California

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (2/7/07)

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Casualties in Iraq

U.S. military:
7 U.S. soldiers were killed when their helicopter crashed in Iraq today. This is the fifth American helicopter to crash or be shot down since the start of the war, according to the New York Times.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/world/middleeast/07cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1170910800&en=c5717c33215b85ef&ei=5094&partner=homepage

3,334: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

For the Department of Defense statistics go to: http://www.defenselink.mil/

For a more detailed list of U.S. Military killed in the War in Iraq go to:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/2007.01.html

Iraqi civilians:

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

55,664 – 61,369: Killed since 1/03

For a week by week assessment of significant incidents and trends in Iraqi civilian casualties, go to A Week in Iraq by Lily Hamourtziadou. She is a member of the Iraq Body Count project, which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq.

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 4 February 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/29/

For first hand accounts of the grave situation in Iraq, visit some of these blogs:
www.ejectiraqikkk.blogspot.com
www.healingiraq.blogspot.com
www.afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com

Antiestablishmentarianism attitudes among Iraqi religious groups is fueling intolerance and violence towards homosexuals in Iraq, according to the UN.

Source: http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories07/february/0202071.htm

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

151: Killed since 3/03

Source: http://www.infoshout.com/

Refugees:

Border policies are tightening because one million Iraqi refugees have already fled to Jordan and another one million to Syria. Iraqi refugees who manage to make it out of Iraq still can’t work, have difficulty attending school and are not eligible for health care. Many still need to return to Iraq to escape poverty, according to BBC news.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6293807.stm

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

Many refugees were displaced prior to 2003, but an increasing number are fleeing now, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ estimates.

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html

U.S. Military Wounded:

47,657: Wounded since 3/19/03 to 1/6/07

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (2/7/07): Bush asks congress to approve $622 billion for 2008. So far, $364 billion for the U.S., $46 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.
Compiled by Paula Connelly

Bush asked congress to approve $622 billion for defense spending, most for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in a $2.9 trillion budget request for 2008, according to Reuters.
Source: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nL05586874&imageid=top-news-view-2007-02-05-151653-RTR1M0R9_Comp%5B1%5D.jpg&cap=A%20copy%20of%20U.S.%20President%20George%20W.%20Bush’s%20budget%20sits%20on%20a%20table%20in%20the%20office%20of%20the%20House%20Committee%20on%20the%20Budget%20in%20Washington%20February%205,%202007.%20Committee%20members%20had%20used%20the%20scissors%20to%20open%20the%20packages%20of%20the%20new%20budget.%20REUTERS/Jonathan%20Ernst%20%20%20(UNITED%20STATES)&from=business

Here is a running total of the cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayer, provided by the National Priorities Project located in Northampton, Massachusetts. The number is based on Congressional appropriations. Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD originally created the count in 2003 on costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts.

To bring the cost of the war home, please note that California has already lost $46 billion and San Francisco has lost $1 billion to the Bush war and his mistakes. In San Francisco alone, the funds used for the war in Iraq could have hired 21,264 additional public school teachers for one year, we could have built 11,048 additional housing units or we could have provided 59,482 students four-year scholarships at public universities. For a further breakdown of the cost of the war to your community, see the NPP website aptly titled “turning data into action.”

Attraction is hell

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

REVIEW Rarely does ODC Theater pack them in the way it did Feb. 2 for SHIFT Physical Theater’s first full-evening piece, The Shape of Poison. Manuelito Biag has been making work for close to 10 years, but the buzz has really picked up since 2003, when he presented the anguished Giving Strength to this Fragile Tongue. With Poison, developed as an artist-in-residence project at ODC, he has created a work about the inarticulate, often unacknowledged forces that shape our realities. Watching the dancers in pursuit of endless and often turned-in-on-themselves encounters felt like looking for a cause in all those ruffles, vortices, and surges that continually disturb the ocean’s surface. Poison moves leisurely but doesn’t meander; for all its churning, at its core the piece is quiet and wistful.

Philippines-born and California-raised, Biag has described Poison as influenced by the yogic kleshas — corruptions of the mind that prevent enlightenment. It’s not necessary to know that Poison‘s three sections, which can stand independent of each other, explore three kleshas: ignorance, passion, and anger. It’s quite enough to realize that for each part the choreographer developed a highly charged, intensely physical language that he shaped into fluid, at-times soaring movements, which drop hints of narrative like beads of color into a pool of oil. As he did with Tongue, he turned to Jess Rowland for an inspired score, here partially performed live on piano.

The opening trio (Amy Foley, Damara Ganley, and Tessa Nebrida) began posed like statues facing different directions, until Ganley’s tiny tremor sent out enough waves to animate Foley and Nebrida. Even though each of them developed something of a personality — Foley’s lyric groundedness was particularly lovely — more than anything the dancers created a sense of space through which they were reaching for each other, at times tentatively, at times assertively. One had the feeling they were trying to pierce clouds or curtains that hid something. But whenever a connection or moment of clarity was made, it either evaporated or was cut off randomly. There was blindness to the way their hands reached out; touches became almost accidental. In a kneeling position, two dancers held hands and then simply dropped them. A cupped open hand welcomed another, but no emotional current flowed. Almost animal-like, the dancers nosed up to each other, aware of one another’s presence but rarely reutf8g.

The central duet for Biag and the resplendently fierce Erin Mei-Ling Stuart worked with material already explored in Tongue: the unspeakable tension in a relationship in which two individuals feed off each other’s heat. Here the two people were very much equals. Each emotional punch was matched by one of similar force; the two of them were always at a standoff, trapped with no end in sight. The heartbeat in Rowland’s score at times sounded like water torture as the pair watched wearily, waiting for the next explosion to hit. Biag had a stooped way of yanking his legs up — as if dragging them out of a swamp — and then ever so gently moving them like a tiger on the prowl that was truly terrifying. Though he designed wave after wave of full-bodied confrontations, one of the most telling came through his use of arms, which present very narrow points of contact. When the dancers stood face-to-face, forcing their stretched arms against each other, you could see the hell of this mutual repulsion and attraction. This duet is Poison‘s strongest component.

At this point, Biag has not quite mastered choreographing for his multicast group. In Poison‘s third section he looked at chaos and instability from a communal perspective. While he was wonderfully adept at designing fluid and formally inventive movements, the circle and diagonal lineups that he set in opposition to individual expressions of anger — tiny Tanya Bello was particularly fierce — didn’t quite add up. However, an excellent duet for Ganley and Noel Plemmons that peeled away from the ensemble brought on a finale that teetered between hope and despair. In the context of Naomi Lazard’s existential pessimism in her poem "Ordinance on Arrival" (read on tape), about a bleak world from which "there is no vehicle out," hands repeatedly planting seeds suggest futility. Yet the stricken Plemmons, after being brutally repulsed by Ganley, reached out his hand to receive a drop of saliva from each of the other dancers. Thus nourished, he veered toward a strong Ashley Taylor, who throughout seemed to function as a calm within the storm. Was he able to push through suffering into the light? It would be nice to think so. *

Valentine’s Day events

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PARTIES, EVENTS, AND BENEFITS

"Amor del Mar" Aquarium of the Bay at Pier 39, Embarcadero at Bay; 623-5323, www.aquariumofthebay.com. Wed/14, 7pm, $125 single, $200 couple. Support the nonprofit Aquarium of the Bay Foundation during this romantic evening featuring cocktails, culinary delights, and a live salsa band.

"Cupid Stunt — Club Neon’s Third Annual Valentine’s Day Underwear Party" Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell; 861-2011, www.neonsf.com. Wed/14, 9pm, $10. A chance to dance with no pants, featuring DJs, a lingerie fashion show and trunk sale by designer Danielle Rodriguez, and Valentine’s visuals by Chris Golden.

"Isn’t It Romantic: New Connections Valentine’s Day Benefit Concert" Castro Theatre, 429 Castro; www.newconnections.org. Wed/14, 7:30pm, $20. Local chanteuse Nancy Gilliland sings love songs from the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s to benefit New Connections’ HIV/AIDS healthcare services. Tickets available via www.ticketweb.com.

"Love Your Way to Abolition: Party with Saint Valentine" El Rio, 3158 Mission; www.elriosf.com. Thurs/15, 6pm, $5-50. This benefit for Justice Now, an organization that works with incarcerated women and local communities to build a safe, compassionate world without prisons, will feature speakers and live music.

"Pink’s Valentine’s Party: Cupid’s Back" 296 Liberty; www.pinkmag.com. Sat/10, 8pm, $25. This party will raise funds to support the GLBT Historical Society’s world-class archives of queer history. Romance tips given by Clint Griess, life coach on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and an open bar provided by Bulldog Gin and Peroni Beer. Space is limited.

"Randall Museum Presents a Valentine’s Day Sex Tour" Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way; 554-9600, www.randallmuseum.org. Thurs/15, 7:30pm, free, donations encouraged. Guest speaker Jane Tollini of the San Francisco Zoo leads an entertaining and educational romp through the wild kingdom, featuring fairly explicit photos and her own blend of knowledge and humor.

"Sea of Love Scavenger Hunt" California Academy of Sciences, 875 Howard; 321-8000, www.calacademy.org. Sat/10-Thurs/15, 10am-5pm, free with museum admission. Embark on a self-guided scavenger hunt to find the museum’s most amorous creatures and earn fun prizes. G-rated tours available for children.

"The Sweet Cheat Gone — a Free Public Street Game" Meet at corner of Steuart and Market; www.sfzero.org. Sat/10, 7pm, free. Participants take sides in the prosecution of a defendant accused of committing a crime. Teams will travel by foot, bike, or Muni (no cars or taxis) to various San Francisco locations, competing with each other to collect or destroy evidence and prove their case.

"Valentines, Fashion, and You" Nordstrom San Francisco Center, 865 Market; 243-8500, ext 1240. Sat/10, 12pm, free. Event features live models, the hottest fashions in lingerie, refreshments, and prize drawings. Space is limited to the first 100 who RSVP to the number listed above.

"The Vampire Tour of San Francisco" Meet at corner of California and Taylor; (650) 279-1840 (reservations), www.sfvampiretour.com. Wed/14, 8pm, $15-20. Spend Valentine’s Day in the company of a vampire, and take an amorous walk through beautiful Nob Hill. A few special guests are dying to meet you.

"Woo at the Zoo" San Francisco Zoo; Sloat Blvd at 47th St; 753-7263, www.sfzoo.org. Sun/11, 12pm, Tues/13-Wed/14, 6pm, $70. This new and dynamic multimedia event provides an entertaining approach to the erotic life of animals, including how they choose their mates and raise their families. The 90-minute tour features up-close animal encounters and romantic refreshments. Admission includes presentation, refreshments, parking, and zoo admission.

BAY AREA

"Have a Heart" MOCHA — Museum of Children’s Art, 528 Ninth St, Oakl; 510-465-8770, www.mocha.org. Sat/10-Sun/11, 1pm-4pm, $5 per child. Make a papier-mâché heart sculpture or a lacy wire heart mobile and design unique cards for your loved ones.

"Nils Peterson’s Valentine’s Day Poetry Reading" Le Petit Trianon Theatre, 72 N Fifth St, San Jose; www.pcsj.org. Wed/14, 5:30pm, $10 includes glass of wine. The Poetry Center San Jose presents Nils Peterson, whose long literary career includes a 30-year tenure teaching creative writing at San Jose State University. Also featuring Sally Ashton.

"Saint Valentine’s Day Poetry Reading" Frank Bette Center for the Arts, 1601 Paru, Alameda; (510) 523-6957, www.frankbettecenter.org. Wed/14, 7pm, free. Alameda’s poet laureate Mary Ridge and others will read about people they have loved and welcomed.

"Week of Valentines at Habitot Children’s Museum" Habitot Children’s Museum, 2065 Kittredge, Berk; (510) 647-1111, www.habitot.org. Wed/7-Wed/14, $6 per child and $5 for accompanying adult. Add your unique artistic touch to a large heart sculpture and create handmade Valentine cards for your family and loved ones using recycled materials at this award-winning discovery museum for young adults.

FILM, MUSIC, AND PERFORMANCE

"BATS Improv Special Valentine’s Day Performance" Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, bldg B, Marina at Laguna; 474-8935, www.improv.com. Wed/14, 8pm, $10 advance, $15 at the door. In the first half of the show, audience suggestions will spark scenes and improv games that illustrate the humor in romance. In the second half, the audience will supply a title and a theme for an improvised story that will be created on the spot by BATS’s improv troupe.

"Club Chuckles Presents: Soft Rock vs. Smooth Jazz Valentine’s Day Bash" Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk; 923-0923, www.hemlocktavern.com. Wed/14, 9pm, $5. A battle of the bands that pits the forces of soft rock against smooth jazz, as played by bands Cool Nites and the Sound Painters, respectively. Moderated by comedy duo Carole Murphy and Mitzi Fitzsimmons, who will also dispense advice to the lovelorn and romantically challenged.

"Love Bites the Hand That Feeds It" Theatre Rhinoceros, 2940 16th St; 861-5079, www.therhino.org. Fri/9-Sat/10, 8pm, $15-$30. The Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco presents its annual anti-Valentine’s Day cabaret. Both evenings feature a variety of solo, duet, and group performances and will include a fifty-fifty raffle. The Feb. 10 event features a live auction.

"The Love Show by the Un-Scripted Theater Company" Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason; www.un-scripted.com. Wed/14, 8pm, $15-40. "The Love Show" will feature songs, scenes, and love-themed fun, all completely improvised. Couples and singles are encouraged to come. (There will even be a "quirky alone" seating section.)

"Mortified: Doomed Valentine’s Show" Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St; www.makeoutroom.com. Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm, $12. Frequently featured on This American Life, Mortified is a comic excavation of teen angst artifacts (journals, poems, letters, lyrics, and home movies), as shared by their original authors. More information at www.getmortified.com.

"Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad" Red Devil Lounge, 1695 Polk; www.nicejewishgirlsgonebad.com. Wed/14, 9pm, $12. Featuring comedy, music, spoken word, and burlesque from performers seen on Comedy Central, HBO, and MTV. These girls thrill everyone but their mothers.

"Valentine’s Day Film Program: Labor of Love" Exploratorium, McBean Theater, 3601 Lyon; www.exploratorium.edu. Sat/10, 2pm, free with museum admission. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, the Exploratorium presents a program of short, expressive films about people who love what they do.

BAY AREA

"Comedy Night in Novato" Pacheco Playhouse, 484 Ignacio Blvd, Novato; 883-4498, www.pachecoplayhouse.org. Wed/14, 6:30pm and 8:30pm, $15. Local comics bring levity to this most romantic of nights. A champagne celebration will close the evening.

"Valentine’s Day Comedy with Johnny Steele and Pals" Village Theater, 223 Front, Danville; (925) 314-3400; www.johnnysteele.com; Wed/14, 8pm, $18. Winner of the San Francisco International Comedy Competition, Johnny Steele has been plying his trade for nearly 20 years. A cavalcade of comics joins him for the third annual event.

ART SHOWS

BAY AREA

"All Heart" Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby, Berk; (510) 644-4930, www.expressionsgallery.org. Fri/10, 6pm, free. A collaborative art show with Children’s Hospital Oakland and Art for Life Foundation. The show runs through March 9. Presenting the work of patients participating in Art for Life programs as part of their care and rehabilitation. *

Believe the buzz

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Signed to Frenetic Records and publicized by Fanatic Promotion, local boys–made–groovy the Makes Nice are surprisingly mellow. Perhaps they’ve been consorting with a resurrected British freakbeat muse — it’s been "more relaxed than you’d think, given the name and all," vocalist-guitarist Josh Smith writes via e-mail, discussing the group’s deal with Frenetic. The San Francisco label — also home to releases by one of Smith’s previous bands, the Fucking Champs — is proving an ideal base for these kind and raucous rockers. Their debut, Candy Wrapper and 12 Other Songs, is a head rush without the dizziness. Think honey versus synthetic sweeteners, Tartine Bakery’s shimmering morning buns versus Costco’s limp croissants.

Throughout Candy Wrapper there’s a certain calm — call it the clarity that comes with good ole musicianship. Phil Manley of Trans Am expertly engineered the album at Lucky Cat, and he emphasized how the jazzlike rapport among the players helps the ripping guitar solos become play-it-again hooks, while the drum beats groove like funky piano solos. "I always know that your opinions are stale / When you say fresh, I know it’s fucking stale / And it don’t mean nothing at all," the boys harmonize smoothly over staccato syncopation on the title track. On "As Long As I Can" a crowded drumbeat that could throw off lesser percussionists dances in the agile hands of Jack Matthew (also a member of Harold Ray Live in Concert). When I compare the vocals on "Anna Karina" to those of punk groups on Fat Wreck Chords, Smith responds, "They were supposed to have been stolen from Les Fleur de Lys, Powder, SRC, and maybe the Everly Brothers." The members of the Makes Nice don’t have SRC’s fantastic hair, but the Mothballs’ Aaron Burnham plays bass that would stand strong in any decade of rock.

But how to describe the nature of this superfun trio? A mandolin is subtle and effective because of its double strings. So maybe we could label the Makes Nice a double trio, though they would prefer either a ragingly ridiculous moniker or none at all. "If it’s cool, I would prefer to call my songs post-techstep neofreakbeat," Smith jokes. "I’d call Aaron’s songs anachronistic Spartacus watchband croon-wop. I’d consider Jack’s songs to be hybrid vapor-wetware tragicomedy…." Maybe they play un–surf rock for those who don’t like genre surf rock and don’t know how to surf. "I wish we could play surf music," Burnham writes, pretending to brood. "We sorta tried and failed."

I like to blame the vicious surf gangs in Santa Cruz for stymieing my surfing education. But honestly, I was just as happy to bodysurf in safer spots and then — sunned, exhausted, and deliriously happy (remember that time before laptops?) — find a big smooth rock and rest on it, reading comics. Eventually, I added a Walkman to this scene, then a lover. The Makes Nice capture such windswept feelings in the tunes "She Don’t Ever Let Go" and "California Sun."

Talented local artist Hellen Jo (www.helllllen.org — that’s five l’s) designed Candy Wrapper ‘s cover, an eye-grabbing minicomic depicting a terrible car accident. "I met Hellen about five years ago while we were both students at UC Berkeley, and we’ve pretty much been friends and mutual fans ever since," Burnham writes. "We sent her a few songs with lyrics and asked her to choose one to depict with a minicomic for the cover. And she did, exceeding all of our expectations. We emptied out the band piggy bank for her, of course."

Likewise, Candy Wrapper speaks clearly to a graphic-novel generation that sees stories in everything. Along with such similar punky doo-woppers as the Tralala, the Makes Nice are building a bridge recalling the missing link that the original freakbeat bands provided to psych rock in the 1960s. A bridge to what? Duh, to whatever is next. *

MAKES NICE

With the Moore Brothers and Miguel Zelaya

Feb. 14, 9 p.m., $8

Make-Out Room

3225 22nd St., SF

(415) 647-2888

www.makeoutroom.com

www.myspace.com/themakesnice

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Strive for More Music Showcase

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LOCAL LIVE The art of soul singing is far from dead, even if it’s taken a backseat to hip-hop. The current chart successes of R&B singers such as Akon and Mary J. Blige surely provide proof of soul’s vitality, as does the fact that most of the strongest contestants on American Idol, both black and white, are immersed in the tradition. Used to be, however, that budding Bay Area soul singers had plenty of clubs at which to hone their skills in public. Such opportunities have largely vanished, and today many singers perform only inside recording studios while working on landing deals. A few get their contracts, but if the product fizzles, no one is likely ever to hear them, aside from friends and family.

Maxwell’s Lounge, a downtown Oakland supper club with a predominantly upscale African American clientele, is one of the few venues now presenting live R&B vocalists once a week. Local favorites such as Maya Azucena and Michael Cheadle appear at "R&B Fridays," booked by Kerry Fiero, whose Strive Management has worked in the past with R&B divas Ledisi and Goapele. On Jan. 26, Fiero presented the first of a projected quarterly showcase featuring three Northern California vocalists who had impressed her at a music camp in Los Angeles last summer.

Neither Rozzi Crane nor Taylor Thompson had ever performed in a club, which is understandable since both are 15. Crane, a Christina Aguilera–inspired siren from San Francisco, hit the stage first with a three-song set predominantly of oldies: Gladys Knight’s "If I Were Your Woman," Brandy’s "Baby," and the blues standard "Call It Stormy Monday." She was solidly backed, as were the other participants, by Clear Soul, a jazz-imbued quartet that is especially distinguished by member Quetzal Guerrero, who alternates between acoustic guitar, congas, and electric violin. Though her cadenza on the blues was overwrought, Crane has alto pipes that are remarkably pliant, and her phrasing at times suggested an Anita Baker influence. She shows much promise and is currently working on a demo with Sundra Manning, Ledisi’s former musical director, now Prince’s organist.

Fairfield resident Thompson followed, singing R. Kelly’s "I Believe I Can Fly" and two other numbers in a chilling high tenor that could have been mistaken for a falsetto if his speaking voice weren’t in the same register. Unfortunately, as Randy Jackson might say, Thompson was rather "pitchy." Not so for 31-year-old Nikko Ellison. The Suisun City vocalist, who regularly performs as a member of the United States Air Force Band’s rock and jazz ensembles, effortlessly moved between a soaring falsetto and a ringing lower tenor during a set of songs associated with Usher, Stevie Wonder, Robin Thicke, and Brian McKnight, as well as one of his own. Spine-chilling melismata and Sam Cooke–like yodels were employed in service of the material, never ostentatiously, and Ellison worked the crowd like a pro, falling on his knees at one point to croon to a group of women at a front table. It was a most auspicious club debut. (Lee Hildebrand)

STRIVE FOR MORE MUSIC SHOWCASE April 27, 8 p.m. Maxwell’s Lounge, 341 13th St., Oakl. Call for price. (510) 839-6169, www.maxwellslounge.com

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A few of the best — and the rest — from Indiefest

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Green Mind, Metal Bats (Kumakiri Kazuyoshi, Japan, 2006). Never mind Ichiro and his ballsy ilk — Japan has always had an inferiority complex when it comes to America’s favorite pastime. So it fits like a glove when director Kumakiri collides baseball and the impressionable skulls of a few budding players in order to sort out the damage done to his small-town losers. The supposed Japanese son of Babe Ruth overlooks the action like a winged It’s a Wonderful Life angel in the outfield as a bamboozled, naïfish convenience store clerk obsessively practices his batting — that is, until a booze-swilling, baseball-loving vixen smashes her way into his life and puts his metal bat to criminal use. Just call him Ichi the Swinger. With a delicate touch and gentle hilarity that recall Takeshi Kitano’s underrated life–as–a–ball game comedy Boiling Point, Kumakiri studs his Frank Capra–esque meditation with toothsome cameos and telling details from Japan’s burby underbelly, never losing his obvious affection for the sport that has driven his characters so exquisitely bonkers. (Kimberly Chun)

Sat/10, 7 p.m., Roxie; Mon/12, 9:30 p.m., Roxie; Feb. 15, 7 p.m., California

S&Man (J.T. Petty, US, 2006). Petty’s documentary S&Man is a satisfyingly unsettling investigation into why we watch horror films or, rather, why we watch the horrific. In particular, he examines the world of underground horror films, a newer generation of low-budget, DVD nasties that take depictions of sadistic, often sexualized violence to new extremes of punishing verisimilitude. As horror scholar and talking head Carol Clover notes at one point, it’s a postslasher world: the question now is not "When is she gonna get it?" but "How and for how long?" The answers given by the filmmakers whom Petty follows range from Bill Zebub’s silly tits-and-blood fests (see his Jesus Christ: Serial Rapist) to Fred Vogel’s infamous August Underground series of Marquis de Sade–like dispatches from a serial killer’s basement. But Petty skillfully trips us on our own voyeuristic compulsion to know with the stalker-snuff DVDs’ insecure and palpably creepy Erik Rost (the titular S-M man) — and the mounting insinuation that they are not fakes. By the documentary’s chilling final act we are wholly implicated: hog-tied by our desire to look, we are forced to watch, with no disavowal in sight. (Matt Sussman)

Sat/10, 11:45 p.m., Roxie; Feb. 18, 9:30 p.m., Victoria

Unholy Women (Amemiya Keita, Suzuki Takuji, and Toyoshima Keisuke, Japan, 2006). Now that Hollywood has sucked J-horror dry with its remakes of The Ring and The Grudge (blockbusters that had already spawned numerous East Asian spin-offs and remakes upon their initial releases), ghostly children and stringy female wraiths with bulging eyes are no longer creepy; they’re clichés. Too bad no one passed on the news to two of the three filmmakers contributing to this horror omnibus. Suzuki’s "Steel" is the gem here: it presents an awkward teen’s weird and bloody courtship of his boss’s sister, who literally might have a few screws loose. With her upper body covered by a sack (we never see what lies beneath), the sister aptly illustrates horror’s long-running figuration of the monstrous feminine; another cliché that Unholy Women, with its undead and suffocating mothers, disappointingly traffics in. (Sussman)

Mon/12, 9:30 p.m., California; Feb. 14, 9:30 p.m., Roxie; Feb. 17, 11:45 p.m., Roxie

Your life is calling

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› cheryl@sfbg.com

Just outside Las Vegas sits a solitary phone booth, as isolated as the restaurant at the end of the universe. Despite its unlikely location, it’s a magnet for lost souls; they appear at odd hours to pounce on the ringing receiver and chat with Greta (Shani Wallis), a mysterious, husky-voiced dispenser of advice and moral support. The stories of four loosely connected characters drawn to the booth form the framework of John Putch’s Mojave Phone Booth, a rather classic low-budget, HD-shot indie that still manages to avoid cliché as it explores lives facing varying degrees of desperation.

"I’m bothered by all this tape," Beth (Annabeth Gish) tells Greta, referencing the boundless magnetic strips she’s noticed littering the landscape. But the line also foreshadows Mojave Phone Booth‘s recurring theme of recorded troubles. When Beth’s car is broken into several times in a single month, she huddles in the backseat with her camcorder, intent on capturing the thief in the act. When Mary (Tinarie van Wyk Loots) agrees to sleep with sleazy Barry (Steve Guttenberg) for cash, she’s horrified to discover he plans to videotape their encounter. Michael (David DeLuise) preys on naive Glory (Joy Gohring) — girlfriend of suspicious Alex (Christine Elise McCarthy) — offering suspicious close-contact "treatments" and an audiotape he insists will help scrub away the aftereffects of her perceived alien encounter. Finally, sad-sack Richard (Robert Romanus) pines for estranged wife Sarah (Missi Pyle), going so far as to make a home-movie compilation of their few blissful moments.

Some of these folks find happy endings. Some don’t. But all make their way through life with Greta’s guidance — though the film does conclude that face-to-face interaction, without the barriers of recording devices or telephone wires, is the key to relationship building. This view holds true in Cutting Edge, Bill McCullough’s entertaining slice-of-life doc about a Harlem barbershop that serves as a symbolic and literal "nexus of all black male life" for its patrons.

Cutting Edge is an HBO-produced doc, so its title doesn’t exactly extend to the filmmaking style, and it clearly riffs off the expected perception of such establishments as hubs of good-natured trash-talking, thanks in no small part to flicks like Barbershop. But the subjects — including the co-owner, who rightfully refers to himself as a "barber-psychologist" — are entertaining and unguarded, and the film successfully makes its point about the shop’s cultural and community importance above and beyond hair care. Sure, coifs come up in the endless stream of conversation, but they’re hardly the shop’s sole raison d’être.

But nowhere is a sense of place more delineated than in Sean Meredith’s paper-puppet take on you-know-which classic, Dante’s Inferno, which features a Dante (voiced by Dermot Mulroney) who finally unseats Clerks‘ Dante as the biggest slacker named Dante in filmdom, and an underworld tour guide in the form of Aeneid scribe Virgil (James Cromwell). At first I was worried this film would consist of too much sleepy voice-over and distractingly crude animation, but I was so wrong; as Dante and Virgil descend through the circles of hell, Meredith throws in biting, up-to-the-minute jokes that are both timely (randy Catholic priests, pushy Fox news reporters, militant airport security guards) and just plain funny, as when mythical ferry captain Charon appears rocking a headset mic and a bullhorn in the name of Hades-bound crowd control. *

The ninth annual IndieFest takes place Feb. 8–20 at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; Roxie Film Center, 3117 16th St., SF; Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St., SF; and the California Theatre, 2113 Kittredge, Berk. Advance tickets (most shows $10) are available at www.sfindie.com.

See you in Assisi

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› paulr@sfbg.com

Umbria is the center of Italy, pretty much, and that isn’t an easy thing to be. The country has an unconcentric shape, for one thing: a long, booted shank poised to kick a lumpy ball called Sicily, with aloof Sardinia looking on and a curious glanslike flaring in the north, where the peninsula’s long-ago collision with the rest of Europe raised the Alps. Italy is, like California, hot, snowy, mountainous, and flat; it is a land of butter, rice, pancetta, tomatoes, basil, and olive oil. It is close to Switzerland and Africa. It has islands, including Elba, the knob of rock where Napoleon was sent so he couldn’t make any more trouble. (Would today’s Elbans accept another failed warmonger, do you think? Guess who!) It is a lot to be the center of.

There is, then, something elementally Italian about Umbria, a hilly province quite near a pair of famous neighbors, Tuscany and Rome, and like and unlike them. It differs from them in the sense that, apart from the hill towns of Assisi (home of St. Francis) and Deruta (famous for hand-painted ceramics), it is less well-known, especially to tourists. But it resembles its neighbors not least in cuisine, at least if we are judging by the menu at Ristorante Umbria, opened nearly 11 years ago by the fabulously named Giulio Tempesta. Umbria brought regional Italian cooking to San Francisco well ahead of the current vogue.

If you like Italian food, and everybody seems to, you’ll love Umbrian food, at least as the kitchen at Umbria turns it out. And you will like it in a setting that feels as Italian as many places in Italy, a pastiche of exposed wood, terra-cotta tiles, trompe l’oeil, an old armoire, and good-looking service staff speaking spitfire Italian as they do their skillful dance among the tables. Those tables are crowded, especially at lunchtime, when the hungry include a microcosmic mix of today’s SoMa populations: people who work in the area; others who are staying at one or the other of the neighborhood’s many hotels, conventioneering at Moscone, or visiting the nearby museums; and city folk who have ventured downtown because Umbria is, frankly, worth the venture.

Just as Zuni is renowned for its roast chicken with bread salad — a dish halfway competent home cooks can make a run at — so Umbria is notable for its exquisite pastas, which are another staple of most of the good home cooks I know. My interest is particularly piqued when I find a menu with pasta sauces I’ve been making for years, and Umbria has three of them, right in a row: puttanesca (spicy Neapolitan tomato sauce with anchovies, capers, and black olives), amatriciana (classic Roman sauce of pancetta, onion, and tomato), and arabbiata ("enraged" — tomato sauce with plenty of garlic and chili flakes). Of the three, the amatriciana sauce is the one I make least often, in large part because I don’t keep the requisite pasta — bucatini (fat, hollow strands) — in regular stock, and so I lean toward it in restaurants, when I lean toward pasta at all.

Umbria’s version ($11.75) steps around the bucatini issue by using rigatoni, the stubby, hollow cylinders that look like miniatures of underground pipes. Rigatoni are too short to be easily manipulable by a fork; they have to be speared instead. But the sauce, thickly adhesive and deeply flavored, more than made up for the slight loss of convenience, and I was particularly pleased to find the shreds of pancetta had been precrisped, so that they retained some crunch even when simmered with the tomato and onion.

Lasagne al forno ($16.25) was as satisfying as it gets and served at just the right temperature — somewhere between tepid and warm — which reminds us that, until fairly recently, home ovens were rare in Italy, and dishes destined to be baked had to be taken to the village fornaio, then hurried home while still warm. Mezze maniche ($15.75) — a tubular pasta similar to penne — also got the baking treatment; the tubes were jumbled with rounds of spicy sausage and slices of wild mushroom in a tomato-cream sauce before being sealed under a broad cap of melted mozzarella. And oreccheti ($15.75) dodged a cliché bullet by being given an ensemble of diced chicken, strips of red and yellow bell pepper, and a heavy shower of chopped arugula instead of the usual sausage and broccoli rabe.

You are not required to eat pasta at Umbria, of course. You can have pizza; the margherita ($11) is quite good, though it is more a cheese pizza, with basil and tomato (the former a sprig, the latter a lone cherry tomato, halved) serving in an advisory capacity. For meat people: beef carpaccio is an appealing port of entry, the shavings of flesh heavily festooned with grated Parmesan and basil chiffonade. Polpette ($6.50 for five) — meatballs slightly smaller than golf balls — were marvelously moist and mild (because of veal?) in their bright tomato-cheese sauce, and the lamb burger ($13.75) was sensational, a tasty juice bomb served on a focaccia bun and in the company of the crusty roasted potato rounds that have been one of the restaurant’s specialties from the beginning.

Last, there is the matter of tiramisù ($6.50). As a rule I can do without, but I found myself in the company of an expert, a man who has spent some time looking into the matter. He poked and prodded at Umbria’s offering like a scientist trying to pry a DNA sample from some ancient specimen; finally, he lifted a chunk, watched some goo drip lasciviously to the plate below, and pronounced himself pleased.

"It’s not dripping wet," he said. "A good sign."

Elementary, my good sir! *

RISTORANTE UMBRIA

Dinner: Mon.–Sat., 5:30–10:30 p.m. Lunch: Mon.–Fri., 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.

198 Second St., SF

(415) 546-6985

www.ristoranteumbria.com

Beer and wine

AE/DC/MC/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

>

The search for Spocko

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› news@sfbg.com

For the better part of a year starting in late 2005, San Francisco blogger Mr. Spocko waged a quiet campaign against right-wing talk radio station KSFO, 560 AM. He wrote to its sponsors and played for them explicit portions of the station’s programming, such as shock jock Lee Rodgers’s call for antiwar protesters to be "stomped to death … just stomp their bleeping guts out."

The idea was to educate corporations about exactly what they were sponsoring, in the hope that Spocko’s work might staunch the free flow of hateful rhetoric. He also posted these audio clips on his blog, Spocko’s Brain. Several advertisers pulled their ads as a result of his campaign. But after MasterCard decided to cancel its KSFO spots in July 2006, Spocko said hostile commenters started to arrive on his blog and declare that he was in legal jeopardy.

"They said things like ‘They’re going to find you and sue you for everything you’ve got,’ " Spocko told the Guardian by telephone, the only way he will be interviewed because of fears for his personal safety if people learn his true identity.

Spocko suspected people at the station were behind the threats and forged on with his campaign. Then, on Dec. 22, 2006, lawyers for KSFO’s parent company, ABC — a division of Disney — sent Spocko’s Internet hosting company a cease and desist letter. The letter asserted Spocko’s clips of KSFO content were copyrighted material and demanded they be taken down from his site immediately. 1&1 Internet, the hosting company, not only complied but went one step further. It shut down Spocko’s Brain.

That’s when things got crazy.

Mike Stark — a bare-knuckle liberal blogger who famously asked Sen. George Allen, the Virginia Republican who was ousted in the last election, if he ever spat on his wife — took up Spocko’s cause. Within days scores of like-minded bloggers had posted the KSFO audio clips on their own blogs, essentially daring Disney to come after all of them. By the first week of the new year, the mainstream media — including USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the New York Times — had gotten hold of the story.

Spocko’s battle against KSFO took on the dimensions of a media turf war, with the right’s traditional ally, talk radio, pitted against the new and largely left-wing online media. Spocko was suddenly and reluctantly famous, despite the fact that few actually know who he is. KSFO and Disney "made me a public figure," he told us. "[Now] in their mind I’m fair game."

Spocko cites right-wing hit pieces — such as the book KSFO’s Melanie Morgan wrote about Cindy Sheehan, American Mourning — as examples of what happens to lefties who stick their necks onto the conservative-media chopping block. But he also fears something much worse than character assassination. He passed along an e-mail in which someone said he "sounds like a terrorist." Morgan and her fellow KSFO hosts regularly advocate harsh treatment for terrorists, to put it mildly.

"Morgan has told her one million members in Move America Forward [a pro–war on terror ‘charitable’ organization that Morgan chairs] and all her listeners that I’ve smeared her, I’ve attacked her, I’ve threatened her security," he told us. "That’s scary as hell."

Despite his professed fears, Spocko has held his ground. On Jan. 25 his lawyer, Matt Zimmerman, sent ABC a strongly worded letter demanding that it officially retract its cease and desist letter to Spocko’s old hosting company. Zimmerman works at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which fights for people’s online freedom.

"[ABC-Disney] were clearly in the wrong here," Zimmerman told us. "They shouldn’t be in the habit of sending out baseless threats without following through on them."

At issue is whether Spocko’s posting of KSFO’s content constitutes what is known as fair use, an aspect of US copyright law that allows for certain limited usage of protected materials. Zimmerman’s letter to ABC goes through the standard four-point criteria for testing fair use. But more important, Zimmerman and Spocko say Disney did not even bother to follow the correct procedure for removing copyrighted material from a Web site.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 established a protocol for corporations to follow when they believe their materials have been poached. According to Zimmerman, however, Disney did not cite the DMCA in its letter to 1&1 Internet. Disney simply threatened 1&1 with unspecified legal action if it did not take down Spocko’s clips, and 1&1 caved.

"If they were serious about their beliefs that this was a copyright infringement, they could have sent a takedown notice" as specified in the DMCA, Zimmerman said. "But they didn’t do that."

Spocko’s lawyer also had some choice words for 1&1, the hosting company. Under the DMCA, Internet service providers are protected from liability, so long as they too follow proper protocol under the act. But because Disney did not cite the DMCA, Zimmerman said, 1&1 was not in any legal peril. The company "was under no obligation" to pull Spocko’s blog, he asserted. "People should be aware that in this case [1&1] decided that their own interests were more important than their customer’s."

Neil Simpkins, a 1&1 spokesperson, told the Guardian, "We are not a judicial system here. [This] issue is between Spocko and whoever is the owner of the copyright." When asked if 1&1 had consulted with legal counsel of any kind before pulling the blog, Simpkins answered that it had. But when asked for the names and contact information of his company’s legal advisers, Simpkins didn’t provide them. Officials at KSFO and ABC refused to comment for this story.

With the help of the EFF and his blogger allies, Spocko has found another ISP. Computer Tyme Web Hosting now carries his blog, which is back up and running. Some Spocko’s Brain readers have continued the campaign against KSFO. According to the blog, one Spocko devotee got the California state affiliate of the Automobile Association of America to pull its ads from the station.

But Spocko hasn’t yet posted any new audio clips nor has he contacted any advertisers since his run-in with KSFO’s parent companies. Spocko is conflicted. Part of him wants to jump back into the fray. But after the media maelstrom last month, he’s holding back, at least until ABC and Disney respond to his lawyer’s letter.

"I need to pay attention to what’s right, [but] I also need to pay attention to the real world," he said. "Media conglomerates can be ruthless."

Despite his newfound circumspection, he still believes KSFO and its fans will come after him. He even speaks of the outing of his true identity as a foregone conclusion.

"After my 15 minutes [of fame] are over — and I’m at 14:58 right now — they’ll still be out there, and they’ll still be pissed off," Spocko said. "And after they out me, I don’t know how this is going to impact me." *

What we know now

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› gwschulz@sfbg.com

Records unsealed in a federal civil suit last week show that the Hearst Corp. and MediaNews Group have grown intensely fond of each other during the past several years. Hearst even considered selling its San Francisco Chronicle to MediaNews in 2005, but CEO Dean Singleton wasn’t offering nearly enough money.

What the records don’t show is any effort by the two chains to compete in the market by improving their products.

The Guardian first posted a story online Jan. 31 detailing court documents unsealed by Federal Judge Susan Illston in real estate investor Clint Reilly’s antitrust suit against Hearst, MediaNews, and a group of other newspaper companies who joined Singleton in a Northern California partnership that has given him control of almost every big daily in the Bay Area except the Chronicle.

The evidence of anticompetitive behavior is so clear now that the obvious question is whether the US Justice Department or the California Attorney General’s Office, with new boss Jerry Brown, will do anything about it.

Gina Talamona, a Justice Department spokesperson in Washington, DC, confirmed that the feds were still looking into Hearst’s alliance with MediaNews, but she wouldn’t, of course, divulge details.

"I’m just confirming generally we’re looking at it, and we look at the anticompetitive effects of a proposed transaction, and that’s ongoing," Talamona said. "Obviously, our folks are aware of what’s going on in that private suit, but I wouldn’t have anything further for you on that."

Illston, meanwhile, has made it clear in the past that she could force MediaNews to give up some of its newly purchased properties if Reilly convinces her that the deal violates antitrust laws.

Among the documents we obtained is a deposition of Hearst senior vice president James Asher, taken by Justice Department lawyers last September, in which he candidly explains how Hearst for years has wanted to invest in MediaNews — which likes to buy up all the papers in a region and cut costs by sharing facilities and stories.

Hearst executives "formed a favorable impression of Dean Singleton and his company" all the way back in 1995, when a shady deal in Houston gave Hearst’s Houston Chronicle a dominant position in that market after MediaNews shuttered the Houston Post and sold its assets to Hearst. Since then, Asher stated, Hearst has quietly waited for an opportunity to invest in MediaNews or at least cut costs by joining ad, distribution, and printing operations with the ostensible competitors across the bay.

That opportunity arose when Hearst claims it was most needed.

Hearst spent three-quarters of a billion dollars buying the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000, a messy deal that nearly left its old property, the San Francisco Examiner, in shambles. But the purchase quickly became a drag on the company’s portfolio.

Hearst has since lost $330 million trying to figure out how to make the Chronicle profitable. Of all the documents reviewed by Guardian so far, which include memos between Hearst and MediaNews executives outlining potential collaborations, little time appears to have been spent determining how the product itself could actually be made more valuable to readers and, hence, more lucrative for both companies. Instead, Hearst seemed hungry to emulate Singleton or at least buy a bunch of his stock and let him handle the dirty work.

The infamous Singleton strategy includes clustering properties (its Bay Area cluster is now the company’s largest), slashing staff, outsourcing jobs, and consolidating business offices. Layoffs have already occurred at the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times, and reporters are covering stories for several papers under a single "MediaNews Staff" byline.

While Hearst lawyers told Illston early in Reilly’s suit that its $300 million investment in MediaNews, consummated last summer, would involve only non–Bay Area properties to avoid conflicting interests, executives were telling another story behind the scenes.

"The proposed transaction is an opportunity to invest at a reasonable price in a company we have admired," Hearst president and CEO Victor Ganzi wrote to Hearst’s board of directors last July. "If we are able to convert the investment to common stock in all of MediaNews, we will be able to participate in the efficiencies MediaNews will achieve through the consolidation of the Bay Area newspapers other than the San Francisco Chronicle. Whether or not we are able to convert our investment, the proposed transaction provides additional impetus for lawful cooperation between the San Francisco Chronicle and the Bay Area newspapers, which will be owned or controlled by MediaNews, in areas such as distribution, national advertising and the Internet."

Several hundred pages of records were originally filed under seal in Reilly’s suit, but the Guardian, along with the East Bay nonprofit Media Alliance, intervened to have the filings opened to public access. Attorneys Jim Wheaton, David Green, and Pondra Perkins of the First Amendment Project did the legal work.

Illston agreed with our request and made most of the records available in an order last month. Reilly’s suit is expected to go to trial in the spring. He’s alleging that Hearst, MediaNews, and its other business partners, including the Stephens Group and Gannett Co., conspired to divide and monopolize the Bay Area newspaper market.

At the very least, Asher admitted in his deposition that Hearst saw media consolidation as one of the few reasons to bother staying in the newspaper biz. Originally, Hearst executives were considering a $500 million investment in MediaNews, but that amount was eventually lowered.

"We’re among the larger owners and operators of newspapers," Asher stated. "We still believe in them, notwithstanding their challenges, and we would like to participate in that consolidation. And, in fact, if we don’t choose to, we should probably think about exiting the business." *

Brown must fight the media monopoly

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EDITORIAL The evidence is now clear and compelling: the two biggest newspaper chains in the Bay Area have been plotting for years to eliminate local competition. The details that have come out of the Clint Reilly lawsuit point to almost textbook antitrust violations, the exact sort of behavior that state and federal laws prohibit. (See "What We Know Now," page 13.)

The public had no knowledge of how MediaNews Group and the Hearst Corp. were conspiring to join ad sales and distribution deals. But the federal and state regulators knew all about it; the records show that Hearst executives laid out the entire plan back in early 2006.

And yet the deal that allowed MediaNews to buy up every major daily in the region except the San Francisco Chronicle won approval from both the California and the US attorneys general — in part on the grounds that Hearst’s Chronicle would remain as a serious competitor in the market.

Which leads to some pretty obvious questions: What were the investigators and lawyers in Sacramento and Washington, DC, doing? And now that this is all out in public, will California’s new attorney general, Jerry Brown, put a stop to it?

When the McClatchy company sold the Contra Costa Times and the San Jose Mercury News to Dean Singleton, who already owned the Oakland Tribune and the Marin Independent Journal, critics immediately began to cry foul. Singleton’s strategy has always been to buy up adjoining media properties, combine as many of their assets as possible, share reporters and stories, and improve the bottom line through deep cuts. Suddenly, instead of four reporters covering events in the Bay Area, there would be just one, with one perspective and one story running in all four papers.

The same would go for advertising — instead of having several options in the region, businesses could wind up having to deal with one centralized agency that sets prices and sells ads for all four big dailies (and a bunch of smaller ones that Singleton also owns).

Still, the federal and state regulators declined to challenge or block the deal. If Reilly hadn’t sued to stop it, the machinery would already be in motion for what could be a single company, or a partnership that operates like a single company, controlling all of the daily newspapers from San Jose to Marin County, from San Francisco to Contra Costa County.

But now this is all open and visible. We don’t have much faith in the Bush Justice Department, but the new California attorney general has a history (at some moments) of showing the willingness to stand up to powerful interests and take strong political stands. This is his first and perhaps most important test. Brown needs to go into court immediately and file to block the entire deal. *

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report

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Click here for yesterday’s report

Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi civilians:

74 Iraqi civilians were killed or found dead across Iraq today as a result of isolated incidents, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/02/05/international/i134803S77.DTL&hw=Iraq+bomb&sn=003&sc=780

135 Iraqi Civilians were killed and more than 300 wounded when a central Baghdad market was bombed Saturday, according to the New York Times.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/world/middleeast/04cnd-iraq.html?em&ex=1170824400&en=ab67ac47347a47dc&ei=5087%0A

The bombing in Baghdad on Saturday, February 3, 2007 was the deadliest single attack since the beginning of the war, according to Reuters.
For a list of the deadliest bomb attacks since the beginning of the war visit:
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/KHII-6Y5A6X?OpenDocument

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

55,664 – 61,369: Killed since 1/03

For a week by week assessment of significant incidents and trends in Iraqi civilian casualties, go to A Week in Iraq by Lily Hamourtziadou. She is a member of the Iraq Body Count project, which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq.

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 4 February 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/29/

For first hand accounts of the grave situation in Iraq, visit some of these blogs:
www.ejectiraqikkk.blogspot.com
www.healingiraq.blogspot.com
www.afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com

Antiestablishmentarianism attitudes among Iraqi religious groups is fueling intolerance and violence towards homosexuals in Iraq, according to the UN.

Source: http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories07/february/0202071.htm

U.S. military:

3,321: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

For the Department of Defense statistics go to: http://www.defenselink.mil/

For a more detailed list of U.S. Military killed in the War in Iraq go to:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/2007.01.html

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

151: Killed since 3/03

Source: http://www.infoshout.com/

Refugees:

Border policies are tightening because one million Iraqi refugees have already fled to Jordan and another one million to Syria. Iraqi refugees who manage to make it out of Iraq still can’t work, have difficulty attending school and are not eligible for health care. Many still need to return to Iraq to escape poverty, according to BBC news.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6293807.stm

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

Many refugees were displaced prior to 2003, but an increasing number are fleeing now, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ estimates.

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html

U.S. Military Wounded:

47,657: Wounded since 3/19/03 to 1/6/07

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (2/5/07): Bush asks congress to approve $622 billion for 2008. So far, $364 billion for the U.S., $46 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.
Compiled by Paula Connelly

Bush asked congress to approve $622 billion for defense spending, most for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in a $2.9 trillion budget request for 2008, according to Reuters.
Source: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nL05586874&imageid=top-news-view-2007-02-05-151653-RTR1M0R9_Comp%5B1%5D.jpg&cap=A%20copy%20of%20U.S.%20President%20George%20W.%20Bush’s%20budget%20sits%20on%20a%20table%20in%20the%20office%20of%20the%20House%20Committee%20on%20the%20Budget%20in%20Washington%20February%205,%202007.%20Committee%20members%20had%20used%20the%20scissors%20to%20open%20the%20packages%20of%20the%20new%20budget.%20REUTERS/Jonathan%20Ernst%20%20%20(UNITED%20STATES)&from=business

Here is a running total of the cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayer, provided by the National Priorities Project located in Northampton, Massachusetts. The number is based on Congressional appropriations. Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD originally created the count in 2003 on costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts.

To bring the cost of the war home, please note that California has already lost $46 billion and San Francisco has lost $1 billion to the Bush war and his mistakes. In San Francisco alone, the funds used for the war in Iraq could have hired 21,264 additional public school teachers for one year, we could have built 11,048 additional housing units or we could have provided 59,482 students four-year scholarships at public universities. For a further breakdown of the cost of the war to your community, see the NPP website aptly titled “turning data into action.”

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (2/2/07)

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Click here for the last casualty report.

America’s intelligence agencies released an assessment of the war in Iraq, painting a grim picture of a worsening situation in need of action. The report argues that a rapid pullout of the U.S. military would lead to more violence, according to the New York Times.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/world/middleeast/02cnd-intel.html?ei=5094&en=491eb97eea8c48bd&hp=&ex=1170478800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

To hear a democratic view on the implications of the Intel report, visit the NPR website: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7138240

Casualties in Iraq

U.S. military:

2 U.S. solidiers were killed today when their helecopter was shot down just outside Baghdad, according to the New York Times.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/world/middleeast/02cnd-iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

3,306: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

For the Department of Defense statistics go to: http://www.defenselink.mil/

For a more detailed list of U.S. Military killed in the War in Iraq go to:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/2007.01.html

Iraqi civilians:

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

55,441 – 61,133: Killed since 1/03

For a week by week assessment of significant incidents and trends in Iraqi civilian casualties, go to A Week in Iraq by Lily Hamourtziadou. She is a member of the Iraq Body Count project, which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq.

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 28 January 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/28/

For first hand accounts of the grave situation in Iraq, visit some of these blogs:
www.ejectiraqikkk.blogspot.com
www.healingiraq.blogspot.com
www.afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com

Antiestablishmentarianism attitudes among Iraqi religious groups is fueling intolerance and violence towards homosexuals in Iraq, according to the UN.

Source: http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories07/february/0202071.htm

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

151: Killed since 3/03

Source: http://www.infoshout.com/

Refugees:

Border policies are tightening because one million Iraqi refugees have already fled to Jordan and another one million to Syria. Iraqi refugees who manage to make it out of Iraq still can’t work, have difficulty attending school and are not eligible for health care. Many still need to return to Iraq to escape poverty, according to BBC news.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6293807.stm

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

Many refugees were displaced prior to 2003, but an increasing number are fleeing now, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ estimates.

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html

U.S. Military Wounded:

47,657: Wounded since 3/19/03 to 1/6/07

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (2/2/07): $363 billion for the U.S., $46 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.
Compiled by Paula Connelly
Here is a running total of the cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayer, provided by the National Priorities Project located in Northampton, Massachusetts. The number is based on Congressional appropriations. Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD originally created the count in 2003 on costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts.

To bring the cost of the war home, please note that California has already lost $46 billion and San Francisco has lost $1 billion to the Bush war and his mistakes. In San Francisco alone, the funds used for the war in Iraq could have hired 21,264 additional public school teachers for one year, we could have built 11,048 additional housing units or we could have provided 59,482 students four-year scholarships at public universities. For a further breakdown of the cost of the war to your community, see the NPP website aptly titled “turning data into action.”

Singleton buys another daily paper and further locks up the Bay Area market .Where’s the U.S. Attorney General and the California Attorney General?

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

And so it comes to pass that Dean Singleton, already weighted down with 56 daily newspapers and l20 non-dailies in l3 states, including a virtual monopoly of the Bay Area daily market, is buying the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
The story in the San Jose Mercury News/Singleton paper is a snapshot of how things stand in California journalism.The announcement came from out of state (Singleton himself from his Denver headquarters). The paper was bought in a quick shuffle aimed at giving Singleton an even tighter lock on the Bay Area market: Ottaway of New York, a subsidiary of Dow Jones, sells to another New York-based firm (Community Newspaper Holdings Inc) two months ago. And then CNHI sells to Singleton and Singleton says without blushing in a house press release, “We are delighted to accquire the Santa Cruz Sentinel and expand our reach in this very competitive region. The Sentinel is a fine newspaper today but it will be strengthened by the resources of our existing papers.” Chop, chop, whack, whack.

Technically, the Sentinel will be acquired by a Singleton-controlled entity called the California Newspaper Partnership, with the Gannett chain headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, and Stephens Media, out of Las Vegas and Little Rock, Arkansas, as the remaining partners. Meanwhile, as the newly unsealed federal court documents show, Singleton out of Denver and Hearst out of New York have been collaborating on several levels and Hearst is now a major investor with Singleton and helping finance his acquisitions.

This is Singleton’s modus operandi: he doesn’t compete, he clusters and collaborates. I once asked him, back when the old Hearst Examiner was up for sale, why he didn’t come to town and buy it. “Dean,” I said, “come to San Francisco and compete with the Chronicle and we’ll make a real man out of you.” Nope, he replied in five words, “Too much energy, no profit.” And that was that. In short, Singleton and his “competitors” are now partners and there will be no real daily newspaper competition in the Bay area. Why is the only major impediment to this monopoly mess Clint Reilly and his attorneys Joe Alioto and Dan Shulman? Where is the outrage?

Repeating: where is the U.S. Attorney General and the California Attorney General as the monopoly noose of ever more conservative newspapers tightens on one of the world’s most liberal and civilized areas?
Not a peep from former AG Bill Lockyer, who lived under the thumb of Singleton in Hayward with the Hayward Review, and not a peep from current AG Jerrry Brown, who lives under the Singleton thumb in Oakland with the
Tribune and an East Bay monopoly now stretching all the way south to Santa Cruz and Monterey and north to Vallejo. Thank God there are three lively alternative newspapers in the area: the Santa Cruz Good Times and the Santa Cruz Metro and the Monterey County Weekly in nearby Seaside. There’s now even more for them to do. B3

The Mercury News: MN owner acquires Santa Cruz newspaper

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (2/2/07): 58 Iraqi civilians killed.

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Click here for 1/31 report

Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi civilians:
58 Iraqi civilians were killed today in a double suicide bombing at a busy market in Hilla, according to BBC news.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6320495.stm

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

55,373 – 61,060: Killed since 1/03

For a week by week assessment of significant incidents and trends in Iraqi civilian casualties, go to A Week in Iraq by Lily Hamourtziadou. She is a member of the Iraq Body Count project, which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq.

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 28 January 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/28/

For first hand accounts of the grave situation in Iraq, visit some of these blogs:
www.ejectiraqikkk.blogspot.com
www.healingiraq.blogspot.com
www.afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com

Antiestablishmentarianism attitudes among Iraqi religious groups is fueling intolerance and violence towards homosexuals in Iraq, according to the UN.

Source: http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories07/february/0202071.htm

U.S. military:

3,306: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

For the Department of Defense statistics go to: http://www.defenselink.mil/

For a more detailed list of U.S. Military killed in the War in Iraq go to:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/2007.01.html

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

151: Killed since 3/03

Source: http://www.infoshout.com/

Refugees:

Border policies are tightening because one million Iraqi refugees have already fled to Jordan and another one million to Syria. Iraqi refugees who manage to make it out of Iraq still can’t work, have difficulty attending school and are not eligible for health care. Many still need to return to Iraq to escape poverty, according to BBC news.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6293807.stm

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

Many refugees were displaced prior to 2003, but an increasing number are fleeing now, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ estimates.

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html

U.S. Military Wounded:

47,657: Wounded since 3/19/03 to 1/6/07

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (2/1/07): $363 billion for the U.S., $45 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

Here is a running total of the cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayer, provided by the National Priorities Project located in Northampton, Massachusetts. The number is based on Congressional appropriations. Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD originally created the count in 2003 on costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts.

To bring the cost of the war home, please note that California has already lost $45 billion and San Francisco has lost $1 billion to the Bush war and his mistakes. In San Francisco alone, the funds used for the war in Iraq could have hired 21,095 additional public school teachers for one year, we could have built 10,960 additional housing units or we could have provided 59,011 students four-year scholarships at public universities. For a further breakdown of the cost of the war to your community, see the NPP website aptly titled “turning data into action.”

Tiki wiki

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER What exactly does exotica mean to a little brown girl from a tropical island? How does tiki translate to someone who once identified those fierce masks by name, as Lono, Kane, or Ku? To most, exotica tuneage boils down to Martin Denny and Esquivel; tikis, to that last retro revival that surfed in alongside early ’90s alternative culture. But for this wahine from cosmo Honolulu, exotica meant Quadrophenia mods and Italian scooters zipping around a freezing little island on the other side of the globe — and tikis were simply a fact of life, like those special guest appearances by Pele on street corners. Tiki was all around — it was more radically exotic to sport leather motorcycle jackets under the hot Hawaiian sun.

So Bay Area tiki culture’s latest return — in the form of Alameda’s Forbidden Island and Oakland’s Kona Club — is both surreal and heartwarmingly familiar, a roughed-out, kitschy-koo Hawaiian fusion. I always associated the tiki cult of the ’50s and ’60s with World War II vets nostalgic for humahumunookienookie high times, filtered through mediocre Chinese grub and juicy beverages that even a teetotalin’ mom could easily get toasted on. Here it’s all about vintage peeps, ex-locals, and hearty-drinking pirates in search of novel booty. And the Bay Area is the ideal spot for an ersatz islander experience, what with Oakland being the home of the first Trader Vic’s, Alameda’s Otto von Stroheim continuing to roll out the Tiki News zine, San Francisco’s ReSearch spurring an exotica rediscovery with its Incredibly Strange Music volumes, and the area providing ground zero for the San Francisco Bay Area Tiki Weekend.

The aforementioned gathering is thrown by Forbidden Island co-owner Martin Cate, and the loving care he and fellow big kahunas Michael and Emmanuel Thanos (who also own the Conga Lounge in Oakland) lavished on the nine-month-old lounge is obvious. On this frigid, drizzly Saturday night there’s something vaguely subversive about retreating to a tiki-strewn fantasy island when it’s colder than a sea lion’s tittie outside. Forbidden Island is a fruity-drink lover’s fever dream, boasting fresh-squeezed juices and stealth quantities of silver rum that sneak up and slam you in the puss. Cocktail umbrellas spear dollars to the cork ceiling over an early ’60s back bar, bamboo-sheltered booths, and a dramatically lit Polynesian god overseeing the grizzled locals, water cooler refugees, and fresh- and Fog Cutter–faced collegians, downing spicy grog and Scorpions by the bowl. As I suck down a delish Banana Mamacow of coconut, cream, and rum, my bud Dr. B points out the bodacious, bare-chested native maid in the black velvet masterwork by the bar: "If I had that in my room when I was a teenager, I’d never have left the house." My only disappointment: nary a note of bird whistles, a bongo beat, nor a wisp of exotica in earshot, though the jukebox is said to be crammed with the stuff. Where’s the mai tai moment for the mind’s ear?

Next up on the relative newbie list is the year-old Kona Club on a silent stretch of Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, just a stagger or so away from Trader Vic’s founder Victor Bergeron’s final resting spot at Mountain View Cemetery. Love the tapa cloth–covered walls decorated with ukuleles and old wooden surfboards; the smell of dried lauhala; and the unduutf8g hips of the life-size hula-girl robot. And I’m told the smoke-spewing volcano behind the bar is da bomb. As the Pixies blast over the sound system and Dr. B fetches more Macadamia Nut Chi Chis, I sprawl over a corner table — the sizable crowd appears to be simultaneously more hipster and fratty. Maybe it’s the quiet village of Piedmont that binds us together — the burbies outside are tucked in early while we belly up in our mini-wacky-wiki-Waikiki inside the onetime British brew pub King’s X. Who doesn’t want to recapture some mongrel carefree vacation sensation — in a silly-shack adult Disneyland of thatched straw?

I get rummy and restless, and a clutch of drinkers nearby watches raptly as I manage to make barfly magic and balance a saltshaker on its tip, bolstered only by a teeny mound of grains, for 20 minutes until a barmaid stomps by in a huff and it falls. "Now that’s amazing," the bouncer gathering glasses around me says. The tiki gods are smiling.

GOOD TIMES, OLD TIMEY You can’t toss the tikis out with the tepid bathwater, and you can’t count out bluegrass and old-time music with hoedowns like the San Francisco Bluegrass and Old-Time Festival around. Affiliated with the Northern California Bluegrass Society, the completely volunteer-run, nonprofit eighth annual shindig runs from Feb. 1 to 10; showcases up-and-coming locals such as the Earl Brothers, Circle R Boys, Squirrelly Stringband, the Deciders, Jimbo Trout and the Fishpeople, the Crooked Jades’ Jeff Kazor and Lisa Berman, and the Wronglers (with Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival founder Warren Hellman); and closes with a square dance at the Swedish American Hall. This year’s fest also shines a light on a slew of Portland, Ore., combos, summing up a West Coast scene that’s younger than those in other parts, publicity volunteer Elizabeth Smith tells me. "I think that there’s an interest in roots music that’s pervasive in the Bay Area," she explains. "If you go back and look at the hippie scene in San Francisco and the fact that folks in the Dead were involved in bluegrass, you can see an evolution over time." Old times don’t have to mean bad times. *

FORBIDDEN ISLAND

Tues.–Thurs., 5 p.m.–midnight; Fri.–Sat., 5 p.m.–2 a.m.; Sun., 3–10 p.m.

1305 Lincoln, Alameda

(510) 749-0332

www.forbiddenislandalameda.com

KONA CLUB

Daily, noon–2 a.m.

4401 Piedmont, Oakl.

(510) 654-7100

SAN FRANCISCO BLUEGRASS AND OLD-TIME FESTIVAL

Feb. 1–10

See Web site for info

www.sfbluegrass.org

>

Behold, a pale port

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While sipping my way through a barrel tasting last week, I came across something of a novelty: a California chardonnay port. White port isn’t that unusual, of course; the Portuguese have been making fortified wines from white grapes and from red fermented off-skin for a long time. Still, when most of us think of port, we think of a ruby-colored, almost syrupy elixir, a few sips of which makes a lovely after-dinner drink and, with its sweetness, a good substitute for dessert.

The maker of the chardonnay port is VJB Vineyards, in Kenwood. The winery belongs to that class of ultra-chic, ultra-small-production enterprises that sell most of their wine through their tasting rooms and, in some cases, through subscription lists or Web sites (www.vjbcellars.com). VJB’s chardonnay port, Baci de Famiglia, is produced in rather minute quantities; just 200 cases of the 2005 vintage are available. Given this scarcity, the price — $28 for an elegantly slim 375-milliliter bottle — is surprisingly nonstratospheric.

The port is a pale honey-straw color, like a richer pinot grigio. It is lighter and less syrupy than its red cousins (you are supposed to serve it well-chilled) and perhaps slightly less sweet; most red California ports are distinguishable by their pronounced fruitiness and sweetness. I have never tasted Portuguese white port, but I have tasted ice wines from both Austria and Canada — wines made from very-late-harvest white grapes that are allowed to freeze on the vine before being crushed — and I would say they are the nearest relations of VJB’s chardonnay port, both in color and in restrained sweetness. Certainly, many of the great white dessert wines, even those from France, such as Sauternes, tend to be noticeably sweeter and weightier on the tongue. For a chardonnay wine produced in California, the port is noticeably nonoaky, and the bouquet does carry a hint of apples — a natural and attractive characteristic of chardonnay, though one too often muted or lost altogether in the making of the heavier white wines we cannot seem to wean ourselves from.

The port, I was told, would make a beautiful match with a blue cheese from the Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co. (www.pointreyescheese.com), samples of which were just steps away. A novelty pairing? No, a natural one.

Paul Reidinger

› paulr@sfbg.com

Investigate the Presidio’s money

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EDITORIAL National parks are places where wildlife is preserved, saved, encouraged. The trend in parks these days is to expand the ecological mix; the National Park Service is actually trying to reintroduce wolves to Yellowstone. But as Amanda Witherell reported Jan. 17 ("Where Are the Chicks?"), that’s not the case in San Francisco’s Presidio National Park. At the Presidio a native species that was thriving not long ago — the California quail — is almost entirely gone. That’s a sign that the ecological management of the park is a mess — which is no surprise. The park is run by a semiprivate trust that’s driven by real estate development and moneymaking. If new condos conflict with quail habitat, guess who has to go?

Then there’s the Presidio’s balance sheet. As we reported Jan. 24 ("The Presidio Trust’s Mystery Millions"), the park is sitting on $105 million — a huge chunk of cash — yet has asked Congress for a $20 million loan. What’s all that money for? The trust won’t tell us — it’s a secret.

This is exactly what we feared would happen when Rep. Nancy Pelosi created the first privatized national park 10 years ago: environmental damage, financial unaccountability, and intolerable secrecy. The trust board (appointed by President George W. Bush) meets in public only once a year. Its press office is openly hostile to reporters and makes it exceptionally difficult for the public to get even basic information about park activities.

This is Pelosi’s pet project, and she’s now the most powerful person in Congress, but that doesn’t mean the Presidio should be able to continue operating in this fashion. The House Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Rep. Nick Rahall (D–W.Va.), ought to hold hearings on the Presidio and examine how the trust is operating, whether it’s fulfilling its mission, and how its enabling legislation should be changed. A growing number of environmentalists are now calling for Pelosi to repeal the original bill and turn the Presidio over to the National Park Service, which runs parks as public treasures, not as potential real estate developments.

At the very least, Congress should refuse to provide any more loans to the Presidio Trust until an outside auditor conducts a public review of the books — and explains why a national park is holding $105 million in taxpayer money in the bank for secret projects, then demanding even more public money. *

Why people get mad at the media (part 9). the Chronicle and Associated Press blow the big media story and refuse to make corrections

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

The Bay Guardian, the Media Alliance, and the First Amendment Project won a major victory in federal court last week and succeeded in unsealing about 90 per cent of the previously secret records in the Clint Reilly media consolidation case. It was a clear and decisive win.

Yet the monopoly papers in the case mangled the story, tried to make it appear that the Guardian lost, and the monopolizers won. And then, when we requested they make corrections, they refused and tried to blow us all off.

The Associated Press story was the worst. It was inaccurate, incomplete, and made it look as if the judge had given the Hearst/Singleton forces a major victory, as the two heads on the Examiner website made clear: “Judge: MediaNews, Hearst lawsuit documents remain sealed” and “Judge denies request to unseal MediaNews, Hearst lawsuit documents.” (B3: both inaccurate and incomplete statements, see our online coverage and our link to the judge’s order).

The lead makes the inaccuracy more pronounced: “A media advocacy group and alternative weekly newspaper on Wednesday failed to convince (B3: no) a judge to open key documents in a deal between the San Francisco and the owner of about a dozen Bay Area daily newspapers.” Then the second inaccurate paragraph: “U.S. District Judge Susan Illston denied requests (B3: no, no, no) from the Oakland-based Media Alliance and the San Francisco BayGuardian…” And then a selective quote from Illston that makes it look (wrongly) as if “the bulk of the records contained detailed financial information, including past and present revenue…” and that those were still under seal.
(B3: no again).

Our attorney James Wheaton from FAP emailed the AP and the Chronicle a full and detailed account of what we won: (a) about 90 per cent of the sealed documents; (b) a lot of key documents; (c) the right to stay in the case as an intervenor so that we are in a legal position to challenge any further sealing of documents for the duration of the case; (d) a major precedent that the big guys, especially the monopolizing publishers, cannot seal records in their moves to regional monopoly without public challenge, and (e) a major victory for sunshine, open government, and the free and open press.

More: the AP story was done without the normal calls for comment to our attorney or to the plaintiffs (Media Alliance or us). We had to initiate the calls and emails in an attempt to find out how AP so badly screwed up a simple straightforward ruling by a federal judge. And we are still mystified. The AP story ran in the San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Times, both owned by Singleton. Singleton, let us note, is also the incoming chairman of the AP board of directors.

When Wheaton asked for a correction by email, the assistant bureau chief Mark Rochester replied in an email:
“While I understand the subtleties (B3: subtleties?) involved, and have discussed this further with staffers here, I’ve decided not to do anything further. I just don’t believe we could issue a clarification or write-thru of the story that would be useful to member news organizations in terms of trying to explain what was and wasn’t covered in the judge’s order.” (B3: why not? Is AP above correcting demonstrable errors or giving the other independent side a chance to comment? What side is AP on? Darkness? Monopoly? Fair and balanced reporting? And most important:what about the interests of non-members or targets of your stories or people like us doing the public’s business in filing and winning a major sunshine in the courts suit? Do we not count?)

I put the above comments in an email letter to Rochester and AP bureau chief John Raess. I requested an explanation of why AP’s news consideration applies only to AP members (such as Hearst, Singleton, Gannett, McClatchy, Stephens, purported “competitors” who are now partners in the monopolizing
California partnership under attack by Reilly.) I also asked for a copy of the AP’s retraction and correction policy. No answer as yet.

This is the face of the emerging daily newspaper monopoly in 2007 in the Bay Area. And this is yet another reason why people get mad at the media.

P.S. Ah, yes, the Chronicle story by Bob Egelko. His story wasn’t much better and he missed the key point: when we filed the motion in court to unseal the records, the newspaper monopolists, obviously embarrassed, immediately agreed to make the bulk of the material public. There are boxes and boxes, and thousands and thousands of pages of legal material filed in the case so far, and the publishers didn’t even contest our contention that most of it should never have been sealed in the first place. Ah yes, neither the Guardian nor the Media Alliance for the First Amendment Coalition was mentioned by name in the rummy little page 3 story in the business section. We asked Egelko why. He emailed back: the cuts were made for space consideration. B3

***************

AP Letter

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (1/29/07): $362 billion for the U.S., $45 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.

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Compiled by Paula Connelly

Here is a running total of the cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayer, provided by the National Priorities Project located in Northampton, Massachusetts. The number is based on Congressional appropriations. Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD originally created the count in 2003 on costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts.



Cost of the War in Iraq
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To bring the cost of the war home, please note that California has already lost $45 billion and San Francisco has lost $1 billion to the Bush war and his mistakes. In San Francisco alone, the funds used for the war in Iraq could have hired 21,095 additional public school teachers for one year, we could have built 10,960 additional housing units or we could have provided 59,011 students four-year scholarships at public universities. For a further breakdown of the cost of the war to your community, see the NPP website aptly titled “turning data into action.”

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (1/26/07): $361 billion for the U.S., $45 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.

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Compiled by Paula Connelly

Here is a running total of the cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayer, provided by the National Priorities Project located in Northampton, Massachusetts. The number is based on Congressional appropriations. Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD originally created the count in 2003 on costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts.



Cost of the War in Iraq
(JavaScript Error)


To bring the cost of the war home, please note that California has already lost $45 billion and San Francisco has lost $1 billion to the Bush war and his mistakes. In San Francisco alone, the funds used for the war in Iraq could have hired 21,095 additional public school teachers for one year, we could have built 10,960 additional housing units or we could have provided 59,011 students four-year scholarships at public universities. For a further breakdown of the cost of the war to your community, see the NPP website aptly titled “turning data into action.”

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (1/25/07): 26 Iraqi civilians killed

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Compiled by Paula Connelly

Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi civilians:

26 Iraqi Civilians were killed today in Karradah, Iraq when a suicide car bomb was detonated in a marketplace, according to the Associated Press.

Source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4500170.html

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

54,432 – 60,098: Killed since 1/03

For a week by week assessment of significant incidents and trends in Iraqi civilian casualties, go to A Week in Iraq by Lily Hamourtziadou. She is a member of the Iraq Body Count project, which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq.

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 21 January 2007: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/27/

U.S. military:

29: Killed this weekend (1/19/07- 1/21/07):

2: Killed 1/19/07; 25: Killed 1/20/07; 2: Killed 1/21/07

3,284: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

The weekend death toll of 27, with 25 deaths on Saturday, made Saturday the third-deadliest day for U.S. forces since the war began, according to the New York Times.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/world/middleeast/22iraq.html?ref=middleeast

Here are the names of the soldiers killed on Saturday, January 20, 2007:

Four soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb detonated near their Humvee in Karma, Iraq, according to CNN.com:

Spc. Jeffrey D. Bisson, 22, of Vista, California, 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.
Sgt. Sean P. Fennerty, 25, of Corvallis, Oregon, 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.
Sgt. Phillip D. McNeil, 22, of Sunrise, Florida, 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.
Spc. Toby R. Olsen, 28, of Manchester, New Hampshire, 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.

Five soldiers were killed while repelling an attack on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, Iraq, according to CNN.com:

Spc. Johnathan B. Chism, 22, of Gonzales, Louisiana, 2nd Battalion, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.
Pfc. Shawn P. Falter, 25, of Cortland, New York, 2nd Battalion, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.
Capt. Brian S. Freeman, 31, of Temecula, California, 412th Civil Affairs Battalion, Army Reserve.
1st Lt. Jacob N. Fritz, 25, of Verdon, Nebraska, 2nd Battalion, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.
Pvt. Johnathon M. Millican, 20, of Trafford, Alabama, 2nd Battalion, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.

Three soldiers were killed in three separate incidents, according to CNN.com:

Lance Cpl. Luis J. Castillo, 20, of Lawton, Michigan, 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserve.
Pfc. Ryan J. Hill, 20, of Keizer, Oregon, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division.
Pfc. Allen B. Jaynes, 21, of Henderson, Texas, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.
Twelve soldiers were killed in Baghdad on Jan. 20, when the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter they were in crashed, according to the Department of Defense.
Col. Brian D. Allgood, 46, of Oklahoma, who was assigned to the 30th Medical Brigade, European Regional Medical Command, Heidelberg, Germany.
Staff Sgt. Darryl D. Booker, 37, of Midlothian, Va., who was assigned to the 29th Infantry Division, Virginia Army National Guard, Sandston, Va.
Sgt. 1st Class John G. Brown, 43, of Little Rock, Ark., who was assigned to the Arkansas Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 185th Aviation Regiment (Air Assault), 77th Aviation Brigade, Camp Robinson, Ark.
Lt. Col. David C. Canegata, 50, of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, who was assigned to the Virgin Islands Army National Guard, Christiansted, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Command Sgt. Maj. Marilyn L. Gabbard, 46, of Polk City, Iowa, who was assigned to Joint Forces Headquarters, Iowa Army National Guard, Camp Dodge, Johnston, Iowa.
Command Sgt. Maj. Roger W. Haller, 49, of Davidsonville, Md., who was assigned to the 70th Regiment, Regional Training Institute – Maryland, Maryland Army National Guard, Reisterstown, Md.
Col. Paul M. Kelly, 45, of Stafford, Va., who was assigned to the Joint Force Headquarters of the Virginia Army National Guard in Blackstone, Va.
Staff Sgt. Floyd E. Lake, 43, of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, who was assigned to the Virgin Islands Army National Guard, Christiansted, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Cpl. Victor M. Langarica, 29, of Decatur, Ga., who was assigned to the 86th Signal Battalion, Fort Huachuca, Ariz.
Capt. Sean E. Lyerly, 31, of Pflugerville, Texas., who was assigned to the Texas Army National Guard’s 36th Combat Aviation Brigade, 36th Infantry Division, Austin, Texas.
Maj. Michael V. Taylor, 40, of North Little Rock, Ark., who was assigned to the Arkansas Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 185th Aviation Regiment (Air Assault), 77th Aviation Brigade, Camp Robinson, Ark.
1st Sgt. William T. Warren, 48, of North Little Rock, Ark., who was assigned to the Arkansas Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 185th Aviation Regiment (Air Assault), 77th Aviation Brigade, Camp Robinson, Ark.

For the Department of Defense statistics go to: http://www.defenselink.mil/

For a more detailed list of U.S. Military killed in the War in Iraq go to:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/2007.01.html

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

94: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.cpj.org

Refugees:

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

Many refugees were displaced prior to 2003, but an increasing number are fleeing now, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ estimates.

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html

U.S. Military Wounded:

47,657: Wounded since 3/19/03 to 1/6/07

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (1/25/07): $361 billion for the U.S., $45 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.

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Compiled by Paula Connelly

Here is a running total of the cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayer, provided by the National Priorities Project located in Northampton, Massachusetts. The number is based on Congressional appropriations. Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD originally created the count in 2003 on costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts.



Cost of the War in Iraq
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To bring the cost of the war home, please note that California has already lost $45 billion and San Francisco has lost $1 billion to the Bush war and his mistakes. In San Francisco alone, the funds used for the war in Iraq could have hired 21,095 additional public school teachers for one year, we could have built 10,960 additional housing units or we could have provided 59,011 students four-year scholarships at public universities. For a further breakdown of the cost of the war to your community, see the NPP website aptly titled “turning data into action.”

The media blows a media story

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By Tim Redmond

The Bay Guardian and Media Alliance have succeeded in getting about 90 percent of the previously secret records in the Clint Reilly media consolidation case opened to public review.
But you wouldn’t know that from reading the news stories in the monopoly dailies that the suit challenges.
In fact, the press coverage of Judge Illston’s ruling shows very neatly how media consolidation and a lack of competition throttle public access to the news.
None of the local dailies (all of them owned by big chains involved in this case) got the story remotely right. The Chronicle’s Bob Egelko, who is normally a decent legal reporter, reported only that Judge Illston had ordered the release of “some MediaNews Group records” but “allowed MediaNews and the Hearst Corp., owner of The Chronicle, to protect most of the documents they had sought to keep sealed.” The seven-paragraph story ignored the main point: When we filed the motion in court to unseal the records, the newspaper barons immediately agreed to make the bulk of the material public. There are thousands and thousands of pages of legal material filed in the case so far, and the publishers didn’t even contest our contention that most of it should never have been sealed in the first place.
“MediaNews Group and Hearst were asked by Media Alliance and the Guardian before they intervened to unseal everything. They declined to unseal anything,” said Jim Wheaton, attorney for the First Amendment Project, which represented us. “But as soon as Media Alliance and the Guardian moved to intervene and unseal, MediaNews and Hearst surrendered on almost all the sealed documents. They fought only to keep some parts of five exhibits and one brief sealed, which comprised 19 separate excerpts (of which six were duplicates, leaving only 13 distinct items).
There’s a lot of legal gobbledegook here, but for the record, here’s how Wheaton explains it:

The following documents were originally filed under seal, in their totality (with court docket numbers):

o Motion for Temporary Restraining Order (“TRO”) and Order to Show Cause (“OSC”) (#70)
o Declaration of Daniel Shulman (#70)
o Memorandum in Support of (“ISO”) Plaintiff’s Motion for TRO and OSC (#71)
o Declaration of Daniel R. Shulman ISO Plaintiff’s Motion for TRO and OSC, including all exhibits thereto. (#72)
o Reply Memorandum ISO Motion for TRO and OSC (#88)
o Supplemental Declaration of Daniel R. Shulman ISO Motion for TRO and OSC including all exhibits thereto (#89)
o Memorandum ISO Motion for Preliminary Injunction (“PI”) (#91)
o Second Supplemental Declaration of Daniel R. Shulman ISO Plaintiff’s Motion for PI, and all exhibits thereto (#91)
o Plaintiff’s Supplemental Memorandum ISO Motion for PI (#96)
o Second Supplemental Declaration of Daniel R. Shulman, including all exhibits thereto (#97)
o Third Supplemental Declaration of Daniel R. Shulman ISO plaintiff’s motion for PI, including all exhibits thereto (#108)
o All 34 exhibits attached to the various Shulman declarations (#s 70, 72, 89, 91, 97, 108)
o Declaration of James M. Asher in Response to OSC Regarding Application for PI and three Exhibits thereto (# 102) (These are all duplicates of other items already filed under seal.)

She has ordered ALL of that unsealed, except for:

o part of two pages from Reilly’s Reply Memorandum ISO of the TRO (#88)
o portions only of just six of the 34 exhibits attached to the Shulman declarations (and their duplicates in Asher’s declaration); the declarations themselves were completely unsealed

Everything else was unsealed. All parts of all the memoranda, all the declarations, and all the other exhibits were unsealed.

Also – and this is key – Illston gave the Guardian and Media Alliance the right to remain legal interveners for the duration of the case, giving us standing to immediately seek the release of any future documents filed under seal.

In one of the nastier little twists to this story, Egelko referred only to “a media group and a weekly newspaper” without ever mentioning Media Alliance or the Bay Guardian.

I send Egelko an email, and he said the reference to the Guardian was cut for space.

The Contra Costa Times ran an Associated Press story by David Kravets that was even worse. The headline: “Judge denies request to unseal MediaNews, Hearst suit papers.” The summary: Illston denied almost everything the Guardian and Media Alliance wanted.

The San Jose Mercury News ran four paragraphs of the same AP story.

That story was, as I’ve pointed out above, utterly inaccurate, embarrassingly so. I called Kravets and asked what had happened, and he acknowledged that he had left out the background – the fact that the media barons, in response to our case, had agreed to unseal most of the records. “I plead guilty to leaving out the background,” he said.

Wheaton is contacting AP and the Chron to seek corrections; we’ll let you know.

In the meantime, think about what happened here: The Times and the Merc, both owned by Dean Singleton’s MediaNews Group, run the exact same inaccurate AP story on a major media case involving their parent companies. The Chron, which is supposedly their competitor, runs its own inaccurate story. None of these people (representing the free press of Northern California) are acting like competitors, and none of them give any support or credit to a major effort at opening up the federal courts.

Welcome to the monopoly media world of the Bay Area, 2007.

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