Green

Arnold’s thin green veneer

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arnold&hummer.jpg
By Steven T. Jones
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest hypocritical move to undermine California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions shouldn’t surprise anyone. He has always been a political opportunist who seized the environmentalist label last year simply to score political points. The LA Times did the definitive piece on the ruse a couple months back, which closes with Arnold’s own secretly recorded admission about the fraud. Most recently, The Economist magazine analyzed how unlikely California is to meet its lofty goals for addressing climate change. But that’s the idea, right? Politicians set ambitious goals that make them look good today, with deadlines set for well after they’re out of office.
The only surprise here is that anyone is surprised. Then again, the Chronicle did endorse the guy last year (facilitating a deceptive and rapid rehabilitation of his once tattered image), so maybe they’re feeling a little foolish in retrospect.

Turning the tides

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› amanda@sfbg.com

On June 19 the Board of Supervisors cast its final ayes in favor of San Francisco’s new plan for public power, Community Choice Aggregation, which allows the city to own or purchase as much as 51 percent of the electricity for its residents and businesses from renewable sources. The plan’s goal is to meet or beat the rates of the city’s current provider, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which draws 13 percent of its power from renewable sources. CCA has become the popular choice for public power fans, who have long pushed the city to get a divorce from PG&E’s monopoly.

But across town the same day, it looked as if Mayor Gavin Newsom was renewing nuptial vows with the $12 billion utility. In front of the charming backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge, Newsom announced a partnership between the city and PG&E to look into tidal power. He promised "the most comprehensive study yet undertaken to assess the possibilities for harnessing the tides in San Francisco Bay."

PG&E committed as much as $1.5 million, which will bolster $146,000 from the city and a $200,000 grant from the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.

The news conference had public-power advocates wondering about Newsom’s real commitment to renewable, locally owned power. "I’ve asked all the members of the Board of Supervisors," Sup. Ross Mirkarimi told the Guardian. "That press conference — nobody knew it was taking place." He said a mayoral aide later apologized that his office hadn’t been informed, but he added, "I don’t think it was a mistake that it occurred on the same day as the vote for CCA."

The Mayor’s Office said the scheduling was purely coincidental and had been on the books for at least three weeks, but it did not issue a news release about the news conference, and no media advisory was sent to us.

Parties involved in the deal say it will bring more money to researching a shaky, untested technology — even if it means that the power any project generates could be controlled by PG&E. "We’re always going to have that issue of ownership later, and I’d rather get the research data into the public domain," said Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city’s Department of the Environment (SFE).

Blumenfeld insisted that the deal would give the public direct oversight of all research, including work done by the private utility. The memorandum of understanding between San Francisco, PG&E, and Golden Gate Energy, which holds the permit license for tidal energy in the bay, makes it clear that all information will be shared by all parties and open to public scrutiny.

Newsom made a similar announcement in September 2006, when he called for the creation of a Tidal Power Advisory Group and allocated $150,000 for a feasibility study through the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and the SFE. But that program hasn’t gone far — and the little that has happened is secret.

A review of the agendas and minutes of SFPUC and SFE commission meetings shows only scant and passing mention of tidal power. The Tidal Power Advisory Group eventually came to fruition as one of five subcommittees of the Clean Tech Advisory Council, a 16-member board of local "green" business executives, entrepreneurs, and environmental experts that was formed at the call of the mayor in November 2005. Chaired by William K. Reilly, an Environmental Protection Agency administrator under George H.W. Bush, the council neither announces meetings or agendas nor makes public its minutes.

A special subcommittee devoted to tidal and wave energy has worked closely with the SFPUC to advance a feasibility study. The contract for that study went without bid to URS Corp. and will continue in conjunction with the new PG&E partnership.

URS, an international engineering, design, and construction firm based in San Francisco and formerly run by Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, has a long history with the city. The tidal power study was not subject to competitive bids and was awarded to URS because the company had undertaken significant computer models of the entire Bay Area for a past proposal to fill in part of the waterway to extend runways at San Francisco International Airport, Blumenfeld said. That plan was shot down, but the environmental impact report it spawned contains information relevant to studying tidal power.

Additionally, URS has an as-needed work agreement with San Francisco, Blumenfeld said, "and everything moves glacially" in regard to contracting with the city.

The kind of tidal power being considered — called "in-stream" and analogous to a wind farm of water-pushed turbines — is such a new technology that there is only one deployment in the world that’s generating more than one megawatt of energy. One megawatt is enough to power about 1,000 average homes. The Electric Power Research Institute released a study in 2006 concluding that the Golden Gate has the potential to generate 237 megawatts but suggesting that only 15 percent of that — about 35 megawatts — would be available without negative environmental impact.

"I think that number’s made up, personally," said Mike Hoover, a partner at Golden Gate Energy. "We know the energy that’s coming in and out of the bay is more than that."

URS, which has conducted no other tidal power studies in the United States, may support those findings, but the outlook at this point doesn’t bode well. "It appears EPRI used optimistic assumptions on water velocities," the SFPUC’s Power Enterprise director, Barbara Hale, wrote to officials in the Mayor’s Office and at the SFPUC and the SFE. "Our feasibility study estimates around 10 MW extractable power, peak, and five MW on average with a commercial plant." Additionally, Hale wrote, the cost per kilowatt-hour could be closer to 20 cents than the 5.5 cents the EPRI predicted.

Hale told us it’s difficult to say how much power would make dropping a pilot project into the bay feasible, and the best-case scenario has a pilot project four or five years away. An actual grid connection of any significance would be several years in the future.

Then there’s the huge issue of who would own the power. San Francisco Bay is considered a public trust — and under any reasonable policy scenario, the power generated by its tides should belong to the public.

After hearing about the mayor’s handshake with PG&E, Mirkarimi introduced legislation at the June 19 board meeting that would require any power harnessed in the bay to be publicly owned. He said tidal technology is still at an "embryonic stage," but the memorandum of understanding "that was unilaterally devised by the mayor and the PUC at the exclusion of the Board of Supervisors demonstrates an early intention to give the new technology to the profiteers, and that alarms me."*

Smoke and mirrors

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› news@sfbg.com

Compassion and Care Center employee and longtime medical marijuana activist Wayne Justmann proudly displays a framed "keep up the good work" letter from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D–San Francisco) in the second-story medical cannabis dispensary in San Francisco.

"Patients can sit and relax and get away from the problems of the world," Justmann told the Guardian in describing this half pharmacy, half community center, which features AIDS information brochures, a DSL Internet connection, the makings for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and marijuana priced at $18 for an eighth of an ounce.

The CCC, which has been open both legally and illegally since 1992, is one of the numerous medical cannabis dispensaries that are having a hard time getting through the city’s onerous approval process. Under guidelines that the Board of Supervisors approved and the mayor signed in November 2005, all of the dispensaries have until July 1 to get the required permits, but none have successfully done so.

The supervisors recently voted to hold off enforcement for the dispensaries that have already applied for permits, which 26 of the 31 or so clubs had done at press time. Pending legislation by Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier would set a new deadline of Jan. 1, 2008, while also effecting procedural changes that could make it difficult for many facilities to ever get permits. She is proposing more stringent disability access requirements and wants to give the Mayor’s Office more control over which clubs must abide by them.

Justmann and many others in the medical marijuana community interviewed by us see the pending legislation as a mixed bag. It would remove the police inspection from an approval process that now requires clubs to deal with six city departments, easing some concerns of proprietors in this quasi-legal business. Yet the legislation would also require all clubs to meet the Americans with Disabilities Act’s standards for new construction, which could prove logistically difficult and prohibitively expensive for most dispensaries, which are in older buildings. For example, the CCC would need to build an elevator in the aging building where it rents space.

Alioto-Pier told us the amendment — which will be heard by the Planning Commission on July 12 and the board thereafter — is necessary to place medical cannabis dispensaries on par with other medical facilities. "Specifically because they are medical, the board felt it’s important for MCDs to be accessible," she told us. "It’s what I think should have been across the city."

Under the amendment, dispensaries would have to ensure that their bathrooms, hallways, and front doors were wide enough for wheelchair access and that they had limited use–limited access elevators, which would disqualify vertical or inclined platform lifts. While dispensaries like ACT UP’s could aim to spend "tens of thousands of dollars" to meet the standards, co-owner Andrea Lindsay told us, others wouldn’t be able to comply, such as those that couldn’t afford the expense or whose landlords wouldn’t allow extensive remodeling jobs.

The CCC is accessible only by stairs and does not have the money or permission to do the work that the amendment would require. "Still, we provide the necessary services to the patient," Justmann said. He also cited the financial gamble in spending large sums on a business that — unlike other health care facilities — always stands the risk of being shut down by the federal government.

Stephanie (whom we agreed to identify only by her first name), an HIV-positive patient of the CCC for the past three years, told us the new accessibility standards could make affordable marijuana less accessible. "The places that will be able to be kept open will be price gougers," she said. "I won’t be able to afford it."

Some MCDs unable to meet the new standards could apply to the Mayor’s Office on Disability for waivers, giving Mayor Gavin Newsom — who has publicly said there should be fewer MCDs in town — more authority over medical marijuana. That arrangement would be a change from the procedure for other projects, which must submit waiver requests to the Access Appeals Commission, which is part of the Department of Building Inspection.

Kris Hermes of Oakland’s Americans for Safe Access expressed his skepticism about the switch. "The main concern of the people is that the MOD will have the ultimate discretion," he told us. But Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who sponsored the Medical Cannabis Act in 2005, seems to be supporting the Alioto-Pier legislation. "It’s important that the MCDs are consistent with other health care facilities and businesses," he told us. "We want to do everything in our power to make this not so cost prohibitive."

No dispensaries have acquired a permit yet, although five now have "provisional permits." Many MCDs in the waiting line cite red tape and already stringent requirements as barring them from recognition as official businesses. Clubs must pay $6,691 for a permit and cannot generate "excessive profit" when in business.

"I don’t know what we need to do next," said Lindsay, who paid ACT UP’s fees six months ago. "The city’s new to the process. We’re new to the process. It’s frustrating on both sides."

For Kevin Reed, owner of the Green Cross Dispensary, meeting the new standards would be a hard task to accomplish in the next six months. As he told us, "You’d pretty much have to knock down a building and rebuild it."*

Green City: Tapping the tides

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Turning the tides that flow through the Golden Gate into a source of clean, renewable energy was contemplated long before Mayor Gavin Newsom partnered up with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to announce the latest study (see "Turning the Tides," page 11), even before Matt Gonzalez proposed the idea in his 2003 race against Newsom. Tidal power is an old concept now getting a new push, thanks to the climate change threat and the unique dynamics of San Francisco.

An independent study by the nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute was conducted last year to assess the feasibility of tidal energy in North America and concluded that the Golden Gate is "the second largest tidal in stream energy resource" on the continent. A combination of the Golden Gate’s powerful currents and its proximity to existing power infrastructure makes San Francisco the most promising site for a tidal energy pilot project in the lower 48 states.

However, the EPRI’s analysis revealed the Golden Gate’s tidal power potential to be far less than the 1,000 megawatts first mentioned by Gonzalez, which would have more than covered the city’s annual energy needs. The EPRI estimates that the 440 billion gallons of water in the Golden Gate’s tidal stream hold a total of 237 megawatts of energy. The study also suggests that a tidal program in San Francisco could only safely extract 35 megawatts of that available energy without negatively affecting the surrounding environment.

At 35 megawatts, tidal power would meet roughly 4 percent of the city’s energy demands. Internal San Francisco Public Utilities Commission documents obtained by the Guardian revealed that SFPUC officials lack confidence in those numbers and place the estimate at only 1 percent of the city’s energy needs.

Regardless of the potential output, the major challenge is still establishing the proper technology to safely harness the power of the tides.

Tidal power, much like hydropower, harnesses the energy of water currents to create electricity. In the case of tidal power, the force of the ocean currents generated by the rise and fall of the tides spins turbines placed underwater.

La Rance Tidal Power Plant in France, operating since 1966, is the oldest such system in the world. It generates 240 megawatts of power a day, which is enough to cover 90 percent of Brittany’s demand. At 3.7 cents per kilowatt hour, the electricity generated by La Rance is among the most affordable in France, which relies heavily on nuclear power.

However, La Rance — like Canada’s Annapolis Royal Generating Station, built in 1984 — is essentially a hydroelectric dam that spans a river, capturing and releasing the tides, so it’s not a viable design for San Francisco. A tidal power project at the Golden Gate would have to be largely submerged to leave vital shipping lanes unobstructed. So far, there is no existing tidal power program similar to the one being proposed for San Francisco. There are many tidal technology projects under development around the world that use partial and completely submerged systems that could be compatible with the Golden Gate. None has a model that’s seen commercial use, except Verdant Power, which has a single test turbine submersed in New York City’s East River that powers a nearby parking garage and supermarket.

The EPRI study evaluated eight possible turbine designs for San Francisco. Among these designs, the maximum output per turbine is two megawatts. The installation and maintenance of a project using several of these turbines would not only be inherently expensive but also require the heavy lifting of barges, cranes, drills, and derricks as well as ongoing activity that likely would affect what went on above and below the surface of the sea.

Many of these turbine designs involve spinning blades, which can threaten marine life. The tides are also essential for transportation and the distribution of silt. A pilot project would address these challenges, perhaps demonstrating whether the planet’s natural flows can offer another key to slowing its warming trend.*

Comments, ideas, and submissions for Green City, the Guardian‘s weekly environmental column, can be sent to news@sfbg.com.

What is the new new “low” in city politics? It sure isn’t Daly, Newsom, and the cocaine use charges. Public Power SOS: scroll down for the news and the action alert

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

On the front page of today’s San Francisco Chronicle, June 2l, Mayor Gavin Newsom is pictured, grim, scowling, arms clenched, over this caption:

“Mayor Gavin Newsom denies Supervisor Chris Daly’s suggestion that he has used cocaine. “That’s how low politics now has gotten in this city, and I seriously thought it couldn’t get much worse.”
The story by City Hall Reporter Cecilia M. Vega had this head: “CITY HALL UPROAR AT COCAINE CLAIM,” with this subhead, “Angry Newsom blasts Daly for bringing politics to a new low.”

This jolly back and forth, I submit, is far from a new low. (See City Editor Steve Jones’s blog in our politics blog.)
For starters, I would submit there is a new new low and a most timely new new low at that. This new new low is the fact that Newsom, despite the public power mandates of the federal Raker Act, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the crucial Ammiano/Mirkarimi CCA legislation approved by the Supervisors only last Tuesday, reversed his public pledges supporting CCA and public power and clambered into bed in hot embrace on Tuesday with PG&E. (See my previous blog.) He allowed PG&E to call the shots in a PG&E-arranged and PG&E- promoted press conference at the Presidio announcing that the city in effect was turning over its public study of tidal power to the private utility that has perpetuated the PG&E/Raker Act scandal for decades.

This is the new new low: the scandal of how the mayor of the City and County of San Francisco, after PG&E has privatized and stolen the city’s cheap, green Hetch Hetchy power, and after PG&E helped privatize and steal the Presidio, was in effect turning over the choppy waters of the bay and the ocean to PG&E to privatize and steal. Incredible. Newsom was doing his damndest to put PG&E in the catbird seat on the next giant step on power generation and to further entrench the illegal private utility in City Hall. No wonder Newsom gets so “agitated” over the handy dandy issue of whether he did or did not use cocaine.

Canton Seafood and Dim Sum Restaurant

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› paulr@sfbg.com

If children should be seen but not heard, and writers should be read but neither seen nor heard, what does this tell us about restaurant signage? Certainly that it should be seen and, ideally, read. Signage isn’t everything, but it tells us a lot about a place even before we step inside. If signage is going to be conspicuous, it ought to be stylish, as at Dosa and Ziryab, and if it’s going to be inconspicuous, as at many of the highest-end places around town, then the place had better be so good that we’ll find it despite the lack of a beckoning beacon. The splendor inside had better balance the lack or near lack of street presence.

What, then, are we to make of conspicuous but unstylish signs, such as the one that hangs above Canton, a Cantonese seafood and dim sum restaurant on Folsom I’ve zoomed past a million times over the years without pausing to consider because the cheap, blaring, generic yellow sign above the door all but dared me to stop in for some mediocre, greasy food, and who needs that? Bad Chinese food isn’t hard to find in San Francisco, alas, and one of the easier ways to find it is to look for those turmeric yellow signs that are the Asian equivalents of all-American roadside-diner signs, complete with a Coke (or Pepsi) blurb and logo.

Canton, moreover, has hung its jaundiced shingle in a part of town that’s moved notably upmarket in the more than 20 years the restaurant has dwelled in the neighborhood. The old warehouses and industrial plants are gone or transformed now, and the area’s restaurants are tuned into the tourist and convention frequencies being broadcast from the nearby Moscone Center and its coterie of hotels and museums. Canton looks like a throwback, a piece of old furniture abandoned by the curb with a hand-lettered "free" sign taped to it — but it is not.

For one thing, the restaurant is one of a handful in town to offer the Cantonese specialty nor mai gai ($20), the skin of a whole chicken, stuffed with sausage-dotted sticky rice and deep-fried. The dish is more interesting for its presentational value and as a textural adventure than as one of taste, since in the mouth it’s basically rice with a hint of salty sweetness (from the Chinese sausage) and a bit of poultry crunch (from the skin). Much of the flavor comes from the accompanying mystery sauce, a kind of sweet-sour vinaigrette laced with rounds of scallion.

We could not say where the rest of the chicken went, though some of the meat might have found its way into the chicken chow mein ($7), fat noodles tossed with chopped scallions and a soy-based sauce. And the remainder of it, cut into strips and sautéed to a golden crispness, might have ended up in the excellent chicken salad ($7.50), with a thick honey-soy vinaigrette served on the side. The kitchen, in fact, does a nice job all the way around in the crispy department, from salt and pepper spare ribs ($8.50) to the similar but even better salt and pepper sea bass ($18), slightly curly flaps of creamy flesh within a delicate golden envelope.

Cantonese cooking is known for its seafood variations and for its mild subtleties. These themes intersect in the seafood combo ($12), a large clay pot filled with prawns, squid, and scallops atop a medley of vegetables, among them snow peas, water chestnuts, and shreds of carrot and napa cabbage. The broth that hydrates this little world tends toward reticence, but you will find that the vegetables, when you reach them, have been tarted up nicely with ginger, whose clear, strong flavor shines like a light in a dim room.

But not all Cantonese subtlety has to do with seafood. Snow peas beef ($8.50) proves that meat too can show well with gentle handling, although it must be said that beef is among the most forgiving of ingredients and is often excellent with little or no help at all. Here the supporting cast includes a shower of snow peas, bright green as spring, and a slightly sweet sauce with flecks of crushed peppercorn.

Practically every Chinese restaurant of note in town offers some version of duck buns, and Canton ($13) is no exception, although there is a twist. The half duck is brought tableside and first stripped of its reddish gold skin, which is then served in steamed buns, along with plum sauce and scallion tips shredded to look like pieces of frisée. While these are eaten, the skinless bird is carved up and the meat passed around the table. I liked this little drama in two acts, but I did find the skinless, bunless meat to be a bit naked.

Although Chinese artistry in soup making cannot be doubted, and although I have had some excellent dessert soups over the years — fruit soups, mainly — I just don’t warm to the sweet red-bean soups that bring many a Chinese dinner to a close. Canton’s entry ($3) looked quite familiar, like muddy river water with bobbing unmentionables, and it tasted like what it was: cooked beans with some sugar added. I would recoil less, I think, if it weren’t served hot. Heat, on the other hand, became the shredded pork soup ($3.50), an early-on course made memorable by the ghostly intensity of dried scallops.

Canton is modestly if neatly fitted out, but the space is magisterial: as enormous as a ballroom, with a coffered glass ceiling and a far wall lined with aquariums in which the more alert members of the day’s catch await some sign that their turn is imminent. *

CANTON SEAFOOD AND DIM SUM RESTAURANT

Daily, 10:30 a.m.–9:30 p.m.

655 Folsom, SF

(415) 495-3064

www.cantonsf.com

Beer and wine

AE/MC/V

Comfortable noise level

Wheelchair accessible

Green City: A wiser Earth movement

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› amanda@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Have you ever wondered how many environmental and social justice nonprofits are really out there?

Noted local environmentalist Paul Hawken estimates there are at least one million and as many as 10 million do-gooder alliances throughout the world, toiling away at their local niche problems or tackling the grander crises of the day, staffed by volunteers sacrificing time and desperately trying to raise enough money and political will to rebuild from the ruins.

And while environmentalists often are derided — and even criticize themselves and their allies — for being too fractured, lacking focus and an overarching leadership, Hawken thinks that’s actually a good thing.

Hawken is the founder of the gardening and tool company Smith and Hawken and author of several books, including The Ecology of Commerce and Natural Capitalism (the latter with energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins). He runs the Sausalito research group Natural Capital Institute, and that is where the research began for his new book, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming.

Hawken attempted to quantify the entire environmental and social justice movement. He quickly realized its ever-shifting nature would make that impossible, and instead he’s qualified the movement into 414 taxonomies, from prison reform to chemical pollution, from ecopsychology to worker health and safety.

Blessed Unrest is both a history of environmental and social justice activism and an account of its modern efforts. Hawken traces the roots of the movement back to a meeting of a dozen abolitionists in 1787, identifying them as the first group of people who fought to better the lives of others they didn’t know. He lays bare the chilling truth that business owners then made the same economic arguments in support of slavery that corporations now make to justify the continued extraction of natural resources at the cost of human and planetary health.

Hawken contends that the environmental and social justice communities, despite their different objectives, actually function with the same core values. He thinks this plethora of small groups is a good thing and likens the overall movement to an immune system for the earth. The immunology of the human body became an even apter metaphor when he learned that the ability to heal doesn’t follow any top-down management but instead depends on cellular growth and change.

Now, rather than trying to count all the organizations, he’s invited them to account for themselves through WiserEarth (www.wiserearth.org), a Wikipedia-like database in which groups can post information and outreach.

"WiserEarth is a tool," Hawken told the Guardian. The "Wiser" part of the name is actually an acronym for World Index of Social and Environmental Responsibility, and Hawken hopes activists use the site to pool scant resources and spread their rich loam of knowledge. It’s a place where philanthropists can find organizations of a similar ilk, and perhaps most important, the Web site reflects the real identity of a group that could never find a room big enough to host all its members.

"It brings more awareness of the scope and diversity of the movement," Hawken said. "You can see yourselves as part of a larger whole. That’s very assuring and helpful."

The Web site is only a couple of months old, but there are already 106,000 organizations listed, and it’s growing daily. At his public appearances, Hawken now stands in front of a large screen scrolling a list of all the names. "People cry when they see it," he said. "Repeatedly, everywhere I show it. And I don’t try to make it emotional. The reason, I think, is it’s a relief. The relief has to do with scale."

Fighting the good fight can feel like an exhausting, frustrating, and lonely battle, an overextended run of a play called David and Goliath that should have left the stage long ago. Hawken said he never imagines an audience for his books, and though this isn’t exactly a rallying cry, there is an affirmation coming across that flagging activists, freedom fighters, and friends of the earth need to hear: keep it up. And add your org to WiserEarth.*

The Queer Issue: Pride event listings

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› culture@sfbg.com

PERFORMANCES AND EVENTS

WEDNESDAY 20

“Out with ACT” American Conservatory Theatre, 415 Geary; 749-2228, www.act-sf.or. 8pm, $17.50-$73.50. ACT presents this new series for gay and lesbian theater lovers, including a performance of Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid and a reception with complimentary wine and a meet and greet with the actors. Mention “Out with ACT” when purchasing your tickets.

“Queer Wedding Sweet” Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California; 438-9933, www.jccsf.org/arts. 8pm, $36. The JCCSF presents the West Coast premiere of Queer Wedding Sweet, an “exploration of queer weddings and commitment ceremonies through stories, song, juggling, and comedy.” Featured performers include Adrienne Cooper, Sara Felder, Marilyn Lerner, Frank London, and Lorin Sklamberg.

BAY AREA

“Queer Cabaret” Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. 8pm, $15-20. Big City Improv, Jessica Fisher, and burlesque dancers Shaunna Bella and Claire Elizabeth team up for an evening of queer performance celebrating Pride. Proceeds will go to the Shotgun Players’ Solar Campaign.

“Tea N’ Crisp” Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. 8pm, $25. Richard Louis James stars as gay icon Quentin Crisp in the Shotgun Players’ production of this Pride Week tribute.

THURSDAY 21

“Here’s Where I Stand” First Unitarian Church and Center, 1187 Franklin, SF; (415) 865-2787, www.sfgmc.org. 8pm, $15-45. The world’s first openly LGBT music ensemble will be kicking off Pride Week with a range of music from Broadway to light classical. Includes performances by the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco, San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, and the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band. Concert also takes place same time on Sat/22.

“Thursday Night Live” Eagle, 398 12th St, SF; (415) 625-0880, www.sfeagle.com. 1pm, $10. Support Dykes on Bikes at their 30th anniversary Beer/Soda Bust and catch these glitzy vixens as they share the stage with Slapback.

Veronica Klaus and Her All-Star Band Jazz at Pearl’s, 256 Columbus, SF; (415) 291-8255, www.jazzatpearls.com. 8 and 10pm, $15. The all-star lineup features Daniel Fabricant, Tom Greisser, Tammy L. Hall, and Randy Odell.

FRIDAY 22

“Glam Gender” Michael Finn Gallery, 814 Grove; 573-7328. 7-10pm. This collaboration between photographer Marianne Larochelle and art director Jose Guzman-Colon, a.k.a. Putanesca, kicks off Pride Weekend by celebrating San Francisco’s queer art underground.

Pride Concert Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission. SF; 7 and 9pm, Copresented by the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco and the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band, this 29th annual Pride concert promises to be a gay time for all.

San Francisco Trans March Dolores Park, 18th St and Dolores; 447-2774, www.transmarch.org. 3pm stage, 7pm march; free. Join the transgender community of San Francisco and beyond for a day of live performances, speeches, and not-so-military marching.

BAY AREA

Queer Stuff Pride Talent Showcase Home of Truth Spiritual Center, 1300 Grand, Alameda; 1-888-569-2064, www.queerstuffenterprises.com. 7:30pm, $8. This showcase features the music of Judea Eden and Friends, Amy Meyers, and True Magrit, plus the comedy of Karen Ripley.

SATURDAY 23

Dykes on Bikes Fundraiser Eagle, 398 12th St, SF; (510) 712-7739, www.twilightvixen.com. 1pm. Twilight Vixen Revue will perform at the beer bust at the Eagle. Stop by before heading to the march.

LGBT Pride Celebration Civic Center, Carlton B. Goodlett Place and McCallister, SF; (415) 864-3733, www.sfpride.org. Noon-6pm, free. Celebrate LGBT pride at this free outdoor event featuring DJs, speakers, and live music. This is the first half of the weekend-long celebration sponsored by SF Pride. Also Sun/24.

Mission Walk 18th St and Dolores, SF; (503) 758-9313, www.ebissuassociates.com. 11am, free. Join in on this queer women’s five-mile walk through the Mission.

Pink Triangle Installation Twin Peaks Vista, Twin Peaks Blvd parking area, SF; (415) 247-1100, ext 142, www.thepinktriangle.com. 7-11am, free. Bring a hammer and your work boots and help install the giant pink triangle atop Twin Peaks for everyone to see this Pride Weekend. Stay for the commemoration ceremony at 10:30am.

“Remembering Lou Sullivan: Celebrating 20 Years of FTM Voices” San Francisco LGBT Center, Ceremonial Room, 1800 Market, SF; (415) 865-5555, www.sfcenter.org. 6-8pm, free. This presentation celebrates the life of Louis Graydon Sullivan, founder of FTM International and an early leader in the transgender community.

“Qcomedy Showcase” Jon Sims Center, 1519 Mission, SF; (415) 541-5610, www.qcomedy.com. 8pm, $8-15. A stellar cast of San Francisco’s funniest queer and queer-friendly comedians performs.

San Francisco Dyke March Dolores Park, Dolores at 18th St, SF; www.dykemarch.org. 7pm, free. Featuring Music from Binky, Nedra Johnson, Las Krudas, and more, plus a whole lot of wacky sapphic high jinks.

SUNDAY 24

LGBT Pride Celebration Civic Center, Carlton B. Goodlett Place and McCallister, SF; (415) 864-3733, www.sfpride.org. Noon-7pm, free. The celebration hits full stride, with musical performances and more.

LGBT Pride Parade Market at Davis to Market at Eighth St, SF; (415) 864-3733, www.sfpride.org. 10:30am-noon, free. With 200-plus dykes on bikes in the lead, this 36th annual parade, with an expected draw of 500,000, is the highlight of the Pride Weekend in the city that defines LGBT culture.

CLUBS AND PARTIES

WEDNESDAY 20

“Gay Pride in the Mix” Eureka Lounge, 4063 18th St, SF; (415) 431-6000, e.stanfordalumni.org/clubs/stanfordpride/events.asp. 7-9pm, no cover. An intercollegiate LGBT mixer in an upscale environment, with drink and appetizer specials available. Alumni from Ivy League and Seven Sisters schools, Stanford, MIT, and UC Berkeley welcome.

Hellraiser Happy Hour: “Pullin’ Pork for Pride” Pilsner Inn, 225 Church, SF; (415) 621-7058. 5:30-8pm, free. The Guardian‘s own Marke B. will be pullin’ pork and sticking it between hot buns with the help of the crew from Funk N Chunk. You might win tickets to the National Queer Arts Festival, but really, isn’t having your pork pulled prize enough?

THURSDAY 21

“A Celebration of Diversity” Box, 628 Divisadero, SF. 9pm-2am, $20. Join Page Hodel for the return of San Francisco’s legendary Thursday night dance club the Box for one night only, sucka!

Crack-a-Lackin’ Gay Pride Mega Party Crib, 715 Harrison, SF; (415) 749-2228. 9:30pm-3am, $10. Features live stage performances and, according to the press release, “tons of surprises.” I’m not sure how much a surprise weighs, so I don’t know how many surprises it takes to add up to a ton. It’s one of those “how many angels fit on the head of a pin?” things.

“Gay Disco Fever” Lexington Club, 3464 19th St, SF; (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com. 9pm-2am. I can’t figure out who does what at this event. Courtney Trouble and Jenna Riot are listed as hosts, and Campbell and Chelsea Starr are the DJs, which I guess makes drag king Rusty Hips “Mr. Disco” and Claire and Shaunna the “Disco Queens.” It takes a village to raise a nightclub. That’s a whole lotta fabulousness under one roof.

“Girlezque SF” Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF; www.myspace.com/girlezquesf. 9pm, $10-15. This supposedly sophisticated burlesque party for women features the erotic stylings of AfroDisiac, Sparkly Devil, Rose Pistola, and Alma, with after-party grooves by DJ Staxx. Hopefully, it’s not too sophisticated &ldots;

Pride Party Lexington Club, 3464 19th St, SF; (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com. 9pm-2am, free. Make this no-cover throwdown your first stop as you keep the march going between the numerous after-parties.

FRIDAY 22

Bustin’ Out II Trans March Afterparty El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; (415) 510-677-5500. 9pm-2am, $5-50, sliding scale. Strut your stuff at the Transgender Pride March’s official after-party, featuring sets from DJs Durt, Lil Manila, and Mel Campagna and giveaways from Good Vibes, AK Press, and more. Proceeds benefit the Trans/Gender Variant in Prison Committee.

Cockblock SF Pride Party Fat City, 314 11th St, SF; (415) 568-8811. 9pm, $6. DJs Nuxx and Zax spin homolicious tunes and put the haters on notice: no cock-blockin’ at this sweaty soiree.

“GIRLPRIDE” Sound Factory, 525 Harrison, SF; (415) 647-8258. 9pm-4am, $20. About 2,500 women are expected to join host Page Hodel to celebrate this year’s Pride Weekend, and that’s a whole lotta love.

Mr. Muscle Bear Cub Contest and Website Launch Party Lone Star Saloon, 1354 Harrison, SF; (415) 978-9986. 11pm, $19.95. Join contestants vying for the title of spokesmodel of Muscle Bear Cub. The winner receives $500 cash and a lifetime supply of Bic razors. Don’t shave, Bear Cub! Don’t you ever shave!

Uniform and Leather Ball SF Veterans War Memorial, 401 Van Ness, Green Room, SF; www.sfphx.org. 8pm-midnight, $60-70. The men’s men of the Phoenix Uniform Club want you to dress to the fetish nines for this 16th annual huge gathering, featuring Joyce Grant and the City Swing Band and more shiny boots than you can lick all year. Yes, sirs!

SATURDAY 23

“Old School Dance” Cafè Flore, 2298 Market at Noe, SF; (415) 867-8579. 8pm-2am, free. Get down old-school style at the Castro’s annual Pink Saturday street party, with sets from DJs Ken Vulsion and Strano, plus singer Moon Trent headlining with a midnight CD release party for Quilt (Timmi-Kat Records).

Pride Brunch Hotel Whitcomb, 1231 Market, SF; (415) 777-0333, www.positiveresource.org. 11am-2pm, $75-100. Honor this year’s Pride Parade grand marshals: four hunky cast members from the TV series Noah’s Arc; Marine staff sergeant Eric Alva, the first American wounded in Iraq; and Jan Wahl, Emmy winner and owner of many funky hats.

“Puttin’ on the Ritz” San Francisco Design Center Galleria, 101 Henry Adams, SF; (650) 343-0543, www.puttinontheritzsf.com. 8pm-2am, $85. Bump your moneymaker at this all-lady event. Incidentally, the performer who brought “Puttin’ on the Ritz” back to popularity on early ’80s MTV was none other than Taco.

“Queen” Pier 27, SF; www.energy927fm.com. 9pm, $45. Energy 92.7 brings back the dynamism of the old-school San Francisco clubs for this Pride dance-off. Peaches and Princess Superstar headline. Wear your best tear-away sweats and get ready to get down, Party Boy style.

“Rebel Girl” Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF; wwww.rebelgirlsf.com. 9pm-2am, $10. Rebel Girl brings the noise for this one, with go-go dancers, Vixen Creations giveaways, drink specials, and, you know, rebel girls.

“Sweat Special Pride Edition” Lexington Club, 3464 19th St, SF; (415) 863-205, www.lexingtonclub.com. 9pm-2am, free. DJ Rapid Fire spins you right round round with a sweaty night of dancing and grinding.

SUNDAY 24

Dykes on Bikes Afterparty Lexington Club, 3464 19th St, SF; (415) 863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com. Noon, free. How do they find time to ride with all these parties?

“Gay Pride” Bambuddha Lounge, 601 Eddy, SF; (415) 864-3733, www.juanitamore.com. 3pm, $25. Juanita More! hosts this benefit for the Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial, with a DJs Derek B, James Glass, and fancy-pants New York City import Kim Ann Foxman. It also includes an appearance from silicone wonder Miss Gina LaDivina. Fill ‘er up, baby!

“Pleasuredome Returns” Porn Palace, 942 Mission, SF; (415) 820-1616, www.pleasuredomesf.com. 9pm, $20. You have to get tickets in advance for the onetime reopening of the dome in the Porn Palace’s main dungeon room. When you’re done dancing, visit the jail, bondage, or barn fantasy rooms and make that special someone scream “Sooo-eeeee!”

Summer splashdown

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Ra and I have never gotten along. As the sun god of the Egyptians, he says people should walk sideways with one hand up and the other down. I say people should walk forward, with hands by their sides. He says Jews should be slaves. I say Jews should be rich and powerful. He says door should be spelled soldier-falcon-cat … Things between us really came to a head over the whole Library of Alexandria fire mess, though. Words were exchanged, perhaps regrettably. Since then he hasn’t exactly been overly generous with his golden rays — to me or any other San Franciscan. It’s not that he’s completely shut us off. He teases us with just enough warmth, only to freeze us out once we thankfully shed our jackets. It’s his way of forcing us to be grateful to him. Jerk.

Now it’s June. Children are shrieking, lovers are lying, teenagers are doing drugs, and everyone and everything looks like a potential mate. It’s the time of year when I get the most fed up with Ra’s bait-and-switch shit. My psychologist suggests that the best way to deal with a bully is just to ignore him. I’m paying her to be right, and even if her tactic doesn’t get us more summer light, it may keep us from getting so flustered. Another thing that might help: a few drinks, ones that offer a little more than great flavor and good liquor. Even if we can’t have an actual summer, we can always down a few cocktails like those below, to which any eager marketing exec would attach the phrase "fun in the sun."

SANTIAGO SUN


Polk-Nob bar Rye is well known for its Honey Delight, a cocktail that mixes gin and bitters with honey and tangerine and orange juices and that reportedly tastes like Sunny Delight. Putting so much effort into something that tastes like Sunny D makes little sense to me, so I opt for the similarly juicy, rum-laden Santiago Sun. This drink has the same gritty sweetness that makes mojitos and caipirinhas so popular. But some of us get a little embarrassed ordering post-trendy mos and caips aloud these days; this cocktail will help you save face. It’s crisp and strong, with a fair share of citrus to keep the rum humble. The pummeled kumquats nestled at the bottom of the drink are perfect for nibbling on while you sit in Rye’s ultra-urban lounge pretending you’re Ernest Hemingway during one of those tempestuous Cuban summers.

Rye, 688 Geary, SF. (415) 474-4448

PAT PONG PUNCH


Hit Potrero Hill’s Lingba Lounge on the right night, and you’re in for a dance treat. Hit it on the wrong one, and you’ll be stuck in an empty, sleeked-out bar with uncomfortable furniture. On either occasion, though, there’s no reason to get stumped by Lingba’s menu of neo-island cocktails. Simply dive into the Pat Pong Punch, a mixture of bourbon and fresh tamarind and pineapple juices. This cocktail is great for its simplicity: the bourbon gets soaked in the sweetness but isn’t taken under. When the juices have washed away, the oaky bourbon is left resting easily on the tongue. On nights when you require something a little tackier — a little tikier — order the Shipwreck, a drink that comes in a coconut, or the Bowl of Monkeys, a drink that’s served ablaze. The price of a Bowl of Monkeys includes a Polaroid of the experience, so you should probably wait until your friends from Burlingame arrive before ordering it.

Lingba Lounge, 1469 18th St., SF. (415) 355-0001, www.lingba.com

SINGAPORE SLING (OR SO)


Remember the part in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas where Hunter S. Thompson says he was "drinking Singapore Slings with mescal on the side"? You might think such a cool line would have led to a proliferation of this lovely traditional drink. Yet slings in this city are rare. When I ordered one at the Hotel Utah recently, the bartender said he couldn’t make one because he didn’t have simple syrup. This is not even a typical ingredient. I got a nice approximation there anyway, with gin, bitters, brandy, and Cointreau. Some may point out that this is not really the recipe for a Singapore Sling, but in my experience that doesn’t matter much. The drink has a history that goes back to the first part of the 20th century, and the original recipe is long lost. Subsequent attempts to reconstruct it have created a wide variety of Singapore Slings. The excitement of ordering one and seeing what kind of fruity gin cocktail arrives may be more pleasurable than the drink itself.

Hotel Utah, 500 Fourth St., SF. (415) 546-6300, www.thehotelutahsaloon.com

CANTALOUPE MARTINI


The flavor of this Lush Lounge concoction resembles cantaloupe as much as the drink resembles a martini: not much at all. The most straightforward way to achieve a cantaloupe-flavored martini would have been to infuse vodka with the fruit. The Lush, for whatever reason, has come up with an intriguingly complex work-around, mixing watermelon liqueur, orange juice, citrus vodka, and lime. Surprise — it’s good. I’m glad no one informed these lushes that cantaloupe is far less citrusy than most of the ingredients used here, because the drink ends up as a pleasantly tart ode to a Tropical Watermelon Starburst (the purple flavor in the green pack).

Lush Lounge, 1092 Post, SF. (415) 771-2022, www.thelushlounge.com

PINK PUSSY


It’s possible to imagine that this little number, served at the Metro in the Castro, was born as a Cantaloupe Martini (see above), then evaporated down to its Starburst essence and reconstituted with liquor. It uses many of the same ingredients, but doesn’t taste like any particular kind of Starburst. It just has that sticky imitation-fruit feel going on that underlies all things Starburst. One of my favorite drinks in San Francisco is the cucumber gimlet at Bourbon and Branch, because it perfectly captures that soft but biting base flavor of cucumber. I find it equally remarkable that the Pink Pussy can so unerringly replicate an archetypal candy flavor (although it’s not too heavy and has enough alcohol to keep pace with its sweetness). But what’s in the drink may not be as important as what the drink’s in: a towering highball glass, a somewhat ironic play on the straitlaced aesthetic of early 20th-century modernism, considering the cocktail’s moniker.

Metro, 3600 16th St., SF. (415) 703-9750

BOURBON AND GINGER


Cocktails that taste like candy are fun, but after a couple sugar-rush headaches you start wanting something cleaner. The bourbon and ginger at Little Baobab isn’t your typical Jim Beam and ginger ale mixture — for one, it uses real ginger juice, which makes a world of difference. The juice’s lush tang stands up harder to the alcohol than any generous splash of Canada Dry could. The lack of carbonation is also surprisingly refreshing — the cocktail doesn’t taste watered down with air. It’s full and thick, with an insistent spiciness.

Little Baobab, 3388 19th St., SF. (415) 643-3558, www.bissapbaobab.com

LYCHEE LEMONGRASS FIZZ


Along with tasty if pricey sushi and a beautiful — if perhaps similarly pricey — waitstaff, the eternally hip Blowfish Sushi to Die For also offers this wonderful drink, which has the taste and smoothness of a lychee-ice-cream shake. Unfortunately, it’s not very alcoholic; you’ll need two to get a buzz. However, it’s soft and easy enough to lead you gently into the Japanese version of Tipsyville. Soda water provides a touch of sparkle, and lemongrass syrup spices it up, keeping repeated sips from slipping into monochromaticism.

Blowfish Sushi to Die For, 2170 Bryant, SF. (415) 285-3848, www.blowfishsushi.com

DOCTORED ORANGE CR&EME FRAPPUCCINO


If I can get this by the maniacal Guardian censors, I’ll recommend the Starbucks Orange Crème Frappuccino — although somewhat altered from what its makers intended. It’s a regular Frappuccino with the addition of the citrus flavor you might find in those Dutch orange chocolates, but Disneyed up. Get a large to share with your companions on the way to your first bar and throw in some Irish whiskey and a few caffeine pills. You’ll probably have spent the first part of your day drinking beers at your cousin’s graduation party or your step-aunt’s trailer or the garden party for your niece’s communion. This is a nice way to commit yourself to the evening, should there be any doubt.

Starbucks, every-freakin’-where. www.starbucks.com

Free Carolyn Knee! Free Carolyn Knee from the unethical clutches of the Ethics Commission!

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

There is a phrase I like to use to describe the power that PG&E has exercised in City Hall since the beginning of time, or at least since the federal Raker Act was passed in l9l3 mandating that San Francisco get public power from its Hetch Hetchy dam.

When PG&E spits, City Hall swims.

That is the phrase I used when I testified Monday night June ll at the Ethics Commission hearing in the infamous Carolyn Knee case. “You’re all swimming in it,” I told the commission.

I was trying to illustrate my key point: that the Commission, which had been created to expose and penalize the campaign and financial muscling of PG&E and the big guys in town, was now picking on the little guy, in this case Carolyn Knee, the woman who volunteered for the thankless job of being the treasurer of two citizens’ groups that put initiatives on the ballot in 200l and 2002 to do what the city had never done. And that was to kick PG&E out of City Hall, enforce the public power mandates of the Raker Act, and bring our own cheap green Hetch Hetchy public power to the residents and businesses of San Francisco. PG&E, the groups maintained, had an illegal private power monopoly and the citizens were forced to take this law and order issue into their own hands and go to war with PG&E.

Speed thrills

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Whither beauty? Withered on the prickly postmodern vine. Sour grapes, you say? Just look around: A chemical haze obscures formerly fragrant, now fallow fields of flowers across which long-legged lovelies strolled arm in arm under pin-striped parasols; poisonous waste washes up on the shores of previously pristine beaches where carefree bathers whiled away their weekends; and corporate conglomerates co-opt every available surface of soccer field and skating rink, once the open-air arenas of athletes for whom sport was merely child’s play dressed up in soft cotton jerseys and sensible shoes. Autumn afternoons no longer linger for a sun-dappled eternity, elegance is a disease of conceit, and Fred Astaire is long gone. With a tip of the woefully unfashionable top hat to Simone Signoret, nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.

But what good is sitting alone in your room? Slink over to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and spend many a restorative hour among the unknown pleasures of "Martin Munkácsi: Think While You Shoot!," a joyous retrospective that traces the rise and fall of beauty as a panacea, placebo, moral absolute, and vicious myth. The myriad surprises here refute rumors of beauty’s untimely demise, or at least temporarily revive those long-lost days of languorous lounging when everyone was gorgeous and speed meant velocity. Munkácsi’s photographs depict a world — not quite ours, but layered with remnants and reminders of what was and what again could be, when everything’s gone green — ceaselessly in motion. Neither the artist nor his subjects ever slowed down, hence the simultaneity demanded by the exhibition title. (For a guide on how best to experience the show on the first of the many visits it merits, check out the trio of would-be crooks racing through the Louvre in Jean-Luc Godard’s Band of Outsiders.)

Born in Hungary in 1896 and restlessly embarking on peripatetic journeys around the world, camera in tow, until his 1963 passing, Munkácsi was a modernist master of photography whose remarkable yet often overlooked achievements encompassed the prewar innocence of Budapest and the privileged leisure of Weimar-era Berlin. He shot mining disasters in Alsdorf and the landing of the Graf Zeppelin in Brazil, the pastoral villages of the Lengua tribe and the fabulous glamour of old Hollywood. He was everywhere and always in good company, swimming with the in-too-deep denizens of Copacabana, hobnobbing with the Hearsts at San Simeon, and marching with military troops in Liberia.

Beauty — in form and function, as hallowed intention and blessed happenstance — suited Munkácsi’s joie de vivre. His exuberant images of motorcyclists careening through the countryside, operetta starlets kicking up their heels, naked boys running into the surf at Lake Tanganyika, and Louis Armstrong letting loose with an endless smile seem the very essence of life lived fully, without worry, and with a keen appreciation for surface perfection and the complex mélange of conviviality and yearning beneath. An unapologetic aesthete, Munkácsi — Jewish and in the wrong place at the wrong time — might even have been temporarily blinded by beauty to the ugly truths that eventually sent him packing for the States. How else to explain the eerily graceful compositions of army ranks lined up like statues at the opening of the Reichstag in Potsdam, the portraits of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels tainted with a veneer of Nazi chic, or the startling shots of Triumph of the Will director Leni Riefenstahl expertly traversing tricky ski slopes? These images work as reportage, of course, but crafted with Munkácsi’s customary élan, they are nearly too revealing — and pleasing — for comfort.

Munkácsi’s wanderlust, zest, and brilliant eye — his gift for homing in on kinetic narratives and telling details greatly influenced Henri Cartier-Bresson’s crucial notion of the "decisive moment" in photography — led him to document the oddly parallel ascendancy of fascism and fashion as era-defining movements that shaped the intertwined fates of Europe and America and motivated his own travels to far-flung locales. Whether studying the drape of a Halston headdress on a beachcombing model, observing Fritz Lang at work in his Berlin apartment, or conveying the gory excitement of a bullfight simply by training his camera on the spectators’ wildly expressive faces, Munkácsi applied his groundbreaking aesthetics to epochal scenes of 20th-century life. He shot while he thought, and beauty lies bleeding. *

MARTIN MUNKÁCSI: THINK WHILE YOU SHOOT!

Through Sept. 16

Mon.–Tues. and Fri.–Sun., 11 a.m.–5:45 p.m.; Thurs., 10 a.m.–8:45 p.m.; $7–$12.50 (free first Tues.)

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

How is that gratitude?

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› amanda@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Doing the right thing often costs a little more. Organic food, solar panels, and compact fluorescent lightbulbs are all pricier than conventional options. But Café Gratitude is now adding legal fees to the cost of going green for terminating a linen service contract in order to use unbleached cotton napkins in its four restaurants.

It’s hard to imagine how a restaurant could be any more humane, sustainable, and environmentally conscious. Café Gratitude’s raison d’être is encouraging deeper human relationships with one another and the world while serving strictly raw, vegan food. Wheatgrass grows on its counters, and if it’s not organic, it’s not on the menu.

Terces and Matthew Engelhart opened the first restaurant in the Mission District in 2004 and have since spread to the Sunset, Berkeley, and San Rafael, with a Los Angeles location on the way. Each spot has compact fluorescent lightbulbs, toilets that flush with a low-flow gush, high-output hand dryers, and cornstarch to-go containers.

In order to eliminate plastic from their entire supply chain, the Engelharts have leaned on their bulk-food carriers to use fusti containers (large, stainless-steel casks provided by the café) instead of those ubiquitous, unrecyclable five-gallon buckets when shipping their raw goods. A recent raw food recipe book by Terces was printed on 100 percent recycled paper at her insistence. The cafés frequently host fundraisers for local nonprofits. Of course they compost, recycle, and buy local. The delivery van putters along on biodiesel.

Yet in the process of seeking to further green their business, the issue of bleached napkins came up. The Engelharts have always used cloth napkins rather than paper. Once washing napkins themselves became infeasible for their growing business, they contracted for clean cotton napkins from Mission Linen Supply. From the start, they asked the company for an unbleached alternative, but none was available.

Anyone with a bottle of Clorox can read the warning label cautioning against allowing its contents anywhere near your skin, mouth, or eyes. The use of chlorine bleach in laundry produces chloroform, a human carcinogen, and additional industrial uses create another 177 organochlorine byproducts, including dioxin, the stuff found in pesticides like DDT and Agent Orange. No level of exposure to dioxin is considered safe, but it has pervaded the environment so deeply that it typically turns up in breast milk and semen, drinking water, and the fatty tissue of the fish we eat. Dioxin can lead to hormone imbalances, reproductive disorders, kidney and liver diseases, and cancer of all kinds.

So the Engelharts decided to switch from Mission Linen to another nationally known company, Aramark, which offers unbleached cotton cloth rags, often used in the auto industry. The rags, which are a creamy beige color and look like they could have come off a shelf at Crate and Barrel, would have a first run at Café Gratitude, then be recycled for their next job, wiping oil dipsticks. "We thought this was a great green solution," Terces said.

But now Café Gratitude is being sued for $25,000 by Mission Linen for breach of contract.

Before terminating their contract with Mission Linen, the Engelharts continued to press the company for a green solution, but no dice. They decided to keep the bleached supply coming to the Harrison Street location, but as new cafés opened, they’d use Aramark’s unbleached alternative, which is the same price.

After repeatedly requesting a greener laundry service from Mission Linen, they reviewed their contract and determined it could be terminated if Mission Linen couldn’t provide a product or service of the quality found at a similar laundry in the area. Mission Linen did not return calls for comment, but according to the Engelharts’ lawyer, Fania Davis, the linen company interprets that language more narrowly and is suing for the estimated lost profit. The Engelharts offered a settlement, and the company turned them down, so the fight continues, but the Engelharts still think it’s unfair.

"We were more committed to green than to continuing to bleach in ever-increasing numbers," Terces said.

Matthew added that the point isn’t to cast Mission Linen in a bad light but to bring attention to an important need in the restaurant community for more environmentally friendly laundry options.

"We’re not doing this for us," Matthew said. "It’s for everyone, our children and grandchildren." *

Comments, ideas, and submissions for Green City, the Guardian‘s weekly environmental column, can be sent to news@sfbg.com.

Gunning for Boots

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Where have all the outlaws gone? Now that Paris Hilton seems like the highest-profile sorta-one-hit wonder to run afoul of the law, it’s easy to believe that pop’s rep for rebellion is seriously in question. (And with Warner Bros. jettisoning the overexposed jet-setter, who knows if she should even make the tally?) Yet just how disturbing or subversive is it to glom on to corporate punks like Good Charlotte or hitch your fortunes to soaking-in-it onetime gangstas like Snoop "Soul Gravy Train" Dogg? How revolutionary is it to play music your parents might approve of, à la white-bread soul poppers Maroon 5?

But those petty pop-crit worries wane on hearing about the Coup mastermind Boots (né Raymond) Riley’s Memorial Day misfortune. In the early-morning hours, long before most locals were firing up the grill and chugging microbrews, Riley was looking down the wrong end of a San Francisco Police Department gun barrel while innocently attending a get-together at a friend’s warehouse in SF’s Dogpatch-Waterfront zone. Why? Likely for nothing more than driving while black.

Riley had just parked his car near the warehouse when he was blinded by flashlights, and he realized that he was surrounded by cops. "They were saying, ‘Don’t fucking move, don’t fucking move,’ and came straight at me," Riley told me from his Oakland home, where he had just fed his kids their Sunday breakfast. "They put my hands above my head, searched me, and searched my car, even though they were looking for someone who was stealing tires. You know, if they had a description of a light-skinned black man with a big Afro and sideburns, maybe they should have taken me in. But they were yelling, ‘Are you on probation? Do you have a warrant?’ And every time I said no, they said, ‘Don’t lie to us. Don’t fucking lie to us.’"

Neighbor Hoss Ward had been walking his dog by the warehouse when he spied officers with flashlights lurking between parked cars amid the trash on the street. "I thought that was weird. They didn’t question me, but I’m a white man," he said later, verifying that Boots parked, got thrown against his car, and had guns pulled on him. "It’s not unusual for someone to pull up in a beater car," Ward said. Yet this incident smelled like racial profiling: "That’s what the vibe felt like."

"I walked over there and said, ‘What the hell is going on?’" recounted Riley’s friend Marci Bravo, who lives at the warehouse. Eventually Riley was released, but, Bravo continued, "It was really messed up. We fire off fireworks, burn things in the street, and there’s been no problems with cops. They’ve actually come and hung out before.

"It’s just a nasty case of police profiling."

In the end, Riley said, the officers didn’t even check his ID. At press time, police representatives had not responded to inquiries about the incident, and Riley was planning on filing a grievance with the city watchdog agency the Office of Citizens Complaints, a process that the longtime activist is, unfortunately, familiar with. After a 1995 Riverside performance with Method Man, Riley and kindred local hip-hoppers Raz Caz, E-Roc, and Saafir were pulled over and pepper-sprayed in their car seats following a yelling argument at a club. Then there was the incident during the Coup’s 2006 tour around, ironically, their Epitaph album Pick a Bigger Weapon. Shortly after the tour manager urinated next to a semi at a Vermont rest stop, the tour vehicles were stopped by plainclothes officers who claimed to be surveilling a cocaine deal in the truck. "Half the band woke up with guns in their faces," the Coup leader recalled.

Riley’s experiences in and out of our enlightened — for some — city bring home the ugly, everyday reality behind the entertaining anecdote with which the Arcade Fire’s Win Butler regaled the Greek Theatre crowd June 2: he was almost arrested for the first time that day when Berkeley police dragged him out of a rec facility for arguing over the use of a public basketball court. "They called for backup and everything," Butler marveled onstage.

"There are stories all the time," Riley offered matter-of-factly. "Everyone knows you used to get fucked with in San Francisco and Berkeley."

"Usually it’s not anything with me specifically being a rapper," he continued. "I might have even more protection because of that. Like at this get-together, somebody came up and said, ‘Don’t you know who this is? This is Boots Riley.’ They might not have known who I am, but they realize this isn’t the regular case where they can do whatever they want." *

ALIGN YOUR CHAKRAS, CAMPERS

Talk to underground trance DJs, and they’ll point to the Harmony Festival as the hot spot forest ravers will be orbiting. Indeed, one of the main organizers, Howard "Bo" Sapper — who, along with Sean Ahearn, Scott McKeown, and Jeff Kaus, is putting on the 29th music and camping fest — agrees that a healthy, fire-breathing portion of the expected 40,000 at the three-day event will be die-hard burners drawn to the seven-year-old techno tribal night. Sapper also points proudly to the diversity of the musical lineup, including Brian Wilson, Erykah Badu, Rickie Lee Jones, the Roots, Common, moe., and Umphrey’s McGee. "I’m not sure if we’re going mainstream or the mainstream is coming to us," Sapper said, listing the green exhibits and this year’s theme, Promoting Global Cooling. "It’s part of the paradigm shift going on in America."

OVERNIGHT MUST-HAVES


Earplugs

Air mattress

Plenty of water

Patience

HARMONY FESTIVAL

Fri/8–Sun/10, $20–$500

Sonoma County Fairgrounds

1350 Bennett Valley Road, Santa Rosa

www.harmonyfestival.com

Pet projects

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› gwschulz@sfbg.com

"If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men."

St. Francis of Assisi

His name is Sylvester. He’s quite handsome and charismatic, for a cat.

Sylvester is believed to be about eight years old, and the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has been his home since last July. He’s a simple domestic shorthair, with a jet-black coat aside from some snow-white blotches on his chest and left arm.

Also doing time at the SPCA is a slightly bashful orange tabby named Jitters, who has awaited a home since April. A long-haired tortie named Minna, with somber green eyes and a splash of umber on her nose, has been at the SPCA for a year and a half.

In many cities Sylvester, Jitters, and Minna would be on death row. In San Francisco they’re guaranteed a chance to live until they find a family, as long as they’re deemed adoptable by the SPCA and don’t develop a life-threatening disease or unmanageable behavior traits. They are the legacy of pioneering former president Richard Avanzino, regarded by most as the originator of the national "no-kill" movement.

Avanzino spent 20 years making the San Francisco SPCA a national leader in saving animals, including forging a pact with the city in 1994 to work toward guaranteeing every adoptable cat and dog a home, a remarkable promise during a time when few places across the nation were willing to make saving the lives of companion animals a priority. Most shelters euthanized tens of thousands of kittens, puppies, dogs, and cats every year to save space and money. Quite a few still do.

But after Avanzino left in 1998 to spread his no-kill philosophy nationally through the Alameda-based nonprofit Maddie’s Fund, the local SPCA has steadily retreated from the cutting edge. Rather than continuing to push toward the goal of saving all the animals, the two presidents who succeeded Avanzino have focused the organization on a private hospital project that has turned into an expensive boondoggle that’s sapped the organization’s energy and resources and angered the local veterinary community.

"San Francisco likes to say it’s the safest city in the United States to be a dog or cat," said Nathan Winograd, a widely recognized proponent of the no-kill philosophy and former director of operations for the SPCA, who left the organization in late 2000. "That is no longer true. There are other cities that are doing much more in terms of lifesaving. That’s one of the reasons I chose to leave San Francisco."

The SPCA’s eighth president, Jan McHugh-Smith, finally arrived in April after the shelter had spent nine months with an interim head, and the question now is whether she can turn this troubled yet still revered organization around.

Only in recent years have cities nationwide begun enacting policies intended to stop — or at least dramatically slow — the senseless slaughter of animals that are the defenseless victims of the public’s love of adorable newborns and specialized breeds. That trend started in San Francisco.

Avanzino calls welfare groups like the SPCA "safety valves" that relieve pressure on animal control officers and traditional municipal shelters. In an editorial last year for Maddie’s Fund he wrote that saving healthy and treatable shelter pets is the "minimum no-kill standard" and that communities today should strive to go beyond no-kill.

"Tompkins County, New York is a case in point," he wrote. "The Tompkins County SPCA maintains a 92 percent live-release rate. It saves all of the county’s healthy and treatable shelter pets and feral cats. Should this be our life-saving goal? I think it should."

Tompkins County, it turns out, is exactly where Winograd went after leaving the San Francisco SPCA in frustration. "When I left, we just had to save 500 or 600 more treatable dogs and cats every year, and we would have been just about there," Winograd said. "We were a whisper away."

Edwin Sayres, who succeeded Avanzino as president, told the shelter’s board of directors that the SPCA could remain in the vanguard of reducing pet overpopulation and saving abandoned animals while at the same time building a prestigious, state-of-the-art veterinary hospital that would rival one of the few other comparable facilities anywhere in the United States, Angell Memorial Hospital in Boston.

The Massachusetts SPCA, however, spends millions of dollars more each year simply running its three Angell facilities than the San Francisco SPCA’s entire budget. Originally expected to cost just $15 million, the price tag of the latter’s Leanne B. Roberts Animal Care Center has now shot to $32 million. The SPCA will finally break ground on the new facility in October.

Critics feared the hospital idea was a potential disaster, and they complained that the nonprofit had become top-heavy under Sayres. They pointed to the shelter’s money trail, detailed in its required annual tax-exempt disclosure forms, to emphasize where they believed the shelter’s priorities now rested.

While earning $200,000 a year in salary and benefits, Sayres created new executive positions that cost the shelter hundreds of thousands of dollars more in compensation than was spent during Avanzino’s tenure. That might not have seemed like such a big deal in 1997, when the nonprofit was taking in several million dollars more in donations from the public than it was spending to cover operational expenses.

But by the end of the 2002 fiscal year, when donations to the SPCA and many nonprofits were lagging, the shelter had fallen $2 million short of covering its $14 million in expenses, which had climbed by the millions annually.

At the same time, the city failed to reach its goal of releasing alive 75 percent of the animals it impounded; 2,075 animals were killed that year for a variety of reasons, according to city records. The SPCA also missed its target that year for the number of animals it would take in from the city’s municipal shelter and make available for new homes through its unique adoption center.

Meanwhile, several cities across the country were embracing the no-kill cause, inspired at least initially by San Francisco’s example. They did so with considerable help from Winograd, who worked briefly as a Marin County prosecutor before traversing the nation to help shelters come as reasonably close to no-kill as they could.

Tompkins County; Charlottesville, Va.; and Reno are all boasting live-release rates of around 90 percent after promising to find homes for adoptable and treatable animals, the latter a key category that includes animals with behavior problems, serious illnesses, and injuries that require extra care.

In other words, as San Francisco struggled to maintain its sense of direction, other communities began to implement and even redefine the meaning of no-kill. San Francisco has averaged a 70 to 80 percent save rate annually for several years — and the difference between this and what Winograd and others have hoped for the city of St. Francis means hundreds of animals being killed each year.

While avoiding any searing critique of the shelter, Avanzino told the Guardian that he perhaps would not have promoted the hospital scheme. However, he said, plenty of his own bold ideas at the SPCA once made him a target of criticism, like the shelter’s posh $7 million adoption center, composed of 86 kitty condos and doggy apartments.

"I know it sounds like I’m ducking the issue, and I am," Avanzino told us. "But the bottom line is that new leadership and the policy makers for the organization believe with everything in their being that this is an important next step for the San Francisco SPCA and [that] it is going to do more to help the animals. They have not kept me in the loop."

Nonetheless, when Sayres led the nonprofit, between 1999 and 2003, it spent at least $1.7 million just on architects and veterinary consultants moving the planned hospital forward. Meanwhile, programs like humane education and law and advocacy, the latter at one time a half-million-dollar program, saw deep cuts in their budgets or simply shriveled up and disappeared altogether, while public relations and promotional expenses retained brisk support to the tune of at least $1 million annually for several years before those expenditures were finally trimmed too.

Further, the shelter’s 17-member board of directors granted Sayres a $400,000 home loan and gave him 30 years to pay it off, although he cleared the debt before leaving for a new job in June 2003 at the American SPCA, which is independent of the San Francisco SPCA.

As the summertime explosion of kittens loomed in the spring of 2003 and Sayres prepared to leave, he sent an e-mail to the SPCA’s nearly 1,000 volunteers blaming the economy’s ongoing downturn and a 10 percent drop in public donations for the shelter’s money woes. The jobs of at least 15 employees were cut, and others were merged into one, including two major volunteer-coordinating positions.

In e-mails circuutf8g at the time, copies of which we’ve obtained, volunteers agonized over whether to inform the press of what was going on internally, nearing the point of insurrection over cuts in shelter services — including a one-of-a-kind dog behavior and training program. The truth, some feared, would turn donors away. Some argued that executive salaries should be trimmed to save money before ground-level staffers were dispatched with pink slips. Others were furious over the planned hospital’s burgeoning costs.

"I certainly think a new center is exciting and overdue," a volunteer wrote to Sayres. "But it annoys me [to] no end to see billboards all over the city about the center and nothing about the situation we’re in."

Sayres never responded to several detailed questions sent to him by e-mail and was unable to make time for a phone interview. But he admitted in a 2002 San Francisco Business Times story that he’d "tried to move forward with my vision too quickly."

"I should have taken more time to listen and absorb the culture," Sayres said in the story. "Now I’m more mindful of the contributions that people have made here over the decades."

New president McHugh-Smith insists the shelter can still balance the hospital plan’s most recent incarnation and a continued focus on the agency’s raison d’être: preventing cruelty to animals.

"One thing I’m really proud of is our hospital provides one and a half million dollars’ worth of charity care to homeless animals and people who can’t afford veterinary care for their pets," McHugh-Smith said. "What a critical service for this city. There are a lot of people here who can’t afford the care their animals need. They shouldn’t have to give up their pets for that."

Recent troubles aside, even the SPCA’s fiercest critics contend that much of the nation still lives deep in the shadows of its extraordinary achievements.

The San Francisco SPCA was officially chartered in 1868 as the first humane society west of the Mississippi River. But more than a century later, in 1978, its leadership had grown tired of the organization’s serving dual roles as a killer and a savior of animals.

Backing out of its long-standing shelter contract with the city meant losing more than a fifth of its annual budget, but then-president Avanzino felt the group’s agenda no longer fit with the city’s mechanized handling of hapless animals. Thousands were still being killed by the city each year.

"For 101 years, the reputation of the SFSPCA was, ‘That’s the place where animals are killed,’" Avanzino said in a 2000 interview he gave to Maddie’s Fund. "That was not the purpose of our organization. You can’t be the animals’ best friends and be their principal killer."

The city was forced to create a separate municipal shelter, known today as the Department of Animal Care and Control, which cites abusers, seizes dangerous dogs, and maintains its own adoption program. The SPCA then proceeded to vastly expand its spaying and neutering services, particularly for juvenile animals, as well as its medical facilities and treatment for animal behavior previously regarded as severe enough to warrant a trip to the death chamber, in which dozens of animals were killed at once. A technician withdrew oxygen from a decompression room until they died.

The SPCA led the way in taking animals waiting for adoption out into the community, and while some early skeptics feared mobilized adoptions would inspire impulse buying and high turnovers, many groups nationwide started to follow Avanzino’s lead after seeing how well it worked here.

On its sweeping Mission property at 16th and Alabama streets, where the SPCA has been located for almost a century, the shelter did away with cell-style kennels, which encourage erratic behavior and reduce the chances that an animal will find a home. In 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, the city found homes for 4,500 dogs and cats, with the SPCA handling three-fourths of those adoptions.

And guaranteeing homes for cats and dogs defined as adoptable, let alone those who are arguably treatable with the right commitment of energy and resources, was almost unheard of in the mid-’90s, when San Francisco made its promise. Under San Francisco’s agreement with the SPCA, animals considered adoptable include cats and dogs eight weeks and older, those without "temperamental defects," and those not suffering from life-threatening diseases or injuries.

However, while a 100 percent adoption rate is probably not possible, Winograd and others worry that the bedrock of the nation’s no-kill movement has failed to reach its full potential since Avanzino left, and they say the San Francisco SPCA could at least aspire to a save rate of more than 70 to 80 percent.

"I think the agency went through some times they weren’t used to, not having a long-term leader that really understood the history of the organization and the goals of the organization," Carl Friedman, director of Animal Care and Control, said of the SPCA. "But that happens everywhere. I think it took a little bit of a toll on the organization."

Friedman worked at the SPCA for several of its most memorable years before moving to the city’s municipal shelter in 1988, after the SPCA relinquished its role as the proverbial dogcatcher. He says that most euthanized animals in San Francisco are cats and dogs struck by automobiles or those suffering from parvovirus and distemper, both preventable with early vaccinations.

It’s worth noting that the agreement between Friedman’s office and the SPCA forbids each of them from speaking critically of the other, and many of the people we talked to balked at speaking on the record.

"People are afraid of getting sued, and they’re afraid of what will happen," Winograd said. "There are people in San Francisco who need these agencies. They’re not willing to be forthright, because they’re afraid. I’m a lawyer, so anybody who wants to sue me, good luck. But the truth is the truth."

The shelter’s problems that started under Sayres continued under his handpicked successor, Daniel Crain. And they reached a zenith in August 2004 when one of the SPCA’s leading veterinarians, Jeffrey Proulx, committed suicide in horrific fashion, delivering a psychic blow to longtime SPCA volunteers and staffers.

The morning Proulx was discovered, a Marin County coroner found an empty box of Nembutal injectable solution on the kitchen counter of his San Rafael home. Nembutal is a barbiturate used in physician-assisted suicides, but it’s also used to euthanize animals, and a bottle of it was missing from the shelter’s medicine cabinet the day Proulx died.

Proulx was the hospital’s chief of staff and was overseeing the expansion project. The task was apparently wearing him down, and on the day of his death, he threatened to resign.

Groundbreaking was supposed to occur in 2004. Then 2005. Then 2006. In the meantime, a private animal hospital providing 24-hour emergency care — San Francisco Veterinary Specialists — moved into the neighborhood, just blocks away, casting doubt on whether the facility’s service load could justify the project.

After Proulx’s death, the SPCA announced that it had chosen another architectural firm to take charge of the hospital: Rauhaus Freedenfeld and Associates. By then the organization had spent nearly $4 million on veterinary consultants and architects, according to tax records, and even today hardly a single wall has been erected.

A previous architecture firm, ARQ Architects, which designed the shelter’s adoption center, has earned more than $2 million from the SPCA since 2000, but there’s no telling what happened to any of the designs the firm crafted. Nonetheless, according to the shelter’s newest tax records, provided at the Guardian‘s request, Rauhaus was paid more than $500,000 last year, and another $330,000 went to a project manager, CMA. A new veterinary consultant was paid $90,000 last year as well, after a previous consultant, Massachusetts-based VHC, was paid at least $925,000 over a three-year period.

After Proulx died, Crain lasted just two more years as president. He left last August, and attempts to reach him at various phone numbers, a fax number, and a last-known San Francisco address in Bernal Heights were unsuccessful.

Crain joined the shelter in 1999 as a human resources director but quickly — despite little evidence of nonprofit management experience and only a brief stint running human resources — became the SPCA’s vice president under Sayres, earning well into six figures. In 2003, after Sayres’s departure, he became the SPCA’s top administrator following a board vote, which brought his compensation to more than $200,000 a year.

Ken White, director of the Peninsula Humane Society, said he never forged the bond with Crain that he did with the leadership of Marin County’s municipal shelter and its major East Bay animal welfare counterpart. White worked for nearly a decade at the SPCA, until 1989, when San Francisco created the separate animal-control entity that exists today.

Although reluctant to speak critically about the SPCA, White explained that the Peninsula shelter treats about 1,000 injured wildlife animals from San Francisco annually under a very modest contract with the city that’s nowhere near enough to cover his costs. The SPCA focuses primarily on cats and dogs, and the Peninsula shelter has more space.

People like Winograd, who now directs a nonprofit in San Clemente called the No Kill Advocacy Center, say the shelter’s campaign to build a modern but almost prohibitively expensive hospital diverted funds away from "God’s work": caring for animals so they may be adopted out.

"I didn’t feel the city needed another specialty hospital," Winograd said, "and my fear was that the energy and dollars and all the effort that would be put into the hospital would pull the agency away from its core mission of patching together the sick and injured dogs and cats."

"They still think that’s the next big thing," said Karin Jaffie, a former public relations coordinator and longtime volunteer. "For the cost of the hospital, you could have trained a lot of people’s dogs or spay-neutered the city’s pit bull population for free."

An early plan for the hospital included 24-hour emergency care and critical services like oncology, cardiology, and neurology — services that shelter execs argued pet owners would never pursue otherwise to help save their animals.

Yet the plan had a significant catch: it called for aligning the hospital’s nonprofit component with a for-profit network of veterinary specialists who would lease space inside the facility and help cover its overhead by paying some of the utility bills. Private specialty veterinary care was among the fastest-growing segments of the industry at the time, and the SPCA’s eager citywide promotional campaign for the hospital raised the ire of private vets working in the Bay Area, including their industry group, the California Veterinary Medical Association.

McHugh-Smith admitted that "after much evaluation" the complex for-profit plan was scratched completely, and the shelter had to more or less start over after spending millions. "It wasn’t going to help our mission, so that project was put to rest," she told us.

Not everyone was quick to offer a negative opinion of the shelter’s past leadership. Kelley Filson, a former humane-education director, said that all nonprofits experience periodic lulls in funding and that her program was never short of the resources it genuinely needed to help Bay Area youth understand why it’s necessary to treat animals humanely. Like in K-9 behavior training, she says, SPCA supporters should focus on the shelter’s historic milestones.

"It was not a direct-care program," Filson said of humane education, which endured budget cuts in recent years. "When there are 10 puppies that need medicine and treatment, that’s a very immediate need, so I think that people [misunderstand] when an organization has to look at the immediate needs of suffering animals versus education goals. Until you’re in the position of running that organization, you don’t often understand the decisions that are being made."

Skepticism aside, the shelter’s existing 70-year-old animal care hospital, where it treats injured and abandoned animals, could certainly benefit from a makeover. It still provides a range of services for a relatively minimal fee, including limited emergency care for the pets of some low-income San Franciscans. In 1978 the shelter’s spay-neuter clinic was the first in the nation to provide the service at a reduced cost, and it continues to alter feral cats brought in by a citywide network of caretakers for free.

"The demands on that hospital have grown large over the years," McHugh-Smith said. "Our surgical [unit] is on the second floor, and we have to carry the animals upstairs…. It’s just not very efficient or effective any longer."

The emergency and specialty hospital San Francisco Veterinary Specialists now does what the SPCA originally hoped to. Previously at odds with the SPCA’s for-profit scheme, the private vets will now donate certain specialty services that the SPCA isn’t able to cover under its current plans. Dr. Alan Stewart, a founder of SFVS, told us they’ve already helped several animals.

Construction on the Roberts Center is slated to begin in October. McHugh-Smith promises the new plan will enable San Francisco to expand its definition of a treatable homeless animal by expanding the range of treatment the city can administer. Now the $32 million will go toward simply renovating a massive warehouse on the shelter’s campus and giving its current facility another 40,000 square feet of space. The feral cat project, which today operates out of a former lobby, will get its own designated area, and McHugh-Smith says the shelter will also act as a university hospital where veterinary students can learn to treat the approximately 25,000 animals that pass through annually.

McHugh-Smith, the shelter’s first female president, has worked in animal welfare for more than two decades. She spent 12 years as CEO of the humane society in Boulder, Colo., and built that city’s live-release rate up to 86 percent.

Because of the Bay Area’s supercharged political tendencies, she faces constant and varying obstacles. Wildlife supporters loathe the SPCA’s long history of backing feral cat populations and off-leash dogs on federal parkland such as the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Even the phrase "animal welfare" is politically loaded — it’s often used specifically to separate pet lovers and the wealthy benefactors of big nonprofit shelters from "animal rights" factions perceived as too radical. Plus, there’s the fact that higher save rates translate into greater challenges in dealing with the final 20 or 30 percent of animals, which can require treatment before being adoptable.

"The higher you get, the more difficult it gets, and the more resources you need," McHugh-Smith said of the city’s save rate. "Hence, the hospital is going to be a really critical part of that."

Avanzino says San Francisco could still do a much better job presenting records to the public of which animals are killed and why. Are hyperthyroid or feral cats untreatable? Are otherwise healthy pit bulls made "unhealthy" merely by irresponsible owners? For years, transparency in terms of what constitutes a treatable or healthy animal has been a major tenet Avanzino has advocated.

"If we’re really going to empower the public to be part of the solution and see that the job gets done, we’ve got to give them the data," he told us. "Are the dogs and cats that we call family members getting justice from us? If not, then we have failed them, and in San Francisco that should never happen. It’s the city of St. Francis." *

Downtown’s sneaky parking plan

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OPINION Two years ago this week, the mayors of many of the world’s largest cities gathered in San Francisco for World Environment Day and pledged to make their cities more livable and sustainable places.

San Francisco justly prides itself on being an environment-minded city made of diverse and livable neighborhoods. Thanks in large part to the city’s historic neighborhoods, designed around walking and public transit, San Franciscans generate fewer greenhouse gas emissions per capita than residents of any city in the country except New York.

Unfortunately, one of the most environmentally unfriendly measures to come along in a decade may be headed to the ballot. A shadowy coalition of downtown interests is gathering signatures for a measure, the brainchild of Republican financier Don Fisher, that would impose a one-size-fits-all parking "solution" on San Francisco’s distinct neighborhoods while removing protections for pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit from the city’s Planning Code.

This measure, blandly titled the Parking for Neighborhoods Initiative, threatens to reverse decades of progress toward a sustainable and livable San Francisco.

If this measure becomes law, it will negate the ability of neighborhoods to plan their own future, to provide affordable housing options, and to make their streets safe and livable. It will, in a stroke, overturn many years’ worth of neighborhood-based planning efforts, from downtown and South of Market through Hayes Valley and the Mission to Balboa Park.

Reduced-parking requirements, limitations on creating new parking spaces, have become a useful tool for decreasing traffic congestion, encouraging walking, cycling, and public transit use, and making housing more affordable in the city’s most dense and transit-rich neighborhoods. The city’s Downtown Plan, adopted in the 1980s, encouraged the area to grow as a diverse commercial, industrial, and residential district, oriented to transit rather than the automobile.

Many neighborhoods may not choose reduced-parking requirements, but where they fit, residents have embraced them as a way to preserve their neighborhoods’ livability, character, and affordability. Nearly a third of San Francisco households live without a car. A UC Berkeley study showed that units without parking spaces are affordable to twice as many households as units with them.

The measure would also prohibit programs to make San Francisco’s mean streets safer places for all of us, particularly children, elders, and the disabled. It arrogantly asserts the right of developers to cut new driveways and garage entrances wherever they want, regardless of the number of pedestrians, cyclists, and Muni riders who would be inconvenienced or even endangered.

Proponents of the measure are trying to give it a green gloss, invoking provisions about car sharing and low-emission vehicles. Don’t be fooled — this ill-conceived measure will make our city less sustainable, less livable, less affordable, and less safe. Don’t sign the petition! *


Tom Radulovich is executive director of Livable City (www.livablecity.org).

Dining listings

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Welcome to our dining listings, a detailed guide by neighborhood of some great places to grab a bite, hang out with friends, or impress the ones you love with thorough knowledge of this delectable city. Restaurants are reviewed by Paul Reidinger (PR) or staff. All area codes are 415, and all restaurants are wheelchair accessible, except where noted.

B Breakfast

BR Saturday and/or Sunday brunch

L Lunch

D Dinner

AE American Express

DC Diners Club

DISC Discover

MC MasterCard

V Visa

¢ less than $7 per entrée

$ $7–<\d>$12

$$ $13–<\d>$20

$$$ more than $20

DOWNTOWN/EMBARCADERO

Bocadillos serves bocadillos — little Spanish-<\d>style sandwiches on little round buns — but the menu ranges more widely, through a variety of Spanish and Basque delights. Decor is handsome, though a little too stark-<\d>modern to be quite cozy. (PR, 8/04) 710 Montgomery, SF. Spanish/<\d>Basque, L/D, $, MC/V.

Boulevard runs with ethereal smoothness — you are cosseted as if at a chic private party — but despite much fame the place retains its brasserie trappings and joyous energy. (Staff) 1 Mission, SF. 543-6084. American, L/D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Brindisi Cucina di Mare cooks seafood the south Italian way, and that means many, many ways, with many, many sorts of seafood. (PR, 4/04) 88 Belden Place, SF. 593-8000. Italian/<\d>seafood, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Bushi-tei melds East and West, old and new, with sublime elegance. Chef Seiji Wakabayashi is fluent in many of the culinary dialects of East Asia as well as the lofty idiom of France, and the result is cooking that develops its own integrity. The setting — of glass, candles, and ancient lumber — shimmers with enchantment. (PR, 3/06) 1638 Post, SF. 440-4959. Fusion, D, $$$, AE/MC/V.

Café Claude is a hidden treasure of the city center. There is an excellent menu of traditional, discreetly citified French dishes, a youthful energy, and a romantic setting on a narrow, car-free lane reminiscent of the Marais. (PR, 10/06) 7 Claude Lane, SF. 392-3515. French, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Chaya Brasserie brings a taste of LA’s preen-and-be-seen culture to the waterfront. The Japanese-<\d>influenced food is mostly French, and very expensive. (Staff) 132 Embarcadero, SF. 777-8688. Fusion, D, $$$, AE/DC/MC/V.

Cortez has a Scandinavian Designs-<\d>on-<\d>acid look — lots of heavy, weird multicolored mobiles — but Pascal Rigo’s Mediterranean-<\d>influenced small plates will quickly make you forget you’re eating in a hotel. (Staff) 550 Geary (in the Hotel Adagio), SF. 292-6360. Mediterranean, B/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Cosmopolitan Cafe seems like a huge Pullman car. The New American menu emphasizes heartiness. (Staff) 121 Spear, SF. 543-4001. American, L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.

NORTH BEACH/CHINATOWN

Da Flora advertises Venetian specialties, but notes from Central Europe (veal in paprika cream sauce) and points east (whiffs of nutmeg) creep into other fine dishes. (Staff) 701 Columbus, SF. 981-4664. Italian, D, $$, MC/V.

Dalla Torre is one of the most inaccessible restaurants in the city. The multi<\d>level dining room — a cross between an Italian country inn and a Frank Lloyd Wright house — offers memorable bay views, but the pricey food is erratic. (Staff) 1349 Montgomery, SF. 296-1111. Italian, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Enrico’s Sidewalk Cafe remains a classic see-and-be-seen part of the North Beach scene. The full bar and extensive menu of tapas, pizzas, pastas, and grills make dropping in at any hour a real treat. (Staff) 504 Broadway, SF. 982-6223. Mediterranean, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Gondola captures the varied flavors of Venice and the Veneto in charmingly low-key style. The main theme is the classic one of simplicity, while service strikes just the right balance between efficiency and warmth. (Staff) 15 Columbus, SF. 956-5528. Italian, L/D, $, MC/V.

House of Nanking never fails to garner raves from restaurant reviewers and Guardian readers alike. Chinatown ambience, great food, good prices. (Best Ofs, 1994) 919 Kearny, SF. 421-1429. Chinese, L/D, ¢.

SOMA

Le Charm might be in San Francisco, but it has a bistro authenticity even Parisians could love, from a wealth of golden wood trim to an enduring loyalty au prix fixe. The chicken liver salad is matchless, the succinct wine list distinctly Californian. Ponder it in the idyllic, trellised garden. (PR, 9/06) 315 Fifth St, SF. 546-6128. French, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Chez Spencer brings Laurent Katgely’s precise French cooking into the rustic-<\d>industrial urban cathedral that once housed Citizen Cake. Get something from the wood-<\d>burning oven. (Staff) 82 14th St, SF. 864-2191. French, BR/L/D, $$, MC/V.

Fly Trap Restaurant captures a bit of that old-time San Francisco feel, from the intricate plaster ceiling to the straightforward menu: celery Victor, grilled salmon filet with beurre blanc. A good lunchtime spot. (Staff) 606 Folsom, SF. 243-0580. American, L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.

*Fringale still satisfies the urge to eat in true French bistro style, with Basque flourishes. The paella roll is a small masterpiece of food narrative; the frites are superior. (PR, 7/04) 570 Fourth St, SF. 543-0573. French/Basque, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

India Garden indeed has a lovely garden and an excellent lunch buffet that does credit to South Asian standards. (Staff) 1261 Folsom, SF. 626-2798. Indian, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

NOB HILL/RUSSIAN HILL

Acquerello reminds us that the Italians, like the French, have a high cuisine — sophisticated and earthy and offered in a onetime chapel with exposed rafters and sumptuous fabrics on the banquettes. Service is as knowledgeable and civilized as at any restaurant in the city. (PR, 3/05) 1722 Sacramento, SF. 567-5432. Italian, $$$, D, AE/DISC/MC/V.

Ah Lin offers Mandarin-style Chinese cooking in an easy-to-take storefront setting on Cathedral Hill. The dishes are well behaved and tasty, with only an occasional flare-up of chile heat. The roast duck is one of the best deals in town. (PR, 10/06) 1634 Bush, SF. 922-5279. Chinese, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Alborz looks more like a hotel restaurant than a den of Persian cuisine, but there are flavors here — of barberry and dried lime, among others — you won’t easily find elsewhere. (Staff) 1245 Van Ness, SF. 440-4321. Persian, L/D, $, MC/V.

Bacio offers homey, traditional Italian dishes in a charmingly cozy rustic space. Service can be slow. (PR, 1/05) 835 Hyde, SF. 292-7999. Italian, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Cordon Bleu has huge portions, tiny prices, and a hoppin’ location right next to the Lumiere Theatre. (Staff) 1574 California, SF. 673-5637. Vietnamese, L/D, ¢.

CIVIC CENTER/TENDERLOIN

Mangosteen radiates lime green good cheer from its corner perch in the Tenderloin. Inexpensive Vietnamese standards are rendered with thoughtful little touches and an emphasis on the freshest ingredients. (PR, 11/05) 601 Larkin, SF. 776-3999. Vietnamese, L/D, $, cash only.

Max’s Opera Cafe Huge food is the theme here, from softball-<\d>size matzo balls to towering desserts. Your basic Jewish deli. (Staff) 601 Van Ness, SF. 771-7300. American, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Mekong Restaurant serves the foods of the Mekong River basin. There is a distinct Thai presence but also dishes with Laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and even Chinese accents. (PR, 1/06) 791 O’Farrell, SF. 928-2772. Pan-<\d>Asian, L/D, $, MC/V.

Olive might look like a tapas bar, but what you want are the thin-crust pizzas, the simpler the toppings the better. The small plates offer eclectic pleasures, especially the Tuscan pâté and beef satay with peanut sauce. (Staff) 743 Larkin, SF. 776-9814. Pizza/<\d>eclectic, D, $, AE/DISC/MC/V.

HAYES VALLEY

Frjtz serves first-rate Belgian fries, beer, crepes, and sandwiches in an art-<\d>house atmosphere. If the noise overwhelms, take refuge in the lovely rear garden. (Staff) 579 Hayes, SF. 864-7654; also at Ghirardelli Square, SF. 928-3886. Belgian, B/L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Hayes Street Grill started more than a quarter century ago as an emulation of the city’s old seafood houses, and now it’s an institution itself. The original formula — immaculate seafood simply prepared, with choice of sauce and French fries — still beats vibrantly at the heart of the menu. Service is impeccable, the setting one of relaxed grace. (PR, 7/06) 816 Folsom, SF. 863-5545. Seafood, L/D, $$$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

Sauce enjoys the services of chef Ben Paula, whose uninhibited California cooking is as easy to like as a good pop song. (PR, 5/05) 131 Gough, SF. 252-1369. California, D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

Suppenküche has a Busvan for Bargains, butcher-<\d>block look that gives context to its German cuisine. If you like schnitzel, brats, roasted potatoes, eggs, cheese, cucumber salad, cold cuts, and cold beer, you’ll love it here. (Staff) 601 Hayes, SF. 252-9289. German, BR/D, $, AE/MC/V.

*Zuni Cafe is one of the most celebrated — and durable — restaurants in town, perhaps because its kitchen has honored the rustic country cooking of France and Italy for the better part of two decades. (PR, 2/05) 1658 Market, SF. 552-2522. California, B/L/D, $$$, AE/MC/V.

CASTRO/NOE VALLEY/GLEN PARK

Firewood Cafe serves up delicious thin chewy-<\d>crusted pizzas, four kinds of tortellini, rotisserie-<\d>roasted chicken, and big bowls of salad. (Staff) 4248 18th St, SF. 252-0999. Italian, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Los Flamingos mingles Cuban and Mexican specialties in a relaxed, leafy, walk-<\d>oriented neighborhood setting. Lots of pink on the walls; even more starch on the plates. (PR, 11/04) 151 Noe, SF. 252-7450. Cuban/<\d>Mexican, BR/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Fresca raises the already high bar a little higher for Peruvian restaurants in town. Many of the dishes are complex assemblies of unusual and distinctive ingredients, but some of the best are among the simplest. The skylighted barrel-<\d>ceiling setting is quietly spectacular. (PR, 7/05) 3945 24th St, SF. 695-0549. Peruvian, L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

Gialina offers fabulous thin-crust pizzas in the nouveau-quaint heart of Glen Park’s village center. Toppings reflect the companionable spirits of innovation and playfulness. For dessert: chocolate pizza, though beware the danger of starch overload. (PR, 3/07) 2842 Diamond, SF. 239-8500. Pizza/Italian, D, $, AE/DC/MC/V.

Hamano Sushi packs them in despite a slightly dowdy setting and food of variable appeal. The best stuff is as good as it gets, though, and prices aren’t bad. (Staff) 1332 Castro, SF. 826-0825. Japanese, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

HAIGHT/COLE VALLEY/WESTERN ADDITION

Alamo Square is an archetype for the "good little place around the corner." Five different kinds of fish are offered next to three cooking techniques and five sauces. (Staff) 803 Fillmore, SF. 440-2828. Seafood, D, $, MC/V.

Ali Baba’s Cave Veggie shish kebabs are grilled fresh to order; the hummus and baba ghanoush are subtly seasoned and delicious. (Staff) 531 Haight (at Fillmore), SF. 255-7820; 799 Valencia, SF. 863-3054. Middle Eastern, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

All You Knead emphasizes the wonderful world of yeast — sandwiches, pizzas, etc. — in a space reminiscent of beer halls near Big 10 campuses. (Staff) 1466 Haight, SF. 552-4550. American, B/L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Asqew Grill reinvents the world of fine fast food on a budget with skewers, served in under 10 minutes for under 10 bucks. (Staff) 1607 Haight, SF. 701-9301. California, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Bia’s Restaurant and Wine Bar proves hippies know what’s what in matters of food and wine. An excellent menu of homey items with Middle Eastern and Persian accents; a tight, widely varied wine list. (PR, 11/04) 1640 Haight, SF. 861-8868. California/<\d>Middle Eastern, L/D, $, AE/DC/MC/V.

Blue Jay Cafe has the Mayberry, RFD, look and giant platters of Southernish food, including a good catfish po’boy and crispy fried chicken. Everything is under $10. (PR, 4/04) 919 Divisadero, SF. 447-6066. American/<\d>soul, BR/L/D, $, MC/V.

Brother-in-Laws Bar-B-Cue always wins the "Best Barbecue" prize in our annual Best of the Bay edition: the ribs, chickens, links, and brisket are smoky and succulent; the aroma sucks you in like a tractor beam. (Staff) 705 Divisadero, SF. 931-7427. Barbecue, L/D, $.

Burgermeister uses top-grade Niman Ranch beef for its burgers, but nonetheless they’re splendid, with soft buns and crisp, well-<\d>salted fries. Foofy California wrinkles are available if you want them, but why would you? (PR, 5/04) 86 Carl, SF. 566-1274. Burgers, L/D, $.

MISSION/BERNAL HEIGHTS/POTRERO HILL

Cafe Phoenix looks like a junior-<\d>high cafeteria, but the California-<\d>deli food is fresh, tasty, and honest, and the people making it are part of a program to help the emotionally troubled return to employability. (Staff) 1234 Indiana, SF. 282-9675, ext. 239. California, B/L, ¢, MC/V.

Caffe Cozzolino Get it to go: everything’s about two to four bucks more if you eat it there. (Staff) 300 Precita, SF. 285-6005. Italian, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Caffe d’Melanio is the place to go if you want your pound of coffee beans roasted while you enjoy an Argentine-<\d>Italian dinner of pasta, milanesa, and chimichurri sauce. During the day the café offers a more typically Cal-<\d>American menu of better-<\d>than-<\d>average quality. First-rate coffee beans. (PR, 10/04) 1314 Ocean, SF. 333-3665. Italian/<\d>Argentine, B/L/D, $, MC/V.

Il Cantuccio strikingly evokes that little trattoria you found near the Ponte Vecchio on your last trip to Florence. (Staff) 3228 16th St, SF. 861-3899. Italian, D, $, MC/V.

Chez Papa Bistrot sits like a beret atop Potrero Hill. The food is good, the staff’s French accents authentic, the crowd a lively cross section, but the place needs a few more scuffs and quirks before it can start feeling real. (Staff) 1401 18th St, SF. 824-8210. French, BR/L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Circolo Restaurant and Lounge brings Peruvian- and Asian-<\d>influenced cooking into a stylishly barnlike urban space where dot-<\d>commers gathered of old. Some of the dishes are overwrought, but the food is splendid on the whole. (PR, 6/04) 500 Florida, SF. 553-8560. Nuevo Latino/<\d>Asian, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Couleur Café reminds us that French food need be neither fancy nor insular. The kitchen playfully deploys a world of influences — the duck-<\d>confit quesadilla is fabulous — and service is precise and attentive despite the modest setting at the foot of Potrero Hill. (PR, 2/06) 300 De Haro, SF. 255-1021. French, BR/L/D, $, AE/DC/MC/V.

*Delfina has grown from a neighborhood restaurant to an event, but an expanded dining room has brought the noise under control, and as always, the food — intense variations on a theme of Tuscany — could not be better. (PR, 2/04) 3621 18th St, SF. 552-4055. California, D, $$, MC/V.

Dosa serves dosas, the south Indian crepes, along with a wealth of other, and generally quite spicy, dishes from the south of the subcontinent. The cooking tends toward a natural meatlessness; the crowds are intense, like hordes of passengers inquiring about a delayed international flight. (PR, 1/06) 995 Valencia, SF. 642-3672. South Indian, BR/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Double Play sits across the street from what once was Seals Stadium, but while the field and team are gone, the restaurant persists as an authentic sports bar with a solidly masculine aura — mitts on the walls, lots of dark wood, et cetera. The all-<\d>American food (soups, sandwiches, pastas, meat dishes, lots of fries) is outstanding. (Staff) 2401 16th St, SF. 621-9859. American, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack offers a tasty, inexpensive, late-night alternative to Pasta Pomodoro. The touch of human hands is everywhere evident. (Staff) 18 Virginia, SF. 206-2086. Italian, D, $, cash only.

Esperpento is as authentic a Spanish-style tapas restaurant as you’ll find in San Francisco, but even better — the paella is good! (PR, 4/07) 3295 22nd St, SF. 282-8867. Spanish/tapas, L/D, $, AE/DISC/MC/V.

Foreign Cinema serves some fine New American food in a spare setting of concrete and glass that warms up romantically once the sun goes down. (Staff) 2534 Mission, SF. 648-7600. California, D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Front Porch mixes a cheerfully homey setting (with a front porch of sorts), a hipster crowd, and a Caribbean-inflected comfort menu into a distinctive urban cocktail. The best dishes, such as a white polenta porridge with crab, are Range-worthy, and nothing on the menu is much more than $10. (PR, 10/06) 65A 29th St, SF. 695-7800. American/Caribbean, BR/D, $, MC/V.

MARINA/PACIFIC HEIGHTS/LAUREL HEIGHTS

Greens All the elements that made it famous are still intact: pristine produce, an emphasis on luxury rather than health, that gorgeous view. (Staff) Fort Mason Center, Bldg A, Marina at Laguna, SF. 771-6222. Vegetarian, L/D, $$, DISC/MC/V.

*Harris’ Restaurant is a timeless temple to beef, which appears most memorably as slices of rib roast, but in other ways too. Uncheap. (PR, 5/04) 2100 Van Ness, SF. 673-1888. Steakhouse/<\d>American, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Kiss is tiny, industrial, not particularly Anglophonic — and serves some of the best sushi in the city. Warning: the very best stuff (from the specials menu) can be very pricey. (Staff) 1700 Laguna, SF. 474-2866. Japanese, D, $$$, MC/V.

Letitia’s has claimed the old Alta Plaza space and dispensed with the huge cruise mirror. The Mexican standards are pretty good and still pricey, though they don’t seem quite as dear in Pacific Heights as they did in the Castro. (PR, 6/04) 2301 Fillmore, SF. 922-1722. Mexican, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Mezes glows with sunny Greek hospitality, and the plates coming off the grill are terrific, though not huge. Bulk up with a fine Greek salad. (Staff) 2373 Chestnut, SF. 409-7111. Greek, D, $, MC/V.

Out the Door is the takeout-friendly child of the Slanted Door, and the food reflects the same emphasis on first-quality ingredients. You can eat in if you want or shop for hard-to-find Asian groceries at reasonable prices. (PR, 1/07) Westfield Center, 845 Market, SF. 541-9913; One Ferry Bldg, SF. 861-8032. Vietnamese, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Plump Jack Café If you had to take your parents to dinner in the Marina, this would be the place. A small but authentic jewel. (Staff) 3127 Fillmore, SF. 563-4755. California, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

SUNSET

Marnee Thai A friendly, low-key neighborhood restaurant — now in two neighborhoods — that just happens to serve some of the best Thai food in town. (PR, 1/04) 2225 Irving, SF. 665-9500; 1243 Ninth Ave (at Lincoln), SF. 731-9999. Thai, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Masala means "spice mixture," and spices aplenty you will find in the South Asian menu. Be sure to order plenty of naan to sop up the sauce with. (Staff) 1220 Ninth Ave, SF. 566-6976. Indian/<\d>Pakistani, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Nan King Road Bistro laces its mostly Chinese menu with little touches from around Asia (sake sauces, Korean noodles), and the result is a spectacular saucefest. Spare, cool environment. (Staff) 1360 Ninth Ave, SF. 753-2900. Pan-<\d>Asian, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Park Chow could probably thrive on its basic dishes, such as the burger royale with cheese ($6.95), but if you’re willing to spend an extra five bucks or so, the kitchen can really flash you some thigh. (Staff) 1240 Ninth Ave, SF. 665-9912. California, BR/L/D, $, MC/V.

Pisces California Cuisine brings a touch of SoMa sophistication to an Outer Sunset neighborhood in need of paint. (You can’t miss the restaurant’s black facade.) The kitchen turns out a variety of seafood preparations — the clam chowder is terrific — and offers an appealing prix fixe option at both lunch and dinner. (PR, 8/06) 3414-3416 Judah, SF. 564-2233. Seafood, L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

P.J.’s Oyster Bed Of all the US regional cultures, southern Louisiana’s may be the most beloved, and at P.J.’s you can taste why. (Staff) 737 Irving, SF. 566-7775. Seafood, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Pomelo Big portions of Asian- and Italian-<\d>inspired noodle dishes. If you need something quick, cheap, and fresh, pop in here. (Staff) 92 Judah, SF. 731-6175. Noodles, L/D, $, cash only.

Sabella’s carries a famous seafood name into the heart of West Portal. Good nonseafood stuff too. (Staff) 53 West Portal, SF. 753-3130. Italian/<\d>seafood, $, L/D, MC/V.

Sea Breeze Cafe looks like a dive, but the California cooking is elevated, literally and figuratively. Lots of witty salads, a rum-rich crème brûlée. (Staff) 3940 Judah, SF. 242-6022. California, BR/L/D, $$, MC/V.

So Restaurant brings the heat, in the form of huge soup and noodle — and soupy noodle — dishes, many of them liberally laced with hot peppers and chiles. The pot stickers are homemade and exceptional, the crowd young and noisy. Cheap. (PR, 10/06) 2240 Irving, SF. 731-3143. Chinese/noodles, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Tasty Curry still shows traces of an earlier life as a Korean hibachi restaurant (i.e., venting hoods above most of the tables), but the South Asian food is cheap, fresh, and packs a strong kick. (PR, 1/04) 1375 Ninth Ave, SF. 753-5122. Indian/<\d>Pakistani, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Tennessee Grill could as easily be called the Topeka Grill, since its atmosphere is redolent of Middle America. Belly up to the salad bar for huge helpings of the basics to accompany your meat loaf or calf’s liver. (Staff) 1128 Taraval, SF. 664-7834. American, B/L/D, $, MC/V.

Thai Cottage isn’t really a cottage, but it is small in the homey way, and its Thai menu is sharp and vivid in the home-<\d>cooking way. Cheap, and the N train stops practically at the front door. (PR, 8/04) 4041 Judah, SF. 566-5311. Thai, L/D, $, MC/V.

*Xiao Loong elevates the neighborhood Chinese restaurant experience to one of fine dining, with immaculate ingredients and skillful preparation in a calm architectural setting. (PR, 8/05) 250 West Portal, SF. 753-5678. Chinese, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Yum Yum Fish is basically a fish store: three or four little tables with fish-print tablecloths under glass, fish-chart art along the wall, and fish-price signs all over the place. (Staff) 2181 Irving, SF. 566-6433. Sushi, L/D, ¢.

RICHMOND

Eva’s Hawaiian Café re-creates the Hawaiian lunch-plate experience in a Clement Street storefront done up in primary colors worthy of a 1970s-era middle school. The food is excellent and inexpensive, the service skilled and cheerful, the setting immaculate. What’s not to like? (PR, 3/07) 731 Clement, SF. 221-2087. Hawaiian, L/C, ¢, MC/V.

Katia’s, a Russian Tea Room evokes the bourgeois romance of old Russia, and the classic Slavic food is carefully prepared and presented. Silken Crimean port is served in a tiny glass shaped like a Cossack boot. (PR, 12/04) 600 Fifth Ave, SF. 668-9292. Russian, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Kitaro This Japanese restaurant, unlike many others, has a lot of options for vegetarians. (Staff) 5850 Geary, SF. 386-2777. Japanese, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Lucky Fortune serves up a wide variety of Chinese-<\d>style seafood in a cheerfully blah setting. Prices are astoundingly low, portions large. (Staff) 5715 Geary, SF. 751-2888. Chinese, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Mai’s Restaurant On the basis of the hot-and-sour shrimp soup with pineapple alone, Mai’s deserves a line out the door. (Staff) 316 Clement, SF. 221-3046. Vietnamese, L/D, ¢, AE/DC/MC/V.

BAYVIEW/HUNTERS POINT/SOUTH

Bella Vista Continental Restaurant commands a gorgeous view of the Peninsula and South Bay from its sylvan perch on Skyline Boulevard, and the continental food, though a little stately, is quite good. The look is rustic-stylish (exposed wood beams, servers in dinner jackets), and the tone one of informal horse-country wealth. (PR, 3/07) 13451 Skyline Blvd., Woodside. (650) 851-1229. Continental, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Cable Car Coffee Shop Atmospherically speaking, you’re looking at your basic downtown South San Francisco old-style joint, one that serves a great Pacific Scramble for $4.95 and the most perfectest hash browns to be tasted. (Staff) 423 Grand, South SF. (650) 952-9533. American, B/BR/L, ¢.

Cliff’s Bar-B-Q and Seafood Some things Cliff’s got going for him: excellent mustard greens, just drenched in flavorfulness, and barbecued you name it. Brisket. Rib tips. Hot links. Pork ribs. Beef ribs. Baby backs. And then there are fried chickens and, by way of health food, fried fishes. (Staff) 2177 Bayshore, SF. 330-0736. Barbecue, L/D, ¢, AE/DC/MC/V.

BERKELEY/EMERYVILLE/NORTH

Ajanta offers a variety of deftly seasoned regional dishes from the Asian subcontinent. (Staff) 1888 Solano, Berk. (510) 526-4373. Indian, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

La Bayou serves up an astounding array of authentic New Orleans staples, including jambalaya, (greaseless!) fried catfish, and homemade pralines. (Staff) 3278 Adeline, Berk. (510) 594-9302. Cajun/<\d>Creole, L/D, ¢-$, MC/V.

Breads of India and Gourmet Curries The menu changes every day, so nothing is refrigerated overnight, and the curries benefit from obvious loving care. (Staff) 2448 Sacramento, Berk. (510) 848-7684. Indian, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

OAKLAND/ALAMEDA

Connie’s Cantina fashions unique variations on standard Mexican fare — enchiladas, tamales, fajitas, rellenos. (Staff) 3340 Grand, Oakl. (510) 839-4986. Mexican, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Garibaldi’s on College focuses on Mediterranean-<\d>style seafood. (Staff) 5356 College, Oakl. (510) 595-4000. Mediterranean, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Gerardo’s Mexican Restaurant offers all the expected taquería fare. But a main reason to visit is to pick up a dozen of Maria’s wonderfully down-home chicken or pork tamales. (Staff) 3811 MacArthur, Oakl. (510) 531-5255. Mexican, B/L/D, ¢-$. *

Cab it forward

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Eight San Francisco cabbies fed up with their money-devouring gas guzzlers have founded a taxi company that is friendly to the environment and to workers.

Green Cab hit the streets April 25, flaunting its ideology with bright paint jobs. The driver-owned cooperative has about 14 drivers and three hybrid vehicles, and it plans to purchase two more cars next month.

"We’re the only cab company in San Francisco where every driver is going to have an opportunity to participate in the decision-making process," cofounder Mark Gruberg, a taxi driver of 20 years, said. "We’re driver owned and driver operated."

The business is blazing a trail that others may soon follow if Mayor Gavin Newsom realizes the goal he announced last October of having all SF taxis be clean and green by 2011. On June 12 the San Francisco Taxicab Commission will discuss ways of meeting this goal of, in a sense, transitioning the city’s cabs from yellow to green — or at least greenish. Of the 1,351 taxis in 34 fleets that operate in the city, there are 140 Crown Victorias that run on compressed natural gas (CNG), which is made mostly from the greenhouse gas methane, and 40 hybrids, most of which are Ford SUVs. By October of this year, another 25 alternative-fuel or hybrid taxis are expected to be on the streets.

Heidi Machen, executive director of the Taxicab Commission, told us that taxis are required to be replaced after they’ve clocked 350,000 miles. On April 24 the commission decided to hold off on a policy that, she said, "would have restricted any replacement vehicles to be hybrid or alternative-fuel vehicles."

A key reason the policy was not approved, Machen said, was concern that the replacement alternative-fuel vehicles would be mostly those that run on CNG, which burns more cleanly than gasoline but still produces greenhouse gases and gives vehicles worse fuel efficiency than hybrids have. "[CNG] is an improvement, but only an improvement over something terrible to start with," Gruberg said.

Hybrids, unlike purely gas-powered vehicles, have engines that switch to electric power when the cars are stationary due to, for instance, traffic jams or stoplights. According to Gruberg, hybrids get about 40 miles to the gallon for city driving — a drastic improvement over the 12 mpg of standard Crown Victorias. Hybrids emit 13 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for every 30 miles they drive, compared with the 40 pounds that Crown Victorias produce.

So, besides hybrids, what’s the next efficient upgrade to the Green Cab fleet: Hydrogen? Electric? Biodiesel? "We’re open to anything that’s going to have beneficial effects to the environment," Gruberg said, adding that the company’s always looking for more ideas — and envirofriendly car donations.

Joe Mirabile, another Green Cab cofounder, emphasized the urgency of the company’s role in fighting or at least lessening the adverse effects of global warming.

"We have to move fast," Mirabile said. "Hybrids aren’t going to do everything, but they’re one small piece of the puzzle."

At its next meeting the Taxicab Commission will discuss possible monetary incentives, such as a higher gate fee, to make it easier for cab companies to purchase green vehicles. Newsom press secretary Nathan Ballard also told us that grant money is the key to putting more Priuses on the street.

"The Mayor has made a commitment to seek additional grant funding at the federal, state and regional levels to help taxi companies finance the more expensive vehicles," Ballard wrote in response to Guardian questions.

But even if Newsom can’t get those grants or otherwise fails to meet his goal, at least San Franciscans have Green Cab, which Gruberg said has been getting 50 to 60 customers per day and lots of goodwill from passersby. "People will wave and honk in the street," Gruberg said. "They’ll come up to the window and say, ‘How can I support you?’ A lot of drivers are asking if they can work for the company. Why wouldn’t they? Instead of paying $40 to $50 a day for gas, they can be paying $10 to $15." Machen likewise expressed her enthusiasm for the growing fleet.

"[Green Cab] is a business model," she said. "They show the direction the industry is going and the direction San Francisco is going." *

Comments, ideas, and submissions for Green City, the Guardian‘s weekly environmental column, can be sent to news@sfbg.com.

The convention was no bust

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Prog-6.jpg
Run, Ross, Run

By Tim Redmond

No, we didn’t walk away with a candidate for mayor, and yes, that was disappointing to a lot of us. I actually thought for a brief moment that the chants of “Run Ross Run” as Sup. Mirkarimi took the stage late in the day would make a difference, that he would realize he has a constituency and that running for mayor would be a good move for him politically, but that didn’t happen. After a strong speech proclaiming that “somebody” has to take on Gavin Newsom, Mirkarimi made clear that it wasn’t going to be him.

And Chris Daly, who had at one point said that he would run if noboby else did, bowed to the reality of the fact that he has a young child and another on the way, and took a pass.

But overall, the convention was uplifting, inspiring and productive. Whatever the daily papers may say, Daly made the right point at the end: The state of the progressive moment in San Francisco is strong. Progressives control the Board of Supervisors, the School Board, and a number of other top positions; half of the elected officials in San Francisco now put themselves under the progressive banner, Daly noted.

And the green and blue baloons and beads represented what could be a very hopeful future trand — the left wing of the Democratic party and the Green party, working together on what is for most a shared aganda.

We ought to do this sort of thing more often.

A few great moments:

Catching the tail of BALLE

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Gazelle Emami checks out Berkeley’s film-oriented BALLE Conference ….

The purpose of educational films—bear with me—are to inform the public. But here’s where they bump into their biggest obstacle. Unless Al Gore is at the helm, they’re probably not going to get wide viewing beyond festivals that are specifically geared toward showing films of their kind. Enter the first ever Business Alliance for Local Living Economies’ (BALLE) Conference Film Festival, a two-day event that was held this past Tuesday and Wednesday at UC Berkeley’s Wheeler Auditorium. The festival’s goal was to build positive sentiment for the BALLE Conference this weekend, kind of like a pep rally for the big game. BALLE, which represents 47 local networks and more than 15,000 small businesses and community organizations, holds an annual conference gathering the preeminent leaders in green industries to discuss pressing issues facing the economy.

manufacturedlandscapesfactorya.jpg
Still from Manufactured Landscapes, a film the opened the conference

According to festival organizer Lisa Katovich, she knew they would be preaching to the choir for the most part. Therefore, Katovich and others tailored the festival’s content to approach the subject matter from a difference angle. So it didn’t really matter that only about 30 people were scattered around an auditorium that can hold roughly 700. By the end, at least all 30 left the room a little more enlightened, as opposed to the hundreds that left Spiderman 3 disappointed, if not a little dumber.

Green libertarians

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› annalee@techsploitation.com

TECHSPLOITATION It sounds crazy, but it just might work: green libertarianism could become the new reformist movement in politics and cultural life.

In the 1980s, suggesting that green culture could be combined with libertarianism would have been worse than foolish. Those were the days when libertarians protested having to get their cars smog-checked because it represented government control of their personal property. But now that even staunch Republicans like Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are promoting ecofriendly policies and business leaders like Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla are hanging out at the Sierra Club, it seems that the times, they are a-changin’.

Over the past decade, experts have slowly and quietly been publishing studies on how to bring green sensibilities into line with the free-market agenda of libertarians. Natural Capitalism, published in 2000, was one of the first books to advance this idea. Last year two Yale environmental researchers, Daniel Esty and Andrew Winston, published Green to Gold, which explores ways that companies like Wal-Mart are attempting to bring sustainability into their business models. Though Esty and Winston conclude that there are no companies currently doing enough to be truly green, they acknowledge that some are on the right track.

They also explain quite succinctly why free-market leaders have joined what they call the Green Wave. No, it’s not out of the goodness of their hearts. "Behind the Green Wave are two interlocking sources of pressure," they write. "First the limits of the natural world could constrain business operations, realign markets, and perhaps even threaten the planet’s well-being. Second, companies face a growing spectrum of stakeholders who are concerned about the environment."

A lot of Green Wave entrepreneurs are probably disingenuous. One imagines they’re like the antihero of underrated movie I Heart Huckabees, a slimy corporate type who feigns interest in green development to sucker a community into signing over its land to condo and mall developers. But I believe some real-life Green Wavers are genuinely fascinated by strange new ideas that could encourage economic growth and sustainable development. These are people who are talking about carbon credits, emissions trading, and various financial incentives for entrepreneurs who limit their environmental impact, recycle, use alternative energy sources, or encourage their employees to carpool.

The question is why would anybody want to marry green and libertarian values? It sounds like a way of letting business do an end run around international bodies and governments, groups that have traditionally set limits on industry. There’s no doubt that states should have a role in setting policies for local corporations, but those corporations need rewards for their good behavior too. That’s where capitalism comes in. Combining libertarianism with green values might be a pragmatic way to convince some of the worst polluters to cut back by essentially bribing them with cash. The state can step in to punish bad actors who refuse to try for the carrot.

On a less cynical note, one might say that libertarians and greens go together because both are focused on maintaining economic development in the long term. They aren’t looking at next quarter: they’re looking at next century. A green libertarian has realized that the freedom of future markets depends on maintaining a healthy environment.

If green libertarianism prevails, I’m guessing the future will look nothing like ecotopia and nothing like capitalist Utopia either. Business will behave more like government, limiting its growth for the sake of sustainability. And ecology as we know it will probably be a lot more engineered and synthetic than ever before because communities will carefully plan their ecosystems to remain healthy and whole alongside cities and corporations. We will reach a stage in our technological development when we have to manage our natural environments as well as our economic ones. Perhaps one day the capitalism that results from green libertarianism will know itself to be only one piece of a healthy social ecology. That’s the kind of capitalism that even a grumpy old Marxist like myself can get behind. *

Annalee Newitz is a surly media nerd who thinks the next best thing to smashing capitalism is changing it entirely.

Nuclear greenwashing

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› amanda@sfbg.com

Patrick Moore’s presentation isn’t as slick as Al Gore’s. The slides he shows lack a certain visual panache and don’t compare to the ones in An Inconvenient Truth. Moore himself seems a little frumpy, particularly as he peers out across the audience recently gathered in the Warnors Theatre in Fresno.

But attendees paid $20 to hear the former Greenpeace leader extol the benefits of nuclear energy as a clean, safe, reliable, economic, and — perhaps most important to the current political and media focus on global warming — emissions-free source of power.

It’s hard to imagine Moore at the helm of an inflatable boat steering into the line of a whaling ship’s fire, but that iconic Greenpeace image is exactly what he wants you to associate with him. The Vancouver, British Columbia, native is quick to tell you he’s a former leader of one of the most effective international activist organizations ever. But he said he’s older now and wants to be for things instead of against them.

What’s Moore for? Warding off the warming of the world. What does he think will do it? More nuclear power plants.

If there’s any great and unifying issue thrumming through the national psyche, defying political party lines and flooding the media filters these days, it’s global warming. While leaders argue left and right about nearly every issue that comes before them, there is at least consensus that something must be done about climate change.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped on that bandwagon last September when he signed into law Assembly Bill 32, mandating a 25 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020.

Thirty-one states recently agreed to join a voluntary greenhouse gas emissions registry similar to California’s, 10 northeastern states are creating a cap-and-trade market, and already half the country has laws requiring that a certain percentage of local power portfolios come from renewable energy.

The alternative-energy troops who’ve long been waiting in the trenches have stepped up to fight, armed with the tools they’ve been honing for years: solar panels, wind turbines, tidal power, and biofuels. They say new options and innovations abound for weaning the country off its fossil fuel habit.

But there are already critics who say those approaches aren’t going to be enough — and that we need to go nuclear against this planetary threat. And now they have some unlikely new allies.

Maybe you’ve seen the headlines touting the new nuclear push, running in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and all the daily syndicates. They all claim the same questionable facts: Nuclear power is clean and emissions free. It’s safe, reliable, and cost-effective. It isn’t contributing to global warming — and these days even the environmentalists like it.

James Lovelock, the renowned Gaia theorist, thinks nuclear energy will be essential to power the developing world. On a Sept. 13, 2006, airing of KQED’s Forum, he told host Michael Krasny, "I would welcome high-level nuclear waste in my backyard."

During the hour-long program he said the dangers of radiation were exaggerated; there wasn’t that much waste generated; and in order to mitigate the increasing effects of climate change, we should "look at nuclear as a kind of medicine we have to take."

Stewart Brand, creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, thinks nothing is more doomsday than global warming and told the Guardian he advised Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to start touting nuclear power as a solution.

"The nuclear industry needs a new green generation," he told us. "My fellow environmentalists ought to be grateful to the nuclear industry for supplying 20 percent of our electricity."

And then there’s Moore, the 15-year Greenpeace veteran who once put his body in the way of a seal hunter’s club and wrote in an April 16, 2006, Washington Post op-ed, "My views have changed and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.

"Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so safely."

The bio for the Post piece identifies Moore as cochair of "a new industry-funded initiative, the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, which supports the use of nuclear energy."

It’s one of the few articles that make such a disclosure, although more probably should. A survey by Diane Farsetta, a senior researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy, came across 302 recent articles mentioning Moore and nuclear power as a possible option for mitigating the effects of global warming.

Only 37 — a mere 12 percent — said he’s being paid to support nuclear power by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), a national organization of pro-nuke industries that’s hired Moore to front its nuclear renaissance.

Only the Columbia Journalism Review has drawn the further connection that Hill and Knowlton has been paid $8 million to help the NEI spread the word that the nukies have the silver bullet for solving global warming.

Hill and Knowlton knows a little something about pushing dangerous products. The company created the tobacco industry’s decades-long disinformation campaign about the effects of smoking. Veterans of that campaign then helped ExxonMobil try to bury the truth about global warming.

Before laughing these folks out of the reactor room, consider this: Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein, who’ve been against nukes in the past, are now suggesting nuclear energy needs to be considered in light of global warming.

Al Gore and Hillary Clinton have also made similar recent murmurings. Of all the major 2008 presidential candidates, only Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards have offered up energy plans that don’t include more nukes.

Eight states are working on pro-nuclear legislation, and although a bill to lift the moratorium on new plants in California was shot down in the Assembly’s Committee on Natural Resources, its sponsor, Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine), told us he intends to introduce it again and again until it passes.

In the meantime a private group of Fresno investors has signed a letter of intent with a nuclear power company to put a 1,600-megawatt nuclear plant in the San Joaquin Valley. So far the only thing stopping the group is the state’s 30-year-old moratorium, which says no new nuclear power plants may be built in California until a permanent solution to the waste is established. The investors are already working on a November 2008 ballot measure to end the ban and allow new nuclear plants.

A new nuclear plant hasn’t been built in the United States since 1978, when concerns about safety, cost, and the long-term waste management challenge (nuclear rods will still be deadly hundreds of thousands of years from now) overwhelmed the industry.

But if there were ever an opportunity for a nuclear renaissance, the threat of climate change has created one. And the poster child is Moore, a relatively innocuous Greenpeace exile who’s traveling around the country with a B-movie version of Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, speaking to communities and drumming up what he calls a grassroots coalition of mayors, business leaders, and community activists. He’s steadily convincing them we need more nuclear power by trading the classic doomsday scenario of a massive radioactive explosion for the creeping killer global warming.

"I’m aghast," Dr. Helen Caldicott, an Australian who helped found Physicians for Social Responsibility and is one of the most prominent international critics of the dangers of nuclear energy, told us.

Caldicott, who’s authored several books on the subject, most recently Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer (2006), said, "I’ve never seen a propaganda exercise which is so fallacious. Both the politicians and the media are buying it."

She and other nuclear watchdogs who’ve been patrolling the industry for more than 30 years say it’s anything but a safe, reliable, economic, and emissions-free silver bullet.

Let’s look at the facts.

SAFETY


When it comes to safety, Moore told us, "US nuclear power plant employees enjoy the so-called healthy worker effect: people employed at the plants have lower mortality rates from cancer, heart disease, or other causes and are likely to live longer than the general population."

To support this claim, he cited a 2004 Radiation Research Society study of 53,000 workers. After reviewing it, Caldicott said, "I’m very suspect. There’s nothing here about people who are living with cancer."

Caldicott admits there’s a void of data about the health of nuclear workers and people who live near plants. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission doesn’t mandate baseline studies of cancer rates in areas surrounding the sites of nuclear facilities.

But people living near Three Mile Island, the Pennsylvania plant that came within minutes of a catastrophic meltdown in 1979, demanded studies, which found evidence of increases in thyroid cancer in the region. And Caldicott, in her recent book, pointed out that there are a number of things the government doesn’t want to admit. "To this day there is no available information about which specific isotopes escaped nor the actual quantity of radiation that was released," she wrote, going on to detail how, for lack of sufficient data about the distance the radiation may have spread, scientists studied the rates in the livestock of nearby fields and found supporting evidence that the plume of poison spread as far as 150 miles away.

And of course, there’s Chernobyl, where a 1986 nuclear-plant disaster caused lasting health problems and contaminated a huge swath of what was then the Soviet Union.

The unavoidable fact is that the industry thus far has had two terrible, nightmarish accidents, one of which was catastrophic and the other very nearly so.

And every part of the nuclear-power cycle involves serious health risks.

"You want to get really sad?" asked Molly Johnson, a lifelong environmental justice activist and San Luis Obispo County resident. "Go to New Mexico, go to Arizona, see the families that are dying because of the uranium mining. Their water is irradiated from the uranium tailings that are still there…. Why would we continue that?"

These days intentional attacks are even more of a concern. But Moore isn’t sweating. He said he thinks a plane colliding with a power plant is unlikely, even though the 9/11 Commission Report found that al-Qaeda operatives at one point considered aiming for the Indian Point reactor in New York.

Even if a jet hit a plant, Moore insists, the plant would be strong enough to withstand a collision. "If you drove an airplane into that, it would just be one messed-up airplane you’d have to deal with," he said.

Not exactly, say the critics.

"He is just dead wrong about reactor security. Breathtakingly misinformed," said Dan Hirsch of Committee to Bridge the Gap, a public interest group that’s been studying nuclear power and proliferation issues for nearly four decades. "Virtually no reactor containment in the US was designed to withstand a hit by a jumbo jet. Significant parts of the plant essential to preventing a meltdown are outside containment anyway."

Hirsch is speaking of power lines, which transmit electricity from the plant and also carry electricity to it — power that’s used to keep dangerous components cool and safe. If that power were cut off for any length of time, a meltdown could occur in the pools where explosive spent fuel is kept.

These spent-fuel storage areas — essentially big swimming pools where radioactive waste is kept underwater until a long-term storage facility is built — rely on a steady pumping of water to cool the superheated waste. All you’d have to do is stop that water pump, and there’d be a meltdown. And the storage areas don’t necessarily have the same fortified structures as the reactors.

Hirsch said, "A successful attack on a nuclear plant or, even worse, a spent-fuel pool would be the worst terrorist event to ever occur on earth by far, capable of killing over 100,000 people immediately and hundreds of thousands of latent cancers thereafter, contaminating an area the size of Pennsylvania for generations."

There’s no immediate solution in sight for long-term storage, so these pools of deadly waste will likely remain on reactor sites for many years.

San Luis Obispo County’s Mothers for Peace recently sued the NRC over the newly established laws regarding protection against terrorist attacks, which only require plants to be able to ward off five potential external terrorists on the ground. It took 19 people to pull off the Sept. 11 attacks. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that power plant operators must also consider the possibility of an air attack when designing spent-fuel storage tanks.

Mothers for Peace is fond of noting that existing security measures aren’t what you’d call foolproof. During a recent earthquake, 56 of 131 sirens in the San Luis Obispo area — designed to alert residents of a possible accident at the plant — didn’t go off because the power was out and they aren’t backed up by generators or batteries.

When Mothers for Peace and the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility brought the failure to the attention of the NRC, the agency said that nothing is perfect and that the sirens over the course of 1,000 hours worked 99 percent of the time.

"Except the five hours you’d actually want them to work," David Weisman of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility said.

Nuclear power is either a creeping killer or a sitting bomb. Wind farms and solar-panel arrays are not leaching poisons into the environment. They’re not direct targets for terrorist attacks, and if they were, the result wouldn’t be all that horrible. Imagine cleaning up a bombed wind farm versus a nuclear power plant.

"Wind farms are on nobody’s list of targets," Weisman added. "If a windmill falls and there’s no one there to hear it, do you need an emergency evacuation plan?"

RELIABILITY


A centerpiece of the pro-nuke argument is that nuclear power is a baseload source, meaning it can generate energy all day, every day. Solar and wind, of course, rely on the cruel (and unpredictable) forces of nature to generate power.

But one could argue the same about nuclear power plants. They’re run by people — and the record of those operators isn’t encouraging.

Moore expressed great confidence in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: "They have very, very stringent requirements and regulations. It’s all there for anybody to see. All of these reactors are inspected regularly. There is no reason in my estimation to suspect the NRC of anything other than being a responsible watchdog agency. If you want to take the time to dig into it, you can find out what’s going on."

David Lochbaum does take that time — and he’s found out a lot. After working for 17 years as a consultant to the NRC, he joined the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) as a nuclear-safety engineer. He spends his days combing NRC reports and documents and compiling studies on the safety of the industry. His experience and research have caused him to conclude that the commission can’t stay on top of the 103 plants in the country.

"We get a lot of calls from workers in the plants, and NRC employees that have safety issues they’re afraid to raise," he said. "We had three calls last week. That’s a little more than usual, but we usually get 50 to 60 whistleblower calls a year." He said sometimes the workers have already raised the issue internally but need an ally to force a remedy at the plant. Other times they’re afraid to speak about what they’ve seen without fear of retaliation.

Lochbaum authored a September 2006 study for the UCS titled "Walking the Nuclear Tightrope" on the issues of safety and reliability. It’s a chilling read; it carefully outlines how regulators have been complicit in allowing plants to operate far longer than they should and how these overstressed plants eventually have to be shut down for years to restore safety standards. He found that in the last 40 years plants have ground to a halt for a year or more on 51 occasions. In most cases it wasn’t a spontaneous incident but an overall decaying of conditions that compromised safety.

"Some observers have argued that the fact no US nuclear power reactor has experienced a meltdown since 1979 (during which time 45 year-plus outages have occurred) demonstrates the status quo is working successfully," Lochbaum wrote. "That’s as fallacious as arguing that the levees protecting New Orleans were fully adequate prior to Hurricane Katrina by pointing to the absence of similar disasters between 1980 and 2004."

One of the most recent and chilling examples is the 2002 outage of the Davis-Besse plant near Toledo, Ohio, where a hole the size of a football was discovered in the vessel reactor head. Only a half inch of steel remained to prevent a massive nuclear meltdown. The plant was overdue for a shutdown and an inspection and had been granted the extension by the NRC.

When asked what he thought about that close call, Moore said, "I didn’t think it was a close call. I thought it was a mechanical failure that should have been caught sooner. It was caught long before it became an accident or anything like that."

"When you say close call, that means that nothing actually happened," he concluded.

But when there’s a facility where an accident could lead to mass deaths, even close calls are grounds for concern. That’s why we have to hold nuclear plants to such high standards. And the fact that plants have to close so often to avoid disastrous accidents doesn’t say much for the reliability argument.

EMISSIONS


This may be the issue on which the pro-nukers make the most headway. Moore cites a number of international studies, posted on the NEI’s Web site, that show nuclear plants competing only with hydropower when it comes to emitting the lowest level of carbon dioxide. Even solar panels and wind turbines, when one factors in the entire energy process, emit more greenhouse gases, according to these studies, though all these power sources release significantly less than burning coal or natural gas.

The anti-nuke crowd says a true study has never been completed that quantifies the CO2 emissions from mining uranium and turning it into usable nuclear fuel. Both are heavily energy intensive. Additionally, they argue that transporting waste will incur even more CO2 emissions, whether it’s shipped across the sea for reprocessing in Europe or trucked across the country for burial in Yucca Mountain.

But the waste itself is also a huge issue. Although nuclear power plants don’t have bad breath, they do emit toxins — and it’s an unresolved issue as to where to put them. The current forecast for opening the Yucca Mountain repository is 2021. Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada opposes building the facility, and he’s pushing a bill that would require plants to keep the crud in their backyards.

"They’ve had 50 years to work on the waste issue," Weisman said. "And the best solution they’ve come up with is, who do we not like enough to send it to?"

Either way, Moore thinks waste is not a problem. If anything, it should be reprocessed — he likes to call it "recycling." Under that process, spent fuel is bathed in acid to separate out the usable plutonium. That can be followed by vitrification — a complex, energy-intensive process of suspending the highly radioactive and corrosive acid in glass, which is then sealed in expensive trash cans of steel and concrete and buried underground for at least 300 years, after which point he predicts it should no longer be a problem.

"It makes more fuel," he said.

Actually, Hirsch said, "it makes more weapons-grade plutonium." He argues that the last thing the nation should do is allow nuclear-plant operators to separate the plutonium and put it on the market, where it can be leaked for bomb making.

Additionally, there are a number of waste sites around the country that are slowly emitting what they’ve been designed — or not designed in some cases — to contain.

The worst is probably in Hanford, Wash., where decades’ worth of reprocessed spent radioactive fuel pushed the area beyond Superfund status into a "national nuclear waste sacrifice zone.

"Hanford is the most contaminated site in North America and one of the most significant long-term threats facing the Columbia River," Greg deBruler, of Columbia Riverkeeper, wrote in the Fall 2006 issue of Waterkeeper, the group’s quarterly journal. "It’s difficult to comprehend the reality of Hanford’s 150 square miles of highly contaminated groundwater or its 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste sitting in 45-year-old rotting steel tanks."

Much of that waste includes leftover reprocessed spent uranium fuel, which ate through its casks and poisoned the community’s drinking water.

Moore said, "It’s not as if everyone is dead. The nuclear waste has been contained."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

ECONOMICS


"The economics of nuclear power are well proven around the world. It is one of the most cost-effective forms of energy," Moore said.

Just check the record. Of the 103 reactors that were built in the United States, 75 ran a total of $100 billion over budget. India more recently went 300 percent over budget on its 10 reactors. Finland is already 18 months behind and $1 billion over on a reactor.

Given this track record, the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration "Annual Energy Outlook 2005" reported that "new plants are not expected to be economical." They’re so risky, in fact, that not a single plant could have been built without the 1957 Price-Anderson act, which moves the liability for a nuke plant off its owners and onto US taxpayers. "If they were really economical, they’d be able to get insurance," Weisman said. The bill was recently renewed.

The nuclear industry forges on unperturbed, claiming that new plants have been streamlined for easier construction. Additionally, the siting and licensing laws for plants have been changed to speed up the process by precluding public input. (Given the industry’s safety record so far, that’s not comforting.) Experts predict it will now take 10 years to build a new nuclear plant. Thirty-four licenses are currently pending at the NRC as utility companies race to secure the $8 billion the federal government set aside for subsidies.

"Imagine how many wind turbines that could buy," said Harvey Wasserman, a longtime anti-nuke activist who recently authored the book Solartopia, which outlines a plan for completely renewable energy by 2030. In fact, renewables are far cheaper. Building the facilities to create one gigawatt of wind power costs about $1.5 billion; about two gigawatts could replace the Diablo Canyon Power Plant.

THE BOTTOM LINE


In the end, it comes down to money, and that’s where nuclear power may be the most vulnerable.

Sam Blakeslee, a Republican Assembly member from San Luis Obispo, introduced a bill last year that calls on the California Energy Commission (CEC) to conduct an in-depth study of the true costs of nuclear power to assess its viability as part of California’s future energy plans. The bill passed unanimously, and Schwarzenegger signed it.

"This will be cradle to grave," said Weisman, of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, which has focused its scrutiny on the industry’s costs.

The group has long been suspicious of PG&E’s financial woes, which came to a head this past March when the California Public Utilities Commission allowed the company to use $16.8 million from ratepayers to fund its in-house study of relicensing its two nuclear plants. "The licenses won’t be up until 2023 and 2025, so why are they looking at relicensing now — and why does it cost $16.8 million when the state’s study is projected to cost $800,000?" Weisman asked.

Assemblymember Mark Leno (D–San Francisco) is introducing a bill this year that will undercut PG&E’s study before the CEC’s analysis is completed, which is expected to occur around November 2008.

"Our very simple idea here is that before any relicensing of our aging nuclear power plants can proceed, the CEC study be completed," Leno said. "Clearly, PG&E is very eager to move forward its relicensing process. They have many years to accomplish that task."

Leno said the stakes are too high and the inherent risks of the toxins already accumulated in seismic zones along the coast need to be carefully weighed against the prospects of generating even more waste. "We should proceed with absolute caution, forethought, and consideration."

NOWHERE TO RUN


Those risks, that caution, are something that never leaves the minds of the people who live in the plants’ fallout zones, areas as vast as a steady breeze or trickling flow of water can make them. That’s really the problem with nuclear power plants. After 50 years there are still too many unknowns. In Moore’s lectures and during interviews and debates, the former Greenpeace activist likes to say more people are killed by car accidents and machetes than by nuclear power plants, but that mocks the magnitude of a meltdown.

A car accident kills at most a few people. A machete attack might kill one person. A nuclear accident has the potential to inflict casualties in the tens of thousands, maybe even millions, and to render entire cities uninhabitable. And while most of the time, most of the plants may be perfectly problem free, it only takes one accident to wreak environmental havoc.

These days opposition to nuclear energy isn’t about mass protests in the streets. "When KQED calls and asks for the sounds of a protest, I say that’s not how it happens," Weisman said while showing a DVD of a Jan. 31 San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission meeting that droned on for more than 12 hours. The meeting ultimately resulted in what he’d hoped for: a continuing delay of PG&E’s permit to site new dry-cask storage tanks for thousands of tons of nuclear waste accumuutf8g at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. He and Rochelle Becker, the group’s director, sat through the whole thing. "That’s what protesting is now," he said.

Becker, a pert, soft-spoken woman with the aging visage of the youngest grandmother in the room, said correctness is crucial. "Never, ever exaggerate. When they want to talk about safety issues and isotopes, we refer them to someone else because we don’t have that expertise. All we have is our credibility, and if we lose our credibility, we don’t have anything."

THE PLUTONIUM PAYCHECK


Which makes what Moore is doing look like such a travesty.

"Maybe we should hire Hill and Knowlton," joked James Riccio, Greenpeace’s nuclear-policy analyst in Washington, DC, on thinking about gearing up for a new wave of anti-nuke activism.

To Riccio, Wasserman, Weisman, Hirsch, Caldicott, and many others who spoke with the Guardian, Moore is nothing but a dangerous distraction who’s getting the wrong kind of attention. Wasserman disputed Moore’s credentials as a Greenpeace founder in the Burlington Free Press article "The Sham of Patrick Moore."

When questioned by the Guardian, Moore called Wasserman a jerk. Moore said he’s still an activist — and in addition to parroting for the nuclear industry, he runs a sustainability consulting company, Greenspirit Strategies, which advises industries on controversial subjects like genetically modifying organisms, clear-cutting, and fish farming. His clients include hazardous waste, timber, biotech, aquaculture, and chemical companies, in addition to conventional utilities that process nuclear power and natural gas.

Moore insists he’s not hiding anything. "In every interview I do the reporter already knows that I’m cochair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition and that I work for the nuclear industry," he told us.

But Moore did not identify himself as such during a lengthy interview with us until we asked. The disclosure was also missing during the long biographical presentation given to the folks in Fresno on Feb. 22, which did include pictures of his Rainbow Warrior days. Again, on May 24, Moore didn’t mention his plutonium paycheck during a radio debate on KZYX. Neither did the moderator, and it was only when Hirsch, his debating partner, got a moment to speak that it was revealed. "Let’s be clear here, Patrick," Hirsch said. "You’re being paid by the industry." *

Joseph Plaster, Andrew Oliver, and Sam Draisin helped research this story.

Little green burners

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› steve@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Today’s environmental problems — global warming, peak oil, drastically dwindling biodiversity, an unsustainable economic system that pollutes and consumes too much — are big. And there are many big solutions proposed by big governmental bodies, big individuals, and big corporations.

A major commitment is truly needed, but perhaps it’s the million small innovators and gestures that are most likely to add up to the most fundamental shift. Could these people, linked together, with enough freedom and support to pursue their visions, save the planet?

Burning Man founder Larry Harvey threw a stone into this pond last September when he chose Green Man as the theme for this year’s event, a decision that has rippled through the thousands of creative, capable people who spend much of the year tinkering in workshops around the Bay Area and across the country. People like Jim Mason.

Mason heeded Harvey’s call in his typically exuberant fashion, developing an innovative gasification system that turns biomass waste products into a usable fuel similar to natural gas. Collaborating with fellow artists and engineers in the Shipyard space that he created in Berkeley, Mason has been doing groundbreaking work.

The group converted a 1975 pickup truck owned by impresario Chicken John to run on substances like wood chips and coffee grounds, and Mason and John have been working principally with artists Michael Christian and Dann Davis to develop a fire-spewing, waste-eating, carbon-neutral slug called Mechabolic for Burning Man this year.

"Chicken’s shitty truck is going to be sitting in front of the Silicon Valley’s big alternative-energy conference for venture capitalists," Mason told the Guardian on May 22 as he headed to the Clean Technology 2007 confab, an illustration of the place little innovators are starting to find amid the big.

The New York Times featured Mechabolic in a technology article it ran earlier in May about the Green Man theme, and the project has been a centerpiece of the green evangelizing being done by Burning Man’s new environmental director, Tom Price.

Price has been working with hundreds of innovators like Mason to turn this year’s Burning Man, at least in part, into a green-technology exposition where creative types from around the world can exchange ideas. "It’s the Internet versus the big three networks" was how Price compared the big and small approaches to environmental solutions. "The goal is to show how easy and do-it-yourself profound solutions can be."

But ragtag approaches like Mason’s don’t fit well into institutional assumptions about art and technology, as he discovered May 11 when Berkeley city officials ordered him to shut down the Shipyard or bring it into immediate compliance with various municipal codes.

"They need to temporarily leave while they seek the permits that ensure it’s safe to be there," Berkeley planning director Dan Marks told us May 18. He criticized the Shipyard for using massive steel shipping containers as building material, doing electrical work without permits, and not being responsive to city requests.

The move stopped work on gasification and other projects as the Shipyard crew scrambled to satisfy bureaucratic demands — but it also prompted a letter-writing campaign and offers of outside help and collaboration that convinced Mayor Tom Bates and city council member Darryl Moore to meet with Mason on May 21 and agree to help the Shipyard stay in business.

Berkeley fire chief David Orth and other officials fighting the Shipyard say that Bates has asked for their cooperation. "A request has been made to see what can be done to keep the facility there but bring it into compliance," Orth told us.

All involved say the Shipyard has a long way to go before it’s legal and accepted by the city. Among other things, Mason must prove that the old, recycled oceangoing shipping containers (which enclose the Shipyard and other Bay Area artists’ collectives) are safe. But he and others are hopeful, driven, and convinced that they’re onto something big.

"Places like the Shipyard, which is a cauldron of ideas, don’t fit into the traditional model of how a city should work," Price told us. "The fringes, where the rules are a little fuzzy, is where surprisingly creative things happen." *

Comments, ideas, and submissions for Green City, the Guardian‘s weekly environmental column, can be sent to news@sfbg.com.

Green City

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› amanda@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY I spent my undergraduate years at a microscopic liberal arts college set in the shadow of a national park on an island in Maine — a remote idyll where people abhor locking their doors and you can almost smell the Atlantic whale migration when a southeastern wind blows.

The college is overtly environmental and so small it’s possible to practice what’s preached: food is grown on the school’s farm, students cycle around on communal bikes, ceremonies strive to be zero-waste. My graduation in 2000 was the largest the 31-year-old school had ever hosted, and all 97 of us stood in a haphazard row listening to keynote speaker and hobo musician Utah Phillips. After Phillips counseled us on how to avoid becoming a "blown-up" (his word for a bloviating grown-up), my friend Dan turned to me and said, "When I came to this school, I was, like, ‘Aah, here’s my tribe.’"

I had the same feeling a few weeks ago when I stumbled upon the Urban Alliance for Sustainability. Maybe I’ve finally found my people. In the 18 months that I’ve lived in San Francisco, I’ve watched global warming go from a marginalized theory to a universally acknowledged threat. That’s triggered a lot of hyperactivity about how to be green, which seems more commercial than communal. Companies are setting up booths to hawk magic elixirs, but carbon offsets seem about as realistic as get-out-of-jail-free cards. They don’t really shift what actually needs seismic adjustment: the bottom line in your life.

The UAS is different. This is a group with the serious intention of living what it believes. On top of that, it wants to help you do the same.

The organization’s basic mission is so simple it seems like it must have been done already — be a clearinghouse for all the environmentalist activity in the Bay Area. The Web site www.uas.coop lists events, and the hotline answers questions, but the coolest thing the UAS is doing is using the delicious blossom of technology to connect people who really ought to know each other by now.

For example, the group tracks members’ addresses, and when it has enough in the same area, it facilitates a potluck so everyone can meet and discuss how to green their streets. As someone who’s participated in some funky social networking experiments, I think this is simply brilliant. In a world rife with a cruel suspicion of strangers, city living can be hard duty, and trust hard-won. This is kind of like finding your tribe.

Membership isn’t free, and in the interest of full disclosure, the UAS just gave me one after I expressed interest in it while working on another story for the Guardian. But the group is a cooperative, and kicking in gets you discounts to events and something called a sustainability consultation. Mine was a meeting I approached with suspicion. Remember: I went to a hippie school where the Earth Day piñata was full of natural cotton tampons. I already ditched my car and store my quinoa in old yogurt containers. What could this guy tell me about sustainability?

But this was much more than I expected. Kevin Bayuk sat in my yard for two and a half hours, and we discussed practically every aspect of my life — what I eat, how I get around, what I read, how I take care of my health. His suggestions were realistic, and he reminded me of things I let go of back when I ripped up my rural roots. I hadn’t even considered composting here, but he told me where to get a worm bin and offered me some worms from his to get started. He knew what kinds of edible plants could grow in the shade under the jasmine in my garden and the cost of a permit to rip up the sidewalk to grow food.

People often move to San Francisco because this is a city that can handle them. The uniqueness of the citizenry and the genuine desire to do good are what I love most about this place, but there are things I deeply miss about where I came from — the smell of freshly turned dirt in the sunshine, the shimmer of uninterrupted moonlight on water, the silence in the absence of cars. But I love this place, and I’m not going anywhere. Those things are just going to have to come to me. *

Green City, the Guardian‘s new weekly environmental column, will be a mix of staff-written stories and contributions from experts and provocative thinkers. Submissions may be sent to news@sfbg.com.

Gui, your music looks terrific

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› johnny@sfbg.com

The first clue that Gui Boratto’s Chromophobia is an extraordinary Kompakt disc — a song collection that places the German label back at the forefront of the best electronic music — can be found on its cover art. Since its inception, Kompakt has had a signature clean design style for its releases. Developed by one of the label’s three co-owners, Wolfgang Voigt, it’s made great use of simple circles and basic color combinations. For Chromophobia, the São Paulo, Brazil, musician called on his friend Felipe Caetano to create a cover. Caetano came up with a beautiful piece of color theory that layers a series of primary-color Kompakt circles over the edges of one another to form a variety of new-hued combinations.

"Our first idea was to do a black-and-white cover, but we decided that was cliché," Boratto says from São Paulo, referring to the title word, a term for the fear of color. "The decision to make the cover colorful was ironic. But for me, chromophobia is like simplicity — the same type of meaning as monochromatism within an architectural point of view."

Got that? The affable Boratto is no club drone whose scope of experience remains as narrow as a programmed and endlessly looped 4/4 beat. He’s a married father of one who has studied architecture in addition to music. "I think architecture and music are almost the same thing," he says, his accent bringing an alternately questioning and singsong quality to English words. "They’re different means of expression, but they treat spaces in the same way."

In Chromophobia, Boratto builds and creates a variety of attractive spaces, without pretension but with a sensibility perhaps informed by a love of modernist architectural pioneers such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. "Within the modernism movement, you can find the same ramp used in the garage and in the dining room," he observes. Such functionality could be ascribed to many tracks on Chromophobia, which entwine rhythmic and melodic complexity and simplicity in a manner that can add vivid atmosphere to private interior settings, natural panoramas, and — though not in all cases — the dance floor.

COLOR ME GLAD


A major part of Chromophobia‘s appeal — apparent from the crystalline descending melody of the opening track, "Scene 1" — is that Boratto knows how to construct a strong simple motif or riff. "My first instrument was guitar, and when I was 10 or 11, I was really into Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin," he says, breaking down his musical background into shorthand. "But in the mid- to late ’80s, my older brother lived for a while in the south of France and then in London, and when he came back he brainwashed me."

The glorious results of that brainwashing are apparent in Chromophobia‘s most-discussed track, "Beautiful Life," on which Boratto’s wife, Luciana Villanova, plays the role of a female Bernard Sumner, quietly singing some affirmative words alongside a mammoth guitar line that invokes the unmistakable bass lines of New Order’s Peter Hook. "It was really a joke," Boratto says with bashful enthusiasm when asked about the track, which Web sites such as Resident Advisor have singled out for special praise. "There’s no complex textures [to "Beautiful Life"], as there are on some of the other songs [on Chromophobia]." True, but the song is no mere retro exercise: as much as New Order, the sunny feminine grace of "Beautiful Life" also calls to mind Ricardo Villalobos’s epic 2006 update of his own "La Belle Epoque," probably the only time Boratto and the Chilean Villalobos have crafted a similar definition of techno.

Still, Chromophobia‘s truest pleasures might be subtler ones, such as the alternately shuddering and sinuous propulsive energy of "Terminal" and "Gate 7" (the latter of which takes its title from the number of the TAM Airlines boarding gate for all of Boratto’s flights to Europe). On "Acróstico," Boratto provides a reprieve from this momentum, fashioning the electronic equivalent — via an array of low-key chirps and whirring sounds — of a nature scene at dawn or dusk.

"The title of ‘Acróstico’ stems from the fact that the high bass notes complete the lower notes — if you see a drawing of the notes, it looks like an acrostic," Boratto explains. For a musician who specializes in instrumental tracks, Boratto has a flair for linguistic matters. After bringing up Franz Kafka in response to a question about Chromophobia‘s final track, "The Verdict" — which takes its name from a Kafka tale often published in volumes of The Metamorphosis — he comments on a certain similarity: "One thing I noticed is that with Metamorphosis‘s Mr. [Gregor] Samsa, if the two s‘s in his name turn into k‘s, and the m‘s turn into f‘s, you have Kafka. It’s fiction, but it’s his story."

THE AMERICAN FRIENDS


By no means is Chromophobia Kafkaesque. But a dynamic between colorful optimism and an undercurrent of gloom gradually courses through the album, growing deeper as it progresses. On the penultimate track, "Hera," Boratto crafts a coda so poignant that it easily eclipses the best recent tracks put forth by Booka Shade and other instrumental acts on Get Physical, perhaps the one German label to overshadow Kompakt in recent years. Kompakt is definitely on a roll as of late, thanks to the long-awaited — and underrated — second volume of label cohead Michael Mayer’s Immer (2006) and the ambient — in comparison to Boratto — allure of the Field’s acclaimed From Here We Go Sublime. The Field’s Axel Willner is inventive enough to tap into the so-ghostly-it’s-frightening essence of the Flamingos’ "I Only Have Eyes for You" (also a touchstone on the soundtrack of Kenneth Anger’s 1950 film Rabbit’s Moon), yet Boratto’s palette is broader, connecting techno’s chillier reaches with the warmth of Antonio Carlos "Tom" Jobim.

Jobim may be "the master," in Boratto’s words, but the man behind Chromophobia also loves US brands of soul — especially Al Green and Stevie Wonder. Likewise, while the "little Paris" known as Prague might be Boratto’s favorite city in architectural terms, he’s looking forward to his SF visit. "I really love San Francisco," he says, remembering the "mainstream" charms of a club like Spundae, where he once saw Boy George. "I actually lived near Berkeley, in Pinole, for six months in 2001. I studied in Berkeley, and I had two American friends. This one friend had a big house in a nice neighborhood in Berkeley, where we had barbecues and never-ending parties. We used to party in San Francisco too, at some clubs and friends’ apartments."

This week, as Boratto returns to the Bay Area, he’s going to find a lot more than just two American friends — or at least American fans — at his party. And deservedly so — he’s made one of the best records of this year. *

KOMPAKT TOUR

With Gui Boratto and Michael Mayer

Thurs/24, 9 p.m., $15 advance

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com