Energy

Cleaner and cheaper

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>>Click here for our chart explaining how San Francisco can take over PG&E’s system — and wind up with $214 million a year in extra revenue. (PDF)

>>Click here for a comparison of public power and investor-owned utilities on rates and renewable energy. (PDF)

>>Click here for a comparison of Mark Leno’s Sacramento PG&E and SMUD (public) bills. (PDF)

› amanda@sfbg.com

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has been saying that if the Clean Energy Act passes, it will cost the city $4 billion — and electricity bills will go up $400 a year per household to cover the costs.

But according to a Guardian analysis, a publicly owned utility could cover the costs of taking over PG&E’s system, finance enough renewable energy generation to make the local grid 50 percent green, and still generate $214 million a year in surplus income — without raising rates a dime.

In fact, the city could cut electricity rates by 15 percent — so that the average San Francisco home using 1,000 kWh a month would save $400 per year — and the system would still make $107 million profit annually.

Our analysis is based on conservative assumptions, and probably underestimates the city’s potential revenue. The figures all come from publicly available sources.

The bottom line: PG&E’s campaign materials are, at best, gross distortions of the truth.

WHAT PUBLIC POWER WOULD COST


The Clean Energy Act, which will appear as Proposition H on the November ballot, mandates that the city undertake a study to determine the most cost effective and expeditious way to achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2040.

If the study determines that a publicly owned utility would provide the cheapest, cleanest energy, the first thing the city would need is a distribution system — the wires, poles, substations, breakers, and all the other physical infrastructure required to provide power. The legislation authorizes city officials to issue revenue bonds to build a distribution system or to buy PG&E’s, either through a negotiated sale price or eminent domain.

In 2001, the last time the city voted on a public power measure, PG&E said its system was worth $1.4 billion. Seven years later, although much of the system has deteriorated, the price has jumped to $4 billion. But utility officials freely admit they have no hard numbers: in a letter dated July 24, David Rubin, the director of service analysis, wrote, "PG&E has not done an inventory of its system, but it is readily apparent that the fair market value of PG&E’s electric system exceeds $4 billion … "

There are, in fact, hard numbers on the value of the system — numbers that both PG&E and state tax officials have used and agreed on for years.

The state Board of Equalization is tasked with determining property values on utilities and levying taxes accordingly. In 2007 the board reports, PG&E paid taxes on property worth $1.2 billion in San Francisco. That’s what the state auditors say is the value of everything PG&E owns here, including both the electricity and gas distribution lines, the buildings on Market and Beale streets, the service center, vehicles, desks, computers — much of which the city would have no interest in acquiring.

According to documents acquired through a public records request, the city controller’s office assumed in its ballot analysis of the cost of Prop. H that 50 percent of the assessed value was utility related.

We’ll make the same assumption. If the San Francisco controller and Board of Equalization are right, the actual value of PG&E’s electricity distribution infrastructure is $595 million.

That could be a bit low or a bit high — real estate appraisal is an inexact science — but at least it’s derived from a solid number. Even if you assume that the board’s appraisers are off by a few tens of millions of dollars in either direction, the number PG&E has put forward is wrong by about 600 percent.

Rubin’s letter to the city controller outlined how PG&E determined $4.18 billion as the system’s worth — by using "replacement cost new less depreciation" (RCNLD) as a measure. "California law specifically approves RCNLD as a method for valuing improvements to land, such as the electric facilities at issue here," Rubin wrote.

But appraisers disagree with Rubin. "The Code of Evidence section they are referring to mentions RCNLD as one of many pieces of evidence that can be considered in valuation cases," a veteran appraiser with knowledge of PG&E’s system, who requested anonymity, told the Guardian.

Because PG&E is a regulated utility that passes all the capital costs of doing business onto customers, many valuators argue that the rates those customers pay (reflected in the BOE figures) indicate the true value of the system.

"The value is the value is the value," the appraiser said. "Both PG&E and the BOE agree that fair market value is approximately equal to rate base." That, in this case, would be about $600 million.

William Marcus, a lead economist on utility issues for JBS Energy with 29 years experience in the field, told us that the standard method employed by the BOE in valuing energy utilities is original cost less depreciation and deferred taxes. "I’m not going to tell you RCNLD is $4 billion because PG&E has been known to come up with very high values," Marcus said. Even the RCNLD value is "almost certainly a serious matter of controversy." Marcus, a Yolo County resident, witnessed the 2006 public power battle between the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and PG&E, and said, "There was almost a factor of four between what PG&E was saying and what SMUD was saying and they were both using RCNLD."

"A reviewing court might look at RCNLD but would also look at original cost," Marcus said. "So you’ve got a high end and a low end."

The city would pay an interest rate of between 4.5 to 5.5 percent on revenue bonds, according to Ken Bruce in the Board of Supervisors Budget Analyst’s office. He pointed out that revenue bonds are repaid by dedicated revenue streams that are identified prior to the bond issuance, which can affect the interest rate. "It would be subject to a lot of scrutiny by rating agencies," he said. With this in mind, we used the high end in our analysis, and assumed annual payments at 5.5 percent. If the city buys the system at the price the Board of Equalization and Controller’s Office estimates, and the bonds are repaid over 20 years, the annual cost would be $49.8 million.

CLEANER THAN PG&E


Prop. H sets ambitious standards for renewable energy — but our analysis shows that a city agency could easily afford to increase dramatically its alternative energy portfolio.

Some public power utilities (like private utilities) still rely on dirty coal and large hydropower — but this isn’t true of public power in California. Of the five major public power utilities we surveyed, all except the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power are doing a better job at developing renewables than PG&E.

Just across the Bay, Alameda has enacted a very aggressive renewable-energy plan. "As we go forward, there’s a chance we might be 100 percent renewable if the price is reasonable," Alan Hangar of Alameda Power and Telecom told us. In November, the Alameda city utility will ink two new deals for energy produced at landfills and boost the agency’s percentage of renewables from 55 percent to almost 70. A deal for more hydropower is also in the works.

Hangar said the utility was able to purchase more renewables without raising rates "because we’re tight-fisted. We don’t have a lot of solar because it’s so expensive. But if the price came down we’d look at it."

Even though public power agencies aren’t under the same state mandate of 20 percent renewable by 2010 that investor-owned utilities like PG&E are required to meet, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District set its own renewable power goal — and has already surpassed it. "Being a utility with a board of directors elected by the public, there’s more pressure there to get renewable energy in the mix," said SMUD spokesperson Chris Capra. "The voters here told us they want more solar and green energy." SMUD recently started offering customers solar power from a 1 MW array owned by a private company that sells the power to SMUD. Because the sun is an infinite resource, unlike natural gas, oil, and coal, the utility was able to lock in a long-term affordable rate for the power. "Now we can get solar power to customers who can’t do solar on their own," Capra said.

For calcuutf8g the cost of renewables, we used figures from the city’s Community Choice Aggregation plan. If Prop. H passes, the CCA plan would be implemented as the first step toward the overall goal of 100 percent renewables by 2040.

According to the plan, over the first three years the city would phase in 360 MW of renewable energy, greening 50 percent of our grid. The Board of Supervisors already authorized the use of revenue bonds to finance 150 MW of new wind generation, 31 MW of photovoltaic cells, 72 MW of distributed generation, and 107 MW of enhanced conservation measures. The CCA plan calls for a three-year investment of $129 million for solar and $170 million for wind.

The supervisors have already passed the CCA plan, and it’s been signed by Mayor Gavin Newsom. That legislation authorized $1.2 billion in bonds to finance the plan — more than enough to get the renewable energy ball rolling.

Other financing possibilities exist. For example, PG&E’s energy efficiencies are paid for by a public goods charge levied by the California Public Utilities Commission, which for San Franciscan ratepayers totals $7 million per year. The city-owned system would manage that money instead — and that surcharge is already included in the average rate we calculated.

Furthermore, there are state and federal subsidies that can be applied to renewable energy purchases — these would be given to customers to purchase rooftop solar panels, wind turbines, and other distributed generation that could contribute up to 72 MW of the initial 50 percent in the first phase of the CCA plan. The city already gives $3 million in solar incentives to residents, and this program could be expanded with additional revenue generated from the power business.

We assumed the city could generate a substantial portion of the power it needs from renewables. For the first few years, power would still need to be bought on the spot market; we included those figures in the expense column.

The total costs for operating the system — including operations and maintenance, power purchases, and replacing the taxes that PG&E currently pays to the city: $524.45 million.

THE REVENUE SIDE


But after all the expenses are added up, selling electricity is still a lucrative business. If the city kept power rates at the same level PG&E currently charges — that is, if nobody’s electric bill went up or down at all — the city would clear $214 million a year in surplus revenue from the system. That’s almost as much as the current budget deficit.

Of course, a public power agency — run by accountable public officials — might decide to cut rates instead of banking cash. So we ran a scenario in which the city would cut rates by 15 percent. The bottom line: San Francisco still comes out $107 million ahead.

How can a city agency sell power so much cheaper and still make money?

For starters, PG&E has a guaranteed profit margin of 11.7 percent, approved by the state. A city-owned system doesn’t have to please shareholders with its profit — any surplus here could be folded into the general fund, remain in the San Francisco PUC piggy bank for future infrastructure needs, or be refunded to taxpayers. This is the basic difference between public and private ownership of a utility — and it translates into lower, more stable rates over time.

"For a number of years, we had no rate increases at all," said SMUD’s Chris Capra, who explained that the agency was able to stave off rising natural gas prices because of bulk purchases locked in at low rates. Last year the elected SMUD Board voted for a 7 percent rate increase to cover rising power costs and replace equipment.

The agency’s rates are still far lower than what San Franciscans pay to PG&E — and the private utility has announced it will seek a 6.5 percent rate increase in January.

And now PG&E’s $107 million lie

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Once again, as always, PG&E is using a Karl Rove-type tactic to try to knock out the Clean Energy Act (Prop H).
Lie. Lie. Lie, and Lie again. Our editorial and Amanda Witherell story in the Wednesday Guardian knock out their biggest Lie: that the Clean Energy Act will cost the city billions. It won’t. Instead, the act will save the consumers money, save the city money, and challenge the argument that clean and green have to be more expensive. Here are the specifics from our detailed conservative analysis. B3

Click here to read this week’s editorial, PG&E’s $107 million lie: Prop. H not only sets aggressive targets for renewable energy; it opens the door for a city-owned and city-operated electrical system

Get paid $100, if you’re not too liberal

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by Amanda Witherell

After we ran an article on the remarkable coincidences between opponents of the Clean Energy Act and people who take money from PG&E, reader J.J. Hollingsworth sent the following anecdote. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Hollingsworth wrote:

“Regarding Eric Jaye’s comment, “They’ve pledged enough to educate every voter in San Francisco.”

On August 19th, I received a call from Focus Point Marketing Group which promised to pay me $100 for two hours of my time provided I call back for an interview in order to be a part of a group seminar on August 21st which would address social issues.

I called the lady back and asked what the social issue was about.

She said it was about the administration of public utilities in San Francisco. We established a rapport and I said that the subject would interest me and I checked my schedule and indeed was available for the two-hour seminar at 450 Sansome on August 21st from 6-8 p.m. The pay at $50 per hour was intriguing.

I proceeded with the interview which was a question tree about if I’m registered to vote, how likely I am to vote in November, etc. When we got to the part about whether I consider myself conservative, moderate, or liberal. My answer was, “I guess I’m liberal.” She said something to the effect of, “Well, you are in San Francisco where people are liberal, but unfortunately I can’t sign you up.”

Still intrigued by the $100, I said something to the effect of “Well, let’s mark me down as ‘moderate’ because some people out here think I’m conservative on certain issues.” So we proceeded with the interview. The next question was “What political party are you affiliated with?” I told her that I registered with the Green Party over twenty years ago. (It’s not easy being green and my voting record does not always concur with the Green Party line.)

The sweet lady at the other end of the phone replied, “Ma’am, I can’t win for losin’ here.” And so we left it cordially, and with humor – I could not attend the August 23rd ‘party’ and go home with $100.

My main point here is that despite all the fundraising bravura, I believe PG&E considers at least some of the population here in San Francsico uneducable.”

Locking up the press

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› sarah@sfbg.com

On Aug. 20 the San Francisco Chronicle reported that video blogger Josh Wolf, who spent 226 days in federal prison in 2006 for refusing to testify before a grand jury and hand over his video of a protest turned violent, had begun working as a reporter with the Palo Alto Daily Post.

"Video blogger gets job as ‘real journalist,’<0x2009>" crowed the headline.

The article noted that some critics believe Wolf was a protest participant and not an impartial news gatherer, and accurately observed that his case fueled the debates over what defines a reporter and who deserves to be protected by the reporter’s privilege to protect confidential sources.

But it failed to mention that one of Wolf’s harshest critics was Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders, nor did it clarify that in recent years several federal courts have found that reporters — all reporters, even from major newspapers — can be forced to testify before grand juries.

California doesn’t allow its courts to compel journalists to reveal unpublished information, but the federal government has no such shield law. That’s why prosecutors could jail New York Times reporter Judith Miller, charge Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada with contempt, and slap USA Today‘s Toni Locy with hefty fines — all for refusing to disclose confidential sources and materials.

And as reporters continue to face contempt charges in federal court cases nationwide, Congress has been considering two very different versions of a federal shield bill.

These two versions take widely varying approaches toward who and what is protected. And thanks to Senate Republicans, who blocked all business not related to energy legislation before Congress’ August recess, a vote on the Senate bill did not occur at the end of July.

As a result, if the Senate doesn’t act by the end of September, both versions of the federal shield will likely die. And, depending on whom you talk to, that may or may not be a good thing.

The Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 (HR 2102), which the House of Representatives passed in October of that year, only protects journalists if their work is done for a substantial portion of the person’s livelihood or for substantial financial gain. In other words, no protection for Wolf, for most bloggers, or for many freelancers.

The good news is that the House bill extends protections to any documents or information obtained during the newsgathering process.

By comparison, the Senate bill (S 2035) only protects the identity of confidential sources, and any records, data, documents, or information obtained under a promise of confidentiality.

The Senate shield would cover any journalist who "engages in the regular gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public."

But it no longer requires the government to prove by preponderance of evidence that the information it seeks is essential, or that it has exhausted all other methods. And it makes more difficult any challenge by the reporter, based on whether the information involved is "properly classified" or whether its disclosure would harm national security.

It also expands the list of exceptions for which protection would be precluded: if disclosure could prevent criminal activities, terrorism, kidnapping, or imminent death or bodily harm; identify a person who has released some categories of private business and medical information; and where reporters witness criminal or tortuous conduct.

"I can’t overstate how much better the House bill is," Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told the Guardian.

Although Dalglish is hopeful Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will schedule the bill for a vote, she fears there won’t be enough time for a conference committee to iron out the differences between the two bills before the end of September, which means that only one version will have a chance of passing into law.

"My guess is that it will be the Senate bill, because the House will pass the Senate bill in a heartbeat, but the Senate will never pass the House bill," Dalglish observed.

Reached on break from his reporter gig, Wolf voiced his opposition to the Senate bill. "A shield law riddled with holes is no shield at all," Wolf said.

"It boggles my mind that any journalist could support the bill the way it is written," said Wolf, who would like to see a common law reporter privilege similar to the one for psychiatrists and therapists. "This is a shield law, in which, as best as I can tell, every single federal contempt case is carved out as an exception," Wolf opined.

While Dalglish acknowledges that the Senate shield only addresses subpoenas that seek to identify confidential sources (about 20 percent of subpoenas), she believes the Chronicle‘s Williams and Fainaru-Wada would have been protected, as would Locy.

"But Josh [Wolf] would not have been covered because he was not protecting confidential sources, and Judith Miller would have had a shot, though her case would have a more difficult time because of national security implications," Dalglish said. "And while by far the most subpoenas don’t have to do with confidential sources, they are the holy grail of journalism ethics, and you certainly have to, at a minimum, protect them — and the Senate bill is minimal."

Dalglish believes that both the Senate and House bills would allow the truthful, accurate, and independent gathering of information to go public, so the public could use this information at ballot boxes and in city halls, and ensure that people who have information to share could share it with reporters and the public.

"It’s not about protecting reporters," Dalglish added. "Reporters are not that special, in any shape or form. It’s about protecting the right of reporters to freely work on the public’s behalf, without being viewed as agents of the US Attorney."

Noting that the law in the Senate is not going to change what happened to Wolf in that instance because he was not protecting a confidential source, Dalglish’s message for reporters facing subpoenas, first and foremost, is: "Resist, tell them you don’t have it.

"Your obligation is to be independent, not an agent of the government," he continued. "So take your video, put it on a Web site, and make sure the public gets to see it at same time as the US Attorney."

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

I made my nine-year-old son sit down and watch Barack Obama’s acceptance speech. I told him this was history happening, that he would never forget this moment, that when I was his age the idea of a black man standing up and accepting the nomination of the Democratic Party to be president of the United States was even beyond the stuff of dreams.

His response: "Why was that?"

Yes, we are making progress. Michael’s public school class learns about Martin Luther King Jr., but the kids are struggling to comprehend how this country could once have forced black and white people to drink out of different water fountains. We are not a post-racist society by any means, but even in my most depressed and cynical moments, I know we are making progress.

And so we sat through a good speech, possibly a great speech, although I can’t go along with the bloggers and commentators who announced just a few minutes after it ended that it was the best convention speech anyone ever made. I kind of think Obama was better in 2004.

But it’s tough to do all the things his handlers said he needed to do. They think he hasn’t been aggressive enough in responding to John McCain’s attacks, so he spent far too much of his prime time talking about why the other guy is a chump. They worry about how popular McCain’s oil drilling proposal is, so he had to make a really dumb comment about safe nuclear energy, which is an oxymoron if ever there were one.

He had to lay out a specific plan so he wouldn’t sound vague.

It got better toward the end, when he started sounding like the inspirational leader he has the potential to be. And what struck me — and what will be a huge part of this campaign, under the surface — was this comment:

"Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us."

And this on negative campaigning:

"And you know what — it’s worked before. Because it feeds into the cynicism we all have about government. When Washington doesn’t work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it’s best to stop hoping, and settle for what you already know."

I think one of the central questions of American policy today is going to be rectifying the profound difference between John F. Kennedy and the Avengers. Kennedy, of course, urged his generation to "ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country." The Avengers, Penelope Houston’s 1980 San Francisco punk band, put it another way: "Ask not what you do for your country / What’s your country been doin’ to you?"

I grew up with the second one. The government sent you to Vietnam and spied on you and locked you up for smoking pot, and we joked about the greatest lie in the world being, "I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you."

Denver last week was full of people too young for either slogan, and their energy is what fuels the Obama movement. Government working for us, not against us, lacks Kennedy’s rhetorical flourish, but the idea is right — and if Obama can make that a theme for the next eight years, he’ll be doing something truly revolutionary.

Take Lowe’s off the table

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EDITORIAL The battle over a proposed Home Depot store on Bayshore Boulevard several years ago dominated politics for a while in two supervisorial districts and became a nasty battle over race, jobs, small business, and community development priorities that spread citywide. In the end, with Sup. Aaron Peskin providing the swing vote, the Board of Supervisors approved the giant chain store.

And then — as giant out-of-town chains will do — Home Depot abruptly pulled the plug last spring. After all the tumult and the shouting, the bitterness and bad feelings, the big-box retailer decided it really didn’t want a store in southeast San Francisco.

Since then Sups. Tom Ammiano (who opposed Home Depot) and Sophie Maxwell (who supported it) have met and worked together to create a development plan that makes sense for the big empty lot on Bayshore. The two supervisors involved community leaders and tried to create a public process that would prevent the kind of fight the neighborhoods faced over Home Depot.

It was a hopeful sign — until now. Because the owners of the lot — the Goodman family, which once ran Goodman Lumber there — have come forward with a new proposal that’s almost exactly the same as the old one. This time, it’s Lowe’s Home Improvement.

If the supervisors, the mayor, and the community learned anything from the past few years, it’s that big-box chains can’t be trusted and aren’t an appropriate base for community and economic development in San Francisco. The mayor and the supervisors should make it clear now, before we go through another long, ugly battle, that big-box isn’t part of the future of Bayshore Boulevard.

Big chain stores defy all the basic premises of progressive urban planning. They exist and operate on a car-driven suburban model, with large parking lots that attract drivers. They add traffic and pollution to local streets and are inconsistent with the city’s attempts to be a greener, more sustainable community. They pay low wages (in fact, Lowe’s is the subject of a class-action suit in 11 states charging that the chain makes its employees work overtime without pay). The money they make leaves the community immediately, offering little in local economic benefits. And they destroy neighborhood-serving small businesses.

They are, by their nature, monocrop economic entities — when the entire future of an area depends on one so-called anchor store, then the community is vulnerable to decisions made elsewhere. Home Depot could have opened, then been closed after a year. Lowe’s could do the same.

The Eastern Neighborhoods plan envisions a huge new influx of housing into the area, and city planners admit the result will be a loss of blue-collar jobs. So the city can’t let the Bayshore site sit empty for years while some North Carolina–based megaretailer decides the neighborhood’s fate. And the last thing the Bayview, the Mission, and Bernal Heights need is another drawn-out conflict over a home improvement store.

The Mayor’s Office ought to be working with Ammiano and Maxwell to come up with an alternative plan for the area (solar energy? local home improvement stores?) that creates decent jobs, generates tax revenue — and remains true to a sustainable economic and environmental vision for the city. Step one is to take Lowe’s off the table.

Man in the middle

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>>More: For the Guardian’s live coverage of the Democratic National Convention 2008, visit our Politics Blog

› steve@sfbg.com

As the Democratic National Convention was drawing to an explosive close Aug. 28, Barack Obama finally took center stage. In an address to more than 70,000 people, he presented his credentials, his proposals, and his vision. Most in the partisan crowd thought he gave a great speech and left smiling and enthused; some bloggers quickly called it the greatest convention speech ever.

I liked it too — but there were moments when I cringed.

Obama played nicely to the middle, talking about "safe" nuclear energy, tapping natural gas reserves, and ending the war "responsibly." He stayed away from anything that might sound too progressive, while reaching out to Republicans, churchgoers, and conservatives.

He also made a statement that should (and must) shape American politics in the coming years: "All across America something is stirring. What the naysayers don’t understand is this isn’t about me — it’s about you."

Well, if this is really about me and the people I spend time with — those of us in the streets protesting war and the two-party system, people at Burning Man creating art and community — then it appears that electing Obama is just the beginning of the work we need to do.

As Tom Hayden wrote recently in an essay in the Guardian, Obama needs to be pushed by people’s movements to speed his proposed 16-month Iraq withdrawal timeline and pledge not to leave a small, provocative force of soldiers there indefinitely.

After a 5,000 mile, 10-day trip starting and ending at Black Rock City in the Nevada desert with Denver and the convention in between, I’ve decided that Obama is a Man in the Middle.

That creature is essential to both Burning Man and the Democratic National Convention, a figure of great significance — but also great insignificance. Because ultimately, both events are about the movements that surround and define the man.

THE BIG TENT


Nominating Obama was a historic moment, but the experience of spending four days at the convention was more like a cross between attending a big party and watching an infomercial for the Democratic Party. It was days of speeches followed by drinking — both exclusive affairs requiring credentials and connections for the biggest moments.

This year’s convention saw a new constituency come into full bloom. It was called the Big Tent — the literal name for the headquarters of bloggers and progressive activists at the Denver convention, but it also embodied the reality that the vast blogosphere has come of age and now commands the attention of the most powerful elected Democrats.

The tent was in the parking lot of the Alliance Building, where many Denver nonprofits have their offices. It consisted of a simple wood-frame structure two stories high, covered with a tent.

In the tent were free beer, food, massages, smoothies, and Internet access. But there was also the amplified voice of grassroots democracy, something finding an audience not just with millions of citizens on the Internet, but among leaders of the Democratic Party.

New media powerhouses, including Daily Kos, MoveOn, and Digg (a Guardian tenant in San Francisco that sponsors the main stage in the Big Tent) spent the last year working on the Big Tent project. It was a coming together of disparate, ground-level forces on the left into something like a real institution, something with the power to potentially influence the positions and political dialogue of the Democratic Party.

"When we started doing this in 2001, there just wasn’t this kind of movement," MoveOn founder Eli Pariser told me as we rode down the Alliance Building elevator together. "The left wing conspiracy is finally vast."

The Big Tent constituency is a step more engaged with mainstream politics than Burning Man’s Black Rock City, an outsider movement that sent only a smattering of representatives to the convention, including me and my travel mates from San Francisco, musician Kid Beyond and Democratic Party strategist Donnie Fowler, as well as the Philadelphia Experiment’s artistic outreach contingent.

It’s an open question whether either constituency, the Big Tent bloggers and activists or the Black Rock City artists and radicals, are influencing country’s political dialogue enough to reach the Democratic Party’s man in the middle. Obama didn’t mention the decommodification of culture or a major reform of American democracy in his big speech, let alone such progressive bedrock issues as ending capital punishment and the war on drugs, downsizing the military, or the redistribution of wealth.

But those without floor passes to the convention represent, if not a movement, at least a large and varied constituency with many shared values and frustrations, and one with a sense that the American Dream is something that has slipped out of its reach, if it ever really existed at all.

These people represent the other America, the one Obama and the Democratic Party paid little heed to during their many convention speeches, which seemed mostly focused on bashing the Republican Party and assuring heartland voters that they’re a trustworthy replacement. But that’s hardly burning the man.

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Photo by Mirissa Neff

AMERICAN DREAM


It’s been almost a year since Burning Man founder Larry Harvey announced that the art theme for the 2008 event would be "American Dream." I hated it and said so publicly, objecting to such an overt celebration of patriotism, or for setting up a prime opportunity for creative flag burning, neither a seemingly good option.

But I later came to see a bit of method behind Harvey’s madness. After announcing the theme, Harvey told me, "There was a cascade of denunciations and maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. It pricked people where they should be stimulated." He asks critics to read his essay on the Burning Man Web site explaining the theme: "It says that America has lost its way."

But he also said that the disaffected left and other critics of what America has become need to find a vision of America to fight for, something to believe in, whether it’s our Bill of Rights (pictured on Burning Man tickets this year) or some emerging manifestation of the country. "Americans need to find our pride again," Harvey told me. "We can’t face our shame unless we find our pride."

I was still dubious, since I tend toward Tolstoy’s view of patriotism: that it’s a bane to be abolished, not a virtue to be celebrated. Harvey and I have talked a lot of politics as I’ve covered Burning Man over the past four years, and those discussions have sharpened as he has subtly prodded participants to become more political, and as burners have reached out into the world through ventures such as Black Rock Arts Foundation, Burners Without Borders, and Black Rock Solar.

I’ve become friends with many of the event’s key staffers (some, like BWB’s Tom Price, through reporting their stories). This year, one employee (not a board member) I’m particularly close to even gave me one of the few gift tickets they have to hand out each year, ending my five-event run of paying full freight (and then some). I’m also friends with my two travel mates, Kid Beyond, a.k.a. Andrew Chaikin, and Fowler, who handled field organizing for Al Gore in 2000, ran John Kerry’s Michigan campaign four years later, and was attending his sixth presidential convention.

Kid Beyond and I arrived at Black Rock City late Friday night, Aug. 22, and found the playa thick with deep drifts of dust, making it a difficult and tiring bicycle trek into the deep playa where San Francisco artist Peter Hudson and his crew were building Tantalus. But it was worth the ride, particularly if seeking a great take on the American Dream theme.

Like most creations at that early stage of the event, it wasn’t up and running yet, but it would be by Aug. 24, when the event officially began. Still, even in its static state, it was an art piece that already resonated with my exploration of how the counterculture sees the national political culture.

Tantalus looks like a red, white, and blue top hat, with golden arms and bodies around it. And when it spins around, totally powered by the manual labor of visitors working four pumper rail cars, the man — a modern American Tantalus — reaches for the golden apple being dangled just out of his reach and falls back empty-handed.

It’s a telling metaphor for such a big week in American politics.

There were plenty of political junkies on the playa, including two friends who let me crash in their RV for two nights and who left the playa for Denver after a couple of days. Fowler’s sweetie, Heather Stephenson, is with Ideal Bite (their logo is an apple minus one bite) and was on an alternative energy panel with Mayor Gavin Newsom, Denver’s mayor, John W. Hickenlooper, and Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado.

"The American Dream to me is not having barriers to achievement," Stephenson told me. It is Tantalus getting some apple if he really reaches for it. Fowler said that it is "the freedom to pursue your own dream without interference by government or social interests." But, he added, "the American Dream is more a collective dream than an individual dream."

Bay Area artist Eric Oberthaler, who used to choreograph San Francisco artist Pepe Ozan’s fire operas on the playa, hooked up with the Philadelphia Experiment performers years ago at Burning Man — including Philly resident Glenn Weikert, who directs the dance troupe Archedream. This year they created "Archedream for America," which they performed at Burning Man and the Democratic National Convention. Weikert told me the artistic and collaborative forces that Burning Man is unleashing could play a big role in creating a transformative political shift in America.

"These are two amazing events that are kind of shaping the world right now," Weikert said. "A lot of the ideas and views are similar, but people are working in different realms."

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Tantalus. a Burning Man installation
Photo by Steven T. Jones

MEDIA, 15,002 STRONG


Kid Beyond and I arrived in Denver around 8 a.m., Aug. 25, after a 16-hour drive from Black Rock City, cruising through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado, a couple of which Obama will probably need to win in November if he’s to take the White House.

We headed into the city just as a gorgeous dawn was breaking, arriving with a few hours to spare before our Democratic National Convention press credential would have been redistributed to other journalists, who reportedly numbered more than 15,000. After arriving at my cousin Gina Brooks’ house, we showered, got settled, and jumped on our bikes to pick up our press credentials.

All week, we and others who rented or borrowed the thousands of bicycles made available to visitors used the beautiful and efficient Cherry Creek Bike Trail to get around. It cut through the heart of Denver, passing the convention and performing arts centers, which boasted a great sculpture of a dancing couple, and ran close to the Big Tent in downtown on one side and the convention hall, the Pepsi Center, on the other.

It was a great way to travel and a marked contrast to the long car trip, which felt as if we were firing through tank after tank of gas. Bike travel also proved a smart move — most of the streets around the convention were closed off and patrolled by police in riot gear riding trucks with extended running boards, with military helicopters circling overhead.

The massive Pepsi Center was less than half full a couple hours after the gavel fell to open the convention, but it filled quickly.

The broadcast media had it good, with prime floor space that made it all the more congested for the delegates and others with floor passes. Most journalists were tucked behind the stage or up in the cheap seats, and we couldn’t even get free Internet access in the hall. But journalists could get online in the nearby media tents, which also offered free booze and food.

Even though Hillary Clinton announced she was releasing her delegates to vote for Obama, those I spoke to in San Francisco’s delegation — Laura Spanjian, Mirian Saez, and Clay Doherty — were still planning to vote for Clinton on that Wednesday, although all said they would enthusiastically support Obama after that.

"It’s important for me to respect all the people who voted for her and to honor the historic nature of her candidacy," Spanjian said. "And most of all, to respect her."

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tried to rally the faithful for the "historic choice between two paths for our country." She belittled the view that John McCain is the most experienced presidential candidate. "John McCain has the experience of being wrong," she said, emphasizing his economic views and his instigation of the "catastrophic" Iraq War.

There were only a smattering of protesters outside the convention center, the most disturbing being anti-abortion activists bearing signs that read, "God hates Obama," "God is your enemy," "The Siege is Here," and one, wielded by a boy who was maybe 12, that read "God hates fags." Family values indeed.

THE ROLL CALL


San Francisco Sup. Chris Daly was giddy when I joined him in the two-thirds full California delegation during the nominating speeches for Obama and Clinton. It was partly because he was finally an official delegate, having been called up from his role as alternate a couple of hours earlier. But an even bigger reason for his joy was that he’s a serious political wonk and just loves the roll call, the only official business of the convention.

"This is the best part of the convention, roll call. It’s cool," Daly, the consummate vote counter, told me as we watched the chair ask each state for their votes. "The speeches are OK, but this is what it’s about."

And pretty soon, this kid in the candy shop was losing his mind as we watched a series of genuinely newsworthy developments in an otherwise scripted convention: California Democratic Party Chair Art Torres was saying "California passes" rather than reporting our votes, states like New Jersey and Arkansas were awarding all their votes to Obama and causing the room to go nuts, and a series of states were yielding to others.

As the chair worked alphabetically through the states, Obama’s home state of Illinois became the second state to pass. Very interesting. Indiana gave 75 of its 85 votes to Obama. Minnesota gave 78 of its 88 votes to Obama, then erupted in a spirited cheer of "Yes we can." Daly and San Francisco delegate London Breed were on their feet, cheering, chanting, and pumped.

With Obama getting close to the number of delegates he needed to win the nomination (there was no tally on the floor and I later learned Obama had 1,550 of the 2,210 votes he needed), New Mexico’s representative announced that the state was "yielding to the land of Lincoln." Anticipation built that Illinois would be the state to put its junior senator over the top.

Then Illinois yielded to New York, and the screens showed Clinton entering the hall and joining the New York delegation. "In the spirit of unity and with the goal of victory," Clinton said, "let us declare right now that Barack Obama is our candidate."

She made the motion to suspend the vote count and have the whole hall nominate Barack Obama by acclamation. Pelosi took the podium and asked the crowd, "Is there a second?" And the room erupted in thousands of seconds to the motion on the floor. She asked all in favor to say "aye," and the room rumbled with ayes. To complete the process, Pelosi said those opposed could say no, but simultaneously gaveled the motion to completion, causing the room to erupt with cheers. I heard not a single nay.

The band broke out into "Love Train" and everyone danced.

NEWSOM’S STAGE


Mayor Gavin Newsom threw a big party Aug. 27, drawing a mix of young hipsters, youngish politicos, and a smattering of corporate types in suits and ties. Although he didn’t get a speaking slot at the convention, Newsom is widely seen as a rising star in the party, far cooler than most elected officials, and maybe even too cool for his own good.

Comedian Sarah Silverman did a funny bit to open the program at the Manifest Hope Gallery (which showcased artwork featuring Obama), then introduced Newsom by saying, "I’m honored to introduce a great public servant and a man I would like to discipline sexually, Gavin Newsom."

Apparently Newsom liked it because he grabbed Silverman and started to grope and nuzzle into her like they were making out, then acted surprised to see the crowd there and took the microphone. It was a strange and uncomfortable moment for those who know about his past sex scandal and recent marriage to Jennifer Siebel, who was watching the spectacle from the wings.

But it clearly showed that Newsom is his own biggest fan, someone who thinks he’s adorable and can do no wrong, which is a dangerous mindset in politics.

Another slightly shameless aspect of the event was how overtly Newsom is trying associate himself with Obama (the party was a salute to the "Obama Generation") after strongly backing Clinton in the primaries. And then, of course, there’s the fact that his party was sponsored by PG&E (a corrupting influence in San Francisco politics) and AT&T (facilitators of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping policy).

I was able to interview Newsom about Clinton before the party. "People can criticize her, but I do think that you’ve never seen a runner-up do so much to support the party’s nominee," Newsom told me. "She’s done as much as she could do, privately as well as publicly."

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Clinton’s dramatic roll call moment
Photo by Mirissa Neff

OBAMA NIGHT


Amid all the excitement, there were scary moments for the progressives. For example, Joe Biden, accepting the vice-presidential nod, urged the nation to more aggressively confront Russia and send more troops into Afghanistan.

During one of the most high-profile points in the convention, halfway between the Gore and Obama speeches, a long line of military leaders (including Gen. Wesley Clark, who got the biggest cheers but didn’t speak) showed up to support Obama’s candidacy. They were followed by so-called average folk, heartland citizens — including two Republicans now backing Obama. One of the guys had a great line, though: "We need a president who puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney," said Barney Smith. "The heartland needs change, and with Barack Obama we’re going to get it," he added.

Of course, these are the concerns of a progressive whose big issues (from ending capital punishment and the war on drugs to creating a socialized medical system and fairly redistributing the nation’s wealth) have been largely ignored by the Democratic Party. I understand that I’m not Obama’s target audience in trying to win this election. And there is no doubt he is a historic candidate.

Bernice King, whose father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech 45 years to the day before Obama’s acceptance speech, echoed her father by triumphantly announcing, "Tonight, freedom rings." She said the selection of Obama as the nominee was "decided not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. This is one of our nation’s defining moments."

But there is still much work to do in convincing Obama to adopt a more progressive vision once he’s elected. "America needs more than just a great president to realize my father’s dream," said Martin Luther King III, the second King child to speak the final night of the convention. Or as Rep. John Lewis, who was with King during that historic speech, said in his remarks, "Democracy is not a state, but a series of actions."

BACK TO THE BURN


We left Denver around 1:30 a.m. Friday, a few hours after Obama’s speech and the parties that followed, driving through the night and listening first to media reports on Obama’s speech, then to discussions about McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

The Obama clips sounded forceful and resolute, directly answering in strong terms the main criticisms levied at him. Fowler said the Republicans made a very smart move by choosing a woman, but he was already getting the Democrats’ talking points by cell phone, most of which hammered her inexperience, a tactic that could serve to negate that same criticism of Obama.

We arrived back on the playa at 5:30 p.m. Friday, and a Black Rock Radio announcer said the official population count was 48,000 people, the largest number ever. The city has been steadily growing and creating a web of connections among its citizens.

"That city is connecting to itself faster that anyone knows. And if they can do that, they can connect to the world," Harvey told me earlier this year. "That’s why for three years, I’ve done these sociopolitical themes, so they know they can apply it. Because if it’s just a vacation, we’ve been on vacation long enough."

Yet when I toured the fully-built city, I saw few signs that this political awakening was happening. There weren’t even that many good manifestations of the American Dream theme, except for Tantalus, Bummer (a large wooden Hummer that burned on Saturday night), and an artsy version of the Capitol Dome.

Most of the people who attend Burning Man seem to have progressive values, and some of them are involved in politics, but the event is their vacation. It’s a big party, an escape from reality. It’s not a movement yet, and it’s not even about that Black Rock City effigy, the Man. Hell, this year, many of my friends who are longtime burners left on Saturday before they burned the Man, something most veterans consider an anticlimax.

It’s not about the man in the middle, either; it’s about the community around it. And if the community around Obama wants to expand into a comfortable electoral majority — let alone a movement that can transform this troubled country — it’s going to have to reach the citizens of Black Rock City and outsiders of all stripes, and convince them of the relevance of what happened in Denver and what’s happening in Washington, DC.

Larry Harvey can’t deliver burners to the Democratic Party, or even chide them toward any kind of political action. But the burners and the bloggers are out there, ready to engage — if they can be made to want to navigate the roads between their worlds and the seemingly insular, ineffective, immovable, platitude-heavy world of mainstream politics.

"As hard as it will be, the change we need is coming," Obama said during his speech.

Maybe. But for those who envision a new kind of world, one marked by the cooperation, freedom, and creativity that are at the heart of this temporary city in the desert, there’s a lot of work to be done. And that starts with individual efforts at outreach, like the one being done by a guy, standing alone in the heat and dust, passing out flyers to those leaving Black Rock City on Monday.

"Nevada Needs You!!!" began the small flyer. "In 2004, Nevada was going Blue until the 90 percent Republican northern counties of Elko and Humboldt tilted the state. You fabulous Burners time-share in our state for one week per year. This year, when you go home please don’t leave Nevada Progressives behind! ANY donation to our County Democratic Committee goes a long way; local media is cheap! Thanks!!!"

Change comes not from four days of political speeches or a week in an experimental city in the desert, but from the hard work of those with a vision and the energy to help others see that vision. To realize a progressive agenda for this conservative country is going to take more than just dreaming.

Ed Note: The Guardian would like to thank Kid Beyond, who traveled with Jones and helped contribute to this report.

Investment advice to House Speaker Pelosi: Sell

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

That’s right, Speaker Pelosi. Sell and sell fast.

That’s the advice that the guest host on the Bob Brinker “Market Watch” program on KGO-radio gave out Saturday when a caller called up to complain about her investment in T. Boone Pickens’ Clean Energy Fuels Corp. legislation she is proposingI am referring to the $50,000 to $l00,000 invesment you and your husband Paul have made made with that old swiftboaterT.Boone Pickens and his Clean Energy Fuels Corporation in Texas.

The issue of your investment has shot through financial and political circles ever since the story was broken in the Wall Street Journal (8/23/08) that your investment with Pickens could benefit legislation you are proposing to increase the use of natural gas.

The political point, according to the Wall Street Journal story (8/2402008) and a followup Bruce blog, is that you as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives are favoring and proposing legislation to increase the use of natural ags

McCain’s dangerous choice

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ByBruce B. Brugmann

Yes, McCain’s choice for vice-president is a dangerous one. Here’s the best summary I’ve seen demonstrating just how dangerous, from MoveOn.org. B3

Dear MoveOn member,
Yesterday was John McCain’s 72nd birthday. If elected, he’d be the oldest president ever inaugurated. And after months of slamming Barack Obama for “inexperience,” here’s who John McCain has chosen to be one heartbeat away from the presidency: a right-wing religious conservative with no foreign policy experience, who until recently was mayor of a town of 9,000 people.

Huh?

Who is Sarah Palin? Here’s some basic background:

She was elected Alaska’s governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.1

Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.2

She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000. 3

Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.4

She’s doesn’t think humans are the cause of climate change.5

She’s solidly in line with John McCain’s “Big Oil first” energy policy. She’s pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won’t be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.6
How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.7
This is information the American people need to see. Please take a moment to forward this email to your friends and family.

We also asked Alaska MoveOn members what the rest of us should know about their governor. The response was striking. Here’s a sample:

She is really just a mayor from a small town outside Anchorage who has been a governor for only 1.5 years, and has ZERO national and international experience. I shudder to think that she could be the person taking that 3AM call on the White House hotline, and the one who could potentially be charged with leading the US in the volatile international scene that exists today. —Rose M., Fairbanks, AK

She is VERY, VERY conservative, and far from perfect. She’s a hunter and fisherwoman, but votes against the environment again and again. She ran on ethics reform, but is currently under investigation for several charges involving hiring and firing of state officials. She has NO experience beyond Alaska. —Christine B., Denali Park, AK

As an Alaskan and a feminist, I am beyond words at this announcement. Palin is not a feminist, and she is not the reformer she claims to be. —Karen L., Anchorage, AK

Alaskans, collectively, are just as stunned as the rest of the nation. She is doing well running our State, but is totally inexperienced on the national level, and very much unequipped to run the nation, if it came to that. She is as far right as one can get, which has already been communicated on the news. In our office of thirty employees (dems, republicans, and nonpartisans), not one person feels she is ready for the V.P. position.—Sherry C., Anchorage, AK

She’s vehemently anti-choice and doesn’t care about protecting our natural resources, even though she has worked as a fisherman. McCain chose her to pick up the Hillary voters, but Palin is no Hillary. —Marina L., Juneau, AK

I think she’s far too inexperienced to be in this position. I’m all for a woman in the White House, but not one who hasn’t done anything to deserve it. There are far many other women who have worked their way up and have much more experience that would have been better choices. This is a patronizing decision on John McCain’s part- and insulting to females everywhere that he would assume he’ll get our vote by putting “A Woman” in that position.—Jennifer M., Anchorage, AK

So Governor Palin is a staunch anti-choice religious conservative. She’s a global warming denier who shares John McCain’s commitment to Big Oil. And she’s dramatically inexperienced.

In picking Sarah Palin, John McCain has made the religious right very happy. And he’s made a very dangerous decision for our country.

In the next few days, many Americans will be wondering what McCain’s vice-presidential choice means. Please pass this information along to your friends and family.

Thanks for all you do.

–Ilyse, Noah, Justin, Karin and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. “Sarah Palin,” Wikipedia, Accessed August 29, 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

2. “McCain Selects Anti-Choice Sarah Palin as Running Mate,” NARAL Pro-Choice America, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17515&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=1

3. “Sarah Palin, Buchananite,” The Nation, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17736&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=2

4. “‘Creation science’ enters the race,” Anchorage Daily News, October 27, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17737&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=3

5. “Palin buys climate denial PR spin—ignores science,” Huffington Post, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17517&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=4

6. “McCain VP Pick Completes Shift to Bush Energy Policy,” Sierra Club, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17518&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=5

“Choice of Palin Promises Failed Energy Policies of the Past,” League of Conservation Voters, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17519&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=6

“Protecting polar bears gets in way of drilling for oil, says governor,” The Times of London, May 23, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17520&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=7

7 “McCain met Palin once before yesterday,” MSNBC, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=21119&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=8

Want to support our work? We’re entirely funded by our 3.2 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

——————————————————————————–
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. This email was sent to lani silver on August 30, 2008. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.

American Dreamer: Notes from Underground

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TheRoad.jpg
Steven T. Jones and Kid Beyond are driving to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, stopping by Burning Man on the way there and back, reporting on the intersection of the counterculture and the national political culture.

By Kid Beyond

Wednesday afternoon: the nominating speeches. They’re playing against type. Third-youngest delegate Jordan Apollo Pazell, from a 720-person town in Utah, seconds Hillary’s nomination on behalf of his two great- grandmothers — both still alive and in Utah, both born before women had the right to vote. Nominating Obama is Michael Wilson, a young Iraq War vet and lifelong Republican.

Speaker after speaker, the talking points are the same. The failing economy. Health care. A swift exit from Iraq. A more nuanced foreign policy. Clean energy, and clean energy jobs. Restoring the American Dream — prosperity through hard work.

PG&E: the best politicians we can buy!

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

For a complete list (2.35 MB) of everyone who signed on to a PG&E-paid ballot argument and a full list of all of the individuals, companies, and nonprofits that got PG&E money in 2007, click here (Excel).

Click here to read Amanda Witherell’s story, PG&E’s blank check: Who is the utility buying off? Start with Newsom, Feinstein, and Willie Brown.

And so there they are, up on the website of PG&E’s front group (www.closeitcoalition.org), in their blizzard of mailers and doorhangers, and on PG&E’s ballot arguments against the Clean Energy Initiative (Prop H):

The best politicians that PG&E can buy!

For starters, as Amanda Witherell lays out in the current Guardian (“PG&E’s Blank check, who is the utility buying off?”) note that the list is headed by two former mayors who churned away for PG&E during their terms in office (Diane Feinstein, of the sellout Turlock/Modesto contracts fame, and Willie Brown, of the “stolen election” and missing ballot box tops fame) and our current Mayor Gavin Newsom, who with PG&E funding and sponsorship is throwing a big expensive party tonight called “Unconvention ’08” at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Stop the presses: Guardian city editor Steve Jones sends the following blog item on Newsom’s refusal to allow him to come to tonight’s PG&E party with this email note: “’Due to the high volume of submissions, we were unable to process your request at this time. If tickets become available we’ll send you an e-mail and SMS text with details,’” it said. Unable to process my request? And this is the guy who wants to be governor? I plan to go anyway and see if I can crash the party, backed by my publisher’s promise to bail me out of jail if I get arrested. Wish me luck.”

Alas, maybe Steve’s problem is that he doesn’t qualify for the PG&E donor list or the permitted press list of press people and bloggers who don’t write critically of PG&E or write supportively of Prop H and clean energy and renewables. With Steve, it’s a story whether he gets in or gets kicked out. Watch for it on the Bruce blog.

I am putting up two instructive lists on who PG&E is buying. One is the list of everyone who signed on to a PG&E-paid ballot argument, plus those who paid for the argument themselves. The other is a full list of the hundreds individuals, companies, and non-profits that PG&E gave tens of millions of dollars to in 2007, according to a financial statement PG&E filed with the California Public Utilities Commission.

The key point: go through the lists so that you can pose the right questions: Why did they sign on with PG&E to take chunks of money from PG&E? Why did they sign ballot arguments retailing PG&E lies? Why did they take money for PG&E, what did they do for PG&E (example: what did Willie Brown do for his $200,000 in “consulting services’)? Are they getting money during the campaign and if so, how much and what services are they providing?
I think you will be surprised at who is getting what from PG&E and how embarrassed they will be when you start asking questions. Let me know what you find out.

B3, watching from my office window today’s smoggy fumes from the Potrero HIll power plant, courtesy of PG&E, Mayor Newom, Willie Brown, and Hearst journalism

Ballot Arguments paid for by PG&E:

SF Firefighters Local 798, POA, and David Wong
Professional Property Management Association and Coalition for Better Housing
SF Republican Party
Doug Chan
Anni Chung, senior activist
FDR Democratic Club, under August Longo
Elsa Cheung
SF Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Nadine Weil and Rev. Sally Bingham
Bay Area Council
Citizens for a Better San Francisco, Michael Antonini, Edward Poole, Harmeet Dhillon
Golden Gate Restaurant Association
Lorena Hernandez and Joe Manzo, residents of Potrero Hill
Asian Pacific Democratic Club
Thom Lynch and Don Cecil
Nancy Lenvin and Claire Pilcher, former PUC commissioners
Mel Lee, Library commissioner
Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 38 and IBEW Local 6
SF Small Business Network
Sandy and Jeff Mori
Amos Brown and Calvin Jones
Rudy Asercion

Not paid for by PG&E:

Jeff Brown
Chamber of Commerce
BOMA SF PAC
Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods
Plan C
IBEW Local 1245
James Fang
Harold Hoogasian

Vizzy with the possibilities

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KATIE KURTZ PICKS


•"The Wizard of Oz" Not much has changed since L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz debuted over a century ago and gave Americans something we still crave: escape to a fantastical land free of wicked witches. These days it’s not the Emerald City that Dorothys everywhere are tripping toward but a place called "hope." The works in this group show curated by Jens Hoffmann, including more than 20 artists (Clare Rojas, Raymond Pettibon, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, et al.), were made either in response to the classic tale or relate to the story’s many layered meanings.

Sept. 2–Dec. 13. Reception Sept. 2. CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, 1111 Eighth St., SF. (415) 551-9210, www.wattis.org

•"Vocabularies of Metaphor: More Stories" In this group show of works on paper highlighting deconstructed narratives, all but two of the 16 artists included are women — one of Henry Darger’s Vivian Girls drawings makes an appearance. "Vocabularies" is a chance to see how women are considering the figure — female, male, and animal — in a postnatural world, though this idea is not the exhibit’s emphasis. Of note are Rachelle Sumpter’s gauzy gouaches, Canadian Yuka Yamaguchi’s dismembered turtles, and Pakistani Shahzia Sikander’s nature-inspired pattern-making.

Sept. 6–Oct. 18. Reception Sept. 6. Hosfelt Gallery, 430 Clementina, SF. (415) 495-5454, www.hosfeltgallery.com

•California Academy of Sciences The mothership of scientific and sustainable nerdiness finally opens! This Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified facility includes a planetarium, swamp, rainforest, and a living roof. If you prefer your nature virtual, you can always hang out with the PenguinCam.

Big Bang opening gala Sept. 25; free to the public all day Sept. 27. 55 Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park, SF. (415) 379-8000, www.calacademy.org

•"Brought to Light: Photography and the Invisible, 1840-1900" Scientific photography of yesteryear is a healthy reminder of just how long we’ve been trying to discover everything that can possibly be discovered and recording it for posterity. More than 200 photographs, American and European, scientific and pseudoscientific.

Oct. 11–Jan. 4, 2009. SFMOMA, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org

•"The Gatherers: Greening Our Urban Spheres" Co-curated by Berin Golonu and independent curator Veronica Wiman of Sweden, this activist exhibition is intended to further the green dialogue through collaborations between artists and organizations, conversations with the public, and urban interventions.

Oct. 31–Jan. 11, 2009. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-ARTS, www.ybca.org

KIMBERLY CHUN PICKS


•"Barbara Holmes and Casey Logan" What a dump! The two artists’ four-month residency climaxes with 3-D work inspired by and composed of salvaged material. Sculptor Holmes worked with wooden lattice to create a series of kaleidoscopic forms in assorted states of weatheredness, while Logan morphed musical gear and other detritus into pieces that meld with his fascination with science and fiction.

Sept. 26–27. SF Recycling Art Studio, 503 Tunnel, SF. www.sfrecycling.com/AIR

•"Nikki McClure" The graphic rep of Olympia, Wash.’s riot grrrl scene is undoubtedly best known for her bold, iconic paper cuts revolving around nature, motherhood, activism, and community. Music cover-art, illustrations, and books have all found a place in a vision grounded in simple gestures, uncontrived pleasures, and everyday labors.

October–November. Needles and Pens, 3253 16th St. SF. (415) 255-1534, www.needles-pens.com

•"Outpost" Exploding the imaginary and futuristic dimensions of architecture, "Outpost" collects the apocalyptic planes and jagged rubble of Bay Area sculptor David Hamill and the dazzling grids and Spirograph-esque constructs of New York City artist Jeff Konigsberg.

Sept. 5–Oct. 18. Reception Sept. 5. Johansson Projects 2300 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 999-9140, johanssonprojects.net

•"Hilary Pecis" Folktronica, meet your maker: the SF artist creates her downright psychedelic panoramas by layering drawings with fragments sliced from glossy magazines. Pecis was also recently named as a recipient of the 2008 Murphy and Cadogan Fellowships in the Fine Arts and will be showcased at SF Arts Commission Gallery.

Sept. 6-26. Reception Sept. 6. Receiver Gallery, 1415 Valencia, SF. (415) 550-RCVR, receivergallery.com. Also "Immediate Future: the 2008 Murphy and Cadogan Fellowships in the Fine Arts," Sept. 6-Oct. 18. SFAC Gallery, 401 Van Ness, SF. (415) 554-6080, www.sfacgallery.org

•"Yves Saint Laurent" Viva le smoking! The beloved groundbreaker may be dead, but Yves Saint Laurent has never been hotter, judging from this autumn’s many attempts at rich-hippie/gypsy folklorico, highly sexed men’s wear for women, and silky Parisian-lady drag. This major retrospective’s single US turn showcases more than 120 accessorized ensembles in addition to drawings, photos, and videos.

Nov. 1–March 1, 2009. De Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, SF. (415) 750-3600, www.famsf.org/deyoung

JOHNNY RAY HUSTON PICKS


• "I Feel I Am Free But I Know I Am Not" See “Connect four,” this issue

Sept. 4–Nov. 1. SF Camerawork, 657 Mission, 2nd floor, SF. (415) 512-2020, www.sfcamerawork.org

• "Double Down: Two Visions of Vegas" Olivo Barbieri looks at Vegas as toy town.

Sept. 18–Jan. 4, 2009. SFMOMA, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org

•"Bayete Ross-Smith: Pomp & Circumstance" and "Jonathan Burstein: Visage" Ross-Smith’s prom portraits are fresh, and Burstein’s paintings of museum guards trampoline off the humor present in his handsome past portraits of himself.

Sept. 4–Oct.11. Patricia Sweetow Gallery, 77 Geary, mezzanine, SF. (415) 788-5126, www.patriciasweetwogallery.com

• "Lutz Bacher: ODO"

Oct. 31–Dec.31. Ratio 3, 1447 Stevenson, SF. (415) 821-3371, www.ratio3.org

• Open Studios A step outside the galleries, museums, and art fairs — for better, for worse, and for real.

Oct. 11–Nov. 2. Various locations, SF. (415) 861-9838, www.artpsan.org

• "Dustin Fosnot: Simmons Beautyrest" Fosnot’s comic inventiveness should be a relief.

Oct. 14–Nov. 15. Steven Wolf Fine Arts, 49 Geary, suite 411, SF. (415) 263-3677. www.stevenwolffinearts.com

• "LA Paint" A survey of 11 painters, sure to fan a variety of Bay-and-LA flames.

Oct. 4–March 8, 2009. Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak, Oakl. (510) 238-2200, www.museumca.org

• "These are the People in Your Neighborhood" Mr. Rogers is quoted for this 15th birthday celebration including work by Libby Black and Xylor Jane, among others.

Sept. 12–Oct. 17. Gallery 16, 501 Third, SF, www.gallery16.com

•"Artists Ball Seven: The New Party" Stanlee Gatti and Mos Def, together at last.

Oct. 3. YBCA, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2700, www.ybca.org

•"Warhol’s Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered" A prelude to "Warhol Live," which hits the de Young next year.

Oct. 12–Jan. 25, 2009. Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF. (415) 655-7800, www.thecjm.org

>>More Fall Arts Preview

Reclaiming San Francisco — from cars

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY On Sunday, Aug. 31, the Mayor’s Office and several community groups join forces to bring San Francisco into an international movement to increase physical activity, break down invisible borders, and make scenic space available to all during the city’s first ciclovia.

More than 4.5 miles of streets will be closed to cars that day from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. for Sunday Streets, the first of two ciclovias scheduled this summer. The idea of the ciclovia — which is Spanish for "cycle way" or "bike path" — was conceived in Bogotá, Colombia, during the mid-1990s and has since spread throughout the world.

The concept is to take existing roads — the province of cars — and turn them into temporary paths for walking, jogging, cycling, and other physical activity.

"I think it really helps us re-imagine our city streets as places of safe, non-auto physical activity," said Wade Crowfoot, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s director of global climate change. "From an environmental perspective, it’s time we re-imagine our space and our streets, and to make streets accessible to everyone."

The route extends from Bayview Opera House, up Illinois Street to the Embarcadero, along the waterfront, and across Washington Street into Chinatown. Five activity pods will feature dance classes, yoga, hopscotch, jump rope, and more, and participants are encouraged to explore as much of the route as they can. The Giants’ stadium will be open to pedestrians and bikers who want to run the bases, and event facilitators say they hope this 4.5-mile stretch will grow into something bigger.

"We hope this is just the beginning, and that it succeeds all over the city," said Andy Thornley, program director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

The man largely credited with starting the ciclovia is Gil Penalosa, who implemented the idea as Bogotá’s commissioner of parks and recreation in 1995. Penalosa now runs a nonprofit called Walk and Bike for Life that promotes the ciclovia and other forms of active living.

San Francisco’s event is modest: Bogotá closes off more than 80 miles of looping streets every Sunday and on holidays. More than 1.5 million people turn out each week, according to the Walk and Bike for Life Web site. Ottawa closes more than 30 miles of space on Sundays from May to September, and events have taken place all over Europe in addition to the American continents.

The ciclovia is also part of the car-free movement, an international effort to promote alternatives to car dependence and automobile-based planning.

Besides saving energy and promoting fitness, event planners at ciclovias in Bogotá noticed the events were causing a cultural shift. The Christian Science Monitor reported in an Aug. 18 article that residents from different neighborhoods began interacting as never before. Indian residents of poorer neighborhoods used to halt at the imaginary dividing lines of the more affluent European neighborhoods, and vice versa, but now people mingle freely.

San Francisco organizers hope to use Sunday Streets to create a similar effect here.

"We deliberately chose the route that connects the Bayview to Chinatown, two communities that are historically disconnected," said Susan King, the event’s organizer. "We want people to go to Hunters Point and Chinatown and see what’s out there, with the hope that people will see things they want to come back to."

King also noted that these two neighborhoods lack adequate open space. "We want people in those communities to experience what people who live adjacent to Golden Gate Park and the Presidio get to experience on a regular basis — an opportunity to exercise and not worry about getting hit by cars," King said.

Another international trend that Sunday Streets continues is the reclaiming of waterfront space. Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City, said he recently visited Vancouver and experienced its 28 miles of bicycle and pedestrian paths along the water. Paris also has a ciclovia every summer that closes a major expressway and creates a beachfront and promenade along the Seine.

"[The Embarcadero] — that big, dangerous roadway — cuts the city off from the waterfront," Radulovich said. "We want to think about the possibility of reclaiming the water space more successfully for San Franciscans."

One of the few voices of opposition to Sunday Streets came from a group of Pier 39 merchants who worried about the economic impact.

The Board of Supervisors voted Aug. 5 not to delay the event until an economic impact report had been released, but Crowfoot said traffic impact analyses will be done this weekend so that there will be better understanding of the impact of any future events. But many ciclovias have actually increased business because people are more prone to stop and look in stores when they walk by instead of just driving past them.

PG&E’s blank check

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› amanda@sfbg.com

For a complete list (2.35 MB) of everyone who signed on to a PG&E-paid ballot argument and a full list of all of the individuals, companies, and nonprofits that get PG&E money every year, click here (Excel).


It’s Saturday morning, Aug. 23, and at the plumber’s union hall on Market Street, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. employees are leading a rally in opposition to San Francisco’s Clean Energy Act. A table at the back of the room sags with urns of coffee and uneaten pastries. To the side are towers of glossy black "Stop the Blank Check" window signs. E-mails sent by event organizers said Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Mayor Gavin Newsom were expected to attend, but so far, there’s no sign of either.

"On behalf of the men and women at PG&E, thanks for giving up your Saturday," PG&E vice president John Simon tells participants, who will be spending the afternoon walking San Francisco’s streets passing out No on Proposition H propaganda.

But the audience isn’t listening.

Most of the people packed into the room are Asian kids, giggling and chatting and ignoring the English-only presentation. One group of boys playfully pushes each other, accidentally bumping into some stage lighting and earning a reprimand from a rally organizer. The kids ignore him. I ask some of the young people if they’re with a school or club, or if they’re part of JROTC, which has an informational booth in the vestibule. They look at me blankly and turn away, muttering in Cantonese. I question a few others and get similar responses.

Outside, I find a young man who speaks English. He tells me the kids aren’t really here for the rally. "It’s just a job," he says. They’re getting $15 an hour to hang flyers on doorknobs — flyers that read "hand-delivered by a Stop the Blank Check Supporter."

The Committee to Stop the Blank Check is the official campaign committee fighting the Clean Energy Act, which will appear as Prop. H on the November ballot. The group, however, is funded by a blank check from PG&E.

"They’ve pledged enough to educate every voter in San Francisco," the committee’s campaign manager, Eric Jaye, told the Guardian at the Saturday rally.

It’s no surprise that the campaign workers are paid for by PG&E — in fact, just about everyone who has come out against Prop. H seems to be getting money from the utility.

The Clean Energy Act sets ambitious goals for moving the city into renewable energy — goals that go far beyond current state mandates. It also calls for a study into San Francisco’s energy options and authorizes the city to issue revenue bonds to buy or build energy facilities.

An investigation into the elected officials, committees, and groups that oppose Prop. H shows cash from PG&E in nearly every coffer.

The official ballot argument against the Clean Energy Act is signed by Feinstein, Newsom, and three supervisors initially appointed to the board by the mayor: Michela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu, and Sean Elsbernd.

Feinstein’s loaded with PG&E money. Since 2004, Feinstein has received $15,000 in direct contributions from PG&E, according to OpenSecrets.org. More significant, perhaps, is that Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, serves as chairman of the board of CBRE, a real estate firm that did $4.8 million in business with PG&E in 2007, according to an annual report the utility files with the state of California.

Campaign finance disclosure statements from Feinstein state that her husband receives fees and income from CBRE, and has $250,000 and $500,000 in investment holdings.

Feinstein’s spokesperson, Scott Gerber, said there was no conflict of interest. But Citizens for Responsibility in Ethics spokesperson Naomi Seligman added, "The ethics rules are so incredibly narrow that unless Senator Feinstein was pushing or voting for something that would impact only Mr. Blum, it doesn’t count as a conflict."

Still: Feinstein’s getting cash directly from PG&E, and then doing the company’s political bidding.

NEWSOM’S PG&E PARTY


Newsom, who has won campaigns with PG&E’s financial support in the past, is hosting a party called "Unconventional ’08" in Denver this week. Guess who’s one of the three listed sponsors? PG&E. (The other two are AT&T and the carpenter’s union.) And, of course, the person running Newsom’s campaign for governor is PG&E’s main man, Eric Jaye.

Sups. Alioto-Pier and Elsbernd? Both had PG&E money shunted through independent expenditure committees. Sup. Chu is currently running to keep her seat in District 4.

Former Mayor Willie Brown tops the list of endorsers on Committee to Stop the Blank Check’s Web site. PG&E paid Brown $200,000 in consulting fees during 2007.

Neither Brown nor PG&E returned calls for comment and clarification on what exactly Brown’s consulting involves, or how much he’s getting this year.

Of the 30 paid ballot arguments that will be listed in November’s Voter Information Pamphlet, PG&E bought 22 of them — many for well-funded organizations like the Bay Area Council, Golden Gate Restaurant Association, and the Republican Party that could presumably pay for their own $2-per-word screeds against the measure.

The arguments all make the same points and parrot the same PG&E lines.

Jaye said that ballot arguments were routinely paid for by other entities, and of the groups that have healthy bank accounts, he said, "We’d rather those groups invest their money in capacity building for November."

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the Building Owners and Managers Association, and Plan C all paid for their own ballot arguments. In 2007 the Chamber received more than $350,000 from PG&E in the form of dues and grants. BOMA got a $26,500 grant from the utility company, which also hired the outfit for almost $100,000 worth of consulting work. Plan C’s Political Action Committee regularly receives deposits from PG&E during election season.

Other entities that signed arguments paid for by PG&E include: the San Francisco police and firefighter unions, which are constantly asking the city for more money (and now oppose a potential revenue source); the Asian Pacific Democratic Club; the Small Business Network; the Rev. Amos Brown, and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Paying for their own No on H arguments: former San Francisco Public Defender and California Public Utilities Commission member Jeff Brown, the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods, BART board member James Fang, and prominent small businessowner Harold Hoogasian.

PG&E spends millions each year on consultants — and at campaign time, that money turns into political support.

"PG&E’s philanthropy has been paying off into manipuutf8g a network of supporters who believe [Prop. H] is going to do something adverse to their interest when in reality it’s not," said Sup. Ross Mirkarimi.

Money isn’t everything for some organizations. Oakland’s Ella Baker Center for Human Rights received a $10,000 grant from PG&E in 2007. Cofounder Van Jones has endorsed the Clean Energy Act.

There’s no paper trail for how much PG&E has spent to date on this campaign and the utility will be free to spend money without scrutiny until Oct. 6, when the first financial statements related to the November election are due at the Ethics Commission.

THE OTHER SIDE


But PG&E can’t buy everyone — and the coalition supporting the Clean Energy Act is large, broad, and growing.

Prop. H has been endorsed by eight of the city’s 11 supervisors, Assemblymembers Fiona Ma and Mark Leno, and environmentalist and author Bill McKibben. Groups with a variety of different interests, like the League of Conservation Voters, the SF Democratic Party, SEIU 1021, the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, and the Senior Action Network also have given it a green light.

"I think the coalition for it is a much broader coalition than has been for it in the past," said Susan Leal, former head of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, who supports Prop. H. "Because of that, PG&E has ramped up the campaign and put a lot more money into it than in the past."

Mirkarimi, who authored the measure, called the early phone banking, mailers, and door knocking a "signature blitzkrieg campaign," similar to what he witnessed as the manager of the 2001 public power measure that also raised PG&E’s ire — and which lost by about 500 votes. "That’s why PG&E is working so hard now. We were so close in 2001."

John Rizzo of the Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club said his group has already committed money and people to walk districts. But he noted that he has already seen Committee to Stop the Blank Check signs posted in windows on the west side of the city. "We expected it," he said of the resources PG&E has spent to date. "The only thing they have is money."

Rizzo said the Sierra Club has endorsed past public power measures and considers this an environmental issue. "We are finding it’s a pretty broad coalition of folks who might not be together on an environmental issue. The San Francisco Women’s Political Committee PAC just recommended endorsing it to their membership, and that’s not normally an environmental group — though they are a good group."

Leal says the Clean Energy Act really transcends arguments against public power. "I’m mystified why people would not be on board for something that’s cleaner and cheaper," said Leal. "I think I know why a number of others have gotten on board. They recognize that this is the path to clean energy for power."

Jaye wouldn’t assign a specific dollar amount to how much the company is willing to spend to defeat the measure — but he made it clear that there are no limits: "It could take $1 million, it could take $5 million." In 2006, when public power was on the ballot in Yolo County, PG&E spent almost $10 million keeping the 77,000 customers they would have lost to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. The measure lost by one percentage point.

Jaye, who also manages Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign, is quick to point out that the committee has already received 12,000 signed cards of support. Still, he said, they weren’t asking for money from these potential campaign donors "because we have significant and sufficient resources pledged from PG&E."

Extra! Hearst blacks out the word progressive

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“Ultra liberal?” “Far left political factions”? In San Francisco? Hearst, Mayoral Press Secretary Nathan Ballard, and an “ultra liberal” supervisorial candidate from the Excelsior District comment on this astounding election development

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Audrey Cooper, assistant metro editor of the Chronicle/Hearst, has admitted that the Chronicle “has decided to stop using the word ‘progressive’ to describe the more liberal of San Francisco’s political factions.” (See my previous blog).

Does this mean that supporters of the Clean Energy Initiative are suddenly and unexpectedly given the derogatory terms “ultra liberal” and “far left.” Does this mean Aaron Peskin and a majority of the board of supervisors? Assemblyman Mark Leno? Former PUC General manager Susan Leal? Former Mayor Art Agnos? A majority of the Democratic County Central Committee? A batch of supervisorial candidates? Labor leaders? The Sierra Club?

Here’s the email Cooper sent me this afternoon responding to questions from the Bruce blog and the Guardian. Cooper, let us stipulate upfront, has one of the toughest jobs going, trying to explain why Hearst suddenly banned the word progressive in the middle of a PG&E offensive against the Clean Energy Act. More: Hearst banned the word progressive in one of the world’s most progressive cities, in a city that spawned the famous progressive Hiram Johnson and his successful fight against the Southern Pacific Railroad, and on the newspaper founded by a publisher who called himself at one time a progressive and ran for mayor of New York on a platform of municipal ownership of utilities. In San Francisco, Hearst campaigned vigorously on a pro-Hetch Hetchy public power, anti-PG&E platform until he reversed himself in the late 1920s because of a PG&E loan from a PG&E-controlled bank. Hearst’s pro-PG&E, anti-public power position has remained in effect to this day. (See previous Bruce blogs, Guardian stories, and David Nasaw’s authoritative biography, “The Chief.”)

Cooper wrote:

“Hi Bruce.
I’m Wyatt Buchanan’s editor — he passed your e-mail along to me. Sorry that it took me a day to get back to you. In general, feel free to ask anything about our coverage. I’ll always answer as quickly as I can (that is, when it’s an issue I have control over).

I’ve also sent versions of this explanation to others who have inquired. (I’m only telling you that in case you get a similar e-mail forwarded to you — it’s just easier for me to explain it the same way to everyone.)

In short, just because a label is embraced by a political group does not mean it’s the best way to report a story. As you’ve probably noticed, we generally eschew political labels when possible. In some stories (such as the fight for the DCCC and Board of Supes), this is not as easily done. In those cases, we choose adjectives we think are as politically neutral as possible.

We decided to stop using the word ‘progressive’ to describe the more liberal of San Francisco’s political factions because it is a politically loaded term that doesn’t mean much to our readers. And while ‘progressive’ may be the preferred term of some politicians — and, of course, they are free to use it to describe themselves — it doesn’t describe where they sit on the traditional political spectrum.

We believe using adjectives such as ‘far left’ and ‘ultra liberal’ more accurately describe city politicians and policies in that broader context.

Thanks for your time. Feel free to call me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Audrey”

Reliable sources told us that the mayor’s campaign had complained to the Chronicle about the use of the word progressive and that means Eric Jaye, who runs the Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign at the same time he works for PG&E as a paid consultant to PG&E.

Cooper and Nathan Ballard, the mayor’s press secretary denied this. Cooper said:

“Also, I should tell you that we did not make this change in response or after complaints from anyone in the mayor’s office. The mayor’s office does not dictate what words we use.

“Nobody from the mayor’s office has ever contacted me about this issue as far as I can honestly remember. And I can’t recall them saying anything about it over the last two weeks, either.”

Ballard said:

“Personally I’ve never really complained to the Chronicle about this subject. It just wasn’t very high on my to-do list. In fact I don’t recall ever having any conversations about this topic with anyone from the Chronicle until after Heather Knight’s article about the far-left takeover of the DCCC ran.

“I have to admit that I’m pleased to learn from you that the Chronicle will no longer be using the term ‘progressive’ to describe politicians who aren’t. It always struck me as Orwellian doublespeak to describe somebody who wants to legalize sex trafficking and force lobbyists to wear badges as ‘progressive.'”

Executive Editor Tim Redmond responded to Ballard:

“Well, it’s true that the progressives of the early part of the century tended to be against prostitution and drugs and were prohibitionists, a description that I don’t think would accurately describe, say, Aaron Peskin. But over time the term has evolved, and most progressives today are at least open to the idea that sex work should be legalized. Almost all progressives support the legalization of marijuana (and I think Mayor Newsom does, too.)

“I don’t think far-left even remotely describes people like Peskin, whose economic views are pretty close to the mainstream of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Jake McGoldrick clearly isn’t ‘far left.’ I’m not sure even Tom Ammiano could accurately be called ‘far left.’

“I say this as someone who has been called all sorts of names, including Communist, because I advocate higher taxes on the rich and government spending on social services for the poor. At one time, that was pretty much the mainstream opinion of the Democratic Party.

“So who in SF government do you really believe is ‘far left?'”

Ballard responded back to Tim:

“Tim, do us all a favor and count me out of this dorm-room style debate. I never really cared that much whether the Chronicle called these guys progressives, just like I never really cared that much that CW Post calls them Grape Nuts even though they are neither grapes nor nuts.”

George Avalos, a supervisorial candidate in the Excelsior District, also asked Cooper about her designation and sent us her answer and then his comment to her answer. Question: how did Avalos and other progressive candidates in other districts suddenly become “ultra left” and part of a “far left faction?”

Subject: Dude, the preferred nomenclature is . . .

Dear Audrey:

“Thank you for your reply. I was throwing in a little humor here, albeit obscure — a reference to the Big Lebowski.

“Having said that I do believe the Chron’s use of ‘ultra left’ and ‘far left’ is completely biased. After all, who’s the arbiter here about what ‘ultra left’ and ‘far left are?’ What standard are you using and where did it come from? Seems pretty made up to me. Very rarely or better yet, never do I hear progressives talk about themselves in these terms. The Chron’s making it up out of whole cloth.

“It’s unbelievable, that you would even try to justify your use of this language.

“Lastly, if any term is completely meaningless it’s ‘moderate.’ I don’t recall there being a moderate political movement or ideology. A Classical Greek philosophy maybe, but not a political movement like the Progressive Movement. Progressives established labor laws, the women’s right to vote and regulations of our workplaces and food production.

I don’t believe Moderates can claim any such movement or transformation of our government institutions. If there’s something they can champion it’s ameliorating the effects of change or fighting against perennial progressive issues such as single payer health care, taxing high profits and rent control.

Thank you for your response. I really appreciate your sharing with me the Chronicle’s rationale, however shakey it may be.

Sincerely,

John Avalos”

B3 sums up this historic announcement:

So there you have it: a timely snapshot of Hearst double standard ethics: Let Willie Brown do a featured political column on Sunday without disclosing that he is a paid PG&E lobbyist ($200,000 last year alone). Brand all clean energy politicians opposed by PG&E as “ultra liberals” and “far left factions.” And for God’s sake, don’t cover the election in an honest and professional manner and tell us who PG&E is buying off. (See Amanda Witherell story, “PG&E’s blank check, who’s the utility buying off Start with Newsom, Feinstein, and Willie Brown.”) Question: so what will Hearst call the politicians who PG&E buys off? We call Willie PG&E’s Secret Agent Man.

B3, who insists to Cooper he is still a Rock Rapids (Iowa) liberal, and she says she will not challenge it.

Lights out on Labor Council endorsement

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by Amanda Witherell

Picture 1.png
Graph from San Francisco Chronicle, July 26, 2007

Literally.

Last night while the San Francisco Labor Council was meeting to vote on endorsements for the November election, the power cut out.

“I immediately started chanting public power, public power,” said Robert Haaland, who was there on behalf of SEIU 1021. He was referring to the Clean Energy Act – Prop H on the ballot.

Haaland called the experience surreal. “It was literally in the dark and the people counting votes were doing it by flashlight.” Because voting was by delegates, with people standing up for or against it in a dark room it was impossible to see who exactly voted for each side. “Maria Guillen, the COPE chair for 1021 gave a very impassioned speech for public power and also addressed how the campaign against public power has been attacking city workers,” said Haaland. SEIU’s Joint Council voted in favor of endorsing the measure.

Despite the PG&E power outage, the Council chose to go neutral. PG&E has more power outages than any other utility company in the state, according to a July 26, 2007 article in the Chron.

Apparently representatives from some of the trades urged neutrality on the issue, and expressed concern about how retirement and pension benefits would be affected should the city go into the retail power business and buy out PG&E’s infrastructure. According to the Clean Energy Act’s website, “any PG&E employees who become City employees as a result of this Act will not suffer any reduction of compensation or seniority.

If passed, the Clean Energy Act would force the city to establish a long-term energy plan with renewable power benchmarks more aggressive than current state mandates. The city will study how best to achieve this and if it’s determined that a municipally owned electricity system is the most efficient and expeditious way to achieve 100 percent renewable power by 2040, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission will have the authority to issue revenue bonds to purchase and construct the infrastructure to do that.

The full list of Labor Council endorsements can be found in this PDF.

Hearst: Here come the ‘far left factions’

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Extra! Extra! Hearst suddenly finds “far left factions” at work all over town

And now Wyatt Buchanan in his otherwise fine story on supervisorial candidates and public financing (8/25/2008) came up with a new derogatory term for progressives: “far left political factions.”

Yup, first it was “ultra liberals” in the Heather Knight story of Aug. 15. That didn’t seem to fly after the Guardian and others raised the obvious questions about the definition of an “ultra liberal” and where the term came from and the fact that it tied in with the Mayor Newsom operatives who want the term “progressive” for Newsom and the PG&E/downtown operatives who want to bash progressives pushing clean energy and other progressive measures on the November ballot.

So now it’s “far left factions,” even according to Buchanan “far left factions” suddenly operating in, surprise, surprise, the Richmond, Mission, Bernal Heights, and Excelsior Districts. I sent an email to Buchanan and his metro editor, Ken Conner, and asked what they meant by “far left factions.” No answer.

Impertinent questions to the Chronicle’s political reporters and editors: Can you define “ultra liberals” and “far left factions?” If not, why not? Why not just cover this critical election honestly and professionally and tell us what PG&E is really doing to kill the Clean Energy Act? It’s quite a story. I know, I know, this is not the fault of the Chronicle’s reporters and editors. It’s Hearst DNA at work again.

B3, a Rock Rapids (Iowa) liberal who is tired of watching the fumes from my office window of the Potrero Hill power plant, courtesy of PG&E, Mayor Gavin “the Green” Newsom, and Hearst journalism.

Pelosi: is she punting on SF Clean Energy Act?

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Is Pelosi for clean energy in Washington and Denver but standing with PG&E and punting on supporting the Clean Energy Act in San Francisco? Is she investing with T. Boone Pickens and his Clean Energy Fuels Corp. in Texas and punting on clean energy in San Francisco?

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Paul Hogarth, the agile staff writer and columnist for the Beyond Chron website, asked a key question of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a press conference this morning on the first day of the Democratic Convention in Denver.

Hogarth reported on Beyond Chron that he had asked Pelosi that, “because she endorsed Al Gore’s ambitious goals of energy independence by 2019, does she support San Francisco’s Clean Energy Act (Prop H)–which calls for energy independence by 2040.”

“I haven’t see the text,” she told Hogarth, but I support going in that direction. This timetable of energy independence is a path we hope to go on.”

Hogarth made the proper point: Maybe, he noted, she should have sent a proxy to the Democratic County Central Committee endorsement meeting, referring to the recent vote by the DCCC approving the Clean Energy Act. She did not send a proxy to vote and her quote to Hogarth is her only known public response to the measure. The head on Hogarth’s story made his point more direct: “Pelosi Schools Traditional Media; Punts on SF Clean Energy Act.”

Meanwhile, the punting question was raised again for Pelosi by a major story in the Wall Street Journal (8/23/08). The Journal reported that Pelosi and her husband Paul invested between $50,000 and $100,000 in T. Boone Pickens’s Clean Energy Corporation in Texas. The Journal said the investment “could benefit from legislation the California Democrat favors to boost U.S. use of natural gas.”

“The investment is a small fraction of the Pelosis’ net worth. But it highlights the unlikely alliance evolving between Mr. Pickens, an old man with a long history of support for Republican causes, and powerful Democrats who have welcomed Mr. Pickens’s recent campaign for developing alternatives to oil.” (B3: Pickens was a major funder of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, which helped defeat John Kerry in the last presidential election.)

Drew Hammill, a Pelosi spokesperson, told the Journal that the investment “does not raise any direct conflict of interest issues” or violate any ethics rules of the House of Representatives. “The speaker has been an advocate for increasing our country’s energy independence and for renewable energy for years, long before this purchase.”

Pelosi has always been a PG&E ally in San Francisco and Washington, notably in her move to help PG&E and the development gang privatize the Presidio and set the precedent for privatizing the national park system.

So the question for her is even more tantalizing: will she go for clean energy in Washington, Texas, and Denver but stand with PG&E and punt on the Clean Energy Act in San Francisco? We’ll try to get the questions to her. But I suggest that others work on it as well. She’s tough to pin down when it comes to PG&E, clean energy, and renewables back in her home district. B3

PS: How much are the Pelosis worth? Anywhere from $15 million to $156 million (including real estate), according to the The Journal. The investment amounts to less than one per cent off the Pelosis’ total 2007 public and private investment assets, which, not including real estate, are estimated at between $15 million and $52 million, based on the Speaker’s disclosure record, according to the Journal. Including real estate and bank account assets, the Pelosis’ net asset value is estimated at between $35 million and $156 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Ethics? PG&E, Willie Brown, and Hearst

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What is there in the Hearst DNA that keeps it honoring the shameful deal that William Randolph Hearst made with PG&E in the late 1920s to reverse his long standing pro-public power and anti-PG&E position?

By Bruce B. Brugmann

And so when our Guardian reporter Amanda Witherell flashed the word that ex-mayor Willie Brown is still on the PG&E payroll, I sent the following note to Hearst corporate in New York City (which owns the San Francisco Chronicle):

“PG&E has disclosed a $200,000 payment to Willie Brown for ‘consulting services’ for 2007 in its annual report to the California Public Utilities Commission. Now that Willie is doing a featured top-of-the-page political column each Sunday in the Chronicle, I’m curious if he is doing a Chronicle column while still providing ‘consulting services’ for PG&E?

“If so, does Hearst have an ethics policy that covers this apparent conflict? Would it at minimum require disclosure of PG&E payments to Willie in this year and previous years and what was the nature of these ‘consulting services?’ I would appreciate a comment.”

Chronicle Editor Ward Bushee to his credit called me promptly to respond to my questions. (Let us just say his predecessors adopted a variety of stonewalling techniques to avoid answering such questions from the Guardian.)

As attentive Guardian readers know, there is a long history here between Hearst and PG&E and the Willie/PG&E incident is but the latest example of a geologic outcropping of some shameful Hearst history. Hearst was a powerful influence in pushing the original Hetch Hetchy public power project through Congress and beyond, then reversed his policy in the late 1920s as a condition to get a major loan from a PG&E-controlled bank. The pro-PG&E/anti-public power policy continues to this day and nobody I’ve talked to from Hearst through the years can explain why the policy is still in effect to this day.

There is also a juicy history with then Mayor Willie Brown and Hearst. Willie as mayor helped secretly orchestrate for Hearst the deal that allowed Hearst in 2000 to buy the Chronicle, give away the Examiner to the Fang family, and dissolve the Ex/Chron joint-operating agreement with the approval of the Justice Department. Remember all those horse-trading charges in which then Examiner publisher testified under oath that he had used the Examiner editorial pages as a bargaining chip with Willie. (“The Truth Hurts,” by Tali Woodward and Tim Redmond, Guardian 5/10/2000.)

Chronicle editor Ward Bushee to his credit promptly called me to respond. This was a refreshing change from his predecessors who went to creative lengths to stonewall on such questions. I asked Bushee if he knew about the PG&E payment to Willie and if Hearst considered this a conflict with its ethics policy for Willie to be on the PG&E payroll while, among other things, attacking the progressives who voted for the Clean Energy Act that PG&E is opposing with mighty muscle and many millions.

Bushee did not see a conflict nor think that disclosure of Willie’s clients was necessary. Bushee said that Willie is widely known, is “a man about town,” has a popular column, is subject to “strenuous editing,” but is “a freelance columnist who is free to pursue his business interests as any other person who is not a part of the staff.” He said that, if Willie were on staff, he would be subject to Hearst’s “ethical standards.”

Since this issue is of such journalistic importance, I summarized Bushee’s positions and sent him an email and asked if I had properly and fully reflected his and Hearst’s position. I also asked how he could reconcile his and Hearst’s position with the Ethics Code of the Society of Professional Journalists which states that “journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know…should avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived…disclose unavoidable conflicts. (The Guardian and many media use the SPJ code.)

Bushee responded by email by my deadline (missing it by two minutes). He wrote, and I quote in full,

“I’m not going to cover the same ground that we did this morning. However, I will say that since Willie Brown’s column was introduced into the Sunday Chronicle, it has been very well received by readers because it is amusing, topical, controversial and informed. Willie has special connections to the Bay Area. That Wiliie Brown has outside interests and income was well noted when he undertook the column and was no secret to anybody who has followed his career.

“A summary of his political career was published when the column was launched.

“You well know that Willie is one of the most quoted San Franciscans in the Chronicle and other media outlets around the Bay Area. He is a sought-after guest for local, regional, and national TV shows. I’m told that you have been a guest of his radio show with Will Durst. Willie is not a journalist or a member of the news staff of the Chronicle, but his column goes through extensive planning with one of our most experienced journalists and then then same rigorous editing processes as any staff produced article. Our freelance agreements give the newspaper complete control of the content we use including his column. So if you question is that Willie is somehow avoiding ethical scrutiny, that’s not correct.

“Look, Bruce. If we ever found that Willie had knowingly used his column to benefit his clients, we would end the relationship. As with any agreement, trust is implicit.

“The Chronicle news staff always has aggressively—and fairly—covered Willie Brown as a newsmaker. And I have told our editors that I expect nothing less when Willie Brown makes news in the future.

“Besides that, Willie writes a great column. I’m delighted he is in the Sunday Chronicle.”

Well, I am still unable to crack the Hearst corporate fortress that has protected and promoted PG&E all these years and is now protecting and promoting Willie Brown as PG&E’s Secret Agent Man in this critical Clean Energy election. PG&E is conducting the most massive and nasty campaign ever against clean energy and public power, with huge Lies, and Hearst is once again refusing to cover the story, correct the lies, or give any indication it is not going to once again back PG&E all the way. Why?

This enduring Hearst position of more than eight decades raises some of the most tantalizing questions in American journalism: What is there in the Hearst corporate DNA that forces its editors and reporters in San Francisco to keep in effect honoring, against early Hearst history, against all evidence, and against all ethical standards, the shameful deal that William Randolph Hearst made with a PG&E- controlled bank in the 1920s to reverse his pro-Hetch Hetchy/anti-PG&E stand and go forever after with PG&E and against public power? (For details, see previous Guardian articles, Bruce blogs, and the authoritative David Nasaw biography of Hearst called “The Chief.”) Repeating for emphasis:

Why does Hearst allow a key PG&E lobbyist to write a featured political column in its Sunday paper without proper disclosure by either Willie or Hearst? Will the Chronicle today, in August of 2008, with a non-Hearst publisher and non-Hearst editor (meaning Frank Vega and Ward Bushee, both experienced executives who came new to Hearst with solid Gannet credentials) be allowed to cast off this terrible yoke and start covering PG&E, clean energy, public power, and the Raker Act scandal in a professional manner? Will Hearst and the Chronicle cover this critical Obama/Clean Energy election honestly?

Meanwhile, I am waiting anxiously to see what Willie and Hearst will report on the big Newsom party that PG&E is helping pay for at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Newsom is gearing up to run as the “green progressive” candidate for governor, but there is no way in the world he can be Gavin the Green when he fronts for PG&E against the Clean Energy campaign in San Francisco and then lets PG&E stamp its logo on his forehead and derriere before a national political audience in Denver.

Newsom and Willie want to be known as real progressives but alas they are “PG&E progressives” and their opposition to the Clean Energy Act only illustrates the difference in 96 point Tempo
Bold between a real progressive with real green credentials and a PG&E progressive taking money to help with PG&E greenwashing and progressive bashing. Guardian City Editor Steve Jones will be at the Newsom event in Denver and will keep you posted. On guard, much more to come, B3

P.S. 1: The Hearst and Willie horse-trading story is my favorite example of Hearst ethics. (See our “The Truth Hurts” story.) Just a few hours into the Clint Reilly antitrust trial challenging the Hearst monopoly deal, Examiner publisher Tim White admitted, in no uncertain terms, that he had used the paper’s editorial pages as a bargaining chip with then Mayor Willie Brown shortly before Wille’s reelection bid in November of l999. White testified that at the Aug. 30, 1999 lunch with Willie, he suggested that the Examiner would give Willie more positive coverage if he’d get behind Hearst’s plan to take over the Chronicle and create a daily monopoly.

“You were doing a little horse trading of your own, weren’t you?” asked Reilly attorney Joseph M. Alioto.

“I was,” White said calmly.

The day after White’s testimony, Hearst issued a press release saying the company had “reaffirmed its policy that the content of news and editorial pages may not be negotiated or compromised in any way.”

And then came many pious denunciations from Hearst of White’s “horse-trading” with Willie and many solemn promises from Examiner and Chronicle editors that their news and editorial coverage wasn’t for sale. The ethics problem for Hearst was that, despite several news stories critical of Willie, the paper wound up two months after the lunch giving Willie a glowing endorsement for mayor with no reservations or discouraging words whatsoever. Willie had earned the endorsement by working with the ranking local and national Democrats to orchestrate the deal and knock out any official opposition. He even told Hearst that he had called then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and gotten assurances that the U.S. Justice Department would not intervene to stop the deal.

As we put it at the time: “The bottom line: it appears, based on all available evidence, that White was doing exactly what he had been sent out here to do–buy the Chron, shut down the Ex, and create a monopoly–and if he offered to trade positive coverage in the pages of the paper for the political clout it took to make that deal, that was just fine with the people at Hearst headquarters back in New York.”

However, we put some questions to Hearst and found that if such an ethics policy really existed at Hearst, nobody from Hearst could produce it, then or later, either at corporate in New York or at the Examiner in San Francisco. The Hearst spokesperson in New York told us that each Hearst publication had independent editorial policies and that we should contact the Examiner.

We contacted then Editor Phil Bronstein who told us the Examiner had an ethics policy, but that it covered reporters and editors, not publishers. “It certainly doesn’t cover situations like this,” he told us. He promised to fax over a copy but it never arrived. Again: Why don’t Hearst ethics policies apply to Willie and PG&E?

MoveOn isn’t backing Newsom’s party

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Gavin Newsom’s coziness with PG&E and other big businesses is starting to come back to haunt him as he stumbles forward in his campaign for governor.

Newsom has this big party planned for the Democratic National Convention in Denver, and as Leftinsf blogger Sasha McGee reported, he had listed his sponsors as PG&E, AT&T and MoveOn.org. Getting MoveOn behind him would be a major coup and would create considerable liberal cred for a guy who can’t possibly win a Democratic primary without progressive support.

But the Newsom camp made a big mistake: MoveOn isn’t terribly fond of PG&E, but is really pissed at AT&T. The organization now says that it was all a miscommmunication, that MoveON was actually sponsoring another event at the same time. And for the record, MoveOn is NOT sponsoring the Newsom gig.

But the whole thing makes Team Newsom look foolish — and gives bloggers the chance to once again poijnt how that Newsom, the purported green mayor, is siding with PG&E and against the Clean Energy Act.

The circle game

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Say "Kumbaya," somebody. Despite vast differences in sound, intent, and commercial appeal, a thin yet unseverable bloodline connects the big, bold, Brill Building, pop-factory-perfect songcraft of Carole King, last heard coursing off the AM radio, and the stripped-raw, close-to-bare-bones rasp and moan of Tiny Vipers’ Jesy Fortino, delivered to a small clutch of listeners at the Elbo Room last year. Eyes squeezed shut, plucking her acoustic guitar beside just one other guitarist, Ben Cissner, she was a small dark star, poured fully concentrated into the sparse minor key chords of "Swastika," and, as gutsy as the loudest reaches of the underground, she sang as if her life depended on it: "If I would let you into my heart / Would you thank the Lord / Would you tear it apart?"

Superficially, so far away — doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore? — from King’s monumental oeuvre, which seems almost incidental amid the gushy, gossipy tidbits propelling Sheila Weller’s bio, Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and the Journey of a Generation (Atria), concerning King’s beleaguered marriage to her first husband and songwriting partner, Gerry Goffin, with whom she wrote such songs as "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," among many other classic pop numbers, even after he fathered a child with one of the pair’s vocalists. Likewise Weller makes much of Mitchell’s out-of-wedlock daughter and penchant for using her songs to seduce paramours like Leonard Cohen, Graham Nash, and James Taylor — the last often credited with spurring the singer-songwriter movement and acting as a unifying thread between Mitchell, King, and Simon — and Simon’s uninhibited, proto-pro-sex feminist "eroticism"; read: sex in a cab was "no problem." Yet as remote as the early-’70s phenomenon of the singer-songwriter seems, the form appears to have returned: could this be the revival of core values of craft and voice, the intimacy and immediacy of a writer on a single instrument, during a tumultuous time for the music industry, post-Auto-Tuned disasters and Ashlee Simpson lip-synch blowouts — the adult flip-side to the bubblegum remnants of High School Musical, Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas Brothers?

The initial energy of so many turn-of-the-millennium garage rock bands may have petered and innumerable hip-hop artists may have turned toward dully materialistic navel-gazing, so hail the return of the soft-spoken singer-songwriter who can break down a tunes to its bare, unadorned components. The stars are aligned; the signs, apparent: from Outside Lands headliner Jack Johnson landing at the top of the Billboard 200 chart with his latest album, Sleeping Through the Static (Brushfire/Universal), earlier this year, to ex–Castro Theatre ticket-taker, proudly folkie Devendra Banhart being adopted by Parisian couturiers and glitterati, from the MySpace-inspired success of Colbie Caillat and Kate Nash to the iTunes-buttressed popularity of Eureka native Sara Bareilles — hell, not to mention everyone and their dog documenting their solo acoustic version of "Bubbly" and posting the video on YouTube. This quiet flurry of activity undoubtedly whetted someone’s appetite for all things unplugged.

Those with eyes trained on pop cycles might point to the rise of antiwar sentiments throughout the country, coupling it with the renewed attention given to the softer, sincere sounds of singer-songwriters — a worthy theory, though apart from the many unfortunate CD-Rs of anti-Bush agit-pop that crossed my desk during the last two presidential elections, the generally apolitical vibe of the music from this crop of singer-songwriters seems to belie that notion: championing green issues are as didactic as these writers get. Instead this current wave of earnest songsmiths has more to do with both a reaction against the insincere, canned, possibly un-nutritious mainstream boy-band and Britney-centric breed of pop from the recent past — the likes of which could only be enjoyed with a semi-size dose of irony — and a response to an easy access of technology, which allows just about anyone and their mutt to make their own music at home, bypassing Brill Building–style hit-factories.

This time, the slew of sensitive men — solo fliers ranging from Iron and Wine, Conor Oberst, and Adam Green to Josh Ritter, Jonathan Rice, and Ray LaMontagne — sequestered behind acoustic guitars or pianos, working freak-folk, soft-rock, commercial pop, and Grey’s Anatomy–friendly veins, are being almost eclipsed by the multitude of womanly singer-songwriters. Natural women all, including Feist, Kimya Dawson, JayMay, Brandi Shearer, Yael Naim, and Ingrid Michaelson, among others. As much as King, Mitchell, and Simon are considered mothers of these singer-songwriters — along with predecessors like Woodside resident Joan Baez and ’60s folk hit mistress Judy Collins and successors like the many estrogen-laden ladies of the ’90s Lilith Fair outings — so too are indie sisters Liz Phair, Sarah Dougher, and Cat Power, a holy trinity to homemade, once-bedroom-bound DIY divas who make their own clothes, hope to carve out their own path, and find their own vox.

Of course, one can’t discount the release of resurrections and reissues of neglected and forgotten femme singer-songwriters such as Vashti Bunyan and Ruthann Friedmann and late greats Judee Sill and Karen Dalton, whose latest private recordings were unearthed via Green Rocky Road (Delmore) in June. And Mitchell’s unique guitar tunings, experimental mindset, and maidenlike purity of sound has made her one of the most oft-referenced artists of the last few years, thanks to such explicit shout-outs as Wayfaring Strangers’ Ladies from the Canyon (Numero, 2006). But no less influential is Phair, whose classic Exile in Guyville (Matador) got the royal reissue treatment this summer: her pro-sex, third-wave feminist, Midwestern rejoinder to riot grrrl writ large, with a gatefold sleeve and a slip of naughty nipple peeking through. At the same time, Dougher — cover girl in Johnny Ray Huston’s take on the last, more-riot grrrl-centered singer-songwriter movement in the Guardian about a decade ago — took a more polemical tack on the Northwest coast with her K Records releases, while working tangibly for greater female rock visibility by organizing the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls and teaching courses on the history of women in rock at Portland State University.

But Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power, appears set to be the Joni Mitchell of this generation — even as Marshall has largely turned her back on originals with her latest Jukebox (Matador). The Seattle-based Fortino’s almost gothic melodrama seems to draw more than a little inspiration from Marshall’s What Would the Community Think (Matador, 1996), while San Francisco transplant Thao Nguyen of Thao and the Get Down Stay Down borrows Marshall’s clarion-call, half-sung, half-spoken phrasing for her far more fancy-free, loose-limbed, and shambling songs. Nguyen sounds positively, happily tipsy on the old-timey bounce, finger clicks, and sandpapery soft-shoe shuffle on We Brave Bee Stings and All (Kill Rock Stars).

Yet Marshall’s most indebted sib might be Emily Jane White, 27, whose Dark Undercoat (Double Negative) evokes the former’s haunted and haunting, hollowed-out sensuality as well as her songwriting savvy and way with a hook. "Everybody’s got a little hole in the middle / Everybody does a little dance with the devil," the Oakland singer-songwriter croons on her "Hole in the Middle," sliding around the curves of this verb or the other and letting her voice drift off into the meaningful silences between the words.

The surprise is that this intensely eerie, closely miked singer-songwriter also turns out to be one of the more deliberately political-minded. Of "Hole," she said recently while breaking from the recording her second album with Greg Ashley, "I originally wrote that in response to the war in Iraq when that first started. Yeah, it’s about American imperialism."

And perhaps that’s the key to why the music by this former member of an all-girl band, the Diamond Star Halos — much like those seemingly apolitical numbers by other singer-songwriters — has increasingly relevance today: White and other crooners are foregrounding the everyday loves as well as the overseas skirmishes in a way that transcends the desensitizing glut and so-called objectivity of news headlines, sound-bites, and bloggable blurbs — and acutely personalizes it all. Call it the resensitizing of pop.

"I’ve always believed that your personal experience is political," says White, echoing the first wave feminist tenets, "and everyone has a story to tell, about how they’ve lived their lives and what has happened to them, and the experiences they’ve gone through. Not that what I think I do is revolutionary or anything, but one positive thing about being a singer-songwriter is people have contacted me and said they’ve felt a strong sense of encouragement or inspiration, so I think putting myself out there says something."

Emily Jane White plays Aug. 22, 8 p.m., $8, at the Uptown, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl. www.uptownnightclub.com

Critical sass

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ISBN REAL This month, a collection of Daniel Mendelsohn’s essays on books, plays, and films is being published. How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken (Harper, 480 pages, $26.95) is excellent. But it lacks something I can’t help wanting from the criticism I read, no matter how often some denunciation tries to shame the desire out of me. One of Mendelsohn’s pieces even takes novelist and literary critic Dale Peck’s 2005 review collection, Hatchet Jobs (New Press, 240 pages, $14.95) to task for indulging in the very thing I look for: bitchiness.

According to Mendelsohn, Peck’s analysis of any book cedes too much space to his caustic persona. Mendelsohn suspects that "what’s really going on here isn’t so much criticism as a kind of performance."

This is a common complaint. As standard as it’s become for critics to coat their reviews in personality, extravagantly painting their territory with barbed humor and a couple catalogs’ worth of references, there’s no scarcity of resistance to that practice, either. Just last week, on Mark Sarvas’ blog The Elegant Variation (www.marksarvas.blogs.com), writer Benjamin Percy expanded on Sarvas’ disgust over an excessively autobiographical review of Julia Reed’s memoir, The House on First Street (Ecco, 208 pages, $23.95) in the Aug. 3 The New York Times Book Review. Percy suggested a causal connection between the swell of infantile pop punditry on cable news channels and "those critics who spotlight their voice, their life, upstaging the assigned book."

Within How Beautiful It Is, Mendelsohn quotes Peck’s response to the controversy surrounding his critical flaying of Rick Moody a few years ago. Here we-go-’round-the criticism-bush: in turn, Peck’s quote mentions Heidi Julavits’ highly-regarded piece about the future of literary culture from the March 2003 maiden issue of The Believer. There, Julavits appeals to book critics to cool it already with the self-serving wisecracks. In fact, she mentions Mendelsohn as an exemplar of considered evaluation free from the static of the vitriol that’s come into fashion.

Julavits’ major beef was with the sadism of the bitchy critic, and in large part, that’s the same problem Mendelsohn has with Peck’s reviews. I have a lot of inner ethical debates queued up before I ever address, let alone endorse, the matter of the clever takedown. What I am willing to dispute right here, right now, is the puzzling belief that caustic criticism is not just ethically but also artistically deficient.

It’s one thing to frown upon a mean-spirited performance that gets away from the reviewed work as well as the rhythm of its own structure. I could even grudgingly comprehend were a canonical critic like Dorothy Parker called out for wandering too far into the realm of bilious stand-up comedy. (So much for wicked stand-up criticism as only a current trend). Regarding Peck, Mendelsohn is not wrong to point out the ungainliness of his grabs at attention. I can appreciate the argument that one’s limited reserve of creative energy should be spent in the service of creation and not destruction, particularly in the assessment of writers who don’t deserve the baroque angst their crappy books inspire.

But is there really no understanding that the affected horror of the cranky critic is a ritualized template for evaluation, and one that is as valid — when done well — as any other? If there isn’t, we’re all in trouble.

JROTC is not a choice

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OPINION To hear proponents of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) talk, it’s a matter of personal choice for 14- and 15-year-olds to sign up for the Pentagon’s military recruitment program, which is being phased out of San Francisco’s public schools June 2009. The San Francisco Board of Education also recently voted to remove physical education credit from the program this school year. It had to: the retired military officers who teach the course don’t meet the educational standards of state law, and the course doesn’t meet state physical education standards.

Supporters of JROTC are taking the issue to the November ballot. Their initiative, albeit non-binding, would put San Franciscans on record as in support of the military program.

As Democratic clubs and other political organizations begin their endorsement process, progressives need to understand the importance of defeating this initiative. It’s not a harmless measure. If it passes, the new school board can use it to reinstate JROTC. If it loses, it’s less likely the board will change its course. Thankfully, last week the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) voted overwhelmingly not to endorse the measure.

JROTC is not summer camp or a harmless after-school activity. It is one more way the military finds bodies for its illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Denisha Williams can tell you that. The African American high school senior in Philadelphia told the City Paper that she left JROTC and opted out of the military having her contact info. It hasn’t made any difference: “I have received phone calls, e-mail, three letters and a 15-minute videotape. I even received a phone call from a female recruiter asking if I was still interested in the Navy. I told her I wasn’t and hung up. A week later I received another letter and the tape.”

Capt. Daniel R. Gager, commander of the US Army recruiting station in south Philadelphia, said he and other recruiters were ordered by the US Recruiting Command to put more time and energy into recruiting high school upperclassmen such as Williams.

In San Francisco, at least 15 percent of the cadets have been placed in the program without their consent. It seems the military will do whatever it takes to get in front of our youngsters in our public schools.

Pressuring kids to join the military is wrong. International law says kids under 18 should not be recruited at all, and the ACLU agrees (see www.aclu.org/intlhumanrights/gen). Recruiters in every high school and at every mall in this country break that law every day.

Nationally about 40 percent of JROTC kids end up in the military. In San Francisco, proponents claim only 2 percent go on to military careers. They are wrong. According to the school district, no tracking of JROTC students is done.

Please work to defeat Proposition V, the pro-JROTC initiative.

Mark Sanchez and Tommi Avicolli Mecca

Mark Sanchez is President of the San Francisco Board of Education and an eighth grade science teacher. Tommi Avicolli Mecca is a radical queer activist and writer whose regular columns appear at beyondchron.org.

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