. "I think my bringing his plight to the public will hopefully prevent similar things from happening to other children." (Joe Sciareillo)

Citizen

BERT ROBINSON


Journalist Bert Robinson is a longtime journalist who now serves as assistant managing editor for the San Jose Mercury News. But he’s being honored for his work as a citizen serving on San Jose’s Sunshine Reform Task Force.

"We set out on our sunshine ordinance adventure a few years ago. We found we were faring worse in court, and we couldn’t afford increased court costs," Robinson, a member of the California First Amendment Coalition, told the Guardian.

The project received political endorsements across the spectrum, but the initiative has had problems with the city council’s Rules Committee, controlled by San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, who has supported sunshine in the past.

"We achieved progress with public meeting requirements, but when you get into public records, city staff argue that rules are ‘too cumbersome’ … They say all sorts of things might happen if they become public, [which is] entirely hypothetical," Robinson said.

Task Force work that was slated to last six months has now dragged on for two years. "The city process grinds you down," Robinson said. But he says he’s committed to seeing it through. (Ben Terrall)

Legal Counsel

JAMES EWERT


James Ewert, an attorney with the California Newspaper Publishers Association, has long battled what he calls widespread secrecy in government. So in 2004, he played an instrumental role in providing greater public access to government meetings and records, resulting in the passage that November of Proposition 59, the Sunshine Amendment of California’s constitution.

Most recently Ewert helped Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) with legislation protecting teachers from retribution from administrators when they defend the First Amendment rights of journalism students. Next Ewert hopes to allow greater scrutiny of public/press partnerships and how tax dollars are used in labor negotiations by the public university systems.

Ewert says the public’s right to know is still severely hampered by public safety concerns, including restrictions on journalists’ rights to interview prisoners and obtain information about police officers. But luckily for the public, Ewert is still on the job. (Andrew Shaw)

Student Journalists — High School

REDWOOD BARK


Before April 2008, Drew Ross had never had to defend the existence of the Eureka High School Redwood Bark, where he was the editor. But after arriving on campus one Monday morning to find that former principal Robert Steffen had removed 450 copies of a 20-page color edition of the paper, Ross and his staff fought back.

Steffen claimed that the nude, dream-like drawing by artist Natalie Gonzalez had ushered in a handful of complaints from students and parents. Steffen justified the action by saying he was "stomping out the flames before they became a forest fire."

"We told him we wanted to hold onto the paper but he recycled them," Ross told the Guardian. "We don’t make the paper for it to be thrown away. And we lost a lot of advertising on this."

Ross complained about censorship and got help from the Student Press Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union. By the next day, the censorship story went front page at newspapers and Internet sites all over the country. Eventually Steffen not only sent out a public apology, he paid for the next 20-page color edition.

"We are now armed with knowledge of our rights," Ross said. "And the community knows the Redwood Bark has rights." (Deia de Brito)

SHASTA HIGH SCHOOL’S THE VOLCANO


Shasta High School student Amanda Cope speaks passionately about freedom of speech after her brush with censorship, telling the Guardian, "We are preserving the validity of the Constitution. Free speech is a protection, a safety, that lets us function normally without fear."

Cope was editor-in-chief of the Shasta High School student paper, The Volcano, when a controversy flared over the paper’s end-of-year issue, which featured a front-page image of a student burning an American flag. Shasta High principal Milan Woollard was already considering shutting down The Volcano when the issue came out and publicly stated: "This cements that decision."

But following a maelstrom of objection from Cope and the rest of The Volcano staff in what looked like a form of censorship in schools, the school district reversed its decision. "I think a lot of students feel they are marginalized in society. They’re teenagers. They don’t have many rights and they feel like they’re squished by adults and people in general," Cope said. "The student paper becomes an outlet for those feelings, and a way for students to explore their world." (Juliette Tang)

THE SCOTS EXPRESS


Last November, the principal of Carlmont High School in Belmont shut down the student paper, The Scots Express. School officials claimed that the paper lacked adequate faculty oversight after it published a satirical article about the writer’s sex appeal.

Editor-in-chief Alex Zhang fought back against what he saw as censorship and rejected school officials’ justifications. "I just wanted my paper back," he told the Guardian.

In response to the uproar over what many saw as a muzzling of the press, the Sequoia Union High School District began training Carlmont staff on First Amendment rights and mandated an overhaul of the school’s freedom of speech policy. The district is planning an expansion of its journalism programs in the school curriculum and a partnership with the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club.

Zhang is working on relaunching the publication in late March under the faculty oversight of English teacher Raphael Kauffmann. "You can’t have a democracy without freedom of information," Zhang said. "And I’m proud to be one of those young journalists who care about the freedom of information." (Joe Sciarrillo)

Advocacy

KATHI AUSTIN


As the Guardian chronicled in a cover story last year ("Hunting the lord of war," June 23, 2008), San Francisco-based human rights investigator Kathi Austin has spent almost two decades tracking down and exposing those who have made a business out of human rights violations.

Most recently, Austin helped bring the notorious Viktor Bout, a Russian entrepreneur accused of illegally trafficking weapons to brutal regimes from Colombia to the Congo.

"A human rights violation is considered a violation that is carried out by a state actor," Austin told the Guardian. "We were trying to change the whole field of human rights to philosophically say we should be going after these private perpetrators as well."

Thanks largely to Austin’s work, Bout was arrested in Thailand in March 2008 and will likely face criminal charges in the United States. Despite working in treacherous places like Angola and Rwanda, doing meticulous and time-consuming research, Austin said her approach is simple: "What’s wrong and who’s doing it?"

Her patience and persistent pursuit of international justice have led Austin to positions at the U.N., the World Bank, the Center for Human Rights, and the Council on Foreign Relations, to name a few. A Paramount picture featuring Angelina Jolie as Austin is reportedly in production — a fittingly karmic return of celebrity for someone who has worked so long under the public radar. (Breena Kerr)

Electronic access

MAPLIGHT.ORG


Once upon a time, before 2005, the only way to connect the dots between the dollars contributed to politicians and the special access and favorable laws they subsequently granted to contributors was to wade through reams of campaign finance filings. While everyone knew that money talked, few knew just how much campaign cash was dictating public policy.

But now, thanks to MAPlight.org, a Berkeley nonprofit that uses sophisticated analytical tools to produce visually pleasing, easy-to-use charts, there is now a fun, simple way to follow the money.

MAPlight began by putting up data connected to the pro-consumer bill informally known as the Car Buyer’s Bill of Rights. "The data showed that car dealers gave twice as much to Sacramento legislators who voted to kill the bill than to those who voted to pass it," executive director David Newman recalled.

Next, MAPlight pioneered the combination of campaign dollars and politicians’ votes when it launched its U.S. Congress site in May 2007. Most recently its research showed that House members who voted for the $700 billion financial bailout bill received 50 percent more money from the financial services industry than those who voted against it.

Newman plans to expand to all 50 states. "Wherever there is journalism to be done, MAPlight can provide support and help promote openness and transparency in government." (Sarah Phelan)


The Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists hosts its annual James Madison Awards dinner March 18 in the New Delhi Restaurant, 160 Ellis St., SF. The no-host reception begins at 5:50 p.m. followed by dinner and the awards programs at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $50 for SPJ members and $70 for non-members. For reservations or information, contact Freedom of Information Committee chair David Greene at (510) 208-7744 or dgreene@thefirstamendment.org or visit www.spjchapters.org/norcal.

Editor’s Notes

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› Tredmond@sfbg.com

The historian and political scientist Alan Gibson argues that much of the contemporary discussion the founders of the United States misses the political point. In his new book, Understanding the Founding: The Crucial Questions, Gibson, a professor at California State University, Chico notes that conservatives often claim the framers of the Constitution for their own agenda — a position he calls historically inaccurate.

James Madison in particular was very much a progressive thinker, says Gibson (who is one of the winners of the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists’ freedom of information awards this year, see page 15). The fourth president of the United States particularly believed that a free press was crucial to democracy.

I thought about that this week as I followed the news that the San Francisco Chronicle may shut down — and read stories from the Chauncey Bailey Project and the Chronicle about the murder of the Oakland journalist. On March 7, the project reported that an Oakland homicide inspector had close ties with the head of Your Black Muslim Bakery, Yusef Bey IV, who it now appears may have played a role in the killing. The Chronicle reported March 8 that Bailey was caught up in a power struggle at the bakery (and that the publisher of the Oakland Post was afraid to run Bailey’s stories). These detailed investigative pieces will almost certainly help ensure that Bailey’s killers are brought to justice. Without this press attention, the Oakland cops would have gotten away with bungling the case.

Without full-time, paid reporters on the job, those stories would never have come to light.

I’m as pissed at the Chron as anyone, and I’ve been watching the paper self-destruct for many years. And I’m not sure what sort of financial model will keep a daily paper going in the next decade.

But I know that a model exists — because it has to. Democracy can’t survive without a free press, and a free press can’t survive without staff to do the work. That’s something to remember as we celebrate the James Madison Awards and our annual Freedom of Information issue. * *

Local Artist of the Week: Lindsey White

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LOCAL ARTIST Lindsey White

TITLE Wonder (from the series A Field Guide to the Atmosphere), c-print, 50 by 40 inches.

THE STORY "I look for truth in everyday objects. I find solitude in the ones that offer me gateways elsewhere. For example, I came across a metal-encased flashlight with the brand name Wonder written across the front. This flashlight offers itself as a multifaceted tool of discovery. Everyday magical acts are happening before our eyes, but how often do people identify what they’re seeing as extraordinary?"

BIO White was born in Tulsa, Okla. She teaches at the California College of the Arts and is currently an Artist in Residence at the Kala Art Institute. Her work has been exhibited at Southern Exposure and Eleanor Harwood Gallery in San Francisco, and the Blackfish Gallery and Reading Frenzy in Portland, Ore. She is contributing to upcoming group shows in Izmir, Turkey and Houston.

SHOW "A Field Guide to the Atmosphere," through April 10. Tues. and Thurs., 6–9 p.m.; Fri., 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Ping Pong Gallery, 1240 22nd St., SF. (415) 550-7483, www.pingponggallery.com

WEB www.magicmadesimple.blogspot.com

Leno picks up single-payer campaign

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By Tim Redmond

State Sen. Mark Leno has taken on the long campaign to enact single-payer health reform in California. He’s announcing tomorrow (Wed) morning that he’s introduced SB 810, which follows (and is nearly identical to) SB 840, the landmark measure by former Sen. Sheila Kuehl that passed the Legislature and was vetoed by the governor.

The bill is remarkable in its simple premise: Everyone — consumers, businesses, government — will save money if the public sector takes over the role of providing health care from the private insurance industry. “We don’t have a health-care policy right now,” Leno told me. “We have a risk-management policy. When the private insurers talk about paying for health care, they cal lit a ‘medical loss.'”

By Leno’s estimates — and those of about every other credible analyst and study — businesses would see lower costs, individuals would pay lower premiums and the state would spend less on health care if only the insurance industry were out of the picture.

“We pay more for health care than any other industrialized country, and we get worse outcomes,” he said. “The system is broken.”

But it won’t be easy. Leno is confident that SB 810 will pass both houses of the Legislature — and that the governor will once again veto it. “And that’s why we need to make sure we elect a Democratic governor in 2010 who will promise to sign this bill in 2011,” he said. “And we need to start organizing now to defeat the referendum the insurance industry will put on the ballot in 2012 and the hundreds of millions of dollars they will spend to confuse Californians.”

In other words, it’s a long-term battle. I wonder if any of these business groups like the California Chamber of Commerce will come to their senses and recognize that this is about the most pro-business thing you could do in this state. Health-care costs are slamming small businesses, hurting our ability to compete as a state and a nation — and the entire economy of California is more important than the profits of one industry.

We shall see.

alt.sex.column: Shokushu Goukan!

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By Andrea Nemerson. View more alt.sex here.

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Dear Readers:

It’s a dull, drippy week in California and when the weather gets like this a writer’s fancy turns to tentacles.

Manifestly untrue, I know, but mine did. Recently while researching something else (the famous Sybian ride-on sex toy, the one whose dealer claims it will "cause a female to literally explode on it" — I hate it when that happens!) I came upon a repository of tentacle porn, and boy did that take me back. Once upon a time I had somehow managed never to hear of tentacle porn until one night when I was hanging out with my friend Annalee Newitz, the high tech high-weirdness expert and she was all, "Oh, blah blah blah this weird thing and that weird thing and tentacles" and I was all, "Wait, what was that last thing again?"

It’s tentacle porn. It’s Japanese. Extremely Japanese. Innocent schoolgirl types, drawn anime/hentai fashion with giant eyes and giant boobs and teensy little bodies clad in teensy little schoolgirl uniforms, until they’re not, get non-consensually multipenetrated by … tentacles. How did you think that sentence was going to end?

Anyway, I got the idea and I stored it away and brought it out occasionally to amuse or shock people and I totally forgot I’d still never seen any myself until I went looking for something else and somehow stumbled over the tentacles (another "I hate it when that happens" thing) and it all came back to me.

It’s the dullest thing ever. I’d seen enough hentai (anime porn) to expect this (it tends to be weirdly slow and standardized and repetitive and badly dubbed). It’s not the easiest sort of porn to project yourself into, even for a person who likes porn more than I do. And that’s the stuff without tentacles. The odd thing about the tentacles, beyond the fact that they exist at all (they were invented to get around restrictions on depictions of non-tentacular intercourse), is that they are so … uninspired. They never seem to be attached to an interesting monster with any motivations besides rape, and they have a very limited repertoire of sexual acts. They’re very "bad teenage date" — stick it in, stick it in, stick it in, but unlike a bad teenage date, they can do all the sticking-in at the same time. Whoopty-do.

Here’s what I do like about tentacle porn:

Hearst’s Guild deal means Teamsters are next

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By Sarah Phelan

The California Media Workers Guild’s Local 39521 is recommending approval of concessions that Hearst and the Chronicle‘s management are demanding in connection with losses that, the privately-owned Hearst alleges, will otherwise force it to sell or close the 144-year-old newspaper.

The Guild reports that management wants an expanded ability to lay off employees without regard to seniority.

“All employees who are discharged in a layoff or who accept voluntary buyouts are guaranteed two weeks’ pay per year of service up to a maximum of one year, plus company-paid health care for the severance term, even in the event of a shutdown – which today’s agreement is designed to avoid,” the Guild stated, in a bulletin posted to its Web site.

Pension changes are not part of the agreement, so far, the Guild observes. But they are being discussed and must be implemented under terms of the Pension Protection Act, due to the recent turmoil and decline in investment markets.

“Because those changes may affect the decisions of many members concerning buyouts, we are attempting to reach some key understandings now as to the nature of the changes and when they will take effect,” the Guild explains.

The budget crisis is getting worse, not better

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By Tim Redmond

Nice piece on Calitics about how the California budget crisis is by no means over. David Dayen explains how the state balanced its budget — so to speak — based on projections for tax revenue that were higher that what’s actually coming in. It looks as if the February numbers will be off by $900 million, and if the economy continues to get worse, we could be looking at ANOTHER $10 billion deficit by summer.

The same holds true for San Francisco. The mayor insists there’s no crisis, but even the numbers he used to make his mid-year cuts aren’t going to hold up. The way things are going now, the half-billion-dollar shortfall will be even bigger by the time the supervisors have to make next year’s budget balance.

It’s hard to imagine what this is going to mean. I was cautious about the Rainy Day Fund, but I think we’re going to need that money. And we’re going to need major, major new revenue sources. And we’re still going to face horrible cuts.

Mayor Newsom isn’t dealing with reality here. He needs to be preparing the city for what’s to come, and he needs to start now.

Twirling in a field of psychedelic stars with Spindrift

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spindriftpromo sml.jpg

By L.C. Mason

Manifest Destiny: the belief that divine forces lay in the vast American West before 19th-century settlers arrived to explore and conquer. The West meant progress, raw living, and the flourishing of the American dream. The edge of the continent has been a magnet for the brave, weird, and fringe-dwelling since the East’s puritanical purging sessions, and California continues to be viewed as the country’s wayward beacon of creativity.

The West has since been mystified and exalted in American lore – in the Western – spaghetti or not – and the maniacal prose of wild literati and the brain-burn of psychedelia, to name just a few cultural movements. Currently upholding the West Coast’s prismatic musical legacy are Los Angeles’ Spindrift, which is vigorously paying homage to everything the California sun has spawned in the past four decades. Follow the band from the phantasms brought on by the desert heat to the delirium of the open road to even the weightlessness of outer space.

Prop. 8 and American Theocracy

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debate.jpg
This Christian minister had “gay’s” [sic] debating with him all day, but his main “argument” was simply a faith-based belief that God opposes homosexuality.

Text and photo by Steven T. Jones

I got a call from Sen. Mark Leno, who was frustrated by dealing with what he labeled “religious zealots” during yesterday’s Prop. 8 hearing and rally, and wanted to talk about my reporting on how churches bused in conservative Christians from former Soviet-bloc countries whose immigration was sponsored by Sacramento area churchgoers.

The problem isn’t with religion. After all, Leno noted that the California Council of Churches opposed Prop. 8 and the stripping away of same-sex marriage rights. People are entitled to their beliefs. The problem is with religious fundamentalists who want government and laws to conform to their religious values. Several Prop. 8 supporters told me they were trying to implement God’s will, and a couple even said that God told them to be there.

“These folks are theocrats. They want a theocracy,” Leno said. “We’re spending tens of billions of dollars fighting theocracies around the world, because they’re antithetical to the concept of democracy.”
Assembly member Tom Ammiano agreed, telling us that he’s drawing a line in dealing with these hateful religious zealots. He said someone from the Catholic League sitting near him in the hearing tried to be chummy with him, and he told him, “I don’t want to talk to you.”

Ammiano was also irritated by attorney Kenneth Starr, the darling of the religious right who argued their case yesterday, whose main argument Ammiano summarized this way, “I felt like he was saying, what are these slaves complaining about? They’ve got a house to sleep in. What, they want clothes now?”

Yes, cameras in the state Supreme Court on Prop 8

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Prop 8 Supreme Court hearing is best evidence yet for allowing cameras into the courtroom

By Peter Scheer
(Peter Scheer is the executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition)

The California Supreme Court’s hearing yesterday in the Prop 8 case–broadcast live over the internet via streaming video–erased any doubt about the wisdom of allowing cameras into the nation’s courts.

Let’s hope US Supreme Court Justices David Souter, Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, Antonio Scalia and Clarence Thomas were watching the oral arguments on Prop 8’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. They are the camera-allergic justices who have publicly stated their opposition to televising the US Supreme Court’s oral arguments (and other public proceedings).

Chronicle layoffs could top 225.

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Text by Sarah Phelan

The chips are down at the Chronicle–and it sounds like the California Media Workers Guild tried, but did not succeed, in striking a bargain with the devil.

According to a bulletin posted at the Guild’s website, Hearst Corp. ultimately told the union that even if its members agree to cutting the bejeezus out of the paper, it won’t be enough to save 150 layoffs and won’t necessarily prevent Hearst from shuttering the Chronicle. Hot damn.

No wonder a Chronicle employee by the fabulous name of Delfin Vigil posted a paid advertisement in the San Francisco Examiner, describing Hearst’s suggestion to close the 144-year-old newspaper as “unacceptable, unforgivable, or even un-American.”

Vigil suggests that Hearst give Chronicle workers the “right of first refusal” to takeover the paper, or “a newly formed group of past and present Chronicle employees who still believe in its value.”

So far, online comments suggest that the blogging public doesn’t care about or understand the value of newspapers. At least not in this modern world, where you can bounce around online to multiple postings and links for free, but end up, perhaps, never actually getting to the end of, or fully digesting, anything you read.

But as Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Arlington, Virginia-based nonprofit, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, points out, ” this nation will be in a world of hurt,” particularly concerning the battle to create open and transparent government, if major daily newspapers like the Chronicle go down.

As Dalglish notes, for the last 50 years, mainstream media organizations—not the alternative press—waged most of these battles, suing the government to access documents and information.

And then there is the fact that newspapers, unlike laptops, can be left in the car, taken to the beach or read in the bath without fear that a $1,000 piece of hardware will be stolen or destroyed. They make great hats, birdcage liners and fish wraps. They are recyclable and biodegradable. Heck, a drag queen once even made a dress out of a cover story that was written about her. And, occasionally, the words printed on their pages will bring you to laughter or tears, thanks to a team of largely invisible, but always overworked and underpaid workers.

Meanwhile, a “negotiations summary” posted at the California Media Workers Guild shows just how many pounds of flesh Hearst wants Chronicle workers to give—and then bleed them to death.

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