Health

New school

Andrew Lam
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1
New school

CAREERS AND ED You don’t need a degree, or even the patience to sift through US Census Bureau reports on educational attainment, to know that each year this nation graduates more students from institutions of higher ed — public and private universities, colleges, junior colleges, and professional schools — than it did the year before. San Francisco is second only to Seattle in the number of papered persons running around, and statistics say that they, in turn, are more likely to raise little educational overachievers of their own. With this glut of matriculation on the horizon, it’s hard not to ponder the degree programs of the future: an associate’s in astrotourism? A bachelor’s of biosynthetic anatomy? A PhD of P4TA? (That’s “preparing for the apocalypse” for the cyber-stupid.) Hard to say. But before we get carried away, here’s a sampling of programs fit for a brave new world that can be found in the here and now.

 

SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC DESIGN AND INSTALLATION

California South Bay University sits smack-dab in the center of Silicon Valley, so it’s no surprise that the offerings are high-tech. The larger California zeitgeist seems to be rolling in on the San Francisco fog, though, and interesting patterns — like a master’s of science in green energy technology — have emerged. But the university really takes advantage of the Santa Clara Valley sunshine (and billowing demand for sustainable energy) with its Interstate Renewable Energy Council-accredited certificate program in solar photovoltaics, the science of connecting the two. If a full-fledged degree isn’t in your forecast, the school offers two 40-hour courses that might be a perfect fit.

California South Bay University, 1107 North Fair Oaks, Sunnyvale. (408) 400-9008, www.csbu.us

 

INTERACTION DESIGN

Degrees in video-game design and Web programming are old hat, but California College of the Arts takes the idea of the user interface beyond the screen, and plugs it back into real life. The school’s focus on design that users can interact with includes classes on platforms from cell phone to sculpture, game console to gallery, preparing students to “create meaningful and innovative designed experiences in the realms of work, lifestyle, and play.” Vague? Yes. Useful? Possibly. That three-dimensional holographic surround-sound computer interface that Tom Cruise uses in Minority Report? Get your virtual-reality gloves out ’cause it’s on its way …

California College of the Arts, 1111 Eighth St., SF. 1-800-477-1278, www.cca.edu

 

LANDSCAPE HORTICULTURE

Horticulture goes high-tech at Merritt College. The school claims to have all the most up-to-date equipment in the field, and with 5,000 square feet of computerized greenhouses, a 5,000-square-foot lath house, a floral and drafting lab, and disciplines such as “turf management,” we doubt anyone would argue. And to think, we were still relying on dirt, sun, and water to do our growing.

Merritt College, 12500 Campus Drive, Oakl. (510) 531-4911, www.merritt.edu

 

BOOK ART AND CREATIVE WRITING

This master’s program allows students to develop as writers and visual artists simultaneously, and encourages a “deep exploration of the book form in both content and materiality.” The interplay of form and content is not a new academic trope, but given that physical codices may soon be obsolete, taking a moment to ponder the book as object might not be a bad idea — lest future generations wonder why we wrote all over our toilet paper. Literary artifacts? Worth checking out!

Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakl. (510) 430-2255, www.mills.edu

 

GREEN AND SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL

Tourists looking for a tequila sunrise and a tan may not realize that the pool they’re baking beside used to be a jungle. Each year, sensitive wildlife areas the world over are steamrolled under hotel strips. At the same time, environmentally-conscious tourism has become a booming industry. Given the facts, a student could do worse than this City College Business School program. The quickie certificate takes just a year — not a bad thing, considering ecotourism’s popularity and the rapidly decreasing availability of stuff left to tour.

City College of San Francisco, Ocean Campus, 50 Phelan, SF. (415) 239-300, www.ccsf.edu

 

HIV/STI PREVENTION

With a focus on risk reduction counseling, data collection, and outreach strategies, this one-year certificate in HIV/STI prevention studies from City College’s health education department just seems like a really good plan to bring a brighter future to all.

City College of San Francisco, Ocean Campus, 50 Phelan, SF. (415) 239-3000, www.ccsf.edu

 

FOLKLORE

Preparing for the future is all about remembering the past … or so might say a folklorist with a master’s or doctorate from UC Berkeley. An interdisciplinary degree from the department of anthropology, folkloristics (that’s the term) provide a new spin on the studies of ethnicity, nationality, gender, and sexuality, as well as the chance to revive vernacular tales, customs, beliefs, and plain ol’ stories from days gone by.

UC Berkeley, 318 Sproul Hall No. 5900, Berk. (510) 642-7405, www.berkeley.edu

 

RAZA STUDIES

That “melting pot” we all learned about in grade school is on the boil — bubbling with a range of issues both sweet and spicy, and some we haven’t even tasted yet. As our country continues to diversify, equity, social justice, and community empowerment will only become more important. San Francisco State University’s B.A. in raza studies seeks to offer future leaders the knowledge, skills, and social consciousness necessary to navigate an increasingly complex social landscape.

San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave., SF. (415) 338-1111, www.sfsu.edu

 

TAXATION

If everything else on this list is just a bit too futuristic and far out, Golden Gate University offers one of the country’s oldest and best-respected graduate programs in taxation. Looking for the ultimate in job security? This is your best bet since the San Francisco College of Mortuary Sciences closed in 2002. Death … and taxes. Golden Gate University School of Taxation, 536 Mission, SF. (415) 442-7880, www.ggu.edu

The failed experiment

Andrew Lam
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27
The failed experiment

news@sfbg.com

For three decades we have conducted a massive economic experiment, testing a theory known as supply-side economics. The theory goes like this: Lower tax rates will encourage more investment, which in turn will mean more jobs and greater prosperity — so much so that tax revenues will go up, despite lower rates.

The late Milton Friedman, the libertarian economist who wanted to shut down public parks because he considered them socialism, promoted this strategy. Ronald Reagan embraced Friedman’s ideas and made them into policy when he was elected president in 1980.

For the past decade, we have doubled down on this theory of supply-side economics with the tax cuts sponsored by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003, which President Barack Obama has agreed to continue for two years.

You would think that whether this grand experiment worked would be settled after three decades. You would think the practitioners of the dismal science of economics would look at their demand curves and the data on incomes and taxes and pronounce a verdict, the way Galileo and Copernicus did when they showed that geocentrism was a fantasy because the Earth revolves around the sun (known as heliocentrism). But economics is not like that. It is not like physics with its laws and arithmetic with its absolute values.

Tax policy is something the framers of the Constitution left to politics. And in politics, the facts often matter less then who has the biggest bullhorn.

The Mad Men who once ran campaigns featuring doctors extolling the health benefits of smoking are now busy marketing the dogma that tax cuts mean broad prosperity, no matter what the facts show.

As millions of Americans prepare to file their annual taxes, they do so in an environment of media-perpetuated tax myths. Here are a few points about taxes and the economy that you may not know, to consider as you prepare to file your taxes. (All figures are inflation adjusted.)

1. Poor Americans do pay taxes.

Gretchen Carlson, the Fox News host, said last year “47 percent of Americans don’t pay any taxes.” John McCain and Sarah Palin both said similar things during the 2008 campaign about the bottom half of Americans.

Ari Fleischer, the former Bush White House spokesman, once said “50 percent of the country gets benefits without paying for them.”

Actually, they pay lots of taxes — just not lots of federal income taxes.

Data from the Tax Foundation shows that in 2008, the average income for the bottom half of taxpayers was $15,300.

This year the first $9,350 of income is exempt from taxes for singles and $18,700 for married couples, just slightly more than in 2008. That means millions of the poor do not make enough to owe income taxes.

But they still pay plenty of other taxes, including federal payroll taxes. Between gas taxes, sales taxes, utility taxes and other taxes, no one lives tax free in America.

When it comes to state and local taxes, the poor bear a heavier burden than the rich in every state except Vermont, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy calculated from official data. In Alabama, for example, the burden on the poor is more than twice that of the top 1 percent. The one-fifth of Alabama families making less than $13,000 pay almost 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes, compared with less than 4 percent for those who make $229,000 or more.

2. The wealthiest Americans don’t carry the burden.

This is one of those oft-used canards. Senator Rand Paul, the tea party favorite from Kentucky, told David Letterman recently that “the wealthy do pay most of the taxes in this country.”

The Internet is awash with statements that the top 1 percent pays, depending on the year, 38 percent or more than 40 percent of taxes.

It’s true that the top 1 percent of wage earners paid 38 percent of the federal income taxes in 2008 (the most recent year for which data is available). But people forget that the income tax is less than half of federal taxes and only one-fifth of taxes at all levels of government.

Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance taxes (known as payroll taxes) are paid mostly by the bottom 90 percent of wage earners. That’s because, once you reach $106,800 of income, you pay no more for Social Security, though the much smaller Medicare tax applies to all wages. Warren Buffett pays the exact same amount of Social Security taxes as someone who earns $106,800.

3. In fact, the wealthy are paying less taxes.

The Internal Revenue Service issues an annual report on the 400 highest income-tax payers. In 1961, there were 398 taxpayers who made $1 million or more, so I compared their income tax burdens from that year to 2007.

Despite skyrocketing incomes, the federal tax burden on the richest 400 has been slashed, thanks for a variety of loopholes, allowable deductions and other tools. The actual share of their income paid in taxes, according to the IRS, is 16.6 percent. Adding payroll taxes barely nudges that number.

Compare that to the vast majority of Americans, whose share of their income going to federal taxes increased from 13.1 percent in 1961 to 22.5 percent in 2007.

(By the way, during seven of the eight Bush years, the IRS report on the top 400 taxpayers was labeled a state secret, a policy that the Obama overturned almost instantly after his inauguration.)

4. Many of the very richest pay no current income taxes at all.

John Paulson, the most successful hedge fund manager of all, bet against the mortgage market one year and then bet with Glenn Beck in the gold market the next. Paulson made himself $9 billion in fees in just two years. His current tax bill on that $9 billion? Zero.

Congress lets hedge fund managers earn all they can now and pay their taxes years from now.

In 2007, Congress debated whether hedge fund managers should pay the top tax rate that applies to wages, bonuses and other compensation for their labors, which is 35 percent. That tax rate starts at about $300,000 of taxable income; not even pocket change to Paulson, but almost 12 years of gross pay to the median-wage worker.

The Republicans and a key Democrat, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, fought to keep the tax rate on hedge fund managers at 15 percent, arguing that the profits from hedge funds should be considered capital gains, not ordinary income, which got a lot of attention in the news.

What the news media missed is that hedge fund managers don’t even pay 15 percent. At least, not currently. So long as they leave their money, known as “carried interest,” in the hedge fund, their taxes are deferred. They only pay taxes when they cash out, which could be decades from now for younger managers. How do these hedge fund managers get money in the meantime? By borrowing against the carried interest, often at absurdly low rates — currently about 2 percent.

Lots of other people live tax-free, too. I have Donald Trump’s tax records for four years early in his career. He paid no taxes for two of those years. Big real-estate investors enjoy tax-free living under a 1993 law President Clinton signed. It lets “professional” real-estate investors use paper losses like depreciation on their buildings against any cash income, even if they end up with negative incomes like Trump.

Frank and Jamie McCourt, who own the Los Angeles Dodgers, have not paid any income taxes since at least 2004, their divorce case revealed. Yet they spent $45 million one year alone. How? They just borrowed against Dodger ticket revenue and other assets. To the IRS, they look like paupers.

In Wisconsin, Terrence Wall, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2010, paid no income taxes on as much as $14 million of recent income, his disclosure forms showed. Asked about his living tax-free while working people pay taxes, he had a simple response: everyone should pay less.

5. And (surprise!) since Reagan , only the wealthy have gained significant income.

The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and similar conservative marketing organizations tell us relentlessly that lower tax rates will make us all better off.

“When tax rates are reduced, the economy’s growth rate improves and living standards increase,” according to Daniel J. Mitchell, an economist at Heritage until he joined Cato. He says that supply-side economics is “the simple notion that lower tax rates will boost work, saving, investment, and entrepreneurship.”

When Reagan was elected president, the marginal tax rate for income was 70 percent. He cut it to 50 percent and then 28 percent starting in 1987. It was raised by George H.W. Bush and Clinton and then cut by George W. Bush. The top rate is now 35 percent.

Since 1980, when President Reagan won election promising prosperity through tax cuts, the average income of the vast majority — the bottom 90 percent of Americans — has increased a meager $303, or 1 percent. Put another way, for each dollar people in the vast majority made in 1980, in 2008 their income was up to $1.01.

Those at the top did better. The top 1 percent’s average income more than doubled to $1.1 million, according to an analysis of tax data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. The really rich, the top 10th of 1 percent, each enjoyed almost $4 in 2008 for each dollar in 1980.

The top 300,000 Americans now enjoy almost as much income as the bottom 150 million, the data show.

6. When it comes to corporations, the story is much the same — less taxes.

Corporate profits in 2008, the latest year for which data is available, were $1.8 billion, up almost 12 percent from $1.6 billion in 2000. Yet even though corporate tax rates have not been cut, corporate income-tax revenues fell to $230 billion from $249 billion — an 8 percent decline, thanks to a number of loopholes. The official 2010 profit numbers are not added up and released by the government, but the amount paid in corporate taxes is: in 2010 they fell further, to $191 billion — a decline of more than 23 percent compared with 2000.

7. Some corporate tax breaks destroy jobs.

Despite all the noise that America has the world’s second highest corporate tax rate, the actual taxes paid by corporations are falling because of the growing number of loopholes and companies shifting profits to tax havens like the Cayman Islands.

And right now America’s corporations are sitting on close to $2 trillion in cash that is not being used to build factories, create jobs or anything else, but act as an insurance policy for managers unwilling to take the risk of actually building the businesses they are paid so well to run. That cash hoard, by the way, works out to nearly $13,000 per taxpaying household.

A corporate tax rate that is too low actually destroys jobs. That’s because a higher tax rate encourages businesses (who don’t want to pay taxes) to keep the profits in the business and reinvest, rather than pull them out as profits and have to pay high taxes.

The 2004 American Jobs Creation Act, which passed with bipartisan support, allowed more than 800 companies to bring profits that were untaxed but overseas back to the United States. Instead of paying the usual 35 percent tax, the companies paid just 5.25 percent.

The companies said bringing the money home — “repatriating” it, they called it — would mean lots of jobs. Sen. John Ensign, the Nevada Republican, put the figure at 660,000 new jobs.

Pfizer, the drug company, was the biggest beneficiary. It brought home $37 billion, saving $11 billion in taxes. Almost immediately it started firing people. Since the law took effect, it has let 40,000 workers go. In all, it appears that at least 100,000 jobs were destroyed.

Now Congressional Republicans and some Democrats are gearing up again to pass another tax holiday, promoting a new Jobs Creation Act. It would affect 10 times as much money as the 2004 law.

8. Republicans like taxes too.

President Reagan signed into law 11 tax increases, targeted at people down the income ladder. His administration and the Washington press corps called the increases “revenue enhancers.” Among other things, Reagan hiked Social Security taxes so high that by the end of 2008, the government had collected more than $2 trillion in surplus tax.

George W. Bush signed a tax increase, too, in 2006, despite his written ironclad pledge to never raise taxes on anyone. It raised taxes on teenagers by requiring kids up to age 17, who earned money, to pay taxes at their parents’ tax rate, which would almost always be higher than the rate they would otherwise pay. It was a story that ran buried inside The New York Times one Sunday, but nowhere else.

In fact, thanks to Republicans, one in three Americans will pay higher taxes this year than they did last year.

First, some history. In 2009, President Obama pushed his own tax cut—for the working class. He persuaded Congress to enact the Making Work Pay Tax Credit. Over the two years 2009 and 2010, it saved single workers up to $800 and married heterosexual couples up to $1,600, even if only one spouse worked. The top 5 percent or so of taxpayers were denied this tax break.

The Obama administration called it “the biggest middle-class tax cut” ever. Yet last December the Republicans, poised to regain control of the House of Representatives, killed Obama’s Making Work Pay Credit while extending the Bush tax cuts for two more years — a policy Obama agreed to.

By doing so, Congressional Republican leaders increased taxes on a third of Americans, virtually all of them the working poor, this year.

As a result, of the 155 million households in the tax system, 51 million will pay an average of $129 more this year. That is $6.6 billion in higher taxes for the working poor, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimated.

In addition, the Republicans changed the rate of workers’ FICA contributions, which finances half of Social Security. The result:

If you are single and make less than $20,000, or married and less than $40,000, you lose under this plan.

But the top 5 percent, people who make more than $106,800, will save $2,136 ($4,272 for two-career couples).

9. Other countries do it better.

We measure our economic progress, and our elected leaders debate tax policy, in terms of a crude measure known as gross domestic product. The way the official statistics are put together, each dollar spent buying solar energy equipment counts the same as each dollar spent investigating murders.

We do not give any measure of value to time spent rearing children or growing our own vegetables or to time off for leisure and community service.

And we do not measure the economic damage done by shocks, such as losing a job, which means not only loss of income and depletion of savings, but loss of health insurance, which a Harvard Medical School study found results in 45,000 unnecessary deaths each year

Compare this to Germany, one of many countries with a smarter tax system and smarter spending policies.

Germans work less, make more per hour and get much better parental leave than Americans, many of whom get no fringe benefits such as health care, pensions or even a retirement savings plan. By many measures the vast majority live better in Germany than in America.

To achieve this, single German workers on average pay 52 percent of their income in taxes. Americans average 30 percent, according to the Organizations for Economic Cooperation and Development.

At first blush, the German tax burden seems horrendous. But in Germany (as well as Britain, France, Scandinavia, Canada, Australia, and Japan), tax-supported institutions provide many of the things Americans pay for with after-tax dollars. Buying wholesale rather than retail saves money.

A proper comparison would take the 30 percent average tax on American workers and add their out-of-pocket spending on health care, college tuition, and fees for services and compare that with taxes that the average German pays. Add it all up and the combination of tax and personal spending is roughly equal in both countries, but with a large risk of catastrophic loss in America, and a tiny risk in Germany.

Americans take on $85 billion of debt each year for higher education, while college is financed by taxes in Germany and tuition is cheap to free in other modern countries. While soaring medical costs are a key reason that since 1980 bankruptcy in America has increased 15 times faster than population growth, no one in Germany or the rest of the modern world goes broke because of accident or illness. And child poverty in America is the highest among modern countries — almost twice the rate in Germany, which is close to the average of modern countries.

On the corporate tax side, the Germans encourage reinvestment at home and the outsourcing of low-value work, like auto assembly, and German rules tightly control accounting so that profits earned at home cannot be made to appear as profits earned in tax havens.

Adopting the German system is not the answer for America. But crafting a tax system that benefits the vast majority, reduces risks, provides universal health care and focuses on diplomacy rather than militarism abroad (and at home) would be a lot smarter than what we have now.

Here is a question to ask yourself: We started down this road with Reagan’s election in 1980 and upped the ante in this century with George W. Bush.

How long does it take to conclude that a policy has failed to fulfill its promises? And as you think of that, keep in mind George Washington. When he fell ill his doctors followed the common wisdom of the era. They cut him and bled him to remove bad blood. As Washington’s condition grew worse, they bled him more. And like the mantra of tax cuts for the rich, they kept applying the same treatment until they killed him.

Luckily we don’t bleed the sick anymore, but we are bleeding our government to death.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

David Cay Johnston is a columnist for tax.com and teaches the tax, property, and regulatory law of the ancient world at Syracuse University College of Law and Whitman School of Management. He has also been called the “de facto chief tax enforcement officer of the United States” because his reporting in The New York Times shut down many tax dodges and schemes, just two of them valued by Congress at $260 billion.

Johnston received a 2001 Pulitzer Prize for exposing tax loopholes and inequities. He wrote two bestsellers on taxes, Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch. Later this year David Cay Johnston will be out with a new book, The Fine Print, revealing how big business, with help from politicians, abuses plain English to rob you blind.

 

On the Cheap Listings

Maria Poblet
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0

On the Cheap listings are compiled by Jackie Andrews. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 13

Party to save the Dyke March! El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.elriosf.com. 8:30-11:30pm, $3. Strut your stuff at this new dance party – appropriately called “Strutter,” featuring DJ Andre, who will be busting out all the right hip-hop stops and a few rock tunes for good measure. The organizers will be donating all of the profits from the night to help the annual Dyke March promenade to take to the streets for another year. Of course, feel free to dig deeper into your pockets and donate even more to help this important San Francisco institution remain visible in the community.

Beatbox how-to Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California, SF; (415) 831-5620, www.howtonight.com. 7pm, free with food and beverage purchase. Another boring day at the office got you down? Maybe the fancy PowerPoint transitions and fonts fail to add the same level of oomph they once had in the past? Maybe it’s time to go big and add some live vocal percussion to your presentation. Tonight, you can learn how when the talented Wes Carroll helps you transform your mouth into a human drum machine. He’ll get you up and beatboxing like Biz Markie in no time.

THURSDAY 14

Spring into health Marine Mammal Center, 2000 Bunker, Sausalito; www.marinemammalcenter.org. 2-6pm, free. Quit putting off that yearly physical and take advantage of free health screenings all day long at the first ever Sausalito Wellness Fair. Get your blood pressure checked out and get screened for high cholesterol and diabetes – no fasting required for any of these, so feel free to help yourself to the plethora of healthy snacks on hand. Afterward, talk to the experts and create a health action plan, enjoy a relaxing chair massage, collect free health-related giveaways, and even learn about what we have in common with our marine mammal friends.

FRIDAY 15

C. Ryder Cooley performance art Luggage Store Gallery, 1007 Market, SF; www.luggagestoregallery.org. 8pm, $5-10 sliding scale. Come check out this new multimedia exhibit by inter-disciplinary artist C. Ryder Cooley with videos, musical performances, and performances that may or may not fall in to the “other” category. The theme of her show “Ximalia” is extinction, and Cooley, once an active member in the SF art and music scenes, will perform with her usual singing saw and accordion – although these days, she’s really more into her six-stringed ‘uke – and yes, there will be taxidermy. We hear a be-dazzled dear skull may be involved in some way, so be sure to circle today on your calendar and find out what that’s all about.

SATURDAY 16

Central YMCA’s Healthy Kids Day Shih Yu-Lang Central YMCA, 387 Golden Gate, SF; www.ymcasf.org. 2-8pm, donations encouraged. Calling all parents – take your kids to the YMCA today for an all-day play date! Healthy Kids Day is the nation’s largest health-themed day for families, and San Francisco’s central YMCA has got a fun-filled carnival planned for you and your brood, featuring games and prizes, performances, exercise demos, health screenings, and (yes!) even a bouncy house! It’s never to late to be healthy, active, and connected.

SUNDAY 17

Doggie Easter egg hunt Wag Hotel, 25 14th St., SF; (415) 876-0700, www.waghotels.com. 11am-2:30pm, donations encouraged. Dust off your Easter hats – human and canine alike – and bring your furry friends over to the Wag Hotel to sniff out treat-filled eggs and meet the Easter Bunny himself. Critter-less? That’s OK. Stop by anyway and meet adoptable dogs, schmooze with fellow dog-lovers, and ogle the adorable spectacle that is a doggie Easter egg hunt. All donations go directly to the Animal Care and Control of San Francisco.

MONDAY 18

105th anniversary of The Big One Meet at Lotta’s Fountain, corner of Kearny, 3rd Street, and Geary, SF.; www.sanfranciscostories.com. 4:30am, free. Whether it’s your Monday morning or you’re still rocking Sunday night, you won’t want to miss this annual San Francisco tradition commemorating the great earthquake and fire of 1906. Since this year’s ceremony is dedicated to the Japanese quake victims, San Franciscan Nisei and Sansei will join Ed Lee and others at Lotta’s fountain to kick off the event. After 5:11am, which marks the exact moment of the quake, attendees can go to Dolores Park for the annual painting of the fire hydrant that saved the Mission District. Afterward, head over to Lefty O’Doul’s at 333 Geary for a Bloody Mary breakfast (sadly, not free) before you inevitably go home and crawl back in to bed.

 

Threads of change

Andrew Lam
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3
Threads of change

rebeccab@sfbg.com ; caitlin@sfbg.com

GREEN ISSUE Planting indigo seedlings in a leaky greenhouse in the mist of a cold Marin County afternoon, Rebecca Burgess thinks about what she’s going to wear. She’s not a fashion model, or a clotheshorse, but she is on a yearlong quest to attire herself only in garments that were sourced and produced bio-regionally — or within a 150-mile radius of home — an area she calls her local fibershed.

Why take on such a challenge? “If we don’t want BP oil spills, it’s about more than just not fueling our cars with it,” Burgess says. While many activists seeking to unplug from oil dependency have worked to encourage bicycles, local agriculture, and reusable shopping bags, her approach takes on the materials we use to clothe our bodies.

Half of all jeans sold annually in the United States — around 200 million pairs — are produced in the Xintang township in China’s Pearl River Delta, where a Greenpeace study found hazardous organic chemicals and acidic runoff in the watershed, both of which may contribute to profound health risks for factory workers and their communities.

Of course, oil is consumed in the transport of factory-made garments halfway across the globe. But as Burgess notes, that’s only part of the reason for her project, which so far has yielded a book on the making of natural dyes and a plan for a community cotton mill in Point Reyes.

She’s also concerned about the synthetic fibers mass-manufactured clothes are made of. “We’re wearing a lot of plastic,” she notes. Not just plastic: petrochemicals, formaldehyde, and carcinogenic polycrylonitriles can all be used to produce your outfit— materials that seep into your pores when you’re active and can hardly be considered ideal to wear against your skin.

To limit support of the oil-reliant garment industry, Burgess envisions a collaboratively created source of clothing made from materials and processes that are — unlike the heavy-metal laden industrial effluent from denim dyes flowing into China’s Pearl River — completely nontoxic. To that end, she’s linking natural fiber artisans and raw material providers throughout the region with the fibershed project, which aims to bolster local clothing production.

Today, she’s the poster child for her effort. Burgess sports striped alpaca kneesocks, an organic cotton skirt sewn by a friend, and a wool sweater her mom knitted with handmade yarn, sourced from a sheep farmer they know. The clothes look well-loved, which makes sense: relying on one’s fibershed for a wardrobe is not easy. When Burgess first embarked on her yearlong bioregional clothing challenge, there wasn’t much in her dresser. “I lived out of three garments for weeks,” she laughs. “People were like, ‘You’re wearing the same thing over and over and over again.'<0x2009>”

But she found that she wasn’t the only one who believed that a change was possible in our closets. Friends, family, and a wider community of shepherds, cotton growers, knitters, seamstresses, and artisans all pitched in to help her along with the project. Burgess says this growing network underlies what it will take for communities to transition to a more sustainable lifestyle. “All this is about encouraging more relationships.”

There’s Sally Fox, whose non-genetically modified colored cotton operation in the Capay Valley is the culmination of years of seed-selecting for natural color tones. There’s the 96-year old sheep farmer in Ukiah. Not to mention the hip fiber artisans based in Oakland and the young fashion students in San Francisco who were inspired by her project.

“It’s not just of value to an old spinster community, it’s of value to a young, hip generation of people who want to live in a carbon-free economy,” Burgess notes. “A bunch of urban young people are really into fibers.” Most, she adds, are women.

Burgess makes her own clothing, too, and to research her book (Harvesting Color, Artisan, 180 p., $22.95) traversed the country learning from female “wisdom-keepers,” women whose craft practices were based on passed-down traditions encouraging the health of their ecosystems.

Today is part of her latest endeavor: growing her own indigo dye so that locally made garments can be dyed blue sustainably. Her day’s work entails planting 400 indigo seeds in flats filled with soil from a ranch down the road. This spring and summer, she plans to raise 1,000 indigo plants in three garden plots just outside the greenhouse. The day the Guardian came to visit, sheep lounged in the pasture beyond her garden plots, as if to illustrate the point that this process won’t require any long-distance transport.

She realizes that few people have a greenhouse to plant indigo in, much less the time necessary to produce their own clothing — or the money needed to dress in handcrafted pieces. But by proving that it’s possible to wear clothes that were created by your own community, she hopes that people will at least “settle for second best, which in this case is wearing organic, American-made materials.”

Even that would be something — right now clothes just aren’t on most of our sustainability compasses. As an example, Burgess recalls a panel discussion she attended at which sustainable food champions Michael Pollan and Joel Salatin were speakers. Someone (“And it wasn’t even me!” she insists) asked them what role garments played in a sustainable lifestyle. “And they were speechless. They didn’t have a thing to say.”

It was a PR challenge Burgess was happy to assume — she has since struck up an e-mail correspondence with Pollan, which she hopes will spread her message further. “Clearly we need some education.”

Join Burgess and other yarn producers for a locally made fashion show and to see plans for their community mill May 1 at Toby’s Feed Barn in Point Reyes. For more information call (415) 259-5849 or visit www.rebeccarburgess.com

 

Drawing a line in the toxic triangle

Andrew Lam
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5
Drawing a line in the toxic triangle

rebeccab@sfbg.com

GREEN ISSUE California is often viewed as being among the brightest shades of green. The Golden State’s landmark climate-change legislation has proven magnetic for green-tech startups, while Northern California is defined in part by its longstanding love affair with natural foods and solar power. San Francisco boasts a well-used network of bike routes, a ban on plastic bags, mandated composting of kitchen scraps, and a host of urban agriculture projects.

While much of the Bay Area’s environmental reputation is well-deserved, things look different from poor neighborhoods where homes are clustered beside hulking industrial facilities and public health suffers. For years, grassroots organizations working in Richmond, Oakland, and Bayview-Hunters Point have sought to improve air quality and promote environmental justice in neighborhoods plagued by higher-than-average rates of respiratory disease, cancer, and other preventable illnesses.

The Rev. Daniel Buford of Oakland’s Allen Temple Baptist Church told the Guardian that he began talking about the polluted areas of Richmond, Oakland, and San Francisco as a “toxic triangle” two decades ago. It was an analogy, he explained, that plays off the mysterious deaths that the Bermuda Triangle is famous for. Yet the label also served a purpose — to unite three communities of color that were fighting separate yet similar battles against health hazards associated with their surroundings.

“There were a lot of things that weren’t in place with public consciousness that are in place now,” Buford said.

Today, he isn’t the only one uttering the catch phrase. A host of community organizations banded together as the Toxic Triangle Coalition last year to organize three forums on environmental justice in the three cities. Advocates cast the neighborhood-specific problems as three parts of a regionwide phenomenon, highlighting how pollution from shipping, crude oil processing, freeway transportation, abandoned manufacturing sites, hazardous waste handlers, and other industrial facilities disproportionately affect communities of color, where poverty and unemployment rates are already high.

Buford views the Toxic Triangle Coalition as a strategy to mount pressure for stronger enforcement of environmental laws in disproportionately affected areas. “We live in the whole Bay Area — we don’t live in one little part of the Bay Area,” he noted. “Our coalition strongly urges our state representatives in each of the counties to call for a hearing at the state level.”

 

OIL WARS

In Richmond, California’s top greenhouse-gas emitter looms as an expansive backdrop of the city, a tangled network of smokestacks and machinery near a hillside cluster of large, cylindrical oil storage containers. Chevron Corporation’s Richmond Refinery was built more than a century ago. A few years ago, the oil company began making noise about how it was in need of an upgrade.

Weaving through a blue-collar residential area of Richmond in her sedan, Jessica Guadalupe Tovar recounted how Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), the nonprofit she works for, revealed that Chevron hadn’t told the whole story when it was petitioning for a permit to expand the refinery. The oil company’s long-term goals, CBE learned from a financial report, included gaining capability to process thicker crude that tends to be sourced from places like Canada’s Alberta tar sands.

“We call it dirty crude,” she said. “But it’s really dirtier crude.”

Converting thicker crude to fuel requires higher temperatures and pressures — and that translates to higher greenhouse-gas emissions and a heightened risk of flaring and fires.

The refinery expansion could have meant an air-quality situation going from bad to worse. Public health problems such as asthma and cancer have spurred campaigns led by the West County Toxics Coalition, CBE, and other environmental justice groups. Tovar explained how CBE orchestrated an air-monitoring program in 2006, collecting samples from 40 homes in Richmond and 10 in Bolinas as a point of comparison.

While trace amounts of chemicals from household cleaners were present in both, samples from the Richmond residences also contained the same toxic compounds that spew from Chevron’s refinery. “We found pollution known to come from the oil refinery settling inside people’s homes,” Tovar explained. “Once it’s trapped in your home, it starts to accumulate.”

Chevron won its expansion permit by a slim margin in 2008 with a city council dominated by officials who had reputations for being friendly to the oil giant. Yet environmental organizations filed suit, saying the environmental impact report (EIR) approval was based on was illegal because it failed to analyze the company’s likely plans for heavier crude processing. A Contra Costa County judge ruled in favor of the environmentalists, halting the expansion project in 2009. Chevron appealed, but the decision was upheld in 2010.

Stopping the expansion was a substantial victory, but environmental justice advocates remain wary of Chevron — particularly after the company attempted to blame job losses on the green coalition that filed suit. “Chevron pit workers against us,” Tovar noted. “And also started saying, ‘This is why environmental laws are bad for the economy.'”

 

GLOBAL TRADE, LOCAL FUMES

Each day, the Port of Oakland fills with trucks waiting to load up on goods shipped in from around the globe on massive cargo vessels. It’s a local symbol of a globalized economy. But for the West Oakland neighborhoods surrounding the port, the daily gathering of diesel rigs means an unhealthy infusion of particulate matter into the air.

A report issued by the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE), the Pacific Institute, and the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports found that West Oakland residents are exposed to particulate matter concentrations nearly three times higher than the regional average. Health studies have shown that asthma rates in West Oakland are five times higher than that of people living in the Oakland hills, and cancer risks are threefold compared to other Bay Area cities. For the truck drivers, the risk of cancer is significantly higher than average.

A state air-quality law that went into effect in early 2010 banned pre-1994, heavily polluting diesel trucks from the port, thanks in part to years of environmental campaigning that has publicized public-health impacts associated with the diesel pollution. Yet the new regulation brought an unintended consequence: for truck drivers who must purchase their own gas and pay for their own upgrades, the new rule was ruinous. A survey by the Public Welfare Foundation found that since the new environmental regulation went into effect, 25 percent of Oakland truck drivers had declared bankruptcy, been evicted, or faced foreclosure.

Retrofitting the trucks with new air filters is a five-figure prospect, while the cost of a new truck can clear $100,000. “At the end of the day … a lot of them will only take home about $25,000 a year,” explained EBASE spokesperson Nikki Bas. “It’s an immigrant workforce who are living in poverty.”

So the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports, which pushed for tougher air-quality regulations, is now pressuring for a reform of the trucking industry to place the cost of clean upgrades onto powerful trucking companies instead of low-wage drivers. The coalition’s campaign has sought to link the needs of the drivers and the surrounding community, organizing rallies with blue-green signs bearing the motto “Good Jobs & Clean Air” to call for a change to the truckers’ employment classification from independent contractors to employees, which would shift the cost of compliance onto employers instead of drivers.

West Oakland isn’t the only East Bay area inflicted by excessive levels of diesel particulate matter from trucks entering the Port of Oakland. The fumes also affect East Oakland neighborhoods bisected by the big rigs’ primary thoroughfares. In addition to truck traffic and freeways, East Oakland is also the site of numerous hazardous-waste handlers and abandoned industrial sites.

Nehanda Imara, an organizer with CBE who also helped put together the Toxic Triangle Coalition forums, described how her organization recruited volunteers to count the number of trucks passing through a heavily traveled East Oakland strip as a way to quantify the source of particulate matter pollution. They reached a tally of around 11,700 over the course of 10 days.

Some progress has been made to limit the exposure of diesel pollution for East Oakland residents. The city is working on a comprehensive plan to assess trucking routes, and a campaign to limit truck idling is helping to limit unnecessary tailpipe emissions.

Yet youth hospitalizations for asthma in East Oakland are 150 percent to 200 percent higher than Alameda County taken as a whole, and an air-monitoring project in that area revealed high levels of particulate matter exceeding state and federal standards.

“That’s also an environmental injustice,” Imara said. “When the laws are there, but not being enforced.”

 

TOXIC SOUP

In San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, environmental justice groups have spotlighted the toxic stew associated with the naval shipyard and other pollution sources for years. A 2004 report produced jointly by Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, the Bayview-Hunters Point Mothers Environmental Justice Committee, and the Huntersview Tenants Association outlined a “toxic inventory” of the area. The inventory depicts a more complicated web of toxic sources than the asbestos dust and naval shipyard cleanup that have been focal points of news coverage surrounding Lennar Corp.’s massive redevelopment plans for that neighborhood.

“Over half of the land in San Francisco that is zoned for industrial use is in Bayview-Hunters Point,” this report noted. “The neighborhood is home to one federal Superfund site, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard … a sewage treatment plant that handles 80 percent of the city’s solid wastes, 100 brownfield sites [a brownfield is an abandoned, idled, or underused commercial facility where expansion or redevelopment is limited because of environmental contamination], 187 leaking underground fuel tanks, and more than 124 hazardous waste handlers regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”

The shipyard, meanwhile, has been the central focus of controversy surrounding plans to clean up and redevelop the area. People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) and Greenaction are currently challenging the EIR for Lennar’s massive redevelopment plan for the neighborhood, charging that the study is inadequate because a cleanup effort on the part of the U.S. Navy has yet to determine the level of toxicity that will need to be addressed, so the assessment is based on incomplete information. Asthma is commonplace in the Bayview, and health surveys have shown that the rates of cervical and breast cancer are twice as high as other places in the Bay Area.

“Our environmental issues are massive still, and it’s not just Bayview- Hunters Point,” notes Marie Harrison, a long-time organizer for Greenaction and a Bayview resident.

Harrison recalled the many times she’d gotten out of bed in the middle of the night to drive a friend’s or neighbor’s asthmatic child to the hospital. “That story has repeated itself tenfold in Richmond and in Oakland,” she added. Nor is the problem simply limited to those Bay Area cities, she said, noting that communities of color throughout the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 9 face similar issues.

As awareness about the scope of the problem has increased over the years, she said, “We start to say, my God, this triangle has to become a circle.”

 

Green days

Andrew Lam
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0
Green days

news@sfbg.com

1892: The Sierra Club is established by John Muir and a group of professors from UC Berkeley and Stanford in San Francisco. In its first conservation campaign, the club leads efforts to defeat a proposed reduction in the boundaries of Yosemite National Park.

1902: After two years of intense lobbying and fundraising, the Sempervirens Club, the first land conservation organization on the west coast, is successful in establishing Big Basin Redwoods State Park — the first park established in California under the new state park system.

1910: The first municipally owned and operated street car service commences in San Francisco.

1918: Save the Redwoods League is established in San Francisco. A leader in proactive land conservation, SRL would go on to assist in the purchase of nearly 190,000 acres to protect redwoods and help develop more than 60 redwood parks and reserves that old these ancient trees in California.

1934: The East Bay Regional Park is established as the first regional park district in the nation. This radical Depression-era idea would much set the tone as the Bay Area land conservation vision expanded.

1934: The Marin Conservation League is founded by wealthy Republican women. Three years later, at the league’s behest, the Marin County Board of Supervisors adopts the first county zoning ordinance in the state in 1937. Over the next 10 years, the league helps create State Parks at Stinson Beach, Tomales Bay, Samuel P. Taylor, Angel Island, and expand Mt Tamalpais State Park.

1956: San Francisco activists, led in party by Sue Bierman, launch a campaign to stop a freeway that would have run through Golden Gate Park. It marks the first time city residents successfully block a freeway project and launches the urban environmental movement in America.

1958: Citizens for Regional Recreation and Parks is founded. It becomes People for Open Space in 1969 and morphs in 1987 into the Greenbelt Alliance. Their efforts lead to the creation of the Mid-Peninsula Open Space District in 1972 and Suisun Marsh in 1974.

1960: Sierra Club Executive Director David Brower launches a brand new organizing and educational concept, the exhibit format “coffee table” book series, with This Is the American Earth, featuring photos by Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhalland. These elegant coffee-table books introduced the Sierra Club to a wide audience. Fifty thousand copies are sold in the first four years, and by 1960 sales exceed $10 million. The environmental coffee table book emerged as part of a campaign to persuade Congress to enact the Wilderness Bill, legislation that would guarantee the permanence of the nation’s wild places.

1961: Save San Francisco Bay Association is founded by Sylvia McLaughlin, Kay Kerr and Ester Gulick to end unregulated filling of San Francisco Bay and to open up the Bay shoreline to public access.

1961: Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announces plans to build a nuclear power plant at Bodega Bay. Rancher Rose Gaffney, UC Berkeley professor Joe Neilands and others mount what will become the first citizen movement in the country to stop a nuclear plant. The Bodega Bay campaign marks the birth of the antinuclear movement.

1965: Responding to Bay Area citizens’ demands for protection of the bay’s natural environment, the California state legislature passes the McAteer-Petris Act, which establishes the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) and charges it with preparing a plan for the long-term use and protection of the Bay and with regulating development in and around it.

1965: Fred Rohe opens New Age Natural Foods on Stanyan Street in San Francisco. He goes on to open the first natural foods restaurant in 1967, Good Karma Cafe on Valencia Street. Rohe would go on to open the first natural foods distribution company in Northern California, New Age Distributing in San Jose in 1970 and found Organic Merchants (OM), the first natural foods retailer trade group.

1967: The Human Be-in is held Jan. 14 in Golden Gate Park (as a prelude to the Summer of Love) with as a major theme higher consciousness, ecological awareness, personal empowerment, cultural and political decentralization.

1967: Alan Chadwick comes to UC Santa Cruz and establishes the Student Garden Project and training program, which would train hundreds of today’s organic farmers.

1968: The Whole Earth Catalogue, published by the Point Foundation and edited by Stewart Brand out of Gate 5 Road in Sausalito is introduced, providing tools, philosophy, and reviews to the growing back-to-the-land movement, helping promote ecological living and culture alternative sustainable culture decades before those words became mainstream.

1969: Brower, after losing his job at the Sierra Club in part because of his opposition to the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, founds Friends of the Earth, the cutting edge activist group that would eventually have affiliates in 77 nations around the globe and become the world’s largest grassroots environmental network.

1970: Peninsula resident Neil Young writes and sings the lyrics “Look at Mother Nature on the Run in the 1970s.”

1970: Berkeley Ecology Center opens.

1971: Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund is established, marking the beginning of an explosion in environmental law.

1971: Alice Waters opens Chez Panisse, serving up California Cuisine and altering the Bay Area diet helping to create a market for local fresh organic fruits and vegetables. 1971: Berkeley resident Francis Moore Lappé publishes her best-selling book Diet for a Small Planet. Two million copies are sold and as the first book to expose the enormous waste built into U.S. grain-fed meat production, for her a symbol of a global food system creating hunger out of plenty; her effort alters millions of diets.

1971: San Francisco dressmaker Alvin Duskin launches a campaign to limit high-rise office development in San Francisco, creating new allies and a new coalition for urban environmentalism.

1972: The Trust for Public Land, a national, nonprofit land conservation organization that conserves land for people to enjoy as parks, gardens, historic sites, and rural lands, is founded by Huey Johnson, Doug Ferguson and Marty Rosen in San Francisco. TPL would go on to protect 2.8 million acres of land and is key in getting land trusts started in Napa, Sonoma, Marin, Big Sur, and around the state.

1972: The Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, first urban wildlife refuge in the United States, is established, encompassing 30,000 acres of open bay, salt pond, salt marsh, mudflat, upland and vernal pool habitats located in South Bay.

1972: The Save Our Shores campaign, developed in part by Bay Area residents, results in a state initiative, the Coastal Act of 1972, which is passed by the voters and establishes the first comprehensive coastal watershed policy in the nation.

1974: Berkeley Ecology Center starts the first curbside recycling approach in California, one of first such programs in the nation.

1974: The Farallones Institute in Berkeley begins building the first urban demonstration of an ecological living center with the Integral Urban House, a converted Victorian using solar and wind technologies, a composting toilet, extensive gardens, and energy and resource conservation features. It serves as an early model for the emerging Appropriate Technology Movement.

1975: Berkeley resident Ernest Callenbach self publishes Ecotopia after a round of rejections from New York publishers; it ultimately sells more than a million copies and becomes an environmental classic.

1975: San Francisco’s first community gardens are established at Fort Mason and elsewhere.

1975: The Marine Mammal Center, a nonprofit veterinary research hospital and educational center dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of ill and injured marine mammals, primarily elephant seals, harbor seals, and California sea lions, is established in the Marin Headlands.

1978: Raymond Dasmann and Peter Berg coin the term Bioregionalism in the publication of Reinhabiting a Separate Country, published by Berg’s Planet Drum Foundation in San Francisco. It represents a fresh, comprehensive way of defining and understanding the places where we live, and of living there sustainably and respectfully through ecological design.

1979 Greens Restaurant opens at Fort Mason in San Francisco and quickly establishes itself as a pioneer in promoting vegetarian cuisine in the United States.

1980: The Marin Agricultural Land Trust is established by Wetland Biologist Phyllis Faber and diary farmer Ellen Straus.

1980: Berkeley resident Richard Register coins the term “depave” — to undo the act of paving, to remove pavement so as to restore land to a more natural state. Depaving begins to spread to create many inner city urban gardening projects.

1981-82: Register and other activists, bring about the first urban day lighting of a creek in Berkeley’s Strawberry Creek Park where a 200-foot section of the creek is removed from a culvert beneath an empty lot and transformed into the centerpiece of a park.

1982: Earth First, a radical environmental group founded by Dave Foreman and Mike Roselle, sponsors the first demonstration against Burger King in San Francisco for using beef grown on land hacked out of rain forests. The demonstrations spread, turn in to a boycott, and after sales drop 12 percent, Burger King cancels $35 million worth of beef contracts in Central America and announces it will stop importing rainforest beef.

1983: Local residents Randy Hayes and Toby Mcleod release the documentary film The Four Corners, A National Sacrifice Area? , which conveys the cultural and ecological impacts of coal strip-mining, uranium mining, and oil shale development in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona — homeland of the Hopi and Navajo. The film wins an Academy Award and illustrates serious environmental justice issues 10 years before that term is coined.

1985: The Rainforest Action Network, established in San Francisco, emerges from the Burger King action.

1986: Fifteen years after Duskin’s first anti-high-rise initiative efforts, San Francisco finally passes Prop. M, the nation’s most important sustainable growth law.

1988: Register invents a stencil to be used next to street storm drains that says “don’t dump — drains to bay.” The wastewater pollution mitigation education concept spreads around the region and nation and then becomes an international volunteer effort to lessen pollution in urban runoff, which generally flows untreated into creeks and saltwater.

1989: Carl Anthony, Karl Linn, and Brower establish the Urban Habitat Program in San Francisco, one of the first environmental justice organizations in the country.

1989: Laurie Mott of the National Resource Defense Council’s SF office rattles the apple industry by engineering a suspension of the use of the pesticide Alar by the Environmental Protection Agency. A national debate ensues.

1992: Berkeley writer Theodore Roszak coins both the term and field of ecopsychology in his book The Voice of the Earth. The movement he helps found asks if the planetary and the personal are pointing the way forward to some new basis for a sustainable economic and emotional life.

1992: The first Critical Mass bike ride (initially called a “Commute Clot”) is held in San Francisco. Similar rides, typically held on the last Friday of every month, began to take place in more than in over 300 cities around the world.

1993: The U.S. Green Building Council is founded by David Gottfriend in Oakland. The council becomes the most important environmental trade organization in the world. In 1998, the council develops the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System, which provides a suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction and design.

1995: The Edible Schoolyard is established by Chez Panisse Foundation at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley. It serves as a model for similar programs in New Orleans and Brooklyn, and inspires garden programs at other schools across the country.

1999: The Green Resource Center starts as a joint project of the City of Berkeley, the Northern California Chapter of Architects, Designers and Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR), and the Sustainable Business Alliance.

2000: Wendy Kallins, working with the Marin Bicycle Coalition, begins a Safe Route to Schools program in Marin to encourage students to walk or bicycle to school. The program is so successful that Congress allocates more than $600 million for similar efforts across the country.

2001: The first Green Festival is held in San Francisco.

2001: Berkeley becomes first city in nation with curbside recycling trucks powered by recycled vegetable oil, thanks to a campaign by the Berkeley Ecology Center.

2002: San Francisco adopts a greenhouse gas reduction initiative that aims to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

2003: Bay Area Build It Green is formed by a number of local and regionally focused public agencies, building industry professionals, manufactures, and suppliers. Its activities are focused on increasing the supply of green homes, raising consumer awareness about the benefits of building green, and providing Bay Area consumers and residential building industry professionals a trusted source of information.

2005: San Francisco passes the Precautionary Principle Purchasing Ordinance, which requires the city to weigh the environmental and health costs of its $600 million in annual purchases — for everything from cleaning

supplies to computers.

2006: Bay Localize is launched in the East Bay with the aim to work to build a cooperative, inclusive movement toward regional self-reliance and increase community livability and local resilience for all while decreasing fossil fuel use.

2007: In an effort to meet the challenges of global warming, carbon pollution and job creation, East Bay activist Van Jones declares that the nation is going to have to weatherize millions of homes and install millions of solar panels. His best-selling book, The Green Collar Economy, stimulates a national movement and a new organization, Green For All.

2007: San Francisco begins collecting fats, oils and grease from residential and commercial kitchens, for free, to recycle into biofuel for the city’s municipal vehicles, the largest biofuel-powered municipal fleet in the United States.

2008: San Francisco becomes the first U.S. city to establish green building standards.

2010: The Green Building Opportunity Index names San Francisco and Oakland the top two cities in the nation for green buildings.

2010: San Francisco becomes home to the Sunset Reservoir Solar Project, the largest solar-powered municipal installation in California.

 

Fishing for plastic

Andrew Lam
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0
Fishing for plastic

sarah@sfbg.com

GREEN ISSUE For the past two summers, scientists and environmentalists with Project Kaisei, a Sausalito nonprofit focused on increasing public awareness of marine debris, have sailed out under the Golden Gate Bridge to survey trash in the North Pacific gyre.

A gyre is a naturally occurring system of rotating currents in the ocean that is normally avoided by sailors because of its light winds. The North Pacific Gyre is the largest of the five major oceanic gyres in the world, and the one with the biggest known accumulation of trash, most of which is plastic. Some folks call this vortex the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. But Project Kaisei founder Mary Crowley calls the vortex “the eighth continent” to convey its size and impact.

Now, as Project Kaisei prepares for its 2011 expedition, which will likely take place in June — depending on funding, marine conditions, and equipment collection — team members are taking the next steps in the project’s mission to capture the plastic in the gyre. These steps include testing for efficient ways to clean up trash mid-ocean and exploring if some captured plastic can be turned into liquid fuel to power future clean-ups.

“We’ll be focusing on testing marine debris collection equipment, doing some clean-up, further recording what’s out there, and working with ocean current experts. But we need good sponsorship,” Crowley said. “Down the line, we’re looking to have a recycling plant on deck with smaller vessels feeding it so we can do clean-ups mid-ocean. And we’re going to recycle. It’s not going to end up in a dump with plastic blowing back into the ocean.”

Crowley believes unemployed fishermen should be paid to clean up the gyres. “And we should start in our own towns and states and countries,” she said. “We need to produce a solution locally to take effect globally. Part of the response has to come from multinational corporations that are selling stuff throughout world. It’s shocking to me that 90 percent of our pelagic fish are gone and we’ve killed 50 percent of the corral reefs.”

Project Kaisei’s preparations are taking place in the wake of a tsunami that devastated Japan in March, sucking a big pulse of debris into the ocean and crippling four nuclear reactors that continue to leak radiation into the water, raising fears of damage to sea life.

Experts predict that some of the debris from the tsunami will eventually wash up on beaches in Hawaii and California, but Crowley doubts the state will be affected radiologically. “The majority [of the debris] got whooshed out by the tsunami before the leaks began,” she explained.

She says that at a marine debris conference in Honolulu shortly after the tsunami, attendees expressed concern about “land-sourced” debris — trash that flows into the ocean by way of rivers and streams or is dumped directly into the ocean from ships.

“People said that in recent years there’s also been all this debris from natural disasters, including tsunamis,” Crowley noted. “Well, I see debris from natural disasters as all the more reason to develop effective ways to get trash out of the ocean.”

But Captain Charles Moore, who founded the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in 1994 to restore disappearing kelp forests and wetlands along the California coast, thinks a moratorium on plastic production would make the most sense.

Moore’s focus shifted in 1997, when he encountered trash, mostly plastic, scattered across the North Pacific Gyre, and subsequent studies by his foundation claim that trash outweighs zooplankton in the gyre by a factor of six to one.

“Mary Crowley really wants to go out there with big boats and get big pieces of plastic out,” Moore said. “I’m not really opposed to that, but it’s a lot of time and money that could be spent trying to stop the waste getting there in the first place. It’s like having a leaking faucet and bailing out the sink rather than calling the plumber. The time has come for society to draw a line in the sand and say no more plastic. Our plastic footprint is causing more problems than our carbon footprint.”

Moore believes it’s time to withdraw from globalized production and support locavore and slow-food movements instead. “We send stuff to be produced in the cheapest locations possible, package it in plastic, then send it back here. It’s nuts,” he said.

But Crowley says not all plastic use is bad, even as she advocates for getting larger pieces of plastic out of the water, and supporting companies that use less on no packaging.

“Plastic is an amazing material for construction and railroad ties, decking, and some medical uses,” she said. “It’s just not right material for throw-away items because it lasts for centuries. I subscribe to oceanographer Sylvia Earle’s view that a plastic bottle can last for 500 to 600 years. That’s why it’s important to get out these bigger pieces of plastic. We don’t want them broken down in the belly of a whale or the stomach of an albatross.”

Studies suggest that 100,000 marine mammals — possibly more — along with thousands of sea birds die each year from debris entanglement, and that thousands more marine mammals, sea birds, fish and sea turtles die from ingesting marine debris, including plastic bags, which bear an unfortunate resemblance to jellyfish, once in water.

Crowley recalls how in 2009, when Project Kaisei had 25 people on board, including scientists, sailors, filmmakers, graduate students, and engineers, the team was surprised to find plastic in sampling taken 400 miles off the West Coast.

“We were anticipating clean water,” Crowley said. In the end, the project’s research vessel, the Kaisei, whose name means “ocean star” in Japanese, and the New Horizon, a Scripps Institute vessel that participated in the project’s first mission, found some plastic in every single trawl.

“A lot was smaller microparticulates of plastics and preproduction plastic pellets,” Crowley said, noting that she also saw Clorox bottles, plastic bags, ghost nets, toothbrushes, children’s toys, and plastic chairs floating on, or lurking up to nine feet below the surface of the ocean.

“If you’re in still water, you sometimes see confetti-like pieces of plastic. And if you’re up on the crow’s nest and going two to three knots, you see bigger pieces,” she said.

No one knows exactly how many bits of debris are already floating in the ocean or have been ground up into tiny particles on our beaches. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration notes that, to date, “there has not been a comprehensive marine debris abundance assessment for the world‘s oceans, or even for a single ocean.“

Moore‘s foundation says 80 percent of marine debris comes from land and only 20 percent from marine-related activities like fishing. To Crowley‘s mind, the main problem is that only 5 percent to 7 percent of plastics are recycled.

“Plastic was invented in the 1880s to replace ivory for pool balls and didn’t proliferate until the last 60 years,” she said. “But even when plastic is dumped into a landfill, it has this insidious way of blowing about and ending up in drains, rivers, and oceans because plastic is a very light, easy material to move around.”

Crowley grew up sailing on Lake Michigan, ran away to sea at age 19, and ended up sailing around the world and founding an international boat chartering business. Somewhere along the line, she says, she started describing the vast, continuous expanse of water that covers 71 percent of the planet and creates most of our air as “the global ocean.”

“It really is all connected,” she said. “The health of the oceanic ecosystem is very important to the health of the planet. There’s a terrible misconception that the oceans are so vast they can be used as a garbage pail.”

When she began to see trash underwater, Crowley realized that future generations wouldn’t be able to enjoy the oceans the way she has. She decided to take action four years ago when she began to see an increase in the garbage covering the North Pacific Gyre.

“I kept seeing the message that there’s a terrible problem, but there’s nothing we can do,” Crowley said, recalling how that messaging and her own sense of urgency prompted her to found Project Kaisei to increase public understanding of what’s in the gyre.

“If you’re in the area for a couple of weeks, you have days when you feel you’re voyaging through a field of scattered garbage,” she said. “And when you look out, you see garbage on the horizon.”

 

From Wisconsin to San Francisco

Andrew Lam
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101
From Wisconsin to San Francisco

Public Defender Jeff Adachi is scurrying all over town trying to explain how his version of pension reform is really “progressive.” It would be laughable if its implications weren’t so devastating for working people employed by the city and those living in and around San Francisco.

Adachi is rightfully worried that the events in Wisconsin and the national movement to defend union rights they have inspired will hurt his campaign. He is eager to say that he, unlike the Republicans in Wisconsin, supports unions’ rights to collective bargaining. But while Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican Legislature eliminated collective bargaining for their public employees to slash their wages, health care, and pensions, Adachi is slashing San Francisco’s workers pay and pensions through the ballot, effectively taking those items off the bargaining table. What’s the difference?

In both Wisconsin and San Francisco the deficit is the excuse to require cuts in public worker retirement and community services. Walker created Wisconsin’s deficit by granting huge tax cuts for corporations and the super-rich. In San Francisco, the deficit that cannot cover the city’s pension fund contributions was similarly brought on by three decades of tax cuts for corporations and the rich in California, compounded by former Mayor Gavin Newsom opposing nearly every revenue measure proposed throughout his seven-year reign — and by the city not contributing its share to the pension fund for all the years the stock market was doing well.

In determining how “progressive” Adachi’s measure is, we should, as always, follow the money. Here’s who’s is backing his proposal:

• Michael Moritz, the billionaire venture capitalist (and No. 308 last year on Forbes’ list of wealthiest Americans) who hosted fundraisers for Prop. B — Adachi’s first attempt last year at pension reform that was soundly defeated — and is a major financial backer of Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich and the Ohio Republican Party Central Committee.

• Howard Leach, the billionaire financier who raised almost $400,000 for the George W. Bush campaign and was rewarded with the position of ambassador to France. He also contributes to the Republican Governors Association, whose major objective was the election of the new crop of conservative governors pushing anti-worker measures in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, New Jersey, and other states.

• David Crane, who is a paltry multimillionaire former investment banker and close friend of and former top pension adviser to Republican former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

You have to wonder why these super-rich are suddenly so concerned about the parks and senior and youth programs, the mental health and drug abuse programs Adachi cites as being cut because of pension costs. If these billionaires were so moved, they could take the money they are sinking into Adachi’s measure and donate that to the programs. Or they could support some kind of progressive revenue measure that makes the wealthy downtown financiers and investors — who can afford to pay — ante up to protect the programs they claim to be concerned about.

No one is more concerned with the viability of the pension fund than those who plan to retire on it. That’s why the city’s unions are engaged in discussions with the city to develop real pension reform that is fact-based, principled, and compassionate to those trying to raise families in this economic climate.

So when Adachi’s high-priced signature gatherers (paid as much as $5 per signature to get Prop. B on the ballot) come to your neighborhood grocery store, just say “No!”

No, this is not what we call progressive policy. Not in Wisconsin, and not in San Francisco.

Roxanne Sanchez is president and Larry Bradshaw is San Francisco vice president of SEIU Local 1021.

On the Cheap Listings

Maria Poblet
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0

On the Cheap listings are compiled by Jackie Andrews. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 6

Fantomas by the Bay City Lights Books, 261 Columbus, SF; (415) 362-8193 , www.citylightsf.com. 7pm, free. Help kick off a four day celebration of Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain’s literary pulp arch-villain, Fantomas, with a reception and absinthe-tasting featuring readings, lectures, film screenings, art exhibitions, and performances by Robin Walz, Daniel Handler, Mel Gordon, Howard Rodman, Jill Tracy, and more.

Japan relief fundraiser Project One Gallery & Lounge, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 938-7173, www.p1sf.com. 7pm-2am, $10. Join forces with the American Red Cross to raise money for those who have been affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan with DJs, drinks, and dancing. All proceeds from the bar – including tips! – as well as the door price will go directly to the cause. While you’re here, check out the gallery’s current exhibition, “Warhol Reimagined: The New Factory”.

THURSDAY 7

Iconic gay paper celebrates 40th anniversary GLBT History Museum, 4127 18th St., SF; (415) 621-1107, www.glbthistory.org. 7pm, $5. Tonight, the Bay Area Reporter, the country’s oldest continuously published newspaper, celebrates its 40th anniversary and will launch their first ever Best of the Gays reader’s poll with an awards ceremony – be sure to vote online beforehand. Plus, a new special exhibit chronicling B.A.R.’s struggle to secure justice and equality for the entire gay-munity.

FRIDAY 8

West Portal Avenue sidewalk sale West Portal between Ulloa and 15th St., SF; www.pacificfinearts.com. 10am-5pm, free. Today, the West Portal neighborhood — bustling with quaint stores, restaurants, and coffeehouses — will line it’s main thoroughfare with an arts and crafts exhibition. Come admire the work of over 60 artists, including Mendy Marks and Locke Heemstra. Expect to find everything from jewelry and photography to handcrafted leather bags, sheepskin slippers, and more.

Community Wellness Fair Glide Memorial Church, 330 Ellis, SF; www.glide.org. 10am-2pm, free. While the rest of the country debates health care reform, we in San Francisco enjoy plenty of health care options for the under-insured. Today, everyone can celebrate health and wellness as Glide Health Services launches their new Wellness Center – which will build upon their holistic healthcare approach by adding nutrition and cooking classes, stress reduction services, and even relationship help. There will be games, prizes, healthy vendors, and free health screenings for the whole family.

SATURDAY 9

Cesar Chavez Day celebration Dolores Park, Dolores and 19th St., SF; www.cesarchavezday.org. 10am-6pm, free. Celebrate the legacy of Caesar Chavez, the American farm worker and activist who helped found the National Farm Workers Association, at this day-long celebration featuring a parade and street fair. Assemble at Dolores park at 10 am and march toward the 24th Street fair where festival booths, speakers, and other entertainment await.

Obscura Day festivities Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, 2465 34th Ave., Oakl.; www.peraltahacienda.org. 2:30-5:30pm, free. Peek behind the scenes at Peralta Hacienda on Obscura Day, an international day of expeditions, back-room tours, and hidden treasures in cities and towns around the world. Here, step back in time and experience a Victorian farmhouse by candlelight while enjoying tamales in the kitchen. Or, if you’re brave enough, try to catch a glimpse of the ghost of Maria Peralta!

SUNDAY 10

Sunday Streets Great Highway, SF; www.sundaystreetssf.com. 11am-4pm, free. The second “Streets” of the season will begin at the SF Zoo and follow the Great Highway down to Golden Gate Park and continue down JFK Drive, ending at Sloat. Bring your roller skates, unicycle, skateboard, or just a plain pair of walking shoes and enjoy the activities and vendors that line the nearly six miles of car-free roads.

MONDAY 11

“How to coexist with coyotes” San Francisco Public Library Sunset Branch, 1305 18th Ave., SF.; (415) 355-2808, www.sfpl.org. 7-8:30pm, free. Coyotes are making a comeback here in San Francisco, and the resident expert on the topic, filmmaker Melissa Peabody, will show and discuss her film San Francisco: Still Wild at Heart and tell you how our new furry friends add richness and surprise to our already kooky town.

TUESDAY 12

Lit & Lunch with Yiyun Li Minna Street gallery, 111 Minna, SF.; www.catranslation.org. 12:30-1:30pm, free. Fans of Yiyun Lee the novelist may not be aware of her lesser known translations of the works of the late Chinese writer Shen Congwen. Tonight, Li will discuss Congwen’s modernist style and how he challenged the political sensors in China.

 

 

Remembering Peter L. Petrakis, the pioneering Guardian investigative reporter who exposed the biggest urban scandal in U.S. history

Maria Poblet
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2

Peter L. “Pete” Petrakis was the Guardian investigative reporter who developed the stories in the mid-1970s that became known to Guardian readers as the PG&E/Raker Act scandal.

Pete died Feb. 28 in Everett, Washington.

In story after story, Pete laid out the scandal that the local media had buried for generations: how PG&E had in effect stolen San Francisco’s electrical power supply from the Hetch Hetchy dam in violation of the public power mandates of the federal Raker Act of 1913. The act allowed the city an unprecedented concession, to build a dam in a national park (Yosemite), on condition that the city have a public water and public power system. Pete detailed how PG&E used its corporate and political muscle to keep the cheap, green, hydro power from city residents and businesses and instead forced them to buy PG&E’s expensive private power, at a cost through the years of billions of dollars.

Pete learned of the scandal in the mid-1960s as a student of Prof. J. B. Neilands, a biochemistry professor and citizen activist at the University of California-Berkeley.

Joe Neilands had in the late 1950s started the campaign in his living room in the Berkeley Hills that ended up stopping PG&E from building a nuclear power plant upwind of San Francisco at Bodega Bay.

This was a truly historic victory of citizens fighting the local private utility, as recent events have demonstrated with the nuclear disaster in Japan.

In the process of researching the Bodega Bay story, Joe came upon an even bigger scandal: the PG&E/Raker Act scandal. After winning at Bodega Bay, Joe did the research into the scandal and then brought it to me shortly after the Guardian began publication in 1966.

This was a huge story and I remember saying, “Joe, why are you bringing a big story like this to me?” He replied, “Nobody else will print it, because of PG&E. You’re my only hope. If you don’t print the story, nobody will.”

I was happy to publish Joe’s story and it appeared in our March 27, 1969 edition, pretty much as Joe wrote it. The story was solid, and created ripples, but it was only a start because PG&E had successfully managed to bury the scandal over the years, and had used its political muscle to keep San Francisco’s City Hall  as a virtual PG&E subsidiary. The story needed much more research and development on several levels.

A few weeks after Joe’s story appeared, Pete came to me at the Guardian with the big new angle. He had figured out that the city’s charter revision committee was about to gut quietly the provision in the 1932 charter that updated the Raker Act and mandated the city to “gradually acquire” and “ultimately own” its own power system.  Pete swung into action with a three page story on Sept. 30, 1969,  that detailed the capitulation to PG@E  under the headline: “The Charter Board–afraid to enforce the Raker Act and bring cheap public power to San Francisco.”

He added a timeline: “How to Hetch Hetchy the city charter.” And he explained that “to Hetch Hetchy” meant to “confuse and confound the public by adroit acts and deceptive words in order to turn to private corporate profit a trust set up for the people” This was a quote used by U.S. Interior Secretary Harold Ickes in a speech to the Commonwealth Club in 1941 in support of a bond issue to buy out PG&E. PG&E Hetch Hetchyed the bond campaign to death and it lost.

In short, Pete dug into the scandal  with gusto and research skill and wicked wit. He  produced several major stories over a five year period  with shocking new information on how  PG&E was systematically screwing the city by stealing its Hetch Hetchy power. Each year, we would turn Pete’s  stories over to the civil grand jury, with his documentation, and formally ask  the grand jury to investigate the Hetch Hetchy scandal and make a report and recommendation.

Finally, in 1974, the grand jury to our great surprise came out with a report that corroborated Pete’s reporting. As our editorial put it in our Jan. 17, 1974 edition, “In short, the grand jury has corroborated almost everything the Guardian has been saying about the Hetch Hetchy scandal for the past five years…
What the grand jury did was to independently review the history of the Raker Act and the performance of the city in fulfilling its conditions. The jury retraced our steps, read documentation we have read and some we haven’t, never once quoted us or cited us and still came to the same conclusion–that San Francisco is forbidden to transfer Hetch Hetchy power to private utilities.but is nonetheless doing so, and that PG&E must be replaced in San Francisco by a municipal power and light department.”

As it had for years, City Hall and the local media promptly buried the story. And PG&E quietly put its surrogates into succeeding grand juries to bury the report and see that it would never again see the light of day.

As Pete noted wryly, “Are San Franciscans too dumb to run their own electricity system? As the grand jury pointed out in the relevant point of comparison, our water bills are lower today than they were 40 years ago before the city acquired the Spring Valley Water Company. How high are our utility bills after seven PG&E rate increases just this last year?”

Pete was an editor’s dream, using his science training to be thorough, accurate, fair, and on point.  Not once did a story “bounce” and never did anyone catch him in a factual mistake. He put legs and muscle on the the PG&E/Raker Act story that helped inspire three public power campaigns and a  strong public power movement in the city with a passion to enforce the Raker Act, kick PG&E out of City Hall, and bring our own Hetch Hetchy power to our citizens and businesses in San Francisco.

Pete was born on July 9, 1928, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the second son of first generation Greek immigrants. Pete served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War at the military hospital in Rantoul, Illinois. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology from the University of South Dakota, a Master of Science in Biochemistry from the University of Oklahoma, a PHD in Biochemistry from the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, and an MPH from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. He taught biochemistry at San Francisco State University.

Pete married Lorraine (Mardie) Tecklenberg in 1953. They moved to San Francisco in l959 where they raised two daughters.

Pete left the Guardian in the mid-1970s and went to Washington, D.C. to use his new journalistic skills to start a new career as a technical writer and editor.

He worked first as the editor of AMINCO (American Instrument Company) News and later as a writer-editor for many U.S. government agencies. He was an award-winning science writer for the National Institutes of Health. Pete met and married his second wife, Julia, in 1982, and the couple lived in Annapolis, Maryland, before relocating to Camano, Island, Washington where they lived for 20 years. Using online technology, Pete continued the editorial work of his one-man company, Life Sciences Editorial Services. Earlier, Pete had purchased one of the first home computers a VectoGraphic, taught himself programming and in the 1990s wrote and distributed commercially a DOS software program, TimeSet.

Pete was something of a renaissance man. His formal education was in the sciences, but he was an enthusiastic self-learner and student of American culture, politics, and history. Most recently, he was researching climate change. He enjoyed taking his family traveling and camping throughout the U.S., working to ensure his daughters had outdoor survival skills and and an appreciation of national parks. He loved jazz and bluegrass music. With no formal musical training, he taught himself to play banjo, guitar, fiddle and mandolin, and he designed and hand-crafted 5-string banjos.

He was also an avid astronomer and built several reflecting telescopes and enjoyed participating in neighborhood “star” parties. In 1973, he took his family to Africa to witness and record on film one of the longest total solar eclipses of modern times.

Pete is survived by his wife Julia of Camano Island; daughters Sonya Lee Petrakis and her husband Bruce Couch of Lake Oswego, Oregon; Tina Petrakis and her son, Lorenzo of Pacifica; brother Nicholas and his wife Patricia of San Francisco; step-daughter, Elizabeth Stam, her husband, Randy Kinnunen, and their two daughters, Julia and Caitlin, all of Camano Island; step-son, Allan Stam, his wife Eileen, and their three sons of Saline, Michigan.

At Pete’s request, a Celebration of Life service was held privately at the family home on March 13. Pete requested memorial contributions be made to the American Red Cross. Condolences can be sent to Julia Petrakis at petrakisjw@yahoo.com.

So long, Pete, you left the Guardian and San Francisco with one helluva story. B3

Early Peter Petrakis articles, from 1969 to 1973

The Charter Board–afraid to enforce the Raker Act and bring cheap public power to San Francisco

Sept. 30, 1969

SF power — in the great tradition of Abe Ruef and Candlestick

Feb. 28, 1970

PG&E keeps public power out of UC-Berkeley

April 17, 1970

PG&E, staunch defender of private enterprise, is the biggest welfare recipient

Oct. 26, 1970

The great 1965 James K. Carr public power disaster

Dec. 23, 1970

PG&E steals $40 million a year from San Francisco

June 7, 1971

If they ration our gas and our heat, why not ration PG&E and Standar Oil Profits?

Nov. 28, 1973

 

 

 

Wicked Grounds suspended in limbo

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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9
Wicked Grounds suspended in limbo

Coffee pots and spankings may soon cease to coexist at Wicked Grounds, San Francisco’s only kink café that announced plans to close last week due to crippling debt. Fans of the sexy space have since pleaded for a chance to help and offered up donations, but instead of accepting the cash with a hungry growl, owners have asked people to hold off and “think about it.”

No this isn’t a clever scheme to rake in even more moola with a big, slutty, pitty party — owners and husband and wife duo Ryan Galiotto and Rose White want their customers to contemplate other causes that need a boost. This from the Wicked Grounds website:

Please consider what is going on in our community, our country, our world: Bay Area’s Lyon Martin, who provide much needed health services to the queer community, is on the brink of closure; STI and HIV/Aids testing, prevention, and research is woefully underfunded; our community has yet to be awarded equal civil rights in so many areas; a series of natural disasters have made those that survived homeless and fighting for even the basics. Wicked Grounds might be an important part of our community, but so much money is needed in other places for even bare necessities.

Wicked Grounds isn’t quite refusing the money — by no means do they want to lock the doors. “We just want people’s emotions to calm down so they can think about it,” Galiotto says, noting how much they appreciate the community’s show of love. “We’re just trying to be responsible.”

wickedgrounds1

Galiotto getting his hands dirty

The shop has only been open since September 2009 but its honesty and openness has harnessed a whole lot of friends and connected a community of kinks that otherwise may not have mingled, teased and whipped. Over half the evenings in each month are reserved for special munches, themed play parties, and gatherings that welcome both veterans and newbies.

“At first I thought we would just be popular with the leather family,” Galiotto remembers. But their Folsom Street neighbors weren’t the only people who started showing up. Now customers bring in “littles” color pictures to post on the back refrigerator, a submissive group meets to chat and trade secrets; “ponies” stampede around the tables. All kinds of other fetish fans and even your average vanilla folks come in for sober conversation and the beverage of choice — coffee.

“When you come in here, you don’t have to worry about your neighboring table becoming upset over your topic of conversation. We’re not open for the ‘general’ public — just the public.”

And the patrons aren’t the only people having a good time. Steam milk, pull shot, get spanked — as witnessed on a Monday morning, baristas behind the counter at Wicked Grounds have lots of options for work-related benefits. Galiotto is even supportive of employee hook-ups. “Just sanitize as appropriate,” he laughs. “As long as everything is food safe. Like I always say, we’re all about team building.”

wickedgrounds2

Employees Xin Farrish and Zev Hoffman play at work

Manager Xin Farrish is broken-hearted about the possibility of closure and the elimination of a friendly third space for people to explore new ideas. Wicked Grounds has consistently been a space for education. Last week while Farrish was baking a batch of brownies she watched a visiting Norwegian couple get suspension bondage lessons. She casually comments that “it was cool.”

Farrish hopes to pull together a bake sale and is still brainstorming with the other employees and Grounds lovers for fundraising ideas. 

“It’s more of a safe space than a business. We’re not a dungeon, not a shop and not just coffee. And without this space, there will be a big hole in San Francisco.”

Galiotto is now battling a stress-induced cold and coming up with the $100k to save the place seems impossible — but so does the thought of saying goodbye. The money the couple put into the café could have bought a home and the means with which to start a family, but for him and Rose, a kink café seemed more important.  

wickedgrounds4

Galiotto taking a deserved break

“It would have been selfish for us to just build a cushy home. Yes, [Rose and I] could have made decisions that would have made our life easier,” he says with watery eyes. “But we built a home for a lot of other people.”

Galiotto and White will be making a decision on the future of their kinky love child by the end of the week. 

The Guardian endorses: Jello Biafra for Mayor!

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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7

On every level, the San Francisco mayor’s race is critical. San Franciscans will decide whether a fiscally conservative candidate backed by downtown interests will continue Gavin Newsom’s legacy of gutting critical services while refusing to raise taxes, or if a progressive will lead the city into a new era.

San Francisco needs a mayor who is motivated not by campaign donations from corporate fat cats, but by true San Francisco values. The city needs some one who is ready to fight the war on fun, by boldly having more fun than the warmongers can possibly stand.

What San Francisco needs is Jello Biafra. In a rare early endorsement, the Guardian has thrown its support behind Biafra for mayor. Formerly the lead singer of legendary punk rock group the Dead Kennedys, he is now the front man of Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine. In 1979, Biafra ran for mayor against former Mayor Dianne Feinstein and former state Sen. Quentin Kopp. His campaign motto was There’s Always Room for Jello.

“I am honored,” Biafra said when he was notified that he had received the Guardian’s endorsement for mayor. “After all, how could I be any worse than the last elected mayor, who turned out to be a horrible Frankenstein of Dianne Feinstein, Gray Davis and Tom Cruise?”

Biafra went on to talk about his campaign platform. “I would immediately reverse all [Newsom’s] mean-spirited, bigoted, anti-homeless laws, and instead hire all the panhandlers to work for the city on a 50 percent commission to help balance the budget,” he said.

Biafra said San Francisco could take a cue from Austin, Texas for another revenue-generating measure. “I would … declare the outlying strip on 11th and Folsom to be a music district, like they did on Sixth Street in Austin Texas, instead of having the police harass them and shut them down. This has brought in a huge amount of tax revenue for Austin, by the way.”

As part of this plan, the city could “use the revenue to buy back KUSF for the people of the city,” he added.

Biafra has a refreshing approach to ending police misconduct and promoting reform within the San Francisco Police Department. “Police officers should be an elected position,” he told the Guardian. “Every four years, you run for election, voted on by the district you patrol. You couldn’t just run off and hide in Novato after beating and shooting people anymore.”

An honest mayoral candidate, Biafra doesn’t pull any punches – not even when it comes to criticizing the Guardian, which has been the only publication to endorse his campaign so far. “I think the Guardian blew it when they came out against the initiative to rename our sewage plant after George W. Bush,” he said. “I think that would be a great idea. I’ll bring that one back, too.”
Rather than minimum wage, Biafra would like to implement a maximum wage, which has been proposed by the California Green Party.

“What should the wage be? Let’s be generous: Two hundred grand, and then you’re done,” Biafra decided. “You can live really well on that kind of money. Everything else goes back to the public purse, and you’ve got schools, you’ve got health care for everybody, transportation for everybody, people can even go to law school on the public’s dime – and why not? I mean, what about just giving some of that money back to people who didn’t make the $200,000 and guarantee people income, instead of talking about welfare cheats?”

When he ran for mayor in 1979, Biafra generated a great deal of attention with his proposal to require businessmen to wear clown suits between the hours of nine and five. But he said this required some explanation: “This is only in downtown,” he noted, “because this is a response to Feinstein’s campaign to clean up Market Street. She meant the Tenderloin, I meant downtown where Chevron and Bechtel and Bank of America and the other looters hold court.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPhfUOsT71c&feature=related

Biafra said he also planned to bring back another proposal from his first mayoral bid: “Create a board of bribery, to set fair standards and public rates for liquor licenses, building code exemptions, police protection, and most importantly, protection from the police,” he explained.

As for the re-naming of Candlestick Park, Biafra had a flash of inspiration during his endorsement interview. “Isn’t there those little bags of junk food under the brand Emperor Norton for, you know, dried bread chips and stuff? How about, if they’re going to sell off the name Candlestick Park — or for that matter, finally name our baseball stadium after something other than a phone company — how about Emperor Norton Park?” Biafra suggested.

Vote for Jello Biafra for Mayor of San Francisco. After all, as he told us, “I would definitely be better than the last elected mayor. Then again, so would a cockroach.”

Vote early, vote often, and vote like your city depended on it!

P.S.: If Jello Biafra doesn’t win, we’ll kill ourselves.

Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine will launch their latest album, Enhanced Methods of Questioning, at Slim’s on June 4.

April Fool’s. Kinda.

Hot sexy events: March 30-April 5

Andrew Lam
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0
Hot sexy events: March 30-April 5

Which does SF care more about: sex education or Internet technologies? This weekend’s Sex::Tech conference renders the question moot, for the moment. The conference’s two days are devoted to exploring the ways kids’ sexual health can be improved using the wonders that modern living’s servitude to screens can produce. 

But look at me getting all BDSM! (Hard to forget my computer domme even for a moment.) This is gonna be an awesome event. And it looks to be a hot topic: presale tickets and youth-accompanied adult passes have already sold out, but you can still register on-site.

Among the various speakers are three young women who have produced short films on the meaning of masculinity for today’s youth, online peer educators, university experts who will speak to the utility of web-collected data in health studies, and tech-savvy peeps eager to make the connection between our addiction to the Internet and improved sex ed. So what’s the best way to communicate the importance of STD testing? These folks have got an app for that.  

 

“Etiquette, Protocol, and Postures: A Formal Kink Educational Series”

Show your respect for your BDSM relationship by learning the rules of the rope. Special attention is paid to adapting the standard kink protocol to your own personal situation. Slave bethie taps on five years of kink fealty to make your submissive/dominant persona soar.  

Thurs/31 8-10 p.m., $20

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org 


“Fist Full of Film: Blood, Gore, and Girls”

The best chance you have this week to watch The Craving, director Val Killmore’s lesbian canniball thriller. And don’t worry, you won’t have to go home all riled up and looking for blood: Femina Potens is sponsoring a play party after this film screening featuring horror movie-themed BDSM performances and so much more. Sign up for a yearlong Femina Potens membership if you’d like to attend the after-party. 

Thurs/31 8-10 p.m., $10

Mission Control

www.feminapotens.org


Kok Bar opening party 

Twinks and punks and leather daddies – jocks, bears, skins oh my! The bar that used to be Chaps has shuffled off its unecessary association with any article of clothing and is going straight to the point. So let’s celebrate the opening of a brand new hole in the city, one that will celebrate all the fucks of years past and looks forward to those of the future. 

Fri/1 9 p.m., free

Kok Bar

1225 Folsom, SF

www.kokbarsf.com


Bent: Wild

SF’s party for kinky 18 to 30-something year olds gets feral with this month’s theme: wild animals. Dress up in your furry finery and avail yourself to the Citadel’s dungeon play spaces, take in the animal exhibition show at 10:30 p.m., or hell – bust out your animal instincts and show your stripes in the show yourself. 

Fri/1 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $20

SF Citadel

1277 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2746

www.sfcitadel.org 


Sex::Tech conference

Instead of your usual debauchery and deviance (or hey, in addition to them), here are some things you can learn this weekend: youth perspective on public health issues, how to make an app using new software technologies, how edu-tainment works as a preventative health tool, and what exactly goes on behind the scenes at 16 and Pregnant. Oh yes. 

Sat/2-Sun/3, $300

Stanford Court Renaissance Hotel

905 California, SF

www.sextech.org


“Cultivating the Deep Heart: Deeper Explorations of Tantra”

Tantra teacher Evalena Rose instructs on how to shift your kundalini energies to produce the biggest bang in the bedroom. The class focuses on exercises that will help you activate, open, and get ready for that “full body orgasm.” Explosion! 

Sun/3 $20-25 single, $35-45 couple

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com 

 

Why I’m pushing pension reform

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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5
Why I’m pushing pension reform

OPINION Some have questioned why I, as a long-time supporter of progressive policies and programs, chose to venture into the uncharted waters of pension reform. The answer is simple: I believe in the value of government, particularly in providing a safety net for the poor and those who need help. When the government no longer has the ability to provide these services, everyone suffers.

I became aware of San Francisco’s pension problem through advocating for my department’s budget. Beginning in 2005, year after year, I saw pension and benefits costs rise, while services and programs were cut or eliminated. Funding for education, parks, street repair, AIDS, senior and after-school youth programs, mental health clinics, drug treatment programs and other basic services have evaporated while pension costs continue to escalate. Today, we spend $1 out of every $7 on pension and benefit costs for city employees; in five years, it will be one out of every $4.

In the next 12 months, pension costs are projected to increase by nearly $100 million more than last year. Think of the number of jobs, programs, and services that will have to be cut to pay this debt. These costs come at a time when the city faces a $360 million budget deficit.

Some may argue that taxes should be raised to pay for these costs. Yet progressives have shied away from tax measures in these difficult economic times. Even if there is a planned tax measure this November, it would have to raise $300 million — 10 times what last November’s millionaire real estate transfer tax raised — over the next three years to keep pace with pension costs.

While conservatives have seized on rising pension and benefit costs as a vehicle to push their anti-union agenda, we cannot cede the responsibility for addressing this fiscal challenge to the right. We must protect collective bargaining for workers, while presenting a solution that strikes an appropriate balance between our obligations to retired workers and the need for continued city services.

Shortly, I will be introducing a new ballot initiative that will help reduce costs while ensuring that the pension and health benefit system is there for future generations of workers. And the initiative will do so in a manner that is fair and equitable. The highest-earning workers, including elected officials, will be asked to contribute more while the lowest-earning workers will be entirely exempt, a lesson learned from the last pension reform effort. The reforms will help eliminate the abuses of the pension system that benefit a few workers at the expense of others. Residents, elected officials, city employees, and labor leaders are invited to review the proposals at www.sfsmartreform.com and provide any comments or ideas.

The fact that pension reform is one critical component of a more comprehensive solution that may include changes to our tax policy, generation of other revenue, and even state or federal cooperation, is no reason to excuse supporting real reform.

Jeff Adachi is San Francisco’s public defender.

Paw bump

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Paw bump

For the past couple of years, Pawesome.net has been the Gawker of fuzzy cuddliness, collecting all the coolest, most relevant pet news onto one — yes — awesome blog. From in depth stories about Dogs of the Ninth Ward and Japanese disaster animal rescue help to peeps at intriguing and sometimes scandalous pet trends and products, Pawesome covers it all with fine feathered flair. Local BFF founders Sonia Zjawinski and Sarah Han (formerly of the Guardian) chatted with us over e-mail. 

SFBG Pawesome is very active about animal welfare — what are some of the issues you’ve covered that have meant the most to you?

Sonia Zjawinski It’s the awful stories of abuse and neglect that often go viral, but for every horrible person out there we believe there are thousands of kind, selfless people who truly care about animals. For example, last year we posted about a group of Brooklyn bartenders who got together to save an abused and sick stray puppy. A lot of people walk past animals in need and think there’s nothing they can do, but this generous group proved that it doesn’t take much to help and the reward is priceless.

Sarah Han I’m a huge advocate for getting people to adopt from shelters and rescue groups. I find it really sad that there are so many perfectly adoptable animals in shelters that are at risk of being put down because people are still buying pets from breeders and pet stores. I’m all for the ban of selling animals in pet stores in San Francisco, and everywhere else in the country. I’m also a fan of rescue groups that focus on older pet adoptions, like Muttville in San Francisco. I love senior cats and dogs because they’re usually pretty chill dudes.

SFBG Which Pawesome post is your favorite?

SZ Last year’s April Fool’s joke — we wrote that Stephen Colbert bought Cat Fancy and was rebranding the magazine as Colbert’s Cat Nation. No calls from Colbert’s people asking us to come on the show yet, though.

SFBG What are some interesting trends or story lines happening now on the pet scene?

SZ One of the most exciting areas in the pet industry is the influx of goods on Etsy. The world of toys and accessories used to be very limited, and you were stuck with ones made out of eco-unfriendly materials produced in even more eco-unfriendly countries. With Etsy, there’s an amazing collection of handmade gear crafted out of organic or sustainable materials, and made right here in the States. And it’s stuff you won’t gag at when you see it in your home.

SH I’ve noticed that people are paying more attention to what their pets are eating these days. The pet food recalls definitely got people thinking about all the crap that big commercial companies (and even some pet “health food” companies) get away with. People are also concerned with pet obesity. As our lives get busier, we get fatter and so do our pets. There’s a pet-people gym in Bernal Heights (Fit Bernal Fit) and doggy yoga classes for folks to get in shape while exercising their dogs, too.

I think we’ll be hearing about more of those kinds of services in the future, and maybe because of the off-leash dog issue that’s been raging in SF. Dog owners are feeling very threatened by the GGNRA possibly ending their off-leash privileges in outdoor spaces. I’m torn on the issue because I think dogs need and love outdoor time, but I also believe in protecting what wildlife we have left in the city. Hopefully we can come to an agreement that allows for everyone, including dogs, to enjoy the outdoors.

On the Cheap Listings

Maria Poblet
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On the Cheap listings are compiled by Jackie Andrews. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 30

Decent Exposure Project One, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 938-7173, www.p1sf.com. 6pm, free. Whether you make stuff or just like other people’s cool art-things, everyone is welcome to take part in this art swap and sale. An exciting list of local participating artists are highlighted including Matt Furie, Sam Snowden, and Audrey Erickson, as well as a slew of other talents, so support local art and stock up on zines, prints, stickers and other goodies.

FRIDAY 1

Jay Howell zine release party 111 Minna, SF; www.punksgitcut.blogspot.com, www.111minnagallery.com. 5pm, free. Celebrate the release of multi-talented California-based artist Jay Howell’s new zine Punks Git Cut at a party thrown by Unpiano Books and Last Gasp. A ton of zines, original Howell t-shirts, and other fun surprises will be available for purchase.

Lawrence Waters solo show Station 40, 3030B Valencia, SF; www.station40events.wordpress.com. 7-10pm, free. Tonight, attend Lawrence Waters first solo art show, which happens to double as a fundraising event for his tattoo business. All artwork will be priced to meet anyone’s means, so come on out and help support this pillar of the tattoo community.

St. Stupid’s Day parade Meet at Justin Herman Plaza, Embarcadero and Market, SF; www.saintstupid.com. 12-2pm, free. Get stupid today. Whether that means dressing up in a silly and satirical costume or getting hyphy like Mac Dre is up to you, but craziness is always more fun – and slightly less creepy – when done en masse. Meet at Justin Herman Plaza and parade around to such “stupid” places as the Federal Reserve and The Tomb of the Stupid (a.k.a. 101 California, the home of several financial institutions). Check the admittedly flaky event website for further – er, confusing – details.

SATURDAY 2

Free-cycle for the planet Lake Merritt Amphitheater, Lakeshore and Grand, Oakl.; www.eastbayfreeschool.wikia.com. Noon-4pm, free. East Bay Hella Free Day is the ultimate swap meet where everything is, well, hella free. Bring whatever you want to get rid of and come get your free on. Who knows what treasures you’ll find! Plus, you’re helping to keep good, usable stuff out of landfills.

Rise Japan Gallery Heist, 679 Geary, SF; www.galleryheist.com, www.kokorostudio.com. 7pm-midnight, free. In response to the devastating disaster that has struck Japan, Heist Gallery is teaming up with their neighbors Kokoro Studios for a salon-style art exhibition and a reasonably priced sale – everything will be priced at $100 or less – where 100 percent of the proceeds will go to Give2Asia, a relief fund for Japan. Artists donating their work to the cause include Akko Terasawa, Ryan McGinness, Superdeux, and more, with artists being added daily.

Hard French El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.hardfrench.com. 3-8pm, $7 including free BBQ from 3-5pm. Everyone’s favorite queer soul dance party made some improvements to this month’s installment worth noting. Oh, the usual sweet sounds of yesteryear, artery-clogging BBQ, and babe-a-licious go-go dancers will remain the same, however to reduce that dreaded line down the block, the good folks at El Rio have decided to open the gates of soul an hour early. Now you may get yourself situated well in time for the music to begin at 3pm. They have also added a second bar out back and included a $1 coat check. Smart!

SUNDAY 3

Cesar Chavez community health celebration Healthy Hearts Youth Market Garden at the Dover Street Park, 57th St. and Dover, Oakl.; www.phatbeetsproduce.com. Noon-3pm, free. Celebrate the legacy of Caesar Chavez, the American farm worker and activist who helped found the National Farm Workers Association, at this day-long celebration featuring speakers, Aztec ceremonies, a mural installation, cooking demonstrations, and much more. This event is organized by Phat Beets, a non-profit connecting urban communities to local and healthy produce.

TUESDAY 5

Bad ass Ben Thompson in town The Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; 7:30pm, free. Ben Thompson, creator of the website Badass of the Week, a guide to the most epic heroes the world has ever known – including Hideaki Akaiwa, the dude who recently scuba-dived through the tsunami in Japan to save his wife and mother – will be presenting his new book Badass: The Birth of a Legend and telling even more stories of incredible ass-kickery. Oh yeah, and there will be free food and wine. Who’s down?

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Understanding radiation

Mary Magee
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The Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos, New Mexico contains a bunch of exhibits about the history of Los Alamos National Laboratory and its science and research work. And with alarm bells continuing to sound around the world in light of Japan’s troubled efforts to contain a nuclear contamination crisis at its Fukushima Daiichi plant, (and folks on the West Coast and beyond stockpiling potassium iodide for fear of exposure to drift) I found myself drawn to the “Understanding Radiation” display during a recent visit to the museum, which includes a chart to help folks calculate their annual radiation dose (scroll down to the end of this post to figure out your own personal annual dose.)

The display notes that the three main sources of radiation for folks in the United States are from outer space, fallout from past nuclear testing and nuclear power plants.

“Exposure doesn’t make you radioactive but can cause biological harm measured in units called rems,” the display stated, noting that our exposure to ionizing radiation is measured by a unit called a rem.
“On average, each of us receives a total dose of about one-third of a rem (362 millirem) per year, from all sources,” the display notes.

The average American receives about 360 millirems in one year, according to the Bradbury Science Museum, and the display includes a pie chart that shows that the biggest slice of our annual dose comes from natural sources, starting with radon gas, which is present in most rocks and soil and building materials, is produced in small amounts in buildings, and can build up indoors, especially in basements and tightly sealed buildings.

The second highest source is a combination of natural cosmic radiation (the dose you receive from the sun and outer space) and terrestrial radiation (the dose you receive from the ground).

The third largest dose comes from medical and dental procedures, including X-rays.

That’s followed by internal radiation (what comes from our bodies), consumer products, other sources, and lastly, an average annual but very small dose from Los Alamos National laboratory activities.

UPDATE: A spokesperson for the Los Alamos National Laboratory clarified that the small dose from the lab’s activities opnly applies to folks living in the immediate area. “Our exhibit notes that Laboratory activities contribute about 1/10 millirem to the public – to a person who lives in Los Alamos year-round,” they clarified. “ It doesn’t apply to someone living in say, the Bay Area, let alone a person who lives in the Bay Area and doesn’t visit Los Alamos (or the nearby Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for that matter).” [So, my apologies for my misinterpretation, and thanks for the clarification!]

Now, maybe, like me, you did not pay attention/or did not retain the information from your chemistry classes on nuclear fission, fusion and fallout. If so, what follows could be of interest to you.

And if you did pay attention, rest assured that I’m trying to figure out if folks will need to start factoring in a new annual dose level related to leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi plant. (Today’s news is all about how marine life faces a threat from the runoff: high levels of radioactive cesium have been detected in seawater near the damaged nuclear reactors, and this is raising the disturbing prospect that radiation could enter the food chain. Cesium 137 levels have been detected at 20 times the normal level at 1,000 ft from the effluent at the plant. These levels are far less than the iodine 131, which has been found spilling from the plant at concentrations of more than 1,150 times the maximum allowable levels. But the problem is that unlike iodine 131 which degrades relatively quickly, (it becomes half as potent every 8 days), cesium 137 has a half life of 30 years and is absorbed by marine plants, which are eaten by fish, and tends to bioaccumulate (become more concentrated) as it moves up the food chain (as big fish eat smaller fish).

Anyways, I’ll update this post, when we get more information about the size and nature of the leaks, which are thought to have occurred when seawater was dumped on the overheating reactors. (The idea is that the seawater picked up the radiation before it washed back out to sea, but other sources are also thought to be possible).

In the meantime, read on if you want to brush up your understanding of radiation/or better understand the sources of your annual personal radiation dose:

“Radiation is energy in the form of waves or particles,” the BSM display observes. “Radiation is energy traveling at the speed of light. It makes up familiar parts of our world, such as visible light, ultraviolet light and infrared light, radio and television waves, X-rays and microwaves.”

That said, the display goes on to explain that the problem is with ionizing radiation.

“Is radiation harmful?” the display asks. “Most radiation is not, but some radiation carries enough energy to separate molecules or remove electrons from atoms and this can damage living tissue. This type of radiation is called ionizing radiation. It includes particles and energy emitted from radioactive elements and the X-rays used in medicine or at airports. A less energetic form of radiation, ultraviolet rays from the sun, can burn our skin.”

So, how can we protect ourselves from ionizing radiation?
“We can protect ourselves from the effect of ionizing radiation by applying three principles: time, distance and shielding,” the display states.

“We use time to allow a radioactive material to decay and thus decrease its radioactivity. Or we limit the amount of time we are exposed to the source of radiation.”

“We use distance between us and the source to decrease the likelihood it will reach us.”

“We use shielding between us and the source of radiation to absorb or stop radiation before it reaches us.”

“We can protect ourselves from the effects of ionizing radiation from internal hazards (inhaling or ingesting radioactive material) through the use of engineered controls (like containment and ventilation) and personal protective equipment (like anti-contamination clothing and respirators).

Ionizing radiation comes in two forms: a) Waves or rays and b) particles.

One type is similar to visible light and occurs as waves or rays, e.g. gamma rays, X-rays. And, as the museum explains, gamma radiation and X-rays can easily penetrate our bodies and so are external hazards. They can be stopped by dense material such as lead, concrete and steel. Examples of gamma-emitting radionuclides are cesium-137 and cobalt-60, uranium-235 and plutonium-239, in addition to being alpha-emitters, also emit gamma radiation.

The other type of ionizing radiation is known as alpha, beta and neutron radiation and is produced by energetically charged particles.

Alpha radiation
Alpha particles (two protons and two neutrons) can be stopped by a single sheet of paper and cannot penetrate clothing or the outer layer of skin. So externally, alpha radiation is not a hazard. But if alpha particles enter your body by breathing and eating, then they can be an internal hazard. [Examples of alpha-emitting radionuclides are Uranium-235 and plutonium-239. And as recent reports from Japan have explained, plutonium has been found at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. While the source is currently not clear, the reactors could be a source, as could tests of tests of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, because even though these ended in 1980, they left trace amounts of plutonium around the world. This is worrying because Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years and can cause healthy tissue to turn cancerous if it gets deep inside the body.)

Beta radiation:
Most beta particles are negatively charged and have a short range in air and cannot penetrate other substances very deeply. But if beta radiation has enough energy, it can penetrate your skin, so it’s considered an external hazard. It can be stopped by plastic, aluminum, wood, and clothing. Examples are phosphorous-32 and hydrogen-3 (tritium) which is deemed to be a very low hazard.

Neutron radiation
Neutrons are neutrally charged, subatomic particles emitted during a nuclear reaction in radiation-generating devices like accelerators and nuclear power plants.
They are also emitted by special radionuclides like californium-252 or by ionization of materials like plutonium plus berrylium. Highly penetrating, water, concrete and hydrogen-rich materials make effective shields.”

How to measure your exposure
Our exposure to ionizing radiation is measured by a unit called a rem.
“On average, each of us receives a total dose of about one-third of a rem (362 millirem) per year, from all sources,” the museum display notes.

How to calculate your personal annual radiation dose.

1.    Calculate your Cosmic radiation level
The level of cosmic radiation depends on your altitude:
If you live at sea level, you receive 26 millirem, a year.
If you live at 0-1,000 ft above sea level, it’s 28 millirem.
If you live at 1,001-2,000 ft, it’s 31 millirem.
If you live at 2,001-3000 ft,  it’s 35 millirem.
If you live at 3,001-4,000 ft, it’s 41 millirem.
If you live at 4,001-5,000 ft, it’s 47 millirem.
If you live at 5,001-6,000 ft, it’s 52 millirem.
If you live at 6,001-7,000 ft, it’s 66 millirem.
If you live at 7,001-8.000 ft, it’s 79 millirem.
If you live at 8,001 ft and plus, it’s 96 millirem.

2.    Now add the terrestrial radiation, the dose you receive from the ground:
If you live closest to the Atlantic Coast, add 23 mrem.
If you live closest to the Gulf of Mexico, add 23 mrem.
If you live closest to Colorado Plateau (AZ, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico) add 90 mrem.
If you live closest to the MidWest, add 46 mrem.
If you live closest to the Pacific Coast, add 46 mrem.
If you live closest to Alaska, add 46 mrem.
If you live closest to Hawaii, add 46 mrem.

3.    Add your radon gas dose
Add 200 mrem (the U.S. Average) for radon gas we breathe.

4.    Add natural radiation dose for food and water
Add 40 mrem for average natural radiation from food we eat and water we drink.

5.    Fallout from past atmospheric testing of nuclear devices
Add 0.5 mrem for fallout from past atmospheric testing of nuclear devices.

6.    Occupational exposure
Add 44 mrem if you work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a radiation worker, or your occupational dose from your job.

7.    Radiation from different medical treatments
If you have X-rays of the arm, hand, foot, or leg, add 1 mrem.
If you have Xrays of the chest, add 6 mrem.
If you have X-rays of the pelvis/hip, add 65 mrem.
If you have X-rays of the skull/neck, add 20 mrem.
If you have barium enemas, add 405 mrem.
If you have upper gastrointestinal tract radiography,    add 245 mrem.
If you have dental X-rays, add 2 mrem.
If you have CT (computed tomography) scans, add 110 mrem.
If you have a plutonium-powered pacemaker, add 100 mrem.
If you have a thyroid scan, add 14 mrem.
If you have porcelain crowns or false teeth, add 0.07 mrem.

8.    Depending on your lifestyle, place of residence, here are more factors to add:

If you travel by air plane, add 0.5 mrem per hour in air.
If your luggage is inspected, add 0.002 mrem.
If you live within 50 miles of a coal-fired electric utility plant, add 0.03 mrem.
If you live within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor, add 0.01 mrem (not counting Japan).
If you smoke 1/2 pack of cigarettes per day, add 500 mrem.
If you smoke 1 pack of cigarettes per day, add 1,000 mrem.
If you smoke 11/2 packs per day, add 1,500 mrem.
If you smoke 2 packs per day, add 2,000 mrem.
If you have a smoke detector, add 0.008 mrem.
If you live in a stone, adobe, brick, or concrete building, add 7 mrem.
If you wear a luminous wristwatch, add 0.06 mrem.
If you use a gas compression lantern, add 6.2 mrem.

9.    Average annual dose from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, add O.1 mrem.
 
The museum notes that this dose is, “a small fraction of the amount the public receives from some consumer products and our natural environment.” And it clarifies that a mrem, or millirem, is one thousandth of a rem.

So, you’ve added up your annual dose, but what does this mean in terms of health?

“Radioactive materials give off ionizing radiation that can alter the chemical makeup of human tissue,” the museum display notes. ‘The amount of damage depends  on the amount of radioactivity.” (And the time, distance and shielding involved, see above).

‘It’s clear that very high exposures such as those experienced at Chernobyl can be fatal,” the display continues, noting that 31 people died within the first few weeks at Chernobyl after receiving radiation doses in excess of 1,000 rems, and that many others, who were exposed to doses of 100 rems, have a 1 in 100 chance of developing cancer.

“It’s very difficult to determine at exactly what level exposure to radioactivity becomes dangerous,” the display states, noting that worldwide the number of fatalities over the next 50 years were estimated to be as high as 17,000. (Again, this was before the March 2011 triple disaster in Japan.)

The display observes that a 1991 study by the International Atomic Energy Agency measured no increase in any radiation-related illnesses in villages near the site.
“But the study did not look at the highest-risk populations closest to the site,” the display added, noting that there were no fatalities in 1979 at Three Mile Island, when reactor failure allowed “small amounts of radioactive water and steam to be released from the containment structure.”

“Exposure levels to folks nearby were less than 100 millirem per year, which is about one third of the normal background yearly dose,” the display observed.

It also noted that strontium and radium are biologically active, which means they can migrate to bone tissue and stay there a long time. And that radioactive iodine can replace the stable iodine which is very important to human health. “Radioactive iodine is taken up by the thyroid and can pose a significant health risk.” (Hence the rush on potassium iodine, even though radioactive iodine degrades fairly fast, and the radioactive risk can be combated by banning fishing and the consumption of seafood for a period of time as Japan is already doing.)

The display clarifies that exposure doesn’t make you radioactive, but it can cause biological harm, and that medical X-rays are by far the largest artificial source of radiation for the average American.

For more information, you can also check this chart from the Public Domain here

Alerts

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23

 

Margaret Randall gets radical

Author, activist, and poet Margaret Randall talks with historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and reads from her book To Change the World: My Years in Cuba. Randall will discuss her life in Cuba during the 1970s and the relationship between women’s liberation and other revolutionary movements. No need to get a sitter for this event — childcare is provided by request.

7–9 p.m., $15

La Pena Cultural Center

3105 Shattuck, Berk.

www.lapena.org

THURSDAY, MARCH 24

 

An evening with Michael Pollan

Journalist Michael Pollan, best-selling author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, explains how food policy is a cornerstone of the three major crises facing our society: energy, climate, and healthcare. He proposes a “Sun Food Agenda” that involves change at the level of the farm, marketplace, and culture to improve our health, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and help redirect climate change. The event benefits Marin Organic.

7–8 p.m., $20–$75

Marin Center

10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael

www.marincenter.org

(415) 499-6800

 

Government surveillance in a digital world

Explore law and technology of digital surveillance in the United States with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, whose representatives explain how digital technology is changing the way we communicate and interact, often resulting in the unprecedented exposure of our personal details.

7 p.m., $5–$10

Intersection 5M

925 Mission. SF

www.theintersection.org

www.surveillance.eventbrite.com

SUNDAY, MARCH 27

 

Benefit for Lyon Martin

Help raise money for Lyon Martin Health Services, the only community clinic in California that emphasizes queer women and transgender healthcare, at a fundraiser and party featuring an art auction, good music, friendly faces, and fun. Proceeds go straight to Lyon Martin.

1–3 p.m., $10–$100 donation

El Rio

3158 Mission, SF

www.lyon-martin.org

SATURDAY, MARCH 26

 

Fundraiser for Peace and Justice Center

Help raise money for the Mount Diablo Peace and Justice Center at this live, silent auction for art, fine jewelry, weekend getaways, and more. Help the center continue to offer cultural programs to the Bay Area for a 43rd year.

11 a.m.–3 p.m., $5–$10 suggested donation

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

1924 Trinity, Walnut Creek

www.mtdpc.org

TUESDAY, MARCH 29

 

Cesar Chavez celebration

Enjoy a day of performances, spoken word, and live music to celebrate the legacy of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. On the bill are Nina Serrano, Makru, Capoiera UCA, Cuahtli Mitotiani Mexica, and much more. BAHIA, Just Food, and others will also be on hand to provide information about green living.

3:30–7 p.m., free

Berkeley farmer’s market

Derby Street at Martin Luther King, Berk.

www.ecologycenter.org 2

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

Editor’s Notes

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Editor’s Notes

tredmond@sfbg.com

Calling for painful spending cuts, it turns out, is the easy part. Calling for relatively painless tax increases requires real political courage.

— The New York Times, March 13

The Times is hardly a crazy socialist rag; it’s always been the voice of the establishment, more Democrat than Republican but never even close to radical. The Gray Lady certainly can’t be accused of fomenting class warfare.

But in a calm, measured tone this week, the paper made the exact point about New York State that some of us whose politics lean a bit more to the left have been making about San Francisco.

The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, has presented the state Legislature with an all-cuts budget. The Times suggests that the wealthier residents of the state should share just a small amount of the economic pain. Extending a surtax on high earners would be more than tolerable, the paper notes:

“A couple with $350,000 in taxable income would simply continue to pay an extra $3,500; a couple with taxable income of $1.5 million would continue to pay $31,800 more. Those payments would be more than offset by the federal tax breaks those same taxpayers got with the recent renewal of the Bush-era tax cuts.”

Of course, in New York, as here, those state tax payments are deductible from the already-too-low federal income taxes the rich are paying.

It’s too much to ask that the San Francisco Chronicle pick up that line; the Chron, out here on the Left Coast, is far more conservative than the stodgy old Times. But you’d think that in a city where Republican voter registration is below 10 percent, that local officials — including a mayor who calls himself “progressive” — would be able to go at least as far as a moderate national newspaper.

Because the argument is pretty simple and basic.

Cuts in public services fall hardest on the poor and middle class. Families that can afford to join a private club don’t have to worry when hours at the city pools are cut back; their kids learn to swim anyway. People with good health insurance can try to ignore the conditions at San Francisco General Hospital. Private school parents think the size of classrooms in the public schools isn’t a big factor in their lives.

But it all comes back to haunt us, every one of us, in this city. When the number of beds in General’s psych ward is cut from 80 to 20, more people with severe mental illness are out on the streets. Cutting public schools not only makes class divisions more deeply entrenched, it damages the city’s economy.

As the Times says, painful cuts are easy. Taxing the rich never seems to be on the table

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