Education

Sequestration cuts would hit the Bay Area’s most vulnerable

Sasha Cuttler
-
31
Sequestration cuts would hit the Bay Area’s most vulnerable

While the looming federal budget cuts known as sequestration were designed to equally hit Democratic and Republican party priorities, from social services to the military budget, in the Bay Area they would disproportionately target society’s most vulnerable citizens and strain already-stretched local agency budgets.

If Congress and the White House fail to forge a budget deal by March 1, the cuts could begin to withdraw $9-10 billion of federal support from the California. In the Bay Area, these cuts would have the biggest impact on low-income families, the homeless, victims of domestic violence, adults living with AIDS, and children ages 3-5.

Back in September, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee signed a U.S. Conference of Mayors’ letter that called on federal lawmakers to resolve the budget conflict before the sequestration cuts could take effect, labeling the budget cuts “a threat” to local economies nationwide. Now, with the deadline looming, city officials and social service providers across the Bay Area are bracing for the impact. Depending to how the cuts are eventually allocated, San Francisco alone could lose more than $10 million in critical social services.

“All across the city, the sequestration hurts those most in need of services and support,” Gentle Blythe, spokesperson with the San Francisco Unified School District, told the Guardian.

San Francisco Unified stands to lose $3.8 million in funding, over 5 percent of the district’s federal education dollars. The cuts would strain an already-tight education budget, which has suffered from the slow economy and the corresponding dip in tax revenue. “We’ve been in a climate of cuts for years,” Blythe said. “There is a definite sense of fatigue.”

The pending round of cuts would force San Francisco district officials to make a series of uncomfortable decisions. The bulk of San Francisco’s federal education funding comes from Title I and Title III grants, money specifically earmarked for low-income students and English-language learners. If the state does not step in to fill the hole, the $3.8 million shortfall will translate into a significant rollback of services for the city’s most at-risk students and potential layoffs of teachers and resource officers.

Early childhood programs are especially vulnerable to the impact of the sequester. San Francisco Head Start Director Marjorie Weiss told us the demand for these federal education programs is spiking as more San Francisco children are living in poverty.

US Census figures show 13.8 percent of San Francisco residents were living below the federal poverty line in 2011, up from 12.2 percent in 2005. Over the last decade, 850 additional children became eligible for SF Head Start, which operates federally funded preschool programs in 19 classrooms at 9 different centers across the city.

These programs significantly improve the long-term employment and educational prospects of children living in or near poverty. But as the need for these early-childhood services grows, the money is drying up. Over the last two years, state and local funding for early-childhood education has be cut by nearly 20 percent.

Now, with the sequestration looming, San Francisco Head Start providers are worried about their ability to continue providing services. “At Head Start, we have already been dealing with years of budget cuts,” Weiss told us. If the sequester comes through, the program will lose an additional $1.1 million and will be forced to eliminate programming for more than 100 low income children ages 3-5.

“This will be devastating. These cuts will have a crippling effect on low-income children in the community and their ability to be ready for school” says Weiss. The funding cuts will take effect June 1st and directly impact the incoming class of 3-year-old preschool students.

Although education will absorb a significant impact from the sequestration, social services across the city will be cut back. San Francisco homeless advocates are forecasting a $1 million cut in federal assistance and AIDS groups have warned that nearly $800,000 dollars in housing vouchers for AIDS patients are on the chopping block. Federal funding for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), which subsidized medical care for AIDS patients, is set to be slashed by nearly 8 percent across the board.

Advocates for the victims of domestic abuse are also worried about the sequester’s impact on local survivors of domestic violence. In San Francisco, federal money provides crucial services for victims of domestic violence through nationally-mandated Family Violence and Prevention Services (FVPS). The city’s three primary domestic violence shelters rely on this revenue stream for outreach programming, translation services, and extended operating hours. The pending sequester would cut nearly 10 percent of FVPS grants, forcing shelters to tighten their belts.

“The sequester is going to dramatically impact the funding for lifesaving services for domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers, as well as legal service, and children’s programs,” Beckie Masaki, the founder and former executive director of San Francisco’s Asian Women’s Shelter, told the Guardian. Masaki now works with the Asian and Pacific Island Institute (APIDV) on Domestic Violence, where she advocates for more federal funding for domestic violence service providers.

Masaki is worried that the cuts will disproportionately impact the city’s most vulnerable women: low-income and non-English speaking victims of domestic violence, as cash-strapped shelters lay off translators and cut back on outreach and group therapy.

“In the past, when we were facing cuts, we did our best to minimize the impact on survivors,” she explains. “But in this era of constant cuts, it’s going to mean layoffs, and ultimately fewer services for the most vulnerable survivors”.

As lawmakers in Washington scramble to pass a budget deal before the March 1 deadline, the climate of uncertainty leaves local service agencies in a state of limbo. With future funding in doubt, long-term planning and strategizing become increasingly difficult. Yet for many local service providers, the most recent threat of sequestration is a familiar consequence of an increasingly fragile social safety net.

According to Masaki, the sequestration should motivate Congress to rethink its budgeting priorities: “If they invest in these baseline life-saving services for those that are most vulnerable in our community, in the end that is the path to better economic and social sustainability for our whole nation.”

Everybody likes Jerry; now what?

Zelda Bronstein
-
12
Everybody likes Jerry; now what?

For the first time in many years, Californians seem to like their governor. Jerry Brown’s approval rating is now above 50 percent; actually, it’s closer to 60 percent. And the Legislature is more popular, too. (Although ratings of the state Leg, like ratings of Congress, are pretty bogus — I may think the Legislature as a whole is doing a crappy job, because there are too many conservatives, but I think my own Assemblymember, Tom Ammiano, and my own state Senator, Mark Leno, are excellent. Republicans feel the opposite way. Nobody likes the body as a whole, because the body as a whole will never be liberal enough for me or conservative enough for Orange County.)

So here’s the question:

In politics, one of the things you do is build capital. You build it with your reputation, by doing things well (or at least things that make some group of constituents happy). You can’t keep it in the bank forever, or it gets stale and eventually starts to fade away; at some point, you have to use it.

The typical younger politician builds capital for future races — you get high marks as a city council member or county supervisor and you cash in some of that to get elected to the state Leg, then maybe to statewide office or Congress. But our guv isn’t typical in any way, and he’s not young; he might have one more term in office, which at this point he would win easily if he seeks it. But that’s almost certainly the end of the line. For better or for worse, I just don’t see a President Jerry Brown in our future.

So what’s he going to do with his political capital? What are the Democrats in the state Leg, who finally have the confidence of the voters, going to do?

If Jer thinks he’s going to build a couple of giant tunnels under the Delta to move more water south, he’s even battier that we think; that’s never going to happen. The entire environmental world is against it, it’s way too expensive, it will wind up getting delayed by lawsuits until long after Brown is out of office, and there’s no guarantee a future governor will keep Jerry’s Big Dig alive.

He’s got high-speed rail, a much better use of money that has widespread support, but that’s also a long-term project.

So what about reforming Prop. 13? He knows it’s a policy disaster. It’s not going to be repealed, but with the governor’s support, a split-role measure or some other credible reforms could transform local government and do more for the public schools than any pointed-headed “education reform” plan will ever do.

Or single-payer health care. Everyone knows that California’s getting screwed by the insurance industry. We have to write new rules for implementing Obamacare anyway. Twice, the state Leg has passed single-payer bills that were vetoed by the governor (not this governor).

It’s actually possible to lead the way to some changes that people will remember for decades. Jerry: You won’t get this chance again.

 

 

 

 

SF aims for the history books, filing its same-sex marriage brief with the Supremes

Sasha Cuttler
-
10
SF aims for the history books, filing its same-sex marriage brief with the Supremes

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera and his legal team today submitted written arguments to the US Supreme Court in the landmark same-sex marriage equality case it will consider this spring, with the hopes that their phrases and framing of the issue will be echoed in a civil rights ruling that could go down in history.

He argues that Proposition 8 – the California ballot measure that undid the California Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in a case that grew out of San Francisco’s unilateral decision to start marrying lesbians and gay men in 2004 – was unconstitutionally about “asserting the inferiority of same-sex couples….But relegating gay couples to a lesser status simply to brand them as different and less worthy than opposite-sex couples is not a legitimate purpose.”

Herrera, Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart, and the rest of the city’s legal team also take up the notion of the “tyranny the majority” (which I explored in an earlier Guardian story on the issue) in their brief, arguing: “Petitioners’ argument derogates the most important role this Court serves in our democracy: to protect the constitutional rights of minorities from encroachment by an unsympathetic majority. The responsibility to protect individual rights does not transfer to the political process when the dispute happens to be ‘controversial.’  Quite the contrary.  In this circumstance more than any other, constitutional rights ‘may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.’ West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 638 (1943).”

Will the Supreme Court justices borrow any of these words or ideas in their ruling, as they sometimes do in such cases, placing them in history books alongside phrases such as “separate but equal is inherently not equal,” from the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling ending racial segregation, which echoed the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that it overturned?

Herrera told us that he couldn’t help but feel that sense of momentousness as he finalized the brief: “You have a sense as to the importance of what you’re working on, and that certainly has an impression on you.”

But he also said that he’s continually had that sense through this “long struggle,” during which he said that he’s remained focused on the LGBT community that he’s fighting to protect. “It’s been frustrating when you see how some folks perpetuate the discrimination that’s gone on too long,” he told us, adding that “to finally see it come to the Supreme Court is momentous.”

And Herrera said that he does hope the Supreme Court issues a broad ruling that finally settles this issue and removes the question of same-sex rights from the political realm and deems them to be an issue of equal protection under the law. “They’ve asked the court to abdicate its responsibility because same-sex marriage is controversial,” Herrera told us, arguing that’s why the Constitution offers equal protections to all citizens, regardless of the passions or societal biases of the moment. “Those constitutional rights are not subject to majority rule.”

You can read city’s full 62-page legal brief here.

 

Nite Trax: DJ Sprinkles lays it out

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
32
Nite Trax: DJ Sprinkles lays it out

The phenomenal house DJ and experimental musicmaker on mainstream visibility, transgender globalism, Bay Area queer culture, and the “shopping mall diversity” of the current dance music scene.

Techno has always had room for theorists and intellectuals, from Derrick May to the Mille Plateaux label roster, and social activists, like Moodymann and Underground Resistance. Most of that discourse usually takes place musically, however, with concepts emerging from the vinyl itself. The celebrated DJ Sprinkles, a.k.a. Terre Thaemlitz, the American head of Japan-based label Comatonse, tops all that by making intellectually grounded music glimmering with poetic touches and expounding in interviews and writing on such heady, heated topics as essentialism, gender idenitity, surveillance, and authenticity. She leads workshops, goes on speaking engagements, and isn’t afraid to let loose in interviews. (For example — see below — rather than “born this way” platitudes, she considers her queer identity “beat this way.”) 

It’s a beautiful thing, especially in the rare context of controversial truth and radical opinion pouring from the mouth and keyboard of an outspoken transgender major player on the stubbornly homogenous global house-techno DJ scene. Of course, it all comes down to the music — we’ll get a treat when Sprinkles (who chose the name because he wanted something that sounded “totally pussy” in opposition to macho DJ culture, to buck the testosteronal scene) performs Sun/24 at Honey Soundsystem — and Sprinkles certainly has the goods. He’s released umpteen pieces in an astoundng breadth of genres under multiple pseudonyms over the past 20 years. Masterpiece deep house album “Midtown 120 Blues” siezed the top of several best of 2009 charts and was, typically, followed by Soulnessless, a 30-hour “mp3 album” of music and video. Because why the hell not?

I got a chance to exchange emails with Sprinkles before her appearance here. It’ll be an interesting return to the Bay Area, where she lived for several years before decamping to Japan. Here’s all she had to say.    

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY79cyv8pH8

SFBG It’s been 13 years since you lived in Oakland, is that correct? Can you tell me why you decided to leave and what it was like to live here then, with regards to the music, political, and queer scene?

DJ SPRINKLES Yes, it’s been a long time. I used to live across the street from a hotel where the Unabomber once stayed. Honestly, I can’t say I miss California. I never really connected with any queer or transgendered communities in SF or Oakland. Whenever I tried, they seemed immersed in West Coast spiritualism and zodiac bullshit, which I found completely alienating. Most of the transgendered people I met there were prone to metaphysics — by which I mean they were ideologically (and economically and medically) invested in defining their transgenderism in relation to a perceived split between their “physical bodies” and their “true inner selves.” I’m an anti-essentialist, non-op, materialist, anti-spiritualist… so that clearly wasn’t a match with my own transgendered identity.

There was also a weird conservatism in SF’s queer scenes that I associated with the fact a lot of people in SF had been raised in conservative Midwestern towns, so they were in SF to “live the life.” I felt there was a lot of unacknowledged parody and role play going on — people trying to overcome a life of repression and closets by wrapping themselves in rainbow flag culture. Yet, when going to buy groceries or such, I still found myself being harassed as a “fag” on the street like in any other town in the US. I felt my four years there was all quite standard. I don’t really think of the Bay Area as a “special place” for being queer and transgendered.

US identity politics have a particularly inextricable link to the concept of the ghetto — not only as a place of economic strife and forced communal ostracization from a “white middle-class mainstream,” but also as a self-invested “safe space” for non-mainstream social movements. This is part of migrant culture. For example, after my grandparents passed through Ellis Island, they immediately moved to a place where people spoke the same language as their homeland, etc. The Castro, New York’s West Village, Little Italy, China Town… these are all migrant-based communities formed by people seeking safety in numbers in the face of not being welcome elsewhere — these two dynamics of “safety” and “alienation” are inseparable to most US identity politics. So these communal zones all display the problems and contradictions of cultural identification that plague mainstream US culture as an “immigrant nation” that is simultaneously “anti-immigrant” – because the “immigrant” is a brutal reminder that there are no “real Americans” beyond Native Americans, which the majority are not. And of course, the fact that recent generations of immigrants are primarily people of color does not jibe with conventional black/white US race discourse, which continues to be largely devoid of other browns, as well as the concept of the person of color as a willing immigrant (as opposed to the descendant of a slave). This history and context is peculiar to the US social landscape, and it creates a lot of weird identity essentialisms and hostilities around gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class…

Not to say other countries don’t have their own fucked up ways of causing and dealing with social problems, but moving to Japan and realizing that pretty much the entirety of Western identity politics did not function here was a big life experience. It was like leaving the Earth’s gravitational pull — it didn’t mean gravity no longer existed, but almost everything I had internalized and believed I understood about my relationship to gravity was no longer helpful in understanding the dynamics of dominations at work in this other context. I wasn’t freed of gravity, but lost in weightlessness. I had to learn to feel weight in a completely different way. This is why so many of my projects dealing with my own immigration and cultural issues consistently invoke the rather limited and problematic US language of black/white race relations. It is a critical gesture intended to highlight the limitations of my having been raised amidst that US language and social conditioning, yet now living within a non-US context with few tools to work with.

Because music’s value is so often tied to an essentialist concept of racial authenticity, it becomes difficult and risky to ask an audience to question their relationships to the very value systems through which they likely purchased the album – but that is also why I choose to work with audio. Not because of its possibilities, but its all-too-clear limitations. Since I am unable to believe in the authenticity or purity of identities of any kind, when I invoke “identifiable” sounds (a “queer” sound, a “black” sound, etc.) I am doing so to question the social relationships around their construction, proliferation, and distribution. The moment we become lazy about our use of those “identifiable” sounds — the minute we take it for granted that the essentialist associations they have come to carry are unquestionable and real reflections of material social experiences — everything becomes one-dimensional and shallow. This is why almost all music is one-dimensional and shallow! [Laughs.] For example, if I can beat a dead horse, my problem with Madonna’s “Vogue” is not that it was “inauthentic,” but that its terms of discourse misrepresented its relationship to vogueing by actively erasing the very contexts of Latina and African-American transgendered culture that inspired it (via lyrics about “It makes no difference if you’re black or white, a boy or a girl”… it TOTALLY made a difference, and THAT SOCIAL REALITY is where any real discussion on vogueing BEGINS.). So I’m interested in these other directions of audio discourse that cannot even occur if one is preoccupied with conflated essentializations of identity and sound. There is never a true point of origin for anything. It’s all referential and contextual. In my opinion, there is no point in discussions focussing on identifying the source of a sound or style — that is a hopelessly futile exercise, although it is the dominant exercise! It’s a distraction from the real discussions needing to be held, and those are discussions on relations of domination.

As a DJ in the late ’80s and early ’90s, there were a lot of drag queens asking me to play Madonna’s “Vogue” when it first came out. I refused, but I could understand their requests. We all have very complicit and complex relationships to dominations, and a perverse desire to celebrate our visibility within the dominant mainstream, no matter how unfamiliar or distorted that reflection may be… often because we are conditioned to feel so unhappy with what we see in the mirror to begin with. Mainstream visibility is like getting approval of the Father. It’s a mental and abusive process. It is also totally standard. So I get it… But there is also that which remains unrepresented and invisible to most. That which existed, and may have already been lost, but did so without seeking approval of the Father. And again, this is generally not a freed or liberated space, but a space of intense hatred for the Father. These are difficult things to speak of and represent, because any act of representation has the potential to be a violation of the cultural site it wishes to speak of. So to speak of them requires obfuscating or complicating the usual functions of language – not through vague poetry, but unexpected flashes of clarity coming from unexpected vectors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2iKF_11WbY

SFBG You left during the first Internet boom I believe, and now SF is in the middle of a second one (although a bit different than the first —  the first wave seemed to have much more geeks and freaks in it, while this one seems much more regimented and Ivy League, even while many longtime residents are still feeling the results of “global recession”). When was the last time you were back here? And what are some of your recent thoughts on how house music is being affected by economic circumstances?

DJ SPRINKLES I was only back once about 10 years ago, visiting friends for a few days. When I moved away at the end of 2000, internet and web development had already undergone a rigid formalization. Years earlier, a web designer did a bit of everything. By 2000, developers were already split into specific teams focussing on interface, coding, page flow, etc… all processes were specialized, departmentalized, corporatized. I hadn’t heard about the “second internet boom” there, but the way you describe it doesn’t surprise me since it would surely be an extension of that regimentation that took place in the first boom.

And in a way, the same can be said of this “second boom” (third?) around house music. In the same way almost all websites have taken on the same continuity and feel, so has electronic dance music. You buy an album, and all the tracks sound similar — as opposed to the old days when an electronic dance track like Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” was tacked on to the end of an otherwise standard soul-band album that didn’t sonically match it at all. Today’s music consumer experience is much more streamlined and organized, which affects how people produce an album as well. Younger generations — 20-somethings — grew up amidst this homogenization, so I am fairly sure they do not feel what I am speaking of… although they may recognize it as a historical process.

I try to play with discontinuity and mixing things up, like in my K-S.H.E album, “Routes not Roots,” which had monologues and ambient tracks interspersed between house cuts. But I once made the mistake of reading people’s blog comments, and they really seemed upset about this kind of thing. “Way to ruin the mix,” or “Why the fuck didn’t you put that monologue at the end of the album?” They have no patience for non-homogeneity. The same goes for my Comatonse Recordings website itself — people seem utterly confused and helpless. If one doesn’t do everything completely standard and at the same level, people get disoriented. It’s a kind of cultural compression going on, similar to audio compression, where everything has to be “punched up” to the same intensity or people feel lost. What the fuck is so wrong with being lost? Why would you expect — let alone insist — your interactions with non-mainstream media to be completely mainstream in process?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8iF7JQiz50

SFBG I’ve been hanging out recently with the new, young generation of ACT-UP activists who are transcending mere ’90s revival and undertaking a lot of energizing political discourse and action. Were you involved in the queer activist movement back then — or now? Would you characterize your musical project as a form of activism, especially in its more intellectual and challenging aspects?

DJ SPRINKLES That’s nice to hear. Although you use the term “action,” I assume the real interesting stuff has little to do with demos and “direct actions,” and more to do with communal education initiatives, etc.? My direct action days were mostly during the late ’80s and early ’90s, while living in New York. Most of those activities were in conjunction with various caucuses in ACT-UP, and WHAM! (Women’s Health Action & Mobilization).

I do consider my audio and other projects “political” — in theme, and also in their attempts to (dis)engage with standard industry practices. But clearly this is something different than direct action “activism” or community outreach, because my main social engagements are with people working for labels, distributors, music festivals, museums, and other culture industries. Maybe “culture jamming” is a better way to put this kind of political activity. Personally, I found myself distanced from direct action groups because the terms of identification they cultivated out of strategic necessity so often folded back into essentialisms that excluded me on a personal level. So I was always advocating for the recognition and acceptance of something other than myself (like the way “born this way” ideologies take over discussions of LGBT rights… I consider myself more “beat this way,” my queer identity being primarily informed by material ostracism and harassment than by some mythological self-actualization and pride). That, combined with the mid-’90s move away from direct action toward CBO’s (Community Based Organizations) — largely because the tactics of direct action had been so thoroughly coopted by mainstream media – was pretty much the end of my serious direct action involvements. Over the years, enunciating this process has become the core political act of my projects and activities. I do not do this to discourage people from forms of direct action, but as a simultaneous form of critical analysis that hopefully contributes in other ways to our various attempts to react to dominations.

SFBG Do you feel that, as the means of production and distribution have been more and more democratized in the past decade, house and techno music-making and DJing have been living up to their potential as a form of resistance to mainstream capitalism and culture, or do you feel they’ve become more homogenized and/or annexed by neoliberal, bourgeois culture?

DJ SPRINKLES I do not believe the means of production and distribution have become more democratized. I take issue with the way people always confuse “commercial accessibility” with “democratization.” The breadth and variation of today’s music production strategies is no more than a shopping mall diversity. We are all working with similar software on similar platforms. Mac, Windows, Unix… Banana Republic, Abercrombie & Fitch, The Gap… Having said that, if these musics had a potential, I believe it was lost back in the ’90s when anti-sampling legislation (mostly focusing on hip-hop) laid the groundwork for today’s electronic music. It basically reinvigorated house with “musicianship,” “authorship,” and all that crap which used to play far less of a role in this genre’s early days. And the younger generation – basically, today’s 20-somethings who grew up after the whole sampling debates — really don’t seem to understand how record label legal departments work.

So they list up all the samples they recognize in a track in the comment fields of music websites, which is putting the producers they wish to support at risk. There is no sense of how we can cultivate — let alone protect — “underground” media and information in this online era. Everything is about “sharing,” when in fact we need to be developing a parallel discourse around meaningful information distribution patterns, including strategically withholding information from the web. The cliché idea of making “everything accessible for everyone” is not only naîve, but negates the social and cultural specificities that give certain forms of media their alternative values, in particular collage and sampling. Anyone who has used a random image taken from a Google image search on their blog page, and then gotten an email from Getty Images’ legal department asking for back royalties, knows what I’m talking about. Treating subcultural musics as though they are meant for “everyone” — whether this is being done by fans, or the labels and online distributors themselves — is the biggest sign of people not understanding the media they are dealing with. And since all of that is SOP these days, it’s pretty much a sign that the sample-based genres of house is dead. Is talking about house’s political potential in 2013 really all that different than the trend of talking about the radical politics of ’60s rock during the ’80s?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4M3-t9lw7o

SFBG I feel like, with parties like Honey Soundsystem, there is a huge resurgence of interest in an underground queer dance music culture — a kind of new underground opposed to corporate or low-quality dance music (yet still taking place in corporate spaces). Is this phenomenon occurring in Japan as well? Do you feel there are specific possibilities with this, not just in terms of opportunity for queer DJs to travel but of transformation of queer discourse and politically actualizing a new generation?

DJ SPRINKLES Hey, low-quality is where it’s at. It’s what it’s all about. What was Chicago house if not low quality? It’s important to place value within the “low” in order to counter conventional associations between the terms “good,” “high quality” and “upper class.” I’m not talking about celebrating kitsch, or that kind of petit-bourgeois trivialization of the “low.” I’m talking about finding other values in the “low” that cannot find expression within a language developed to express everything in terms of “low vs. high.” This is ultimately about the identification of other values amidst class struggle.

I don’t think house resonates as a queer medium anymore. Those days are over. Today it is primarily a white, heterosexual, European phenomenon. That was the case early on. I mean, how many Americans became aware of house music in the ’80s by buying Chicago house sold back to us on UK compilations? The US has always treated its own history of electronic music like utter shit… The US is such a fucking rock’n’roll shithole. So I think for people to appreciate house music’s queer roots, and to actively invest in those themes today, requires people becoming deliberate and explicit about those interests. But whether that deliberate action would focus on “queer visibility” or not is another issue. It doesn’t have to focus on “visibility” — especially since visibility has become such an oppressive aspect of dominant LGBT movements. Explicitness can also be about closets. Not only the usual closets born of heterosexism, but less considered closets around sexuality and gender that have been formed by the actions of the “born this way” LGBT mainstream. Well, that’s the direction I try to take it… reflecting on, and constructing, queer and transgendered histories that are as skeptical of Pride[TM] as they are angry about violence. And I do believe, globally speaking, queer and transgendered experiences are much more informed by violence than pride. So this should be reflected in how and where we make noise. In my opinion, music that functions in completely standard ways – socially and economically – does not have much potential for reflecting queer or transgendered contexts in politically precise, helpful or meaningful ways. You end up with essentialist, humanist shit like Lady Gaga’s, “Born This Way.” She is not somebody I would consider an ally.

You know, American media is so fixated on the idea that sexuality and gender must either be biologically predetermined, or a personal choice. The “it’s not a choice” argument is a common theme in television shows, etc. Both of these options revolve around a fiction of free will. Like, if it’s not a choice, then the only other possibility must be some supra-social, biological reason that cannot be questioned. Both of these conclusions preserve the status quo brutality of how culture forces gender and sexual binaries upon us. The thought that our absence of choice might be rooted in social tyrannies – not biological predispositions – remains unthinkable. The mainstream has it half right when they say, “it’s not a choice,” but it’s a half-truth that has been twisted into a decoy from the real issues at hand – the inescapability of the hetero/homo and female/male paradigms. We are given no other choices through which to understand our genders and sexualities. Sexuality is far greater than two or three. The same goes for gender — and yes, I’m speaking biologically, human bodies are way more diverse than A or B. To argue that the reason you deserve rights under a humanist democratic system is because of genetics is a retreat into feudalist logic. It’s the same as an aristocrat arguing that their rights and privileges were deserved because of their family blood-line and DNA. “Born this way” is antithetical to any democratic argument for rights rooted in a social capacity for understanding and transformation. It is astounding that the majority of people cannot comprehend that any “born this way” argument is a complete obliteration of their social agency. “I can’t help it, so give me the same rights as you…” Fuck that. We shouldn’t be asking to participate in the rights and privileges of those who have oppressed us. We should be trying to divest those groups of privileges. That is the best way to help ourselves and minimize the violence we enact on others.

Humanist legislative practices are still rooted in feudal ideologies, and I am convinced the long-term repercussions of this is a cultural entrenchment that makes any democratic project (including US-brand democracy, socialism or communism) an impossibility. We can already see how the post-Cold War world is retreating into clan-based, privatized, anti-state organization structures. Capitalism is increasingly liberated of democratic agendas because — surprise! — capitalism works better with slavery. Capitalism is not about the distribution of wealth, and everyone’s equal chance to partake in a petit-bourgois lifestyle. It is about the isolation of wealth. There is no doubt in my mind that today’s moral insistence that all people must work at whatever job society throws them, and the accompanying presumption that all lower-class unemployed people are “lazy” (which is perpetuated by many lower-class peoples themselves), is an argument for slavery: forced labor in return for base subsistence at best. How is that not the reality of poverty under globalized capitalism?

…and that’s why I hate Lady Gaga. [Laughs.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JtoRxqK8s

SFBG You have some fascinatingly poetic thoughts about the intersection of transgender issues and immigration, the idea of “living as a ghost” in politicized and police-monitored spaces. Do you have any current thoughts on how globalization continues to affect transgender issues?

DJ SPRINKLES I think the fact that the world’s two largest economies around gender transitioning are in Thailand and Iran, yet the aesthetics of those economies follow largely western models of beauty and body, says a lot about how globalization affects transgendered issues. Thailand’s dominant transgendered culture revolves around the “Ladyboy” — a very essentialist transgendered model that is rooted in heterosexism and the cultural/ideological necessity for some men to “unbecome-man” in order for “straight men” to have sex with other men. Western transgendered discourses love to fetishize the “Ladyboy” as some kind of locally celebrated and accepted third-world transgendered native other, but this is patent orientalism. It refuses to envision how the strict regimentation of social codes for those transgendered people can be oppressive, or how the mythical “transgendered native’s special place at the edge of the village, possibly as a shaman” is a form of segregation. People also never address how such cultures are invariably patriarchies, and their models for transgenderism almost exclusively revolve around the MTF paradigm. And far as I know, Thailand has still not lifted their government prohibition on homosexual government employees, which is relatively new legislation passed just a few years back. This is all part of that context of transgendered production.

Meanwhile, Iran is a country where Islamic law prohibits homosexuality by fatwah. Since the ’70s, gender transitioning has been promoted as a way for men who have sex with men to avoid the death penalty, although many transitioned people still face the possibility of being murdered by their families or local communities. The cost of their procedures is partially subsidized by the Iranian government itself. While some Westerners have attempted to portray that as “progressive,” clearly it is the opposite. Many post-op transsexuals find themselves ghettoized, unemployed and cut off from the family structures that play such important roles in Iran’s social structure.

In both Thailand and Iran one can see how the global growth of gender-transitioning economies is connected to heterosexism and homophobia — something current Western gender analyses attempt to separate from gender transitioning through clear ideological divisions between gender and sexuality. While I believe these divisions between gender and sexuality are important and do have social value in the West, it is clear that the West is not the world. And the West has surely not overcome its heterosexism and homophobia, either. I believe it is more than coincidence that the global proliferation of gender transitioning technologies is happening parallel to medical industries’ attempts to divest of their previously blatant attempts to cure homosexuality, due to such methods falling out of cultural favor in the West and elsewhere. I also believe it is more than coincidence that today’s inescapable “born this way” arguments serve and justify today’s medical agendas so well.

For sure, my stance on medical transitioning has always been that I support peoples’ abilities to transform their bodies as they see necessary. Considering how few options for gender identification are offered to us, I can understand how a person can become no longer able to live within one’s body as it has been defined and shaped by social gender constraints. But, for obvious reasons, I am unable to believe those medical systems which propagated today’s gender binary are capable or willing to offer us a way out of our gender crises. Those industries move us further and further away from cultural environments that enable transgendered people to build medically unmediated relationships to our bodies. I just can’t accept that the medical industry’s methods for mediating our suffering are the only way. It really angers me… particularly since so many transgendered people are impoverished and without health care…

Hmm, you’re probably getting an idea as to why I am never invited to perform my more thematic projects in the US — just to DJ some house and go back home to Japan. [Laughs.]

SFBG Speaking of essentialism, ha: Any food or restaurants you miss from living here?

DJ SPRINKLES Mexican food…! It’s shockingly absent in Japan… and when you do find some, you generally wish you hadn’t. But what a weak note upon which to end this interview. [Laughs.]

Alerts

Andrew Lam
-
0

THURSDAY 21

Confronting Climate Change Panel Discussion

Women’s Building, 3542 18th St., SF. www.ggphp.org. 7-9 p.m., free. Join Breathe California, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and the Golden Gate Health Partnership for a panel discussion on youth-led movements that seek solutions to global climate change. Speakers will include representatives from Alliance for Climate Education, People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights (PODER), and others. The evening will begin with a networking reception with light refreshments, followed by a panel discussion beginning at 7:30.

FRIDAY 22

Lecture: 50 years of creating radical change at Glide

Berkeley Arts & Letters at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing, Berk. (800) 838-3006, tinyurl.com/glide50. 7:30pm, $10 in advance ($5 students), $12 at the door. The Reverend Cecil Williams and his wife, Janice Mirikitani, tell the story of half a century of advocating for a disenfranchised community through San Francisco’s famed Glide church in their book, Beyond the Possible: 50 Years of Creating Radical Change in a Community Called Glide. Listen to Williams share stories of his experiences during the Civil Rights Movement, the assassination of Harvey Milk, and his clashes with conservative church factions as Glide pushed the boundaries.

Celebrating Domestic Worker Organizing

ILWU, Ship Clerk’s Local 34, 4 Berry, SF. 6:30-8:30pm, free. The Labor Archives & Research Center hosts a program entitled “More than a Labor of Love: the Work of Home Care,” highlighting the history of domestic workers in the United States. Refreshments at 6:30 followed by a 7 p.m. talk by Eileen Boris, who is co-author, with Jennifer Klein, of Caring for America: Home Health Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State. Mujeres Unidas y Activas, a grassroots organization of Latina women, will provide an organizing update on domestic worker issues.

SFMOMA reveals new look, it is sexy

Andrew Lam
-
1

We were a bag of mixed artfan emotions when SFMOMA sent us a peek at what the museum will look like in early 2016, when the renovations that will shutter its doors in June are complete. The bad: our city’s preeminent modern art museum will be sorely missed — after all, who else would have let us bring Boychild, Lil Miss Hot Mess, and Lady Bear to run amok in the upstairs cafe on a Thursday night? (Memories.) But, the good: there is a lot of good. Read on for the highlights of what we can expect from the museum’s new incarnation, and what’s going to be happening while we wait.

– In the new building, designed by Oslo-NYC firm Snøhetta, gallery capacity expanded by 130,000 square feet. 

– That number up there includes a 15,000 ground floor that won’t have to pay to access, but which is nonetheless packed with exhibitions. For when the admisison price just isn’t stoking your creative fires.

– SF’s largest public native plant vertical garden, located on a brand-new seventh-floor outdoor terrace. The perfect place for checking out the expressive skyline that exists in those parts of downtown — two floors higher than the sculpture garden, two floors of view, baby. 

– A new all-white performance space that’ll be the spot for dance, sound, etc. in addition to the Phyllis Wattis Theater, which is also getting a facelift.

– More space designated for education — that means the amount of schoolchildren benefiting from programming will go up to 55,000 from 18,000. 

– “SFMOMA is more than just a building,” said SFMOMA director Neal Benezra in the press release. “We’re a set of intersecting cultural communities.” That’s good for us — it means the museum’s collections won’t be moldering in a basement somewhere (entirely) during the two-and-a-half years of renovations. First up: “100 Years of the Spiritual in Modern Art,” a multi-denominational show that opens June 27 that examines art inspired by faith, at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. 2014 offerings will include a multimedia meditation on intimacy during apartheid in South Africa at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and a look at what “gorgeous” means by divergent art pairings at the Asian Art Museum.

– Other things to look forward to include a Chrissy Field site-specific installation of Mark di Suvero sculptures, the largest exhibition of the work of that artist, who moved to SF from Shanghai and was constantly inspired by the same Golden Gate Bridge that’ll look over the exhibition, which’ll set up shop in June through May 2014. That’s the first of many SFMOMA outdoor exhibitions that’ll take place in Los Altos and elsewhere.

More details on the renovations available here and here

Cosmo club: Scenes from the ‘Sex in the City’ takeover at Rebel

Andrew Lam
-
1

“I’ve never been to a drag show,” said my friend Cailey last week. “WHAT?!” I shouted.

She had to be kidding me. Attending a drag show belongs in the top 10 things everyone has to do when they move to SF. I got on it and found the next available performance we could get our butts to, which just happened to be the twice-weekly Heklina, Lady Bear, Trixxie Carr, and D’Arcy Drollinger show of Sex and the City.

Let me just say, it was the perfect choice for my drag queen virgin! I came prepared to dodge flying cosmos, since there was an incident a few years back where my camera bag was generously splashed with milk after an especially energetic Trannyshack competition.

But this time I was pleasantly surprised to be able to sit back comfortably, and enjoy a hilarious show with fantastic fashion (costume changes with every new scene) and just the perfect amount of bare man booty.

The show covered two actual SATC episodes, with a few extra flourishes added in for good measure. I loved Carrie’s voiceover moments, just like on the TV show, and all the sweet costume details, flashing a Chanel scarf here and a Gucci bag there. Way to keep it authentic ladies! The whole cast did a fantastic job, but I must give special props to D’Arcy Drollinger for her downright sexy performance as Samantha and of course, to Heklina as Carrie, who was truly fabulous. 

The queens plan to keep the episodes coming, switching things up every few months, so make sure to go check it out!

As we left, Cailey turned to me and said “I need to see more of that!” Let the education continue!

Sex and the City

Wed/20 and Feb. 27, 7pm and 9pm, $20

Rebel

1760 Market, SF

www.trannyshack.com

Dick Meister: The pioneering black porters

-
1

By Dick Meister

Bay Guardian columnist Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 350 of his columns.

It’s Black History Month, a good time to honor the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, one of the most important yet too often overlooked leaders in the long struggle for racial equality and union rights.

The union, the first to be founded by African Americans, was involved deeply in political as well as economic activity, joining with the NAACP to serve as the major political vehicle of African Americans from the late 1930s through the 1950s.

Together, the two organizations led the drives in those years against racial discrimination in employment, housing, education and other areas that laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement of the1960s.

The need for a porters’ union was painfully obvious. Porters commonly worked 12 or more hours a day on the Pullman Company’s sleeping car coaches for less than $100 a month. And out of that, they had to pay for their meals, uniforms, even the polish they used to shine passengers’ shoes. And they got no fringe benefits.

In order to meet their basic living expenses, most porters had to draw on the equally meager earnings of their wives, who were almost invariably employed as domestics.

It was a marginal and humiliating experience for porters. They were rightly proud of their work, a pride that showed in their smiling, dignified bearing. But porters knew that no matter how well they performed, they would never be promoted to higher-paying conductors’ jobs. Those jobs were reserved for white men.

Porters knew most of all that their white passengers and white employers controlled everything. It was they alone who decided what the porters must do and what they’d get for doing it.

When a passenger pulled the bell cord, porters were to answer swiftly and cheerfully. Just do what the passengers asked – or demanded.  Shine their shoes, fetch them drinks, make their beds, empty their cuspidors, and more. No questions, no complaints, no protests. No rights. Nothing better epitomized the vast distance between black and white in American society.

Hundreds of porters who challenged the status quo by daring to engage in union activity or other concerted action were fired. But finally, the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt granted workers, black and white, the legal right to unionize. And finally, in 1937 the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters won a union contract from Pullman.

The contract was signed exactly 12 years after union president and founder A. Philip Randolph had called the union’s first organizing meeting in New York City. It was a long arduous struggle, but it brought the porters out of poverty. It won them pay at least equal to that of unionized workers in many other fields, a standard workweek, a full range of employer financed benefits.  Most important, porters won the right to continue to bargain collectively with Pullman on those and other vital matters.

Union President Randolph and Vice President C.L. Dellums, who succeeded Randolph in 1968, led the drive that pressured President Roosevelt into several key actions against discrimination. That included creation of a Fair Employment practices Commission in housing as well as employment.

FDR agreed to set up the commission – a model for several state commissions – and take other anti-discrimination steps only after Randolph and Dellums threatened to lead a march on Washington by more than 100,000 black workers and others who were demanding federal action against racial discrimination.

Randolph and Dellums struggled as hard against discrimination inside the labor movement . . . particularly against the practice of unions setting up segregated locals, one for white members, one for black members.

Randolph, elected in 1957 as the AFL-CIO’s first African–American vice president, long was known as the civil rights conscience of the labor movement, often prodding federation President George Meany  and other conservative AFL-CIO leaders to take firm stands against racial discrimination.

The sleeping car coaches that once were the height of travel luxury have long since disappeared. And there are very few sleeping car porters in this era of less-than-luxurious train travel. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters is gone, too. But before the union disappeared, it had reached goals as important as any ever sought by an American union or any other organization.

Bay Guardian columnist Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 350 of his columns.

City College forum questions new reforms as deadline looms

Sasha Cuttler
-
11

More than 300 of City College of San Francisco’s students and faculty piled into a meeting hall at the school’s Mission campus last night, Feb.7, all waiting to hear the answer to one question: What can we do to save City College?

CCSF failed to meet a list of six requirements to improve the school that the Accrediting Commission of Community and Junior Colleges gave it to complete in 2006, notably in measuring student learning outcomes and in managing its finances. Failing to meet those deadlines, the ACCJC told City College last June that it had until March 15, 2013 to fix their school, or it would face losing its accreditation — which means the college would lose state funding, and the degrees it offered from that point on would be almost worthless.

Concerned for the future of their college, a coalition of students, faculty and community members started “Save CCSF,” the group that organized the teach-in at Mission campus.

Students occupied every chair, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the back of the hall. The meeting was about education, the first speaker announced, meant to inform students about the crisis. How did CCSF come under threat of closure? Who is the accreditation body that posed the threat? The answers were complicated, and filled with accusations against the ACCJC, and the school’s own Board of Trustees.

“We do accept there are deficiencies at City College,” student Inder Grewal, 20, said to the crowd. “But the administration is making change at a pace that is hurting faculty and students at our school.”

Notable speakers came out to show their support for the diverse students at City College. Wisconsin State Senator Spencer Coggs, one of the “Wisconsin 14” who fled the state to deny Governor Scott Walker quorum in the senate over his union-busting legislation, spoke in his support of City College’s labor force.

“We believe in justice for workers rights, correct?” he said to the crowd, to cheers. “You in California supported us in Wisconsin, we in Wisconsin support you in California.”

State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who represents San Francisco, sent a representative to show his support for the Save CCSF coalition. “We have been working on this issue,” Kimberly Alvarenga, Ammiano’s district director, said to the coalition supporters. “Last week we had a meeting with Assemblymember Ting, labor, and a rep from the [California Community College] state chancellor’s office to get a conversation started. We’re in solidarity with you.”

Just today, Ting held a press conference to support City College. Notably, CCSF faculty union leader Alisa Messer, staff union head Athena Steff, and SF Labor Council head Tim Paulson spoke as well, perhaps signaling Ting’s support of labor at the college.

At the press conference, college spokesperson Larry Kamer acknowledged the disagreements within the college, and offered to find middle ground.

“There’s a lot we don’t agree on,” he said. “But one thing we do agree on is we want City College to remain accredited, we want people to recognize the work that’s been done, we want them to appreciate what we still have to do. But the headline today is we want people to enroll.”

Above, video of the press conference courtesy of The Guardsman, the newspaper of City College of San Francisco

The makeup of the crowd of currently enrolled students at the coalition meeting last night was a good indicator of exactly who stands to lose in City College’s shakeup. Easily half the room was filled with Latino students of every age and stripe, and many of them answered that they were English as Second Language students worried about their future.

“I was a dishwasher, a janitor, everything,” said a man who wanted to be identified only as Jose because he is an undocumented student. Jose emigrated from El Salvador 10 years ago, and decided to take ESL classes at City College so he could get a new lease on life. He hasn’t decided on his major yet, maybe natural sciences, creative writing, or social science. The world is open to him, he said, because of his ESL classes.

“If I hadn’t taken classes at City College, I couldn’t be talking to you now.”

He and other students were there for answers, and the answers they got were alarming.

Changes for the worse

The Save CCSF coalition urged the hundreds of students and faculty in attendance to bring anyone they could to rally at City Hall on March 14 — the day before City College is set to deliver its “show cause report” to the ACCJC. The report is a detailed report of the progress the college has made to address the ACCJC’s requirements for change. You can read the draft here.

In order to meet the ACCJC’s requirements, the board of trustees and administration have been making stark changes to the college, ones that the people in the meeting that night said were harming students.

“Who’s been to the Bayview district?” Shanell Williams, associated students president, asked the crowd. Easily 30 hands went up. “There was a van students were using to get to their campus without getting shot, that the college cut out of the budget. It’s about access.”

The college is cutting funds wherever it can, and the private bus that shuttled students across gang lines in the Bayview was only the first of many changes. The Save CCSF coalition also told the crowd that they were fighting to restore the jobs of the over 30 classified staff and 50 faculty that weren’t rehired for this school year — essentially let go.

“Use the Proposition A funds as promised,” Tarik Farrar, chair of African American studies said. He was referring to the language in Prop. A that went before San Francisco voters last November saying the $14 million parcel tax would be used to stop faculty layoffs at City College. “It’s explicit, not vague. The interim chancellor and special trustee does not have the right to use the money as they choose.”

Protecting labor isn’t strictly about protecting teachers because ultimately, the loss of faculty shrinks class offerings and class sizes.

Farrar was especially concerned that the belt tightening at the school would shrink the population it sets out to serve, something the college has already put into writing, by rewriting its mission statement.

“If you turn CCSF into a school of 20,000 students it will not be accessible,” he said. “The students that will be hurt disproportionately by this school will be the students I teach, people who look like this room, mostly.”

It is important to note that City College is still open, and is still accredited. The school is currently under-enrolled to the tune of about 3,000 students. The loss of that many students could possibly result in the state withdrawing funds for the school to the tune of at least $5 million, according to school officials in public meetings.

For further reading on the City College crisis from the students themselves, check out the following:

Can City College students transfer to SF State if the college closes?

25 percent of community colleges in California are under sanction

Alerts

Andrew Lam
-
0

WEDNESDAY 6

Community Kick-off to Save City College

CCSF Mission Campus, Room 109, 1125 Valencia, SF. (415) 412-4183, saveccsfpetition@gmail.com. 6-8pm, free. Join students, faculty and staff at City College of San Francisco in initiating a campus/community coalition to defend the acclaimed school against threat of closure. The college faces severe cuts and sanctions demanded by an accrediting agency. Become part of a united effort to keep CCSF as a key provider of quality education for all communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, and as the primary gateway for poor and working class students and students of color.

SATURDAY 9

Rally Against Genetically Modified Salmon

Justin Herman Plaza, SF. Rachel@labelgmos.com, tinyurl.com/antiGMOsf. 11am, free. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is on the brink of rubber-stamping genetically engineered salmon. Activists are attempting to turn the tide now, during the 60-day comment period before final approval. Environmentalists and those think genetically modified foods should be labeled are calling for supporters nationwide to demonstrate unity against the approval of GE Salmon. Join this march and rally to bring the issue to the front burner.

MONDAY 11

Public Meeting: Speak Out Against Tasers

Bayview Opera House, 4705 Third St., SF. 6-8pm, free. The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is once again holding community meetings to talk about arming San Francisco cops with Tasers. The idea has been floated in the past, but community advocates have consistently shot it down, arguing that Tasers can be lethal and are often misused by law enforcement. At this community forum convened by SFPD, an assortment of organizations including the Coalition On Homelessness and the No Tasers Taskforce will turn out against the SFPD’s latest attempt to adopt these so-called nonlethal stun guns.

Guerrero gallery bites Zero Graffiti convention

Andrew Lam
-
2
Guerrero gallery bites Zero Graffiti convention

“The difference between art and vandalism is permission.” So said Dwight Waldo, retired San Bernadino cop, at the Zero Graffiti convention earlier this month in San Francisco. The event drew law enforcement officials from multiple countries, convening them for lectures on graffiti prevention, on street art’s connection to gangs and hate speech, and on ways to apprehend graffiti artists (“the Internet” figured prominently here, judging from the talks I managed to catch during the convention’s public portion.) In his talk, Waldo prided himself on shutting down a graffiti-inspired legal art show because it was being organized by an illegal graffiti artist. 

But it would appear that the art community isn’t satisfied with allowing those that hold the anti-graffiti wipes to be the arbiters of taste. The folks at Guerrero Gallery have branded their show opening Sat/2 with Zero Graffiti’s imagery to put scrutiny on San Francisco and other cities’ efforts to repress graffiti.

“As for stopping graffiti… we should nourish it,” wrote gallery owner Andres Guerrero to me in an email. “The city’s effort to rid us of graffiti is a concern but graffiti will always be around. It’s an inspiring form of creativity that all demographics have accepted and have supported. It’s a growing culture that should be embraced and developed with the help of local communities. It’s a leading contemporary movement.”

The convention’s program, including ad for “spraycan sensor” that SF DPW officials confirmed have been purchased by the city. It’s been announced that next year’s conference will take place in Phoenix

The exhibit’s artists, Tim Diet and Remio, are both established gallery artists who got their start doing illegal graffiti. “It’s an exciting show for all of us at the gallery and they also represent a progressive intelligent community,” wrote Guerrero.

Given the dire state of arts education in the San Francisco Unified School District, perhaps city officials should start looking at graffiti artists in a different light. After all, if young people can’t find canvases elsewhere, why shouldn’t they make their mark on their neighborhood?

Project One opens “Project One Walls,” an indoor mural show, on Feb. 7. It’ll feature the work of current and former street artists and looks real cool. 

Here’s the Guerrero Sat/2 opening’s featured artists, both of whom started developing their art on the street: 

Norweigan-born artist Remio’s cluster faces still drip — but they’re emblematic of his transition from street work to showing in galleries

Bay Area artist Tim Diet’s “Sorry I Party” still embodies the chaos of work born in public space

“Man In Transition” and “This is Me”: Remio and Tim Diet

Through Feb. 23

Opening reception: Sat/2, 7-11pm, free

Guerrero Gallery

(415) 400-5168

www.guerrerogallery.com

America’s new Progressive Era?

-
13

By Jeffrey D. Sachs
Jeffrey D. Sachs is Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is also Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals.

NEW YORK – In 1981, US President Ronald Reagan came to office famously declaring that, “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Thirty-two years and four presidents later, Barack Obama’s recent inaugural address, with its ringing endorsement of a larger role for government in addressing America’s – and the world’s – most urgent challenges, looks like it may bring down the curtain on that era.

Reagan’s statement in 1981 was extraordinary. It signaled that America’s new president was less interested in using government to solve society’s problems than he was in cutting taxes, mainly for the benefit of the wealthy. More important, his presidency began a “revolution” from the political right – against the poor, the environment, and science and technology – that lasted for three decades, its tenets upheld, more or less, by all who followed him: George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and, in some respects, by Obama in his first term.

The “Reagan Revolution” had four main components: tax cuts for the rich; spending cuts on education, infrastructure, energy, climate change, and job training; massive growth in the defense budget; and economic deregulation, including privatization of core government functions, like operating military bases and prisons. Billed as a “free-market” revolution, because it promised to reduce the role of government, in practice it was the beginning of an assault on the middle class and the poor by wealthy special interests.

These special interests included Wall Street, Big Oil, the big health insurers, and arms manufacturers. They demanded tax cuts, and got them; they demanded a rollback of environmental protection, and got it; they demanded, and received, the right to attack unions; and they demanded lucrative government contracts, even for paramilitary operations, and got those, too.

For more than three decades, no one really challenged the consequences of turning political power over to the highest bidders. In the meantime, America went from being a middle-class society to one increasingly divided between rich and poor. CEOs who were once paid around 30 times what their average workers earned now make around 230 times that amount. Once a world leader in the fight against environmental degradation, America was the last major economy to acknowledge the reality of climate change. Financial deregulation enriched Wall Street, but ended up creating a global economic crisis through fraud, excessive risk-taking, incompetence, and insider dealing.

Maybe, just maybe, Obama’s recent address marks not only the end of this destructive agenda, but also the start of a new era. Indeed, he devoted almost the entire speech to the positive role of government in providing education, fighting climate change, rebuilding infrastructure, taking care of the poor and disabled, and generally investing in the future. It was the first inaugural address of its kind since Reagan turned America away from government in 1981.

If Obama’s speech turns out to mark the start of a new era of progressive politics in America, it would fit a pattern explored by one of America’s great historians, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who documented roughly 30-year intervals between periods of what he called “private interest” and “public purpose.”

In the late 1800’s, America had its Gilded Age, with the creation of large new industries by the era’s “robber barons” accompanied by massive inequality and corruption. The subsequent Progressive Era was followed by a temporary return to plutocracy in the 1920’s.

Then came the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, and another 30 years of progressive politics, from the 1930’s to the 1960’s. The 1970’s were a transition period to the Age of Reagan – 30 years of conservative politics led by powerful corporate interests.

It is certainly time for a rebirth of public purpose and government leadership in the US to fight climate change, help the poor, promote sustainable technologies, and modernize America’s infrastructure. If America realizes these bold steps through purposeful public policies, as Obama outlined, the innovative science, new technology, and powerful demonstration effects that result will benefit countries around the world.

It is certainly too early to declare a new Progressive Era in America. Vested interests remain powerful, certainly in Congress – and even within the White House. These wealthy groups and individuals gave billions of dollars to the candidates in the recent election campaign, and they expect their contributions to yield benefits. Moreover, 30 years of tax cutting has left the US government without the financial resources needed to carry out effective programs in key areas such as the transition to low-carbon energy.

Still, Obama has wisely thrown down the gauntlet, calling for a new era of government activism. He is right to do so, because many of today’s crucial challenges – saving the planet from our own excesses; ensuring that technological advances benefit all members of society; and building the new infrastructure that we need nationally and globally for a sustainable future – demand collective solutions.

Implementation of public policy is just as important to good governance as the vision that underlies it. So the next task is to design wise, innovative, and cost-effective programs to address these challenges. Unfortunately, when it comes to bold and innovative programs to meet critical human needs, America is out of practice. It is time to begin anew, and Obama’s full-throated defense of a progressive vision points the US in the right direction.


Jeffrey D. Sachs is Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is also Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2013.
www.project-syndicate.org

Starting slow and ramping up

-
1
Starting slow and ramping up

SEX It’s the end of an era at local sex toy and education company Good Vibrations: Dr. Charlie Glickman is stepping down from his position as education program manager for the national retailer.

But Glickman is leaving for another adult education adventure: bringing the joys of prostate play to mainstream society. Joining up with San Francisco-based sex educator, Aislinn Emirzian, Glickman has co-authored The Ultimate Guide to Prostate Pleasure; Erotic Exploration for Men and Their Partners, set to be published by Cleis Press in February. The book is all about easy and pleasurable anal play, prostate massage, toys, pegging and anal intercourse, positions, common concerns, and safer sex techniques.

Glickman told the Guardian in an interview about that the book has been in the works for years. Though it’s not the first guide to prostate play, he feels as though he’s tapping into the zeitgeist, that our culture is finally ready for pegging and prostate pleasuring.

The man should know. Since 1996, the sex educator has been on the frontlines of trying to get accurate sexual health information to the Bay Area, and has taught many a prostate class through Good Vibes. His book release party on Thu/31 kicks off a North American prostate play workshop tour sponsored by the sex toy company, and looks to target an audience that mirrors the people who have shown up in Glickman’s sex ed workshops throughout the years: male-female couples, solo women, gay men, the college-aged to senior citizens.

Throughout the course of their research, the book’s authors interviewed over 200 men of all sexual orientations and their partners to capture a wide spectrum of perspectives on how prostate play expands one’s sexual menu, and what holds men back from experiencing its joys. Pegging is the term used to describe men being penetrated by women, often within a heterosexual context. Glickman and Emirzian’s guide is both a 101 on prostate anatomy and sensation, and an examination of the stigmas associated with prostate play.

But one’s prostate play comfort level is not determined by one’s sexuality alone, according to the authors. Reluctance to experiment — even among gay men — can be due to a perceived threat to masculine identity with which anal penetration is often associated.

Glickman says that the first challenge to exploring prostate pleasure exists on a physical level. “For most straight men, and topping queer men, sex happens outside your body as penis-oriented sex.”

“The basic story goes like this,” he continues in the guide. “Real men don’t get fucked — that’s for women, fags, and sissies. Because receiving penetration is usually viewed as the woman’s role in sex, a man may be worried that he isn’t fulfilling the man’s role if he takes a turn catching instead of pitching.”

Leaving the “get it up, get it in, get it off” mentality behind and moving into a receptive role can result in a new feeling of vulnerability. But men can expand the scope of what sex means to them by exploring the world of prostate play. According to Glickman, letting go of ass-based insecurity can open up a whole new world of sexual pleasure.

“Many straight men have said ‘I tried this and it completely changed our sex life,'” Glickman says. Getting to know the prostate can be a game changer.

And The Ultimate Guide is far from being a book for straight men. Glickman and Emirzian are adamant that most gay porn doesn’t adequately explore prostate stimulation, and the guide is also geared towards homosexual men — and for prostate players from the beginner to the advanced.

For example, in the chapter titled, “Prostate Massage,” one can learn all about how to use fingers properly: “When it comes to the prostate, poking is exactly what you don’t want to do! It may have felt great on your shoulder just now, but the prostate is another matter entirely,” says the guide. “We’ve spoken with a lot of men who complained about finger tips poking and stabbing their prostate, which can feel too intense, uncomfortable, or even painful.”

That chapter also includes sections on “starting slow and ramping up” and “rhythm and variety.” Another common misnomer that Glickman puts some ink towards correcting is the idea that bigger is always better when it comes to butt play. Did you know there is a difference between anal sensation and prostate stimulation? While anal sensations are affected by size of penetrating object, incredible prostate pleasure can be found with just one finger or a finger-sized toy. Tips like these aren’t meant to reduce men’s anxiety about being penetrated, especially those who have only seen anal sex in porn.

The book seeks to address both psycho-social concerns while providing practical how-to advice by carefully delineating between the multiple ways that the prostate can be stimulated and sexual orientation.

Another quote from the text: “The important thing to know is that whether you like anal penetration is about what kinds of sexual stimulation work for you; who you want to do it with is about your sexual orientation. While there can be some correlation between the two, one doesn’t imply anything about the other. If you’re gay and you don’t like anal play, you’re still gay. If you’re straight (or bi or any other sexual orientation) and you enjoy it, that doesn’t make you gay.”

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO PROSTATE PLEASURE BOOK LAUNCH

Thu/31, 6:30-8:30 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

603 Valencia, SF

(415) 522-5460

www.goodvibes.com

 

Sandra Fluke’s in town! As are the pro-life crazies! Your week in sexy events

Andrew Lam
-
63

40 years ago, a historic ruling gave us control over our own reproductive health. This week, a female state representative in New Mexico proposed banning abortions after rape to preserve police evidence. Shiver. Feel like a protest?

You’re in luck because this weekend, various groups all claiming to represent the best in women’s interests will be marking Roe vs. Wade’s historic judgement. But wait, will you attend the pro-choice carnival, the pro-choice flash mob, the anti-choice rally and march, or the pro-choice, anti-porn counter-demonstration? They are all happening this Saturday morning and early afternoon in Justin Herman Plaza. (Rebecca Bowe broke this story on our site over at the Politics blog, BTW.) We suggest being there, at least to watch the drama unfold. Happily, at least for the moment, choice is alive and well when it comes to weekend activism! 

Here’s the breakdown: 

Women, Life, and Liberty rally and celebration

Cuteness personified. This family-friendly gathering organized by 25 Bay Area women’s and reproductive rights groups will feature balloon artists, face-painting — and an address by Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University grad student who stared woman-hating Republican assholes in their beady eyes and emerged victorious, with the President on her side and a nation of newly-galvanized feminists sharpening their talons on her behalf. Rose Aguilar of KALW Radio will emcee. Come out, show up for your rights.  

Sat/26, 10am-noon, free. Justin Herman Plaza, SF. www.oursilverribbon.org

Her Rising Flash Mob

Of course there’s a flash mob — Magalie Bonneau-Marcil, director of Oakland’s Dancing Without Borders told Bowe that she expects 400-500 dancers for the event, part of a worldwide call for women to speak out against violence against them on this particular day. Practices are already over, but the mass of bodies in motion should be a gorgeous sight, one that will steel you for the next item on our list… 

Sat/26, 11:30am, free. Justin Herman Plaza, SF. www.herrising.org

Walk For Life rally and march/Stop Patriarchy counter protest

Shiver. For the ninth year, San Francisco pro-lifers are organizing so that busloads of social conservatives from all over the West Coast and Mid-West will be converging on San Francisco. This from the Walk For Life website: “We are thrilled and honored to be able to announce that Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States will be attending the Walk for Life West Coast on January 26 and reading a message from Pope Benedict XVI!”

Bay area group Stop Patriarchy is organizing a counter-protest, but big-ass asterisk on that one because that group, which does fight against attacks on abortion rights, includes the existence of pornography in its definition of the war on women and we are obvs not down with that characterization. Porn and reproductive agency for all! 

Sat/26, rally 12:30-1:30pm, walk 1:30pm, free. Justin Herman Plaza, SF. www.walkforlifewc.com 

And yes! There are other, sexier sex events happening this week too! 

Kinky Speed Dating 

Sponsored by the all-knowledgable BDSM education group Society of Janus, this session still has space for female bottoms who are looking to pair up with a male top (it’s part of an SOJ series that focuses on different genders and orientations during different sessions.) You’ll have the opportunity to meet 15 potential playmates, and receive the FetLife handle of those who are interested in you at the end of the speed rounds of sexy chit-chat. Conversation starters will be provided for those not well-versed in pervy small talk. 

Sat/26, 3-5pm, $10-15. Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org

“Pleasure Yoga For Women” workshop/Naked Yoga at Eros

It’s all about the breathe — during yoga, obviously, but perhaps proper respiration is the key to healthy sensuality as well? The concept is explored at this one-off seminar for women, meant to promote sexual confidence and the ability to recognize what turns you on and fulfills you for real. Men folk, we don’t mean to leave you all tense and unflexible on this one: males of all sexual orientations are invited every Tuesday to Castro sex club Eros for naked yoga class — the class isn’t supposed to be a place to cruise, but rather a place for the menfolk to connect on another level of sexual health. 

Workshop: Sun/27, 2-6pm, $65. Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. Naked Yoga For Men: every Tuesday, 6pm, suggested donation. Eros, 2051 Castro, SF. www.erossf.com

Dirty Talk and Roleplay with Chloe Camilla

I just went to see the drag production of Sex and the City currently playing at Rebel. In it, the voluptous Lady Bear presents a Miranda that is momentarily bewildered by a lover who demands she talk dirty in bed. After chatting it over with the girls she gives it a go. Lo and behold! Miranda finds that sensual verbosity is a huge turn-on, and that she’s really good at it. You just have to take the plunge, which is exactly what the pervy-adorable Chloe Camilla will be aiding and abetting at her Kink.com workshop next week. Look, discuss with Carrie over lunch and give it a go. 

Jan. 31, 7:30pm, $35. SF Armory, 1800 Mission, SF. tickets.armorystudios.com

Bratton controversy divides Oakland community as council approves contract 7-1

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
-
77

Following a highly attended and closely watched meeting on Tuesday, Oakland City Council voted 7-1 to approve a $250,000 contract to hire a team of police consultants which includes controversial stop-and-frisk advocate Bill Bratton. During an eight-hour meeting that went until 2 a.m., hundreds of residents crammed into the council chambers to weigh in, some voicing concerns about what Bratton would mean for Oakland and others offering support for bringing him on to advise the Oakland Police Department (OPD) on combating crime.

While several council members voiced reservations about Bratton’s association with the controversial stop-and-frisk policy, only District 6 Councilmember Desley Brooks voted against the contract. Brooks stressed that any effort to fight crime in Oakland would require more than aggressive policing, and must address the root causes of criminal activity.

“A vote against this contract tonight is not about not being serious about crime,” she said. “It’s about [how] we need to do the real work. The real work to address crime in this community.”

Speaking to the SF Bay Guardian after the meeting, District 3 Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney echoed many of Brook’s concerns. “Of course we have deal with poverty and access to education,” she said. “But that isn’t going to stop the bleeding now.” But in the end, McElhaney deferred to Jordan. “It’s about supporting the police chief who says he needs new resources to get the job done,” she said.

African American clergymen Bishop Bob Jackson, Bishop Frank Pincard and Reverend Gregory Payton voiced support for the contract. Jackson, who leads the 7,500-member Acts Full of Gospel Church in East Oakland, lamented a wave of violent crime that claimed more than 130 lives in 2012. “It’s gotten way out of control,” he said. “If Bratton can help stop the bloodshed, then I am for Bratton.”

Yet opponents of the contract expressed concern that Bratton’s support for stop-and-frisk policing would further exacerbate tensions between OPD and the community. “Stop-and-frisk will blow up in our face,” said Adam Blueford, whose teenage son Alan Blueford was fatally shot by Oakland police last May.

This clip was originally posted to Vimeo by Daniel Arauz.

George Holland, president of the Oakland branch of the NAACP, echoed these concerns, saying the NAACP opposes stop-and-frisk because “it invariably leads to racial profiling.”

In a presentation outlining the details of the $250,000 contract, Jordan stated that despite Bratton’s support for stop-and-frisk, there were no plans to implement the controversial tactic in Oakland.  “I do not support stop-and-frisk, I will not condone it, and we will practice constitutional policing,” the police chief assured the crowd.

But the practice, which was deemed unconstitutional earlier this month by a federal court ruling on its use in the Bronx in New York, is central to Bratton’s philosophy on policing. In a recent interview, Bratton told CBS San Francisco, “For any city to say they don’t do ‘stop-and-frisk’…I’m sorry, they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about … Any police department in America that tries to function without some form of ‘stop-and-frisk,’ or whatever terminology they use, is doomed to failure. It’s that simple.”

Our freak of a governor

Zelda Bronstein
-
17
Our freak of a governor

We all know this, but I have to say it again: Jerry Brown is one strange agent.

His State of the State address was blessedly short: Jer doesn’t waste a lot of time. In fact, a few minutes in, the crowd in the state Assembly chambers was applauding for the second or third time, and he told them to stop; “this is my longest speech and we’re not going to get out of here.” I clocked it, applause and all, at about 16 minutes.

But lordy, lordy, what a crazy amalgam of stuff he packed in. From Montaigne to the Little Engine that Could, the Ten Commandments to Pharoh’s dream about the seven cows, Franklin Roosevelt to Gaspar Portola … all over the map would be a gentle way of describing it.

And that was the political message, too: We can do great things, spend billions on a massive underground peripheral canal and high-speed rail — but we can’t backfill the cuts that are leaving tens of thousands in poverty because we have to live within our means. The mandate for renewable energy is great, but we shouldn’t just keep on passing laws:

Constantly expanding the coercive power of government by adding each year so many minute prescriptions to our already detailed and turgid legal system overshadows other aspects of public service. Individual creativity and direct leadership must also play a part. We do this, not by commanding thou shalt or thou shalt not through a new law but by tapping into the persuasive power that can inspire and organize people. Lay the Ten Commandments next to the California Education code and you will see how far we have diverged in approach and in content from that which forms the basis of our legal system.

Serious, Guv? “Constantly expanding the coervice power of government?” That’s channelling your inner Ronald Reagan, no? Oh, and weren’t you the mayor of Oakland who let the cops do pretty much anything they wanted in the name of public safety — and who is the darling and best pal of the prison guards union? Talk about the coercive power of government. And one of the bills you’ve never supported is Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s effort to legalize marijuana — eliminating a particularly troubling “coercive power of government” — because you’re worried that we can’t compete with China if everybody’s stoned.

I like high-speed rail, and investing in education, and I agree that there’s too much emphasis on one-size-fits-all standardized tests and measurement tools in the public school system. The school funding formula is, generally, a good idea. And I am utterly on the side of our tightwad leader in the battle to keep tuition from rising at CSU and UC.

So on some of the substance, Brown’s speech made sense. But I’ve been a Jerry watcher for many, many years, and he never ceases to baffle me. I supose that’s part of his point.

Let’s remember: Brown grew up in a wealthy patrician family, and he’s never had to worry about working for a living or finding an affordable place to live. He’s way out of touch with what millions of Californians face every day — and that’s why it’s easy for him to sit up in Sacramento and talk about “living within our means.”

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Sara Maria Vizcarrondo. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

OPENING

Beware of Mr. Baker This mesmerizing bio-doc about volatile, wildly talented drummer Ginger Baker (Cream, Blind Faith) begins with the 70-something musician clocking director Jay Bulger in the face. After this opening, Bulger — who also wrote a deeply compelling article about Baker for Rolling Stone last year — wisely pulls himself out of the narrative, instead turning to a wealth of new interviews (with Baker, his trademark red locks faded to gray, and many of his musical and personal partners, including Eric Clapton and multiple ex-Mrs. Bakers), vintage performance footage, and artful animation to weave his tale. Baker’s colorfully-lived, improbably long life has been literally all over the map; he overcame a hardscrabble British childhood to find jazz and rock stardom, and along the way jammed with Fela Kuti in Nigeria (where he picked up his fierce love of polo), broke many hearts (his own kids’ among them) and lost multiple fortunes, spent a stint in the US, and eventually landed at his current farm in South Africa. Two constants: his musical genius, and his frustratingly jerky behavior — the consequence of a naturally prickly personality exacerbated by copious drug use and bitterness. A must-see for musicians and those who love them. (1:30) Roxie. (Eddy)

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton star in this fairy-tale action film directed by Tommy Wirkola (2009’s Dead Snow). (1:41) California.

In Another Country This latest bit of gamesmanship from South Korea’s Hong Sang-soo (2000’s Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors) has Isabelle Huppert playing three Frenchwomen named Anne visiting the same Korean beachside community under different circumstances in three separate but wryly overlapping stories. In the first, she’s a film director whose presence induces inapt overtures from both her married colleague-host and a strapping young lifeguard. In the more farcical second, she’s a horny spouse herself, married to an absent Korean man; in the third, a woman whose husband has run away with a Korean woman. The same actors as well as variations on the same characters and situations appear in each section, their rejiggered intersections poking fun at Koreans’ attitudes toward foreigners, among other topics. Airy and amusing, In Another Country is a playful divertissement that’s shiny as a bubble, and leaves about as much of a permanent impression. (1:39) (Harvey)

Movie 43 An A-list ensemble cast (Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Kate Winslet) and multiple directors (Peter Farrelly, James Gunn, Bob Odenkirk) combine their star power for this 12-chapter comedy film. (1:37)

Parker "Jason Statham" is pretty much a distinct genre at this point, yeah? (1:58) Shattuck.

Quartet See "Smith Happens." (1:38) Embarcadero.

ONGOING

Amour Arriving in local theaters atop a tidal wave of critical hosannas, Amour now seeks to tempt popular acclaim — though actually liking this perfectly crafted, intensely depressing film (from Austrian director Michael Haneke) may be nigh impossible for most audience members. Eightysomething former music teachers Georges and Anne (the flawless Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) are living out their days in their spacious Paris apartment, going to classical concerts and enjoying the comfort of their relationship. Early in the film, someone tries to break into their flat — and the rest of Amour unfolds with a series of invasions, with Anne’s declining health the most distressing, though there are also unwanted visits from the couple’s only daughter (an appropriately self-involved Isabelle Huppert), an inept nurse who disrespects Anne and curses out Georges, and even a rogue pigeon that wanders in more than once. As Anne fades into a hollow, twisted, babbling version of her former self, Georges also becomes hollow and twisted, taking care of her while grimly awaiting the inevitable. Of course, the movie’s called Amour, so there’s some tenderness involved. But if you seek heartwarming hope and last-act uplift, look anywhere but here. (2:07) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Argo If you didn’t know the particulars of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, you won’t be an expert after Argo, but the film does a good job of capturing America’s fearful reaction to the events that followed it — particularly the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran. Argo zeroes in on the fate of six embassy staffers who managed to escape the building and flee to the home of the sympathetic Canadian ambassador (Victor Garber). Back in Washington, short-tempered CIA agents (including a top-notch Bryan Cranston) cast about for ways to rescue them. Enter Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck, who also directs), exfil specialist and father to a youngster wrapped up in the era’s sci-fi craze. While watching 1973’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Tony comes up with what Cranston’s character calls "the best bad idea we have:" the CIA will fund a phony Canadian movie production (corny, intergalactic, and titled Argo) and pretend the six are part of the crew, visiting Iran for a few days on a location shoot. Tony will sneak in, deliver the necessary fake-ID documents, and escort them out. Neither his superiors, nor the six in hiding, have much faith in the idea. ("Is this the part where we say, ‘It’s so crazy it just might work?’" someone asks, beating the cliché to the punch.) Argo never lets you forget that lives are at stake; every painstakingly forged form, every bluff past a checkpoint official increases the anxiety (to the point of being laid on a bit thick by the end). But though Affleck builds the needed suspense with gusto, Argo comes alive in its Hollywood scenes. As the show-biz veterans who mull over Tony’s plan with a mix of Tinseltown cynicism and patiotic duty, John Goodman and Alan Arkin practically burst with in-joke brio. I could have watched an entire movie just about those two. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Broken City Catherine Zeta-Jones’ measured performance and killer wardrobe run away with this uneven political thriller about a made-up Manhattan with real(-ish) problems. Russell Crowe is only slightly improving his record post-Les Mis, as he plays another harried and morally confused agent "for the people." Here, he’s Mayor Hostetler, a swaggering politico with fingers in New York’s real estate cookie jar and the sort of "get shit done" directive that results in bodies lying in NYC’s overfilled gutters. Good thing he has Mark Wahlberg in his back pocket, a cop who slipped a murder wrap and now scrapes the bottom for gigs as a private detective. Seven years ago Billy Taggart (Wahlberg) was seeking vigilante justice for the victim of a rape-murder in the city’s biggest ghetto. The victim became a household name but the killer was let off, leading to cries about the validity of NY’s justice system and to allusions to the Central Park Five. Broken City is less about a broken City and more about broken Men, and there are certain elements that seem too subtle for a story built on such bald-faced and predictable strategy. Between a script that’s struggling to demonstrate moral compromise and integrity, and direction (by Allen Hughes) that’s as sensitive to nuance as a border collie, it’s hard to find much beyond Zeta-Jones’ shoe stylings to admire. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Vizcarrondo)

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away (1:31) Metreon.

Django Unchained Quentin Tarantino’s spaghetti western homage features a cameo by the original Django (Franco Nero, star of the 1966 film), and solid performances by a meticulously assembled cast, including Jamie Foxx as the titular former slave who becomes a badass bounty hunter under the tutelage of Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Waltz, who won an Oscar for playing the evil yet befuddlingly delightful Nazi Hans Landa in Tarantino’s 2009 Inglourious Basterds, is just as memorable (and here, you can feel good about liking him) as a quick-witted, quick-drawing wayward German dentist. There are no Nazis in Django, of course, but Tarantino’s taboo du jour (slavery) more than supplies motivation for the filmmaker’s favorite theme (revenge). Once Django joins forces with Schultz, the natural-born partners hatch a scheme to rescue Django’s still-enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), whose German-language skills are as unlikely as they are convenient. Along the way (and it’s a long way; the movie runs 165 minutes), they encounter a cruel plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose main passion is the offensive, shocking "sport" of "Mandingo fighting," and his right-hand man, played by Tarantino muse Samuel L. Jackson in a transcendently scandalous performance. And amid all the violence and racist language and Foxx vengeance-making, there are many moments of screaming hilarity, as when a character with the Old South 101 name of Big Daddy (Don Johnson) argues with the posse he’s rounded up over the proper construction of vigilante hoods. It’s a classic Tarantino moment: pausing the action so characters can blather on about something trivial before an epic scene of violence. Mr. Pink would approve. (2:45) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Gangster Squad It’s 1949, and somewhere in the Hollywood hills, a man has been tied hand and foot to a pair of automobiles with the engines running. Coyotes pace in the background like patrons queuing up for a table at Flour + Water, and when dinner is served, the presentation isn’t very pretty. We’re barely five minutes into Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad, and fair warning has been given of the bloodletting to come. None of it’s quite as visceral as the opening scene, but Fleischer (2009’s Zombieland) packs his tale of urban warfare with plenty of stylized slaughter to go along with the glamour shots of mob-run nightclubs, leggy pin-curled dames, and Ryan Gosling lounging at the bar cracking wise. At the center of all the gunplay and firebombing is what’s framed as a battle for the soul of Los Angeles, waged between transplanted Chicago mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) — who wields terms like "progress" and "manifest destiny" as a rationale for a continental turf war — and a police sergeant named John O’Mara (Josh Brolin), tasked with bringing down Cohen’s empire. The assignment requires working under cover so deep that only the police chief (Nick Nolte) and the handpicked members of O’Mara’s "gangster squad" — ncluding Gosling, a half-jaded charmer who poaches Cohen’s arm candy (Emma Stone) — know of its existence. This leaves plenty of room for improvisation, and the film pauses now and again to wonder about what happens when you pit brutal amorality against brutal morality, but it’s a rhetorical question, and no one shows much interest in it. Dragged down by talking points that someone clearly wanted wedged in (as well as by O’Mara’s ponderous voice-overs), the film does better when it abandons gravitas and refocuses on spinning its mythic tale of wilder times in the Golden State. (1:53) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

A Haunted House (1:25) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Make no mistake: the Lord of the Rings trilogy represented an incredible filmmaking achievement, with well-deserved Oscars handed down after the third installment in 2003. If director Peter Jackson wanted to go one more round with J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved characters for a Hobbit movie, who was gonna stop him? Not so fast. This return to Middle-earth (in 3D this time) represents not one but three films — which would be self-indulgent enough even if part one didn’t unspool at just under three hours, and even if Jackson hadn’t decided to shoot at 48 frames per second. (I can’t even begin to explain what that means from a technical standpoint, but suffice to say there’s a certain amount of cinematic lushness lost when everything is rendered in insanely crystal-clear hi-def.) Journey begins as Bilbo Baggins (a game, funny Martin Freeman) reluctantly joins Gandalf (a weary-seeming Ian McKellan) and a gang of dwarves on their quest to reclaim their stolen homeland and treasure, batting Orcs, goblins, Gollum (Andy Serkis), and other beasties along the way. Fan-pandering happens (with characters like Cate Blanchett’s icy Galadriel popping in to remind you how much you loved LOTR), and the story moves at a brisk enough pace, but Journey never transcends what came before — or in the chronology of the story, what comes after. I’m not quite ready to declare this Jackson’s Phantom Menace (1999), but it’s not an unfair comparison to make, either. (2:50) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

How to Survive a Plague David France’s documentary chronicles the unprecedented impact political activism had on the course of AIDS in the U.S. — drastically curtailing its death toll within a few years despite considerable institutional indifference and downright hostility. As the epidemic here first surfaced in, and decimated, the gay male community, much of Reagan America (particularly in religious quarters) figured the death sentence was deserved. The President himself infamously refrained from even saying the word "AIDS" publicly until his final year of office, after thousands had died. Both terrified and outraged, the gay community took it upon themselves to demand treatment, education, and research. Most of this urgent 1980s overview is concerned with the rise of ACT-UP, whose angry young men successfully lobbied and shamed corporate, academic, medical, and pharmaceutical bodies into action, with the result that by the mid-90s new drugs existed that made this dreaded diagnosis no longer a necessarily terminal one. France is a journalist who’s been covering AIDS practically since day one, and his first feature (made with the help of numerous first-rate collaborators) is authoritative and engrossing. Just don’t expect much (or really any) attention paid to the contributions made by S.F. or other activist hotspots — like many a gay documentary, this one hardly notices there’s a world (or gay community) outside Manhattan. (1:49) Roxie. (Harvey)

The Impossible Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona (2007’s The Orphanage) directs The Impossible, a relatively modestly-budgeted take on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, based on the real story of a Spanish family who experienced the disaster. Here, the family (Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, three young sons) is British, on a Christmas vacation from dad’s high-stress job in Japan. Beachy bliss is soon ruined by that terrible series of waves; they hit early in the film, and Bayona offers a devastatingly realistic depiction of what being caught in a tsunami must feel like: roaring, debris-filled water threatening death by drowning, impalement, or skull-crushing. And then, the anguish of surfacing, alive but injured, stranded, and miles from the nearest doctor, not knowing if your family members have perished. Without giving anything away (no more than the film’s suggestive title, anyway), once the survivors are established (and the film’s strongest performer, Watts, is relegated to hospital-bed scenes) The Impossible finds its way inevitably to melodrama, and triumph-of-the-human-spirit theatrics. As the family’s oldest son, 16-year-old Tom Holland is effective as a kid who reacts exactly right to crisis, morphing from sulky teen to thoughtful hero — but the film is too narrowly focused on its tourist characters, with native Thais mostly relegated to background action. It’s a disconnect that’s not quite offensive, but is still off-putting. (1:54) SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Jack Reacher (2:10) Metreon.

The Last Stand With gun control issues dominating the news, what better time to release a movie that lovingly glorifies the wonders of excessive firepower? Fortunately for star Arnold Schwarzenegger, making his return to leading-man status after that little fling with politics, The Last Stand is stupidly enjoyable enough to make any such PC-minded realizations relatively fleeing ones. When a Mexican drug lord (who also happens to be an expert race-car driver) escapes from federal custody and begins speeding home in a super-Corvette, the lead FBI agent (Forest Whitaker, slumming big-time) realizes his only hope is a teeny Arizona border town that happens to be overseen by Sheriff Schwarzenegger. (Other residents include a couple of hapless deputies; an Iraq war vet; and a gun nut played by a cartoonishly obnoxious Johnny Knoxville.) Can this ragtag crew hold off first the drug lord’s advance team (led by a swaggering Peter Stormare), and then the head baddie himself? Duh. The biggest surprise The Last Stand offers is that it’s actually pretty fun — no doubt thanks to the combo of Korean director Kim Jee-woon (2008’s eccentric The Good, The Bad, and the Weird; 2003’s spooky A Tale of Two Sisters) and the heft of Schwarzenegger’s still-potent charisma. (1:47) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

The Law in These Parts Ra’anan Alexandrowicz’s documentary is a rather extraordinary historical record: he interviews numerous retired Israeli judges and lawyers who shaped and enforced the country’s legal positions as occupiers of Palestinian land and "temporary guardians" of a Palestinian populace living under foreign occupation. The key word there is "temporary" — in using here a different (military rather than civil) justice from the one Israeli citizens experience, Israel has been able to exert the extraordinary powers of an invading force in wartime. But what is "temporary" about an occupation that’s now lasted nearly 45 years? How can the state justify (under Geneva Convention rules, for one thing) building permanent Jewish settlements that now house about half a million Israelis on land that is as yet not legally Israel’s? By constantly changing the terms and laws of occupation, they do just that. If many policies have been perhaps necessary to control terrorist attacks, one can argue that they and other policies have created the climate in which oppositional fervor and terroristic acts were bound to flourish. That, of course, is a political-ethical judgement far beyond the public purview of the judges and others here, whose dry legalese admits no personal culpability — and indeed sometimes seems almost absurdly divorced from real-world ethics and consequence, which of course serves an increasingly rigid governmental stance just fine. Without preaching, The Law in These Parts raises a number of discomfiting questions about bending law to suit an agenda that in any other context would seem frankly unlawful. (1:40) Roxie. (Harvey)

Let Fury Have the Hour Though its message — that creative expression is a powerful, meaningful way to fight oppression — is a valuable one, Antonino D’Ambrosio’s Let Fury Have the Hour covers turf well-trod for anyone who has ever seen a documentary about punk rock and social justice. (Especially when it contains usual suspects like Ian MacKaye, Shepard Fairey, and Billy Bragg waxing nostalgic about how nonconformist they were in the 1980s.) In truth, Fury is more collage than doc, pasting together talking-head interviews (also here: Chuck D, John Sayles, Van Jones, Tom Morello, Boots Riley, and Wayne Kramer, plus a few token women, chiefly Eve Ensler) with a mish-mash of sepia-toned stock footage that more or less thematically compliments what’s being discussed at the time. A more focused examination of D’Ambrosio’s thesis might have resulted in a more effective film — like, say, an in-depth look at how Sayles’ politically-themed films (here, he reads from the script for 1987’s Matewan in a frustratingly brief segment) are echoed in works by contemporary artists and citizen journalists, particularly now that the internet has opened up a global platform for protest films. Listen: I admire what the film is trying to do. I am OK with watching yet another doc that contains the phrase "Punk rock politicized me." But with too much lip service and precious little depth, Fury‘s fury ends up feeling a bit diluted. (1:40) Balboa. (Eddy)

Life of Pi Several filmmakers including Alfonso Cuarón, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and M. Night Shyamalan had a crack at Yann Martel’s "unfilmable" novel over the last decade, without success. That turns out to have been a very good thing, since Ang Lee and scenarist David Magee have made probably the best movie possible from the material — arguably even an improvement on it. Framed as the adult protagonist’s (Irrfan Khan) lengthy reminiscence to an interested writer (Rafe Spall) it chronicles his youthful experience accompanying his family and animals from their just shuttered zoo on a cargo ship voyage from India to Canada. But a storm capsizes the vessel, stranding teenaged Pi (Suraj Sharma) on a lifeboat with a mini menagerie — albeit one swiftly reduced by the food chain in action to one Richard Parker, a whimsically named Bengal tiger. This uneasy forced cohabitation between Hindu vegetarian and instinctual carnivore is an object lesson in survival as well as a fable about the existence of God, among other things. Shot in 3D, the movie has plenty of enchanted, original imagery, though its outstanding technical accomplishment may lie more in the application of CGI (rather than stereoscopic photography) to something reasonably intelligent for a change. First-time actor Sharma is a natural, while his costar gives the most remarkable performance by a wild animal this side of Joaquin Phoenix in The Master. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a charmed, lovely experience. (2:00) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Harvey)

Lincoln Distinguished subject matter and an A+ production team (Steven Spielberg directing, Daniel Day-Lewis starring, Tony Kushner adapting Doris Kearns Goodwin, John Williams scoring every emotion juuust so) mean Lincoln delivers about what you’d expect: a compelling (if verbose), emotionally resonant (and somehow suspenseful) dramatization of President Lincoln’s push to get the 13th amendment passed before the start of his second term. America’s neck-deep in the Civil War, and Congress, though now without Southern representation, is profoundly divided on the issue of abolition. Spielberg recreates 1865 Washington as a vibrant, exciting place, albeit one filled with so many recognizable stars it’s almost distracting wondering who’ll pop up in the next scene: Jared Harris as Ulysses S. Grant! Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln! Lena Dunham’s shirtless boyfriend on Girls (Adam Driver) as a soldier! Most notable among the huge cast are John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, and a daffy James Spader as a trio of lobbyists; Sally Field as the troubled First Lady; and likely Oscar contenders Tommy Lee Jones (as winningly cranky Rep. Thaddeus Stevens) and Day-Lewis, who does a reliably great job of disappearing into his iconic role. (2:30) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

LUV Baltimore native Sheldon Candis drew from his own childhood for this coming-of-age tale, which takes place in a single day as 11-year-old "little man" Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.) tags along with his uncle, Vincent (Common), recently out of jail and rapidly heading back down the criminal path. With both parents out of the picture, Woody’s been raised by his grandmother (Lonette McKee), so he idolizes Vincent even though it’s soon clear the short-tempered man is no hero. Of course, things go horribly awry, bloody lessons are learned, tears are shed, etc. Despite the story’s autobiographical origins, the passable LUV suffers greatly by inviting comparisons to The Wire — the definitive docudrama examining drug crime in Baltimore. Most blatantly, sprinkled into an all-star cast (Dennis Haysbert, Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton) are supporting characters played by Wire icons Michael K. "Omar" Williams (as a cop) and Anwan "Slim Charles" Glover (as a meaner Slim Charles, basically). Perhaps if you’ve never seen the show this wouldn’t be distracting — but if that’s the case, you should really be watching The Wire instead of LUV anyway. (1:34) Metreon. (Eddy)

Mama From bin Laden to wild babes in woods, Jessica Chastain can’t seem to grab a break. Equipped with just the bare outlines of a character, however, she’s one of the few pleasures in this missed-opportunity of a grim, ghostly fairy tale. Expanding his short of the same name, director Andres Muschietti kicks off his yarn on a sadly familiar note in these days of seemingly escalating gun violence: little sisters Victoria and Lily have disappeared from their home, shortly after their desperate father (Game of Thrones‘ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has gone on a shooting spree. They repair to an abandoned cabin scattered with mid-century modern furniture. Five years on, the girls’ scruffy artist uncle Lucas (also Coster-Waldau) is still searching for them, supported by his punk rock girlfriend Annabel (Chastain). The little girls lost are finally found by trackers — and they appear to be hopelessly feral, with the angelic-looking Victoria (Megan Charpentier), acting as the ringleader and the younger, bedraggled Lily (Maya Dawe) given to sleeping under beds and eating on all fours next to the dog bowl. The arty couple take them in and move into a "test house" provided by the sisters’ enthralled therapist (Daniel Kash), obviously psyched to study not one but two Kaspar Hausers. The traumatized kids are clearly haunted by their experience — in more ways than one — as inexplicable bumps go off, night and day, and Misfits t-shirt-clad Annabel discovers the real meaning of goth while getting in touch with her seemingly deeply buried maternal urges. Unfortunately, despite possessing the raw material for a truly scary outing that plunges to the core of our primal instincts (what’s scarier than an unsocialized kid that’s capable of anything?) and showing off Muschietti’s occasional instances of cinematic flair (as when multiple rooms are shown using split-screens), Mama ends up running away from the filmmaker and is finally simply spoiled by its mawkishly sentimental finale. It doesn’t help that the inadequate script sports logic holes that a mama could drive a truck though. (1:40) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Les Misérables There is a not-insignificant portion of the population who already knows all the words to all the songs of this musical-theater warhorse, around since the 1980s and honored here with a lavish production by Tom Hooper (2010’s The King’s Speech). As other reviews have pointed out, this version only tangentially concerns Victor Hugo’s French Revolution tale; its true raison d’être is swooning over the sight of its big-name cast crooning those famous tunes. Vocals were recorded live on-set, with microphones digitally removed in post-production — but despite this technical achievement, there’s a certain inorganic quality to the proceedings. Like The King’s Speech, the whole affair feels spliced together in the Oscar-creation lab. The hardworking Hugh Jackman deserves the nomination he’ll inevitably get; jury’s still out on Anne Hathaway’s blubbery, "I cut my hair for real, I am so brave!" performance. (2:37) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

My Worst Nightmare First seen locally in the San Francisco Film Society’s 2012 "French Cinema Now" series, My Worst Nightmare follows icy art curator Agathe (Isabelle Huppert) as her airless, tightly-controlled world begins to crumble — thanks in no small part to an exuberantly uncouth, down-on-his-luck Belgian contractor named Patrick (Benoît Poelvoorde). (His obnoxious, freewheeling presence in Agathe’s precision-mapped orbit gives rise to the film’s title.) Director and co-writer Anne Fontaine (2009’s Coco Before Chanel) injects plenty of offbeat, occasionally raunchy humor into what could’ve been a predictable personal-liberation tale — the sight of classy dame Huppert driving through a bikini car wash, for instance. (1:43) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Parental Guidance (1:36) Metreon.

Promised Land Gus Van Sant’s fracking fable — co-written by stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski, from a story by Dave Eggers — offers a didactic lesson in environmental politics, capped off by the earth-shattering revelation that billion-dollar corporations are sleazy and evil. You don’t say! Formulated like a Capra movie, Promised Land follows company man Steve Butler (Matt Damon) as he and sales partner Sue (Frances McDormand) travel to a small Pennsylvania town to convince its (they hope) gullible residents to allow drilling on their land. But things don’t go as smoothly as hoped, when the pair faces opposition from a science teacher with a brainiac past (Hal Holbrook), and an irritatingly upbeat green activist (Krasinski) breezes into town to further monkey-wrench their scheme. That Damon is such a likeable actor actually works against him here; his character arc from soulless salesman to emotional-creature-with-a-conscience couldn’t be more predictable or obvious. McDormand’s wonderfully biting supporting performance is the best (and only) reason to see this ponderous, faux-folksy tale, which targets an audience that likely already shares its point of view. (1:46) SF Center. (Eddy)

The Rabbi’s Cat A rabbi, a Muslim musician, two Russians (a Jew and a boozy Christian), and two talking animals hop into an antique Citroën for a road trip across Africa. No, it’s not the set-up for a joke; it’s the premise for this charming animated film, adapted from Joann Sfar’s graphic novel (the author co-directs with Antoine Delesvaux). In 1930s Algiers, a rabbi’s pet cat suddenly develops the ability to talk — and read and write, by the way — and wastes no time in sharing opinions, particularly when it comes to religion ("God is just a comforting invention!") When a crate full of Russian prayer books — and one handsome artist — arrives at the rabbi’s house, man and cat are drawn into the refugee’s search for an Ethiopian city populated by African Jews. Though it’s not suitable for younger kids (there’s kitty mating, and a few bursts of surprising violence) or diehard Tintin fans (thanks to a randomly cranky spoof of the character), The Rabbi’s Cat is a lushly illustrated, witty tale of cross-cultural clashes and connections. Rockin’ soundtrack, too. (1:29) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Silver Linings Playbook After guiding two actors to Best Supporting Oscars in 2010’s The Fighter, director David O. Russell returns (adapting his script from Matthew Quick’s novel) with another darkly comedic film about a complicated family that will probably earn some gold of its own. Though he’s obviously not ready to face the outside world, Pat (Bradley Cooper) checks out of the state institution he’s been court-ordered to spend eight months in after displaying some serious anger-management issues. He moves home with his football-obsessed father (Robert De Niro) and worrywart mother (Jacki Weaver of 2010’s Animal Kingdom), where he plunges into a plan to win back his estranged wife. Cooper plays Pat as a man vibrating with troubled energy — always in danger of flying into a rage, even as he pursues his forced-upbeat "silver linings" philosophy. But the movie belongs to Jennifer Lawrence, who proves the chops she showcased (pre-Hunger Games megafame) in 2010’s Winter’s Bone were no fluke. As the damaged-but-determined Tiffany, she’s the left-field element that jolts Pat out of his crazytown funk; she’s also the only reason Playbook‘s dance-competition subplot doesn’t feel eye-rollingly clichéd. The film’s not perfect, but Lawrence’s layered performance — emotional, demanding, bitchy, tough-yet-secretly-tender — damn near is. (2:01) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki, Vogue. (Eddy)

Skyfall Top marks to Adele, who delivers a magnificent title song to cap off Skyfall‘s thrilling pre-credits chase scene. Unfortunate, then, that the film that follows squanders its initial promise. After a bomb attack on MI6, the clock is running out for Bond (Daniel Craig) and M (Judi Dench), accused of Cold War irrelevancy in a 21st century full of malevolent, stateless computer hackers. The audience, too, will yearn for a return to simpler times; dialogue about "firewalls" and "obfuscated code" never fails to sound faintly ridiculous, despite the efforts Ben Whishaw as the youthful new head of Q branch. Javier Bardem is creative and creepy as keyboard-tapping villain Raoul Silva, but would have done better with a megalomaniac scheme to take over the world. Instead, a small-potatoes revenge plot limps to a dull conclusion in the middle of nowhere. Skyfall never decides whether it prefers action, bon mots, and in-jokes to ponderous mythologizing and ripped-from-the-headlines speechifying — the result is a unsatisfying, uneven mixture. (2:23) Metreon, Sundance Kabuki. (Ben Richardson)

Texas Chainsaw 3D (1:32) Metreon.

This is 40 A spin-off of sorts from 2007’s Knocked Up, Judd Apatow’s This is 40 continues the story of two characters nobody cared about from that earlier film: Debbie (Leslie Mann, Apatow’s wife) and Pete (Paul Rudd), plus their two kids (played by Mann and Apatow’s kids). Pete and Debbie have accumulated all the trappings of comfortable Los Angeles livin’: luxury cars, a huge house, a private personal trainer, the means to throw catered parties and take weekend trips to fancy hotels (and to whimsically decide to go gluten-free), and more Apple products than have ever before been shoehorned into a single film. But! This was crap they got used to having before Pete’s record label went into the shitter, and Debbie’s dress-shop employee (Charlene Yi, another Knocked Up returnee who is one of two people of color in the film; the other is an Indian doctor who exists so Pete can mock his accent) started stealing thousands from the register. How will this couple and their whiny offspring deal with their financial reality? By arguing! About bullshit! In every scene! For nearly two and a half hours! By the time Melissa McCarthy, as a fellow parent, shows up to command the film’s only satisfying scene — ripping Pete and Debbie a new one, which they sorely deserve — you’re torn between cheering for her and wishing she’d never appeared. Seeing McCarthy go at it is a reminder that most comedies don’t make you feel like stabbing yourself in the face. I’m honestly perplexed as to who this movie’s audience is supposed to be. Self-loathing yuppies? Masochists? Apatow’s immediate family, most of whom are already in the film? (2:14) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

Wreck-It Ralph Wreck-It Ralph cribs directly from the Toy Story series: when the lights go off in the arcade, video game characters gather to eat, drink, and endure existential crises. John C. Reilly is likable and idiosyncratic as Ralph, the hulking, ham-fisted villain of a game called Fix-It-Felix. Fed up with being the bad guy, Ralph sneaks into gritty combat sim Hero’s Duty under the nose of Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch), a blond space marine who mixes Mass Effect‘s Commander Shepard with a PG-rated R. Lee Ermey. Things go quickly awry, and soon Ralph is marooned in cart-racing candyland Sugar Rush, helping Vanellope Von Schweetz (a manic Sarah Silverman), with Calhoun and opposite number Felix (Jack McBrayer) hot on his heels. Though often aggressively childish, the humor will amuse kids, parents, and occasionally gamers, and the Disney-approved message about acceptance is moving without being maudlin. The animation, limber enough to portray 30 years of changing video game graphics, deserves special praise. (1:34) Metreon. (Ben Richardson)

Zero Dark Thirty The extent to which torture was actually used in the hunt for Osama Bin Ladin may never be known, though popular opinion will surely be shaped by this film, as it’s produced with the same kind of "realness" that made Kathryn Bigelow’s previous film, the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker (2008), so potent. Zero Dark Thirty incorporates torture early in its chronology — which begins in 2003, after a brief opening that captures the terror of September 11, 2001 using only 911 phone calls — but the practice is discarded after 2008, a sea-change year marked by the sight of Obama on TV insisting that "America does not torture." (The "any more" goes unspoken.) Most of Zero Dark Thirty is set in Pakistan and/or "CIA black sites" in undisclosed locations; it’s a suspenseful procedural that manages to make well-documented events (the July 2005 London bombings; the September 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing) seem shocking and unexpected. Even the raid on Bin Ladin’s HQ is nail-bitingly intense. The film immerses the viewer in the clandestine world, tossing out abbreviations ("KSM" for al-Qaeda bigwig Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) and jargon ("tradecraft") without pausing for a breath. It is thrilling, emotional, engrossing — the smartest, most tightly-constructed action film of the year. At the center of it all: a character allegedly based on a real person whose actual identity is kept top-secret by necessity. She’s interpreted here in the form of a steely CIA operative named Maya, played to likely Oscar-winning perfection by Jessica Chastain. No matter the film’s divisive subject matter, there’s no denying that this is a powerful performance. "Washington says she’s a killer," a character remarks after meeting this seemingly delicate creature, and he’s proven right long before Bin Ladin goes down. Some critics have argued that character is underdeveloped, but anyone who says that isn’t watching closely enough. Maya may not be given a traditional backstory, but there’s plenty of interior life there, and it comes through in quick, vulnerable flashes — leading up to the payoff of the film’s devastating final shot. (2:39) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Our Weekly Picks: January 23-29

Andrew Lam
-
0

WEDNESDAY 23

The Tambo Rays

If you’re looking for a San Francisco-based band to adore in the new year, keep your eye on the Tambo Rays. The punkish young chillwave foursome released Kaleidoscope, its debut EP, last summer and has speedily garnered an enthusiastic audience. The group — a collaboration between brother and sister Brian and Sara DaMert along with friends Greg Sellin and Bob Jakubs — makes catchy, introspective pop music characterized by B. DaMerts’ crooning vocals and a hazy wall of dissonance. The Tambo Rays played Café du Nord, Rickshaw Stop, and the Hemlock last year, but they still might be down to play your house party. (Mia Sullivan)

With Evil Eyes, Moonbell, Jesus Sons

9pm, $6

Brick and Mortar

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 371-1631

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

 

The Mallard and LENZ

Last year treated The Mallard well. Aside from winning recognition in the Guardian’s 2012 GOLDIES, the band’s dynamic garage-psych-rock also earned it a spot on MTV Hive’s list of “Five Indie-Rock Records to Look Forward to in 2013.” Evidently, this year promises more. LENZ, another Bay Area favorite, is also preparing for a fruitful 2013, with the release of its first full-length LP, Ways to End a Day, which it will celebrate at the New Parish. Containing punk influences, ’80s synth, and the self-identification “ice-pop,” the band promises intriguing music and a good time. And with both bands poised for greatness in 2013 (and $3 Trumer Pils), there’s no better time to see them then at this free show. (Laura Kerry)

With Casey and Brian, Dragontime

8pm, free New Parish

579 18th St., Oakl.

(510) 444-7474

www.thenewparish.com


THURSDAY 24

“How to Move A Mountain”

Consider this fact: many kids love to play with ants. The insect evokes some innate fascination that leads to prolonged observation (and frequently an unfortunate end by magnifying glass or the filling in of an ant hole). At Southern Exposure’s “How to Move a Mountain,” Dr. Deborah Gordon, a celebrated Stanford biologist, will elevate this fascination as she presents her studies on collaboration in the colonies of harvester ants, in this first installment of a three-part series. Thursday’s ends with a discussion led by conceptual artist Brad Borovitz and a responding art piece, the education-meets-art event will approach larger notions of societal organization and collectivism. It seems that those kids are on to something. (Kerry)

7-9pm, free Southern Exposure 3030 20th St., SF

(415) 863-2141

www.soex.org

 

“Dan Dion: The Musical Image” closing party

Fantastically prolific soul-snapper Dan Dion has been the house photographer for the Fillmore for 20 years and the Warfield for 15 — which gives him the kind of access to famous and intriguing subjects many would claw their own lenses out to get. For the past couple months he’s had a show of his eye-popping portraits of musical fascinators — from Johnny Cash, John Lee Hooker, Tony Bennett, James Brown, even Katy Perry — up at the hoppin’ Madrone on Divisadero. This closing party brings down on the curtain on the punchy exhibition, but there’s no rest for Dion, of course: along with his continued musician pics (check out www.dandion.com for an index of legends), he’s hard at work on a new project: 365 days of Comedian Portraits. (Marke B.)

6-9pm, free

Madrone Art Bar

500 Divisadero, SF

www.madroneartbar.com


FRIDAY 25

Noir City 11

Here’s a sweet early Valentine’s Day gift for your favorite dude or dame: a “passport” ticket good for admission to all of Noir City’s 27 films (many of which will sell out in advance), plus a chance to hang with opening-night special guest Peggy Cummins before a screening of her 1950 breakout Gun Crazy. Way cooler than a box of chocolates, and at $120, way cheaper than diamond jewelry. Billed as “the most popular film noir festival in the world,” Eddie Muller’s annual event flies the flag of 35mm projection proudly as it spotlights a host of classics and not-available-on-DVD rareties. Look for themed double-features like “Showbiz Noir” (can’t go wrong with 1950’s Sunset Boulevard on the big screen), “San Francisco Noir,” “African American Noir,” and — a Noir City first — “3D Noir.” (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Feb. 3, most shows $10–$15

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.noircity.com

 

The Bay: Creators of Style

San Francisco fashion encompasses more than just glamor, style, and grit; it is an art of ideas and principles, creativity, and personality. Photographer Liz Caruana captures these many dimensions in her new book, The Bay: Creators of Style, a collection of black-and-white portraits of many of the Bay Area’s most distinguished designers. With an opening reception, an artist talk, and an exhibit of selected images from the book on view for three weeks, Carte Blanche has supplied an excellent opportunity to see prints that testify both to the skill of Liz Caruana and the originality and range of the Bay Area’s fashion community. (Kerry)

Through Feb. 13

Opening reception, 7-9:30pm, free

Artist talk Sat/26, 7:30pm

Carte Blanche

973 Valencia, SF

(415) 821-1055

www.gallerycarteblanche.com


SATURDAY 26

Joffrey Ballet

“Longtime no see” used to be a common greeting among friends. It has such an old-fashioned, convivial quality about it, yet sounds out of tune for our modern 24/7 being-connectedness. So why not say, “great to see you, what are you up to?” to the Joffrey Ballet, which used to regularly make the trip from New York, having made its reputation with showing ballet as a distinctly contemporary art. Now located in Chicago and under the artistic directorship of former SFB Principal Ashley Wheater, the Joffrey is bringing Kurt Jooss’ superb The Green Table, a seminal work of modern dance that thematically, unfortunately, is as up-to-date as it was in 1932. Edwaard Liang’s 2008 Age of Innocence and Christopher Weeldon’s After the Rain — two of today’s hottest choreographers complete this intriguing program. (Rita Felciano)

8pm, $30–$92

Also Sun/27, 3 p.m.

Zellerbach Hall

101 Zellerbach Hall, Berk.

(510) 642-9889

www.calperformances.org

 

“An Evening of Silent Films at Grace Cathedral”

Grace Cathedral is a non-traditional movie theater — obviously, you wouldn’t head to the Nob Hill landmark to see the latest superhero epic. But what it lacks in Dolby surround sound, it more than makes up for with its major league pipe organ, which provides the perfect accompaniment when the cathedral (which hosts concerts and events between services) screens silent films. Tonight, renowned musician Dorothy Papadakos provides the soundscape for two silent-era classics: Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 propaganda film Battleship Potemkin (7pm), which elevated film editing with scenes like its tense “Odessa Staircase” sequence; and F.W. Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu (9pm), the long-fingernailed granddaddy of all vampire films. (Eddy)

7 and 9pm, $10–$20 (both films, $17–$24)

Grace Cathedral

1100 California, SF

www.gracecathedral.org/concerts

 

Stellar Corpses

Santa Cruz rockers Stellar Corpses have been around for the part of a decade, mixing psychobilly, punk, rockabilly, surf guitar and much more into their sound. Having toured across the US and Europe as an independent act, the band released its third record last year, Dead Stars Drive-In (Santa Carla Records), which showcases an uncanny talent for meshing horror film imagery and addictive sing-along anthems into a monstrous creation that even Dr. Frankenstein would be proud of. With MTV recently featuring the group’s video for “Vampire Kiss,” things are looking up more than ever — these children of the night, what music they make! (Sean McCourt)

With The Rocketz, Memphis Murder Men, Limnus.

8:30pm, $13–$15

Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com

 

Blond:ish

In a section of the music industry where club promoters and marketers all too frequently rely on glamor headshots layered over photoshopped neon clouds, London based, Montreal bred Anstascia D’elene and Vivie Ann Bakos have smartly chosen a name that immediately undercuts appearances. (Plus the tag-line: “not all dumbs are blonde.”) With that out of the way, this posh, Kompakt-approved duo has spent the last couple of years making a real name for itself, releasing credible 4×4 house sets and EPs with callbacks to ’60s psychedelia and ’80s new wave, while providing remixes for Todd Terje, Pete Tong, and Tomas Barfod. (Ryan Prendiville)

With DJ M3, Anthony Mansfield

9pm, $10-20

Monarch

101 Sixth St., SF

(415) 284-9774

www.monarchsf.com

 

SUNDAY 27

Stephen Tobolowsky

Stephen Tobolowsky will always be an honorary member of the “that guy” character actor club, (you’ve seen him in the margins of Groundhog Day, Memento, and HBO’s Deadwood) but lately, his podcast The Tobolowsky Files has become his signature project, revealing his depths as a storyteller. Whether he’s recounting a collaboration with David Byrne, his constant effort to balance Hollywood with family life, or the time he was held hostage at the supermarket, Tobolowsky’s tales of life, love, and showbiz engage the listener effortlessly. Presented by SF Sketchfest, Sunday’s event will feature new stories, as well as selections from his newly released book, The Dangerous Animals Club. (Taylor Kaplan)

8pm, $25

Yoshi’s

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com


MONDAY 28

Steve Reich

Yes, Steve Reich is probably the most influential composer alive. And yes, his legendary mid-’70s output irreversibly mechanized the dynamics of Western music. Still, his greatest gift to the music world remains his ability to breathe life into minimalist structures, making room for dynamic, grooving rhythms, rich, warm tonal colors, and catchy, arpeggiated melodies that sound almost club-friendly in 2012. On Monday, the SF Contemporary Music Players will treat our fair city to a rare performance of Reich’s flagship composition, Music for 18 Musicians (1976), bookended by Clapping Music (1972) and Electric Counterpoint (1987). Essential, for devotees and newcomers, alike. (Kaplan)

8pm, $20

SF Conservatory of Music

50 Oak, SF

(415) 503-6275

www.sfcm.edu


TUESDAY 29

Vintage Trouble

When I started listening to The Bomb Shelter Sessions — Vintage Trouble’s 2012 release — I was pretty certain its authors could not be of this century. (And looking at photos of this old-timey quartet, might I add, only reinforced my initial contention.) Well, I was wrong. This blues rock group, comprised of vocalist Ty Taylor, guitarist Nalle Colt, drummer Richard Danielson, and bassist Rich Barrio Dill, formed in Los Angeles in 2010 and has achieved success and international renown not least for Taylor’s deep, rambling vocals that bring to mind mid-century legends like Otis Redding and Ray Charles. (Sullivan)

8:30 p.m., $15

Café du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian, 225 Bush, 17th Flr., SF, CA 94105; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Mestranda Cigarra kicks ass

-
4
Mestranda Cigarra kicks ass

caitlin@sfbg.com

HEALTH AND WELLNESS It is impossible to climb the stairs to the San Francisco chapter of Abadá Capoeira and not know that you are in the Mestranda’s house.

Márcia Treidler founded the Mission District capoeira school, and she is there in the first photograph you see when you come in off the street. In it, she strikes her customary pose, an improbable one-handed flip (kick?) Her washboard abs challenge visitors to trade sedentary habits for the rich traditions and fat-carving core moves of the Brazilian martial arts form, the love of which made Treidler beg her mom for classes as a teenager, brought her from Brazil to the Bay Area, and led her to start a chapter of her teacher’s school right here in San Francisco.

In person, seated at a table next to Abadá’s statue of Iemanjá, orisha goddess of the Southern seas and patron deity of Rio de Janeiro, Treidler is hardly as intimidating. Mestranda Cigarra (her capoeira-given name) is in fact incredibly patient while explaining Brazilian history and basic tenets of the martial arts form to a stranger. She does do it for a living, after all.

Sharing information is a guiding principle of capoeira, which began as a covert form of fighting practiced by African slaves in Brazil who certainly couldn’t rely on written record to educate new generations in the martial art. After escaping servitude, some used their martial skills against the law enforcement sent after them. Capoeira helped fend off colonial attacks on their newly formed quilombos, the settlements ex-slaves built in remote locales.

Even after abolishing slavery in 1888, the Brazilian government considered capoeira subversive. It was officially banned in 1890, a tool used by authorities to put black men in jail. When waves of immigration brought new labor forces to the country and left many Africans jobless, public perception often equated capoeira with criminal activity.

The sport’s rise to acceptance and spread to other countries is a relatively recent occurrence. Treidler, who is now one of two of the highest ranking females in her school Abadá’s 41,000-member international organization, started practicing 31 years ago in Rio de Janeiro. She lived in Botafogo, a middle class beachfront neighborhood. At the time, capoeira still wasn’t considered respectable — and certainly not an obvious choice for an ambitious young woman. After becoming entranced by the sport at a school performance, the current Mestranda had to work on her mother for a year before she would agree to finance her classes.

“Women in capoeira was not popular at all,” Treidler says. “[My mother] was like ‘are you crazy? What are you thinking?'” Treidler had been active in sports — swimming and gymnastics — since she was six, but her mother insisted on observing capoeira classes before she’d agree to let her high school age daughter enroll.

“The [sport’s] reputation was really bad at the time,” Treidler remembers. “But when I first started, I never stopped.” Prepped by her athletic background, she took easily to capoeira’s acrobatics. She graduated through levels quickly, and struck a deal with her instructor to pay when she could after her mother withdrew financial support. Treidler credits the sport with teaching her patience, and became close with Mestre Camisa, the founder of Abadá.

The importance of their relationship today means Abadá students benefit from the vision of the founder, who still lives in Brazil. “She follows his vision 100 percent,” Treidler’s student and fellow Abadá instructor Antonio Contreras says. Camisa and Treidler are in constant contact, and he was present at the school’s January batizado graduation ceremony at Dance Mission Theater.

Eighty-plus students take classes at Abadá San Francisco chapter. They perform at places like the Academy of Sciences and in the Ethnic Dance Festival. The studio also offers Portuguese classes. Although there are only three adult Brazilians who currently take classes, the studio is somewhat of a center for Brazilian culture here in the city. Displays that tell of the legacy of capoeira line the walls in the main room, interspersed with statues of figures in traditional poses. Brazil’s world-famous street art duo Os Gemeos have whimsically rendered Abadá practitioners in large paintings that hang in the studio’s front stairwell, alongside the Mestranda’s portrait.

It is perhaps indicative of Treidler’s own start in the sport that her students are nothing if not diverse. At the recent batizado, the spotlight lingered on tiny children, middle-aged practitioners, developmentally-disabled capoeiristas sparring, flipping, playing musical instruments, and smiling tremendously in an immense roda, the circle of practitioners that encloses a capoeira presentation.

Treidler is the only instructor that Contreras, her only other full-time teacher at Abadá SF has ever had. An ex-personal shopper, he has called the studio home since 2000, when the sounds of single-stringed berimbaus and tambourine-like pandeiros pulled him into the studio after dinner at a Mission Street restaurant. He was amazed by the maculelê, the traditional dance that accompanies capoeira, and impressed by Treidler’s presence.

“I was like, ‘whoa, who’s that’ — this larger than life person,” he remembers. He was back that Tuesday for his first class. A cardio-weights gym rat who still employs a personal trainer, Contreras says that first day was the best workout of his life. He started noticing the changes in his body “immediately.”

“To me, it was very natural to learn from Márcia,” Contreras says, sitting next to a jar full of juice one afternoon at the studio. “The advantage is that she had it tough. She identifies with the difficulties you face because she has had her own.” He himself felt unflexible and uncoordinated when he first started his practice. He’s convinced that many instructors would have given up on him long ago.

But Treidler’s teaching eventually brought Contreras to a level of mastery that compelled him to quit his day job, to stop having to rush to the school from the stores every day at 5:45pm. Contreras says that the decision to commit to teaching is a natural part of capoeira.

Unlike other martial arts forms, in which the progressively more masterful levels of belt reward physical mastery of the form and discipline, capoeira reserves the next stage of training — and corresponding 10 colors of cords worn around your hips — for those who have displayed their ability to role model for others.

Treidler originally made ends meet here in San Francisco by working construction jobs, starting to teach capoeira a few times a week at SoMa’s Rhythm and Motion dance studio. She was deemed eligible for an “alien of extraordinary ability” visa by the US government and opened her first studio on Mission in between 19th and 20th Streets, moving to the current space 11 years ago.

Capoeira’s divergent skill sets — singing, playing musical instruments, sparring, and dancing — do seem to be a sport that can reward many kinds of students. Treidler resists generalizing when it comes to her students, but will say that the “women are very rational. Men identify with the power. I think that’s why it’s unique. We help each other in class.”

Capoeira is a good opportunity to let go of the “I’m sorry” hair trigger that plagues some females. “Women are too careful with each other,” the Mestranda says. “It’s like, I’m sorry? There’s no sorry! You get out of the way. That’s the challenge, for women not to think about it so much.” It’s difficult to picture Treidler hesitating — but then, she has been in rodas since she was 17 years old.

At the batizado in December, the Mestranda’s values of inclusion are as visible among her white-uniformed students as the high fives they can’t stop giving each other in the roda. After each class of graduates’ names are called, honorees “play games” — capoeira terminology for the minute-long sparring sessions that show off the flowing acrobatics and feigned violence of the sport. These run the gamut from the younger kids’ hyper, sky-high flips — done alongside each other as much as at each other — to the more focused bouts between older students. The latter range in tone from comical to rapid-fire serious. Everyone looks really good — er, healthy.

After a 2012 packed with performances, Treidler’s ready to expand her flock, make it possible for her part-time instructors to follow her path and leave their construction or restaurant job to focus on their passion for the sport. “What’s next you know?” she asks, somewhat rhetorically. “How can we use capoeira to make the world a better place?”

Abadá Capoeira 3221 22nd St., SF. (415) 206-0650, www.abada.org

 

The inauguration and the economic divide

Zelda Bronstein
-
112
The inauguration and the economic divide

Second inaugration speeches are hard; you have to be political without sounding partisan, inspiring without being divisive — and promise change and progress even if you haven’t accomplished what you wanted in the first term. The Obama address surprised me: He went left, making clear that he wants economic and social equality to be his final legacy. It’s getting rave reviews in the lib-blogosphere, where it’s been described as the speech liberals have been begging him to give for years. You can’t argue with the content — he mentions gay rights, global climate change, equal pay, protecting social security, economic inequality, the need for collective effort … he even talks about reforming the tax code.

So now comes the hard part: The struggle for economic justice has to go beyond a compromise plan that limits higher tax rates to people earning more than $400,000 a year.

In fact, the best thing I read this weekend was a NY Times piece by Nobel-Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who argues forcefully that continued economic inequality is prolonging the recession. It’s also destroying the nation’s future:

Our skyrocketing inequality — so contrary to our meritocratic ideal of America as a place where anyone with hard work and talent can “make it” — means that those who are born to parents of limited means are likely never to live up to their potential. Children in other rich countries like Canada, France, Germany and Sweden have a better chance of doing better than their parents did than American kids have. More than a fifth of our children live in poverty — the second worst of all the advanced economies, putting us behind countries like Bulgaria, Latvia and Greece. Our society is squandering its most valuable resource: our young.

Stiglitz says what few in Washington want to admit: We can’t get the economy going again without rebuilding the middle class, and we can’t do that without higher taxes on the rich and a lot more public investment in education. Oh, and all this talk of how it’s out of our control is bullshit:

There are all kinds of excuses for inequality. Some say it’s beyond our control, pointing to market forces like globalization, trade liberalization, the technological revolution, the “rise of the rest.” Others assert that doing anything about it would make us all worse off, by stifling our already sputtering economic engine. These are self-serving, ignorant falsehoods. Market forces don’t exist in a vacuum — we shape them. Other countries, like fast-growing Brazil, have shaped them in ways that have lowered inequality while creating more opportunity and higher growth. Countries far poorer than ours have decided that all young people should have access to food, education and health care so they can fulfill their aspirations.

Makes me think about some of what I hear out of San Francisco City Hall. Oh, we can’t do anything about economic inequality; that’s a national issue. Or maybe it’s a state issue. I bet there’s not an elected official in town today who woudn’t proclaim complete agreement with everything Obama just said — and there are very few of them who are trying to bring that message back home.

In San Francisco, we give tax breaks for businesses that create high-end jobs that drive poor people out of town. We happily seek development without considering the impact it will have on existing vulnerable populations. We even struggle over free Muni for low-income youth. We do nothing — nothing — to reclaim wealth from the 1 percent and put it into local housing, public education, and job-training that could make a dent in our local economic inequality.

Mr. Mayor: Are you even paying attention?

 

 

 

 

 

 

1...111213...62Page 12 of 62

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org