Health Archives — Page 48 of 98 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Needed: a public health master plan

David Talbot

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September 28, 2010

EDITORIAL More than 100 people showed up at the Planning Commission Sept. 23 to oppose California Pacific Medical Center’s plan to build a massive new regional hospital on Van Ness Avenue. Most were neighborhood residents who raised an excellent point: what, exactly, would the shiny new $2.5 billion hospital offer for low-income people in the Tenderloin?

And that’s just the starting point for discussion. The new project is a piece of a much larger plan: CPMC wants to shut down part of its Laurel Heights campus, reduce the number of beds and the scope of service at St. Luke’s, turn Ralph K. Davis into a specialty facility, and reshape the way health care is provided in San Francisco.

That’s a huge deal — but right now, the city is looking at the projects piecemeal. That’s poor public health policy and poor land-use planning. In fact, there’s no real way to evaluate the Van Ness hospital in its proper context — the Planning Commission, which will rule on the development issues, is hardly the best venue in which to discuss the future of health care in San Francisco.

So new legislation by Sup. David Campos is critical to injecting some sanity into this, and the larger, health facilities debate. The Campos legislation would mandate a citywide Health Care Services Master Plan and would require that all new hospital development, public or private, be consistent with that plan. It’s a pretty basic concept, and it’s hard to imagine that nobody’s suggested this before.

San Francisco has a large, complex network of facilities providing health care — a big public hospital, a university hospital system (University of California San Francisco), a series of public and nonprofit community clinics, half a dozen private hospitals run by two competing chains (CPMC and Catholic Healthcare West), and one health maintenance organization (Kaiser). Some provide unique services, some provide competitive services — and there are some critical services that are hard to find anywhere.

It’s hard to say whether the city needs what CPMC is proposing — a gigantic medical center that some have described as the Mayo Clinic of the West, designed to attract patients from all over the region — without any sort of overall plan. How would the new facility and the CPMC restructuring affect services at St. Luke’s, a critical part of the health care infrastructure in the Mission? Where would patients who rely on Davies for emergency and clinical care in the Castro district wind up? How about all the medical office buildings and doctors’ offices situated near hospitals that are about to change?

How will CPMC’s moves affect low-income-patient care? How does the project fit in with the new Obama health care policies and the city’s own Healthy San Francisco program? Will a new hospital on Van Ness increase access to primary and emergency care for residents of the Tenderloin — or will they be shuttled somewhere else while the high-end facility caters to better-off patients seeking expensive specialty procedures?

Those aren’t land-use decisions — and while some Cathedral Hill residents argue that the new hospital will cause traffic problems, the biggest issues go beyond the scope and expertise of the city Planning Department.

Under the Campos bill, the Public Health Department would develop a master plan (which public health director Mitch Katz says can be done with existing resources), the Health Commission would review that plan, hold public hearings, and sign off on it — and city planners and health officials would have to make sure that new health-related development met existing and future public needs.

The supervisors should pass the bill and get the process going as quickly as possible. And they should refuse to sign off on any final version of the hospital plan until there’s a city framework in place — or at the very least, until CPMC can demonstrate that its citywide infrastructure plans are designed to meet public health needs.

Endorsement interviews: Janet Reilly

Zelda Bronstein

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September 27, 2010

3

District 2 supervisorial candidate Janet Reilly is running to represent San Francisco’s most conservative political district, and even though she has the support of many progressive groups and the local Democratic Party, she’s running on a platform of mostly conservative positions. She opposes all the revenue measures on the November ballot and argues that closing the big budget deficits the city faces in coming years should involve “more fiscal discipline” and making cuts to wasteful city programs and the city money going to nonprofit groups.

But when asked how she’d be an improvement on incumbent Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier, an uncompromising conservative who consistently votes against the board’s progressive majority, Reilly says that she has good relationships with local leaders off all political stripes and will therefore be able to play a key role in facilitating good policy discussions and compromises.

Reilly, who ran for the California Assembly on a platform of health care reform a couple years ago, also touted her recent efforts working with the Volunteers in Medicine Institute to open a free health clinic in the Excelsior District, which will open soon and offer no-cost health services to residents of that district and Daly City, two local region’s with the greatest need.

“It activates a potentially powerful group of volunteers in the city,” she said of the program’s volunteer doctors and nurses, many of whom have retired.

Reilly also emphasized the need to stimulate the local economy with business tax breaks and other mechanisms. You can listen to our full interview here:

WS reilly by endorsements2010

Endorsement interviews: Chris Jackson

Mary Magee

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September 24, 2010

0

In 2008, San Francisco voters elected Chris Jackson to the Community College Board, where he serves as Budget Chair. And from 2007 until spring 2010, Jackson worked as a policy analyst for the San Francisco Labor Council.
Those experiences helped convince Jackson, whose grandfather came from Mississippi to work at Hunters Point Shipyard, of the pressing need for the next D10 supervisor to promote progressive policies that help working class families remain in San Francisco.

“People in D. 10 aren’t asking for market rate housing, they are looking for job opportunities,” Jackson said, clarifying that he wants to see the creation of good-paying, entry-level jobs with health and retirement benefits and the shoring up of local hiring policies, so workers can support their families and stay in the local community.

Jackson plans to create a stable funding source for truly affordable housing. He wants to help Section 8 recipients to rent in San Francisco. He thinks the city needs a different vision of redevelopment—one in which the Redevelopment Commission is brought within the control of the Board. He thinks gang injunctions serve to accelerate gentrification in low-income communities of color. And he thinks the city needs to reduce the number of high-level management positions before it fires and rehires thousands of public health workers at lower wages.

“I believe that the role of the supervisor is to empower local residents and community groups to be voices for real transformative chang,” Jackson said.
You can listen to the full interview here:

Cjackson by endorsements2010

9/11 rescuers need rescuing

David Talbot

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September 22, 2010

0

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

A new AFL-CIO report shows that more than 13,000 of the truly heroic firefighters, police and other rescuers who were the first to rush to the scene of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001 are still being treated for the serious injuries they received.

They were exposed to a highly toxic mix of chemicals, jet fuel, asbestos, lead, glass fragments and other debris that caused a wide range of respiratory, intestinal and mental health problems. Also exposed were nearly 53,000 other first responders who are being monitored for signs of 9/11 related illness. Yet another 71,000 are being watched closely because they also were exposed to the extremely harmful toxins while helping clear debris.

The number of reported victims continues to grow. For example, another new study, from the Mount Sinai Medical Center, shows that some 70 percent of the 10,000 workers involved in the cleanup who were tested between 2000 and 2004, now say they have new or more serious respiratory illnesses.

In addition to firefighters and police, the victims include construction workers, residents of the area and school children, among others. The new report, by the AFL-CIO’s James Parks and Mike Hall, focuses in part on one of the first to reach Ground Zero — Vito Friscia, a Brooklyn homicide detective. He was only a block away when the second of the Twin Towers fell. He rushed to the site through a dense cloud of toxins to seek – and to rescue – survivors. Friscia spent a week helping with the rescue efforts.

Today, Detective Friscia has a deep cough that won’t go away, chronic sinus problems and shortness of breath.

“But I’m no hero,” he insists. “I was just doing my job.” Many others involved in the rescue efforts say pretty much the same thing – that they were just doing their jobs as police officers, firefighters or as other public service employees.

Frisia’s sister-in-law, Maria Pusteri, has produced a documentary film, “Vito After,” which takes a detailed look at what the detective has endured since his rescue efforts. The film, first released in 2005, recently made its international debut in London.

What’s needed now, the AFL-CIO says, is to provide long-term medical care and careful monitoring of the tens of thousands of rescue and recovery workers and community members whose health remains at serious risk because of their exposure to contaminated materials.

The AFL-CIO rightly blames part of the problem on Republican opposition. For instance, the Bush administration refused to create or support a permanent research, monitoring and health care program for Ground Zero workers. And the administration also cut funding for health care related to the 9/11 cleanup.

Just before the congressional recess in August, House Republicans managed to block a bill – the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act – that would provide $7.5 billion for long-term monitoring and health care of victims.

This prompted another of the ailing first responders, Greg Staub, to complain that “they told us if we did our job, they’d take care of us. We did our job. Now we’re sick and they don’t remember who we are anymore.” Staub was forced to retire from the New York City Fire Department last year because of chronic lung problems stemming from his rescue efforts.

The odds, however, are that the House Republicans will not be able to block passage of the proposed Health and Compensation Act when comes up for a second vote, which is expected soon.

Those who rushed to Ground Zero to help the 9/11 victims clearly need – and certainly deserve – lots of help, probably at least as much as provided by the bill. As one of those treating the 9/11 victims noted, “Our patients are sick, and they will need ongoing care for the rest of their lives.”

Providing that care is the very least we can do.

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

Endorsement interviews: Elsbernd on Muni reform

Zelda Bronstein

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September 22, 2010

3

Endorsement interviews: Elsbernd on Muni reform

Sup. Sean Elsbernd came by to talk to us about Prop. G, his ballot initiative to change Muni workers’ pay, and threw in a pitch for Prop. F, a fairly minor change in the way the Health Service Board is elected.

His central argument on Prop. G: Muni workers are the only city employees with a salary guarantee in the City Charter. The law says the drivers have to be paid at the level of the second-highest-paying comparable urban transit district. It’s not that they make too much money, Elsbernd says; it that the Charter requirement puts the city in a bad place during contract negotiations and gives Muni management “zero leverage to make any changes in the egregious work rules.”

Interestingly, the drivers don’t seem to oppose the idea of taking their salaries out of the Charter and negotiating like other city employees. They’re upset about another provision of the Elsbernd measure — a binding arbitration rule. The city has binding arbitration for all labor negotiations, but under Prop. G, if the Muni unions and the city are at an impasse over work rules, the burden of proof would be on the union to demonstrate that its proposals won’t impact service.

“Fixing this,” Elsbernd says, “is central to fixing Muni.”

You can listen to the interview here.

elsbernd by endorsements2010

The District 8 dilemma

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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September 21, 2010

13

tredmond@sfbg.com

Gabriel Haaland, a longtime queer labor activist, was talking to a friend from District 8 the other day, chatting about the race for a supervisor to fill the shoes of Harvey Milk, Harry Britt, Mark Leno, and Bevan Dufty. “She told me that she didn’t know who to vote for,” Haaland said, “because she didn’t know who the progressive was in the race.”

For supporters of Rafael Mandelman, that’s a serious challenge. “The polls are very consistent,” Haaland said. “Most of the voters in D-8 would prefer a progressive over a moderate, and when they know who the progressive is, they support that candidate.”

But oddly enough, although District 8 — the Castro, Noe Valley, and parts of the Mission — is one of the most politically active parts of the city, where voter turnout is consistently high, the supervisorial race is getting only limited media attention. The neighborhood and queer papers are doing a good job of covering the race, but for the rest of the media, it’s as if nothing’s happening. And that’s left voters confused about what ought to be a very clear choice.

The San Francisco Chronicle featured the District 6 race on the front page Sept. 19, with a long story about how demographic changes in the South of Market area would affect the successor to Sup. Chris Daly. District 10, with the mad political scrum of 22 candidates, no clear front runner and endorsements all over the map, has received considerable media attention.

Yet D–8 — which offers by far the most striking distinctions between candidates and the sharpest divisions over issues — has been flying under the radar.

Three major candidates are in the race, two gay men and a lesbian. All of them, for what it’s worth, are lawyers. Rafael Mandelman, who works for a firm that advises cities and counties, has the support of the vast majority of progressive leaders and organizations. Rebecca Prozan, a deputy district attorney, and Scott Wiener, a deputy city attorney, are very much on the moderate-centrist (some would say, by San Francisco standards, conservative) side of the political spectrum.

“As Barbara Boxer has said in her ads, the choice is clear,” Aaron Peskin, chair of the local Democratic Party and a Mandelman backer, told us. “Not to exaggerate, but this is like Boxer v. Carly Fiornia, and Rafael is our Boxer.”

Yet by almost all accounts, Wiener is ahead in the race.

ON THE ISSUES

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has been roughly divided in the past decade between the progressive camp and moderate camp. And while those labels are hard to define (the Chronicle won’t even use the term “progressive,” preferring “ultraliberal”), most observers have a basic grip on the differences.

The moderates, who tend to support Mayor Gavin Newsom, are social liberals but fiscal conservatives. They talk about the city surviving budget red ink without major tax increases. They talk about controlling government spending and increasing public safety. The progressives generally see local government as underfunded after four years of brutal cuts and support the idea of raising new revenue to fill the gap. They support tenants over landlords, seek stronger protections for affordable housing, support Sanctuary City, and oppose sit-lie.

Certainly with Wiener and Mandelman, it’s abundantly clear where the candidates fall. The two agree on some things (they both oppose Prop. B, the pension-reform measure that would reduce health care payments for the children of city employees) and they both support nightlife. But overall, they take very different political stands.

Wiener told us, for example, that the city’s structural budget problems won’t be solved without cuts. “We’re not going to able to tax our way out of this,” he said in an endorsement interview. “We have to lower our expectations for government.”

Other than Muni, public safety, and core public health services, cuts “will have to be across the board,” he said. “What are the things we really can’t do without?”

Wiener supports the sit-lie proposal, saying that he doesn’t think the local police have the tools they need to get poorly behaving people off the streets. He doesn’t support Sup. Ross Mirkarimi’s measure mandating foot patrols because, he told us, he doesn’t think the supervisors should micromanage the Police Department.

Sup. Bevan Dufty, who currently holds the D–8 seat, has voted with the progressives occasionally — but almost never on tenant issues. And Wiener, who has the support of the rabidly anti-tenant Small Property Owners of San Francisco, is likely to follow that approach. Although he told us he supports rent control (which just about everyone in local politics agrees on at this point), he’s not a fan of additional protections against evictions and condo conversions. “I’m not prepared to go beyond what we have now” on eviction protections, he said. He supported Newsom’s plan to allow people to buy their way out of the waiting list and lottery for condo conversions.

And when it comes to public power, he’s to the right of the incumbent: Dufty has said repeatedly that he supports the city taking over Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s infrastructure and putting the city in control of a full-scale public power system. Wiener says he supports community choice aggregation (CCA), but not full-scale public power.

Mandelman is a big supporter of local government and says, without hesitation, that the city needs more revenue. “The public sector is dramatically underfunded,” he told us in a recent interview. “There’s great wealth in the city and it needs to be tapped to preserve public services.” Mandelman said he’s not “tax happy,” but told us that the structure of how the city raises revenue is a mess. He supports a top-to-bottom review of the city’s revenue base with the goal of making taxation more progressive — and bringing in enough money to fund crucial services.

Mandelman is a foe of sit-lie, which he sees as punitive and ineffective. He opposes gang injunctions and supports Sanctuary City. And he’s a strong advocate for tenants, supporting stronger eviction protections and limits on condo conversions that take away affordable rental stock.

“You have to look at the candidates and ask what their priorities are,” he said. “Are the displacement of long-time residents critically important or something that’s not on the top of the list? Do you believe we need to rebuild the safety net? Or is queer politics all about property values?”

Prozan told us that she’s the one who can “bring the two sides together” and said that, like Dufty, she is “right up the middle.” She supports the hotel tax and the vehicle license fee and opposes sit-lie, but also thinks gang injunctions are a useful tool for law enforcement. She doesn’t see any reason to split appointments between the mayor and the supervisors for the board that oversees Muni or the Redevelopment Agency. She doesn’t think the city can or should do anything more about the conversion of rental property to tenancies in common, but supports the idea of taking over foreclosed properties to create housing for teachers, cops, and firefighters. So it’s safe to say the Prozan would probably be similar to the incumbent — with the progressives on a few things, against them on others.

UNDER THE RADAR?

Wiener and Mandelman agree on two basic points: there are stark differences between the candidates — and the city’s major media outlets aren’t paying enough attention. That’s probably because the relatively tame politics doesn’t compare to the sort of wild excitement you see in Districts 6 and 10.

“There’s less chaos than some of the other districts,” Wiener said. “The three major candidates are all hard-working, respected people who have all lived in the district a while.”

He also agreed that he and Mandelman have “very different visions” for the district and the city, and that there are sharp contrasts and divisions between the two candidates.

Prozan also argued that the political differences on issues aren’t going to be the only — or even the deciding — factor for many voters. “I think they’re looking for who’s got the courage and independence to do what’s right,” she told us.

But Mandelman told us there’s a crucial story here that needs to be told: “It’s a definitional fight about what the queer community is about in 2010. As goes D–8, so goes San Francisco.”

Benefits: Sept. 22-Sept 28

David Talbot

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September 21, 2010

0

Ways to have fun while giving back this week

Friday, Sept. 24

Art for AIDS
Attend this charity art auction featuring paintings, sculpture, photography, and jewelry along with food and drink from Bay Area restaurants, caterers, wineries, and breweries. There will also be live music and an auction for travel and adventure prizes. Proceeds to benefit the UCSF AIDS Health Project.
5:30 p.m., $100
The Galleria
101 Henry Adams, SF
www.artforaids.org

Bollywood Disco Ball
If you need an excuse to wear a flashy disco outfit, head to this fundraiser featuring a night of Bollywood disco music video mash ups, live performances, live art, Indian food, and more. Proceeds to benefit Project Ahimsa, a global effort to empower youth through music that distributes music education grants in 14 countries, including programs in the Bay Area.
9 p.m., $125
111 Minna Gallery
111 Minna, SF
www.projectahimsa.org

Concert for Pakistan
Join classical music lovers and others interested in helping victims of this summer’s flood in Pakistan for a night of classical chamber music performed by the San Francisco Academy Orchestra, the Calvary Presbyterian Church chior, and other Bay Area musicans. All donations given during the concert will go to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance: Pakistan.
8 p.m., donations encouraged
Calvary Presbyterian Church
2515 Fillmore, SF
(415) 346-3832

Sunday, Sept. 26

Race for the Cure
The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure® Series is one of the largest 5K run and fitness walk in the world, raising funds and awareness for the fight against breast cancer, celebrating breast cancer survivors, and honoring those who have lost their battle with the disease. Participate by running, walking, or just donating and help provide breast health research, diagnostics, screening, treatment, services and education for uninsured or underinsured women
9 a.m., $10+
Start and finish at Ferry Building
Embarcadero at Market, SF
www.komensf.org

Support the Red Vic
Join Surfpulse.com for a benefit for the Red Vic, a worker owned and operated movie house since 1980, featuring free food, surf films, DVDs for sale, and a $5 raffle for a Las Olas surfboard and other prizes. $1 from all Sierra Nevada beer sales and a portion of the bar and tips will all be donated to the Red Vic.
6 p.m., free
Joxer Daly’s Irish Pub
46 West Portal, SF
www.surfpulse.com

On the Cheap listings

David Talbot

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September 21, 2010

0

On the Cheap listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 22

Big Book Sale Festival Pavilion, Fort Mason Center, Laguna at Beach, SF; (415) 626-7500. Wed.-Sat. 10am-8pm, Sun. 10am-4pm; free. Head out to the annual big book sale and browse through a half a million books, DVDs, CDs, books on tape, vinyl, and more, all for $5 or less. Proceeds to benefit the San Francisco Public Library and literacy programs.

Party with Carnivores Conservatory of Flowers, 100 John F. Kennedy Dr., SF; (415) 831-2090. 5:30pm, $5. Take a tropical vacation for a night at the Conservatory of Flowers special exhibition, "Chomp 2: Return of the Carnivorous Plants" featuring artists Sarah Filley and Yvette Molina, who are working on a project to float a giant terrarium on Lake Merritt. This event is 21 and over, cocktails will be available for purchase.

THURSDAY 23

City of Stairways Red Poppy Art House, 2698 Folsom, SF; (415) 826-2402. 7pm, $5-$10. Join the young authors of WritersCorps for a reading of this new travel guide and literary anthology, packed with poetry, photography, artwork, maps, and tips on seeing some of the most memorable sites and neighborhoods in San Francisco. Also featuring live music by Hopie Spitshard, Tbird, and the Invisible Cities.

"Copyright Criminals" Mighty, 119 Utah, SF; www.theslayersclub.com/cc. 8:30pm, $10. Attend this screening of Copyright Criminals, a film about the history of music sampling, followed by a panel discussion with hip hop historian Jeff Chang, entertainment lawyer Tony Berman, Tim Jones, and more. Featuring live performances by controversial music collage master Steinski and DJ Amp Live, live painting by Nick Fregosi, b-boy performances, and more.

Fancy French Cologne Casanova Lounge, 527 Valencia, SF; www.fancyfrenchcologne.com. 7pm, free. Attend the launch party for this new web boutique inspired by classic San Francisco style and curated by two local ladies to carry fashion-forward clothing, bag, and accessory labels and handmade items from independent designers. Featuring complimentary treats and music by DJ Eli Glad.

FRIDAY 24

Farm Film Night Hayes Valley Farm, 450 Laguna, SF; www.hayesvalleyfarm.com. 6pm; free, $5 suggested donation for honeybee outreach efforts and programming. See the newly released eco-documentary Vanishing of the Bees, co-directed by Maryam Henein and George Langworthy and presented in partnership with Holos Institute. Featuring live music by local duo The Secrets. The film will start at sundown.

Leather Art The Eagle Tavern, 398 12th St., SF; (415) 626-0880. 9pm, free. Celebrate leather week at this art show and auction of homoerotic leather and exotic art by celebrities, known, and unknown artists, curated by Leather Daddy IV Tom Rodgers. Proceeds to benefit Visual Aid, a support program for artists living with HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses.

24 Days kickoff Mint Plaza, Jesse at Mary, SF; www.centralmarketarts.org. Fri. Noon-7pm, Sat. and Sun. 1pm-5pm; free. Enjoy three days of music and performances at Mint Plaza to kickoff a three week visual art and performance schedule happening at various locations in the Central Market district. The kickoff to include a free concerts and performances throughout the weekend by twenty dance and performance companies, including Project Bandaloop, Labayen Dance, Virginia Iglesias, LEVY Dance, KUNST-STOFF Dance Company, and many more.

SATURDAY 25

Dragon Boat Festival Treasure Island, SF; www.sfdragonboat.com. Racing Sat.-Sun. 8am-5pm, Festival Sat.-Sun. 10am-5pm; free. Watch the 15th annual dragon boat races following the Chinese tradition, where each boat uses 20 paddlers, a drummer, and a steers person to compete to win. There will also be a festival featuring live dance and music performances, international food vendors, arts and crafts, and more.

Festa Coloniale Italiana San Francisco Athletic Club, 1630 Stockton, SF; (415) 781-0165. 11am-6pm, free. Celebrate San Francisco’s rich Italian and Italian-American heritage at this festa featuring live Italian music, a pizza toss demonstration, dancers, delicious food, drinks, and wares. Promenade through the temporary piazza in the main ballroom and you’re sure to sing "vita bella."

Green Presidio Enter at the 15th Ave. gate, 15th Ave. at Lake, SF; (415) 561-5418. 11am-4pm, free. Attend the grand opening of the Presidio’s new Public Health Service District, a re-imagining of landmark buildings and homes to create a welcoming park, new apartments, cultural and educational programs, and new trails. The opening to feature local food, art, live music, and sustainable vendors.

North Beach Art Walk Start at Live Worms Gallery, 1345 Grant, SF; www.northbeachartwalk.org. Sat.-Sun. 11am-5pm, free. Pick up a map at Live Worms Gallery while you check out the group show by all participating art walk artists and then visit various venues along Columbus, Grant, and other neighboring streets for poetry, music, and art.

Polk Street Blues Festival Polk from Pacific to Union, SF; 1-800-310-6563. Sat.-Sun. 10am-6pm, free. Attend this first annual blues festival featuring two days of live blues on two stages, vendor booths, arts and crafts, gourmet food, a family area, café seating, and more.

Tour de Fat Lindley Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.sfbike.org. 11am-5pm, free. The day begins with a Bike Parade through Golden Gate Park at 11am and continues with fire-jumping bicycle acts, cycling games, live music, New Belgium beer, bike maintenance, and, of course, free bike valet parking. All proceeds to benefit the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council.

SUNDAY 26

BAY AREA

Tropical Time Machine Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge, 1304 Lincoln, Alameda; (510) 749-0332. 2pm, free. Browse through vintage tiki, Hawaiiana, rockabilly, vinyl, collectibles along with original art, collectible mugs, vintage furniture, and more. DJ Tanoa will be spinning exotica and the Reefriders will be playing live surf music in the evening. Food will be available from the La Piñata Taco Truck and drink specials and surprises will be on hand all day.

Prop. B is bad medicine

David Talbot

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September 21, 2010

57

OPINION Proposition B on the November ballot would eviscerate health care for tens of thousands of public workers and their families. It would double the cost of children’s health care for more than 30,000 public employees including teachers, nurses, firefighters, custodians, and gardeners — regardless of their ability to pay.

But you wouldn’t know this is actually what Prop. B does because the recent focus has been on the measure’s "reforms" to employee retirement. You wouldn’t know this has anything to do with children’s health care — because proponents don’t want you to know the true costs of Prop. B.

What are those true costs?

A single mother will be forced to pay up to $5,600 per year for her child’s health care — in addition to the $8,154 she already pays.

A custodian making only $40,000 per year would have to pay the same hike in health insurance premiums as the city’s top brass, who could be making three times as much.

Talk about unintended consequences.

That’s not reform, and it’s not fair. The workers being blamed are the same city employees who this year voluntarily agreed to $250 million in wage concessions. These are the same workers who have willingly taken pay cuts totaling $750 million the last decade.

Proponents have framed Prop. B as an answer to the city’s pension and retirement costs, but in reality, this measure is about health care. San Francisco’s Office of the Controller’s impartial analysis of Prop. B concludes that 70 percent of the savings from the measure would come from dramatically increasing the cost of dependent health care for working families.

A deep recession spurred by costly wars and reckless behavior on Wall Street has had devastating effects on our city and nation. Prop. B punishes city workers for this economic collapse by radically increasing the cost of their health care.

San Francisco has led the nation in providing universal access to health care. As author and founder of our HealthySF program, I encourage you to resist the attempt reverse progress on health care. Vote no on B.

Assembly Member Tom Ammiano represents the 13th District.

Editor’s Notes

David Talbot

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September 21, 2010

0

Tredmond@sfbg.com

On Sept. 16, supporters of Proposition B, the pension reform measure that would also reduce health care benefits for the children of city workers, held a fundraiser at Le Méridien Hotel — which is one of the hotels on the union boycott list. That was a bad idea, and it put Public Defender Jeff Adachi, the sponsor of Prop. B, in a difficult bind. His proposition, his fundraiser — and he had to cross a picket line to get in the door. So did former mayor Willie Brown, who was one of the fundraiser’s feature guests.

Labor people were furious about the two Democrats crossing the line. Labor Council Executive Director Tim Paulson told Guardian City Editor Steven T. Jones that the move was "outrageous." At the very least, it’s highly unusual in this labor town.

And I thought of something else unusual: Brown, who among other things is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist, was helping host a political fundraiser. That’s interesting because just a few weeks earlier, the conservative San Francisco Coalition for Responsible Growth invited the Chron’s C.W. Nevius to speak at a fundraising event — and when the SF Appeal reported on it, Chron management told Nevius that wasn’t allowed.

What’s the difference? One columnist can do fundraisers and one can’t? When I asked Chron Editor Ward Bushee, he referred me to a Matier and Ross column, which included a quote on the matter from Managing Editor Steve Proctor:

"When we gave him a column, we never had any illusion he would cease to be involved in politics. I think the readers of the Chronicle understand that."
So it’s one standard for Willie, another for everyone else. Just like old times.

Alerts

David Talbot

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September 21, 2010

0

alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 22

District 10 candidate forum

With all the candidates running for supervisor in District 10, it’s difficult to decide whom to vote for in the upcoming election. Hear from candidates for D10 supe at this forum hosted by the League of Women Voters, Potrero Hill Association of Merchants and Businesses, Potrero Boosters, Dogpatch Neighborhood Association, and UCSF.

6 p.m., free

Genentech Auditorium

UCSF Mission Bay

1675 Owens, SF

www.lwvsf.org

Inside Pakistan and Palestine

Listen to viewpoints from humanitarian workers who have spent time in Pakistan or Palestine at this benefit featuring authors Sadia Ashraf and Ethan Casey, Comprehensive Disaster Response Services (CDRS) Executive Director Todd Shea, and grassroots human rights organizer Kathy Sheetz. Proceeds benefit SHINE/CDRS, who provide medical supplies, food, water, and volunteers in Pakistan’s flood-affected areas.

7:15 p.m., $5–$10 sliding scale

Starr King Room

First Unitarian Universalist Church and Center

1187 Franklin, SF

(415) 355-0300

SATURDAY, SEPT. 25

California Coastal Cleanup Day

Lend a hand to help clean up our beaches and shorelines and raise awareness about the importance of coastal environmental stewardship at one of the 800 clean-up site locations. Make Cleanup Day greener by taking public transportation and bringing a bucket or reusable bag, lightweight gardening gloves, and a reusable water bottle.

9 a.m.–noon, free

Various locations, contact for details

1-800-COAST-4U

www.coast4u.org

Reset San Francisco

Learn more about the new online community, Reset San Francisco, which aims to bring San Franciscans together to share ideas and solutions on ways to make the city work better for everyone. Find out how you can weigh in on the budget crisis, Muni reform, public schools, taxes, and more of the issues that contribute to the quality of life in the city.

10 a.m., free

Dianne Feinstein Elementary School

2550 25th Ave., SF

www.resetsanfrancisco.org

Tenderloin Community Health and Safety Fair

Find out about community resources in the Tenderloin at this family fair featuring live music, free health care for teens, free dental screenings for children, flu shots, mental health screenings, parent support and domestic violence services, information about the new Safe Passage program, tenant and immigration rights, legal services, and more. Interpreters available in Chinese, Vietnamese, Spanish, Thai, Arabic, Lao, and Russian.

11 a.m.–3 p.m., free

Tenderloin’s Children’s Playground

570 Ellis, SF

(415) 592-2714

SUNDAY, SEPT. 26

Lymewalk

Wear lime green, bring signs, balloons, and pets and join in this walk around Civic Center to help raise awareness for Lyme disease and funds for the California Lyme Disease Association (CALDA). Following the walk, attend a slideshow and discussion on the spread of Lyme disease by ticks and how to protect yourself and your pet.

1 p.m., free

Meet at Larkin at Fulton in front of Main Library, SF

www.lymedisease.org
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.

Adachi crosses the line

Sasha Cuttler

-

September 17, 2010

87

Former Mayor Willie Brown and Public Defender Jeff Adachi – author of Prop. B, which would require city employees to pay more for their pension and health care costs – yesterday crossed a union picket line at Le Méridien, which is being boycotted by hotel workers with Unite-Here Local 2, to attend a fundraiser for the measure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6K8FkTt7pM

San Francisco Labor Council President Tim Paulson called it “such an outrageous thing in San Francisco.” Even Sup. Sean Elsbernd, perhaps the most conservative member of the Board of Supervisor, was shocked today when told of Adachi’s crossing the line, saying he would have never done so. Local 2 spokesperson Riddhi Mehta told us, “It shows their true colors. By no means are they for working families.”

Adachi has been public enemy number one of local labor leaders since he authored the measure with little input from unions or other public officials, and Paulson said this action was emblematic of Adachi’s hostility to unions, adding that it was even more surprising to see Brown, a longtime ally of unions, supporting the measure and crossing the line.

“It was not unexpected for Jeff Adachi, with the way he’s been acting lately, not caring about labor, but it was a little surprising for Willie Brown considering his career and record,” Paulson said.

Adachi told the Guardian that he was unaware at the time that it was a Local 2 picket line. “The honest truth is that when I got there, I thought it was a protest against Prop. B,” Adachi said. Yet he also that even if he had know, “I still would have went to the event.”

“I completely support the workers’ right to strike, but at the same time, I am on a mission to save the city $120 million a year,” Adachi told us. “The resources that the opponents are pouring into this are completely unreal.”

La Merdien has been on the Local 2 boycott list for several months, and both Paulson and Mehta said the picket was independent of Prop. B, although some SEIU members did show up with signs criticizing the measure. As for scheduling future fundraisers at other boycotted hotels, Adachi told us, “I’ll be more mindful of that.”

Quick Lit: Sept 15-Sept 21

David Talbot

-

September 16, 2010

0

Literary readings, book tours, and talks this week

Jonathan Safran Foer, Rebecca Solnit, How to Grow a School Garden, digital art collecting, and more.

Thursday, Sept 16

Stephen Breyer
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will discuss his new book, Making Our Democracy Work.
8 p.m., $20
Herbst Theater
401 Van Ness, SF
www.cityboxoffice.com

East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres
Hear author Andrew Lam in conversation with Richard Rodriguez about his new collection of essays about the unexpected consequences of the Vietnamese diaspora.
6 p.m., $12
Mechanics’ Institute
57 Post, SF
(415) 393-0100

How to Grow a School Garden
Author Arden Bucklin-Sporer will discuss How to Grow a School Garden: A Complete Guide for Parents and Teachers, which offers parents, teachers, and school administrators tips and advice on how to build school gardens and how to develop the programs that support them.
7 p.m., free
BookShop West Portal
80 West Portal, SF
(415) 564-8080

Rebecca Solnit
Hear one of San Francisco’s most provocative writers discuss her past book, which include Wanderlust, A Paradise Built in Hell, and A Field Guide to Getting Lost, and her upcoming book, Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas.
7 p.m., $10-$20
JCCSF
3200 California, SF
(415) 292-1233

Saturday, Sept 18

Diane K. Martin, Lisa Gluskin, and Melissa Stein
Attend this poetry reading with recently published poets Diane K. Martin, author of Conjugated Visits, Lisa Gluskin, author of Tulips, Water, Ash, and Melissa Stein, author of Rough Honey.
7:30 p.m., free
Pegasus Books Downtown
2349 Shattuck, Berk.
(510) 649-1320

Sunday, Sept 19

“Collecting the Impossible”
Prominent collectors, critics, and artists will discuss the historical dynamics or collecting digital art and building an art market for challenging work. Panel participants will include Richard Rinehart, Digital Media Director & Adjunct Curator of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, collectors Dennis Scholl and Jeff Dauber, Katie Clark from the Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, Chief U.S. Correspondent for The Art Newspaper Jason Kaufman, and artist Lynn Hershman Leeson.
2 p.m., $12
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission, SF
(415) 978-2787

Tuesday, Sept 21

Jonathan Safran Foer
Join Foer, author of Everything is Illuminated and Eating Animals, as he talks about our dining habits, insatiable appetites, and the cultural meaning of food. He will explore the ethical, environmental, and health risks behind commercial fishing and factory farming.
7 p.m., $18
Shultz Cultural Hall
Oshman Family JCC
3921 Fabian, Palo Alto
www.tickets.commonwealthclub.org

Words for Empty and Words for Full
Poet Bob Hicok will read from his new collection.
7 p.m., free
BookShop West Portal
80 West Portal, SF
(415) 564-8080

Nobunny unmasked!

David Talbot

-

September 14, 2010

2

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC The morning of our scheduled interview, he sends me a text message, asking me to push things back a bit. Because he says he’s been up until 5:30 a.m., I figured he’s spent the previous night out being a bad bunny. But my assumptions are incorrect: the self-professed early bird known as Nobunny has stayed up late getting work done. The masked man, who now lives in Oakland, is out and about in San Francisco. I remain patient, knowing that he has plenty on his plate, including the release of his new album and an imminent European tour.

Nobunny’s First Blood (Goner Records) is more polished in production than previous efforts, including Love Visions (1-2-3-4 Go! Records), his breakthrough from 2008. He’s been at it for nearly 10 years now, but our hometown hero’s ascent to garage-rock stardom hasn’t come easy. Before getting off the phone with me, he speaks of darker days in Chicago, where he went from two-time Bozo Show visitor to “lying and stealing heroin addict,” only to be saved by a heartbroken sister and a pre-Hunx and His Punx member of the now-defunct Gravy Train. And by the time I finish interviewing him, he shares some information that I didn’t expect him to delve into, giving me glimpses of original obsessions, addictions, and future ambitions.

Still, at about the 30-minute mark, our first conversation comes to a sudden halt when Nobunny alerts me he has to put money in his parking meter. My time is up. After all, Blag Dahlia of Dwarves fame is expecting him for a radio interview. (Nobunny takes a page out of that fellow Chicago-to-Bay Area transplants’ book by shedding his threads on stage with the exception of the mask.)

I have the sense that Nobunny is holding back a little, like there is a wall. Is he guarded? Maybe a little nervous? He’d publicly admitted to shooting heroin before, but it isn’t until after our initial phone call that he begins to be genuine and upfront about his humbling experiences and the struggle that made him who he is today. All the while, I feel he is in complete control of our interactions, and imagine that’s probably what it’s like to work with someone so self-critical in the studio. The dichotomy of the man behind the mask begins to unravel.

We initially speak through a dodgy cell phone connection, interrupted by distracting wind and disruptive sirens. I’m in the TL, and he’s in the Mission. Both environments are worn down, sort of like the mangy Muppet-looking mask Nobunny wears during show time. He’s lived through misery before. He spent one winter in Chicago with a trash bag serving as his front door, and worked the graveyard shift at a highway gas station during his last year in the city. “I lived in a cage in a squatted grocery store that had become a shooting gallery-crack house,” Nobunny says. “Things were not all right.”

Just a week earlier, I’d seen Nobunny at the Total Trash Fest. He did what he does best: live rock ‘n’ roll, delivered sweaty and in briefs, with some crowd-surfing. The one new song worked into the set hinted at First Blood‘s tone. The album itself clocks in at a short but very sweet 26 minutes. Nobunny rips through the tracks, playing guitar, bass, and drums himself. He gets some assistance from his pal Jason “Elvis Christ” Testasecca, who’s aided him with home recordings in the past, and a couple of other musicians who get honorable mentions in the credits.

“Blow Dumb,” First Blood‘s first single, has been described as “Velvet-y” sounding. Perhaps because the Velvet Underground is associated with New York’s high-art scene by way of Warhol’s Factory, Nobunny points out that the track is a love song to California. It gives a special nod to the Bay Area and hyphy, but also shows some love for SoCal, with a possible Burger Records shout out. The end result is ideal for a groovy road trip with friends, riding down Highway 1 with nothing better to do than smile in the sun.

Content-wise, not everything on First Blood is so buoyant. Elsewhere, Nobunny’s lyrics confront sexual desire, unbalanced relationships, inner weakness, and the self improvements necessary to pull yourself out of the proverbial gutter and see the world. Plenty of lustful longings are laid out as he expresses exactly what he wants in the twangy-sounding “Pretty Please Me”: a noncommittal fling, no questions asked, just as long as it feels right.

The blatant “(Do the) Fuck Yourself” conjures up perverse images straight from Nobunny’s stage show, where his masked persona goes public, employing ball-gags while prancing around scantily-clad. When we finally meet in person, I ask him where these antics come from. His answer is quite simple, and makes sense coming from a rabbit, “I’m just horny,” he says. All the while, in order to maintain a “shred of anonymity,” he wears his favorite deranged-looking mask. It never seems to come off.

“I don’t think I’d like to deal with being in an un-masked band at, say, Hunx’s or Thee Oh Sees’ comparable level of popularity.” Nobunny says, when asked about the get-up. “Knowing eyes are on you when you are not on stage sounds maybe not always fun.” Nonetheless, a fruitful creative partnership with Hunx has been vital to Nobunny’s survival: “Seth [Bogart, a.k.a. Hunx] has been a very supportive friend, and, yes, in some ways I feel he saved me, or at the very least vastly improved my living situation.”

Though Nobunny often expresses the wish to record and play alone, he’s no stranger to collaboration, including a recent live session with Jack White at Nashville’s Third Man Records. Not all dream teams come true, though — since childhood he’d hoped to work with another master of disguises, the famously introverted King of Pop. “Michael Jackson was my first obsession, ” he says. “I wanted to be him. I still want to be him. According to Rocktober’s History of Masked Rock ‘n’ Roll, MJ was a masked musician with all his surgeries and what not. We all wear masks, some are just easier to spot than others.”

Speaking of costumed camouflage, First Blood‘s final track, “I Was On (The Bozo Show)” is a psyched-out, swirling down-tempo dirge with many levels of dedication. One could read it as homage to the late clown-god Larry Harmon (a.k.a. Bozo), as Nobunny hazily recalls his lost innocence and how he sat in the back row of a Chicago television with his little brother to meet the world-famous archetype on two separate occasions. Yes, Nobunny was on The Bozo Show — twice.

But behind its showbiz facade, “I Was On (The Bozo Show)” is also an agonizing confession from a former addict. “It’s for my blood brother and sister as well as my friends who struggle with drug addiction,” Nobunny says. “In another time, clowns made children happy and the circus was fun, but now they’ve become just another relic of past, tarnished by the more common association that their images are horrifying and that they are to be feared. I’m pretty sure no Juggalo ever went to clown school.”

A mythical creature from garage rock’s underbelly, Nobunny has earned his success, even securing a gig at the Playboy Mansion in L.A. as part of his 10-year anniversary celebration next Easter. But he’s no stranger to the addictions he sings about on First Blood final track. “My sister had been buggin’ me a bit to come visit her in Arizona, and I finally decided to take her up on it before I killed myself,” he says, still discussing “I Was On (The Bozo Show)”‘s origins. “I drove across the country shooting dope the whole way to the desert west of Tucson. She didn’t even know I was using. She nursed me back to health out there all alone in the desert. Our only neighbor was an 80-something yogi from India who was out there on a 30-day silent meditative prayer.”

If that sounds like material for a boulevard of broken dreams tell-all, in all seriousness, Nobunny has come out of the experience stronger, poised for new adventures, but most of all, grateful. “I am thankful to have enough fans to make touring worthwhile,” he said. “While I’d still be writing and recording and performing with no one looking, it’s really nice to see people at our shows dancing and singing along and smiling.”

Censored in a brave new world

David Talbot

-

September 14, 2010

4

rebeccab@sfbg.com

The world was a different place in 1976 when Carl Jensen, a professor of communications at Sonoma State University, founded Project Censored to highlight important national news stories that were underreported or outright ignored by the mainstream press.

Back then, there were few good alternatives to television networks or major newspapers and magazines, and stories omitted from those channels usually escaped public notice. There was no such thing as Google News, no one had ever heard of a blog, and the word “twitter” was associated with birds or gossip. So it was up to Project Censored to provide a fuller and more accurate picture of the news by delivering an annual rundown of the top 25 most significant articles that hadn’t been widely distributed.

But even if the corporate media was censoring important information back then, today’s highly fragmented media world has opened the floodgates to endless news and propaganda of every possible variety, leaving citizens awash in more information than they can possibly process.

The shared American narrative and agenda disappeared as the Internet boomed and newspapers shrank. While major media outlets have been consolidated into the hands of fewer corporations and the once stable media industry has been in flux, the general public has splintered into factions that seem to reside in disparate realities.

Extremism and the promotion of narrow corporate interests have gained footholds. Even on national television networks, personalities such as Glenn Beck are gaining traction by painting President Barack Obama as a dangerous radical, a Big Brother figure, or worse. Once-accepted imperatives like addressing global warming are undermined by seemingly legitimate news stories.

Yet the public is playing a bigger role than ever. Blogs abound, and nearly anyone can spark a public outcry by capturing egregious behavior on film with his or her cell phone. Thanks to a team of hackers who know a thing or two about encryption technology, WikiLeaks has emerged as a wild card of the new media landscape by cutting loose thousands of classified government documents and airing military footage never intended for a mass audience.

It’s a brave new world of media consumption, but Project Censored’s mission hasn’t really changed. More than ever, people need help sifting through this cacophony to figure out what they truly need to know.

For 35 years, the project has distributed its Censored list nationwide to shed light on the top stories not brought to you by the mainstream press. These days, stories are submitted, researched by students, filtered through LexisNexis to determine which outlets have covered them, and then voted on by a team of judges. An international network of 30 colleges and universities contributes to the project, and volunteers from around the world submit stories for consideration. At the end of each project cycle, the work is released in a compendium.

Past judges have included luminaries such as Noam Chomsky and the late Howard Zinn, to whom Censored 2011 (Seven Stories Press, 2010) is dedicated. Even journalist Walter Cronkite publicly stated, “Project Censored is one of the organizations that we should listen to, to be assured that our newspapers and our broadcasting outlets are practicing thorough and ethical journalism.”

Project Censored Director Mickey Huff, a history professor at Diablo Valley College who sports a long ponytail and a pointy beard and talks at an excited pace, uses air quotes when saying the phrase “news decisions” because his concern is censorship. But how does he define censorship?

“There are many factors afoot that prevent stories from getting reported,” he says. “What we’re saying is that anything that interferes with a free flow of information is censorship. It’s not the blacking out of a story, it’s the framing of a story. It’s the angle. It’s what views are being left out. In old school ‘objective journalism'<0x2009>” — air quotes — “you’re supposed to get both sides of the story. Yeah, well, sometimes there are six sides.”

The preface to Censored 2011 offers a harsh critique of mainstream news. “In America, unsubstantiated opinions, rumors, and gossip surrounding important issues masquerade as real news,” it states. “We live in a propaganda culture where factual information is routinely censored by degree.”

To be sure, public relations outfits and staged press events routinely influence the content of the daily news, and media watchdog groups often spotlight the fiction or egregious bias that finds its way onto the airwaves. Yet in a culture where truth is so often mangled and information so scattered — and the state of politics and the economy so frightening — both sides of the political spectrum have moved toward the fringes. And thumbing through Censored 2011, one wonders if Project Censored itself has wandered into uncharted territory.

Huff and former Project Censored director Peter Phillips recently coauthored an op-ed exploring the concept of State Crimes Against Democracy (SCADs), hoping to publish it through the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a progressive think tank based in Washington, D.C. To their dismay, IPS rejected it. Huff found the decision cruelly ironic — he felt he’d been censored.

Chapters 6 and 7 of Censored 2011 also delve into SCADs — a construct that seeks to buck the “conspiracy theory” label in favor of a more sophisticated framework. They are defined as “concerted actions or inactions by government insiders intended to manipulate democratic processes.” The introduction to the book alludes to those chapters as “beyond urgent,” and Kristina Borjesson equates a lack of mainstream media coverage of questions surrounding 9/11 — perhaps the mother of all SCADs, from the 9/11 Truth Movement’s perspective — as censorship.

Huff and Phillips noted that they are not part of the so-called 9/11 Truth Movement, arguing that urging mainstream coverage of that particular set of questions is just a small piece of their wider body of work. There are signs, however, that returning to that particular topic over the past several years has harmed some people’s perceptions of the project.

One person familiar with Project Censored noted that at least two former judges had parted ways over “the 9/11 fixation … a really weak link in the entire operation. It rearranges atomized factoids into theories.” Yet the project should still be viewed as valuable and relevant, this person added.

“There is absolutely no question that they’ve done extremely important work over the years,” noted Reese Erlich, a prominent journalist who has covered the Iraq war and won awards from Project Censored for his work in the past. “The mainstream media in this country are failing to report all kinds of issues.” Yet Erlich turns a critical eye onto the so-called 9/11 Truth narrative. “My biggest gripe is that by complaining there is a conspiracy … you take away from the ability of people to make positive change,” he noted. “It gives them all the power, and the people have none of the power.”

It’s clear that Project Censored is sensitive to the “conspiracy theorist” label, and as champions of free speech, the directors aren’t shy about addressing it head-on. The first item on the Investigative Research section of its website, for example, is a nearly 10,000-word article titled “Analysis of Project Censored: Are We A Left-Leaning, Conspiracy-Oriented Organization?”

Its self-analysis concludes that the organization is neither, but admits to a certain bias. “The bias of Project Censored seems to be quite simple,” it notes. “We promote protection of First Amendment rights in support of a truly free press, one that holds those in power, elected by the people or appointed, accountable.”

THE TOP 10 CENSORED STORIES OF 2009-2010

1. Buh-bye U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency?

Since the financial meltdown of 2008 sent a jarring ripple effect throughout the global economy, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has been talking up the idea of an international market that doesn’t use the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency. The dollar now holds the status of the predominant anchor currency held in foreign exchange reserves, securing the U.S.’s strategic economic position.

In July 2009 at the Group of Eight Summit in Italy, Medvedev underscored his call for a newly conceived “united future world currency” when he pulled a sample coin from his pocket and showed it off to heads of state, the Bloomberg news service reported. At a conference in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in June 2009, world leaders from Brazil, India, and China listened as Medvedev made his case for a new global currency system anchored on something other than the dollar, according to an article in the Christian Science Monitor.

Additionally, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) suggested in a report that the present system of using the dollar as the world’s reserve currency should be subject to a wholesale reconsideration, according to an article in the Telegraph, a British newspaper.

Michael Hudson, an author and professor of economics at the University of Missouri, links discussions about an alternative global reserve currency with U.S. military spending. Referencing Medvedev’s calls for a “multipolar world order,” Hudson offers this translation: “What this means in plain English is, we have reached our limit in subsidizing the United States’ military encirclement of Eurasia while also allowing the U.S. to appropriate our exports, companies, stocks, and real estate in exchange for paper money of questionable worth.”

2. Environmental enemy No. 1: U.S. Department of Defense

The U.S. military burns through 320,000 barrels of oil a day, Sara Flounders of the International Action Center reports, but that tally doesn’t factor in fuel consumed by contractors or the energy and resources used to produce bombs, grenades, missiles, or other weapons employed by the Department of Defense.

By every measure, the Pentagon is the largest institutional user of petroleum products — yet it has a blanket exemption in commitments made by the U.S. to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Despite its status as top polluter, the Department of Defense received little attention in December of 2009 during talks at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

Meanwhile, human health is threatened by the long-term environmental impacts of military operations throughout the globe. Depleted uranium contamination from the Iraq conflict has been linked to widespread health problems, Jalal Ghazi reports for New America Media. The Chamoru people of Guam, meanwhile, experience an alarmingly high rate of cancer, which is suspected to be linked to a nearby 1950s U.S. nuclear weapons testing site that left a legacy of radioactive contamination.

“The greatest single assault on the environment comes from one agency: the Armed Forces of the United States,” author Barry Sanders writes in The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism.

3. Internet privacy and personal access at risk

Project Censored cites 13 sources, including articles published in Wired and Mother Jones, for this story, and a Google search for the phrase “Internet kill switch” yields 539,000 results generated by more recent reporting.

The Cybersecurity Act was proposed in June 2009, giving the president the power to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” and do whatever is necessary to diffuse a cyber attack. The Senate Homeland Security Committee approved a comprehensive cybersecurity bill this past June, which has drawn sharp criticism for including a provision that would allow the president to shut down networks in the event of an emergency.

Reporting in Wired, Noah Schachtman broke the story that the CIA was investing in Visible Technologies, a software firm that can collect, rank, and analyze millions of posts on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, and other social media sites. Wired also reported that the Obama administration had followed the lead of George W. Bush by urging a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a spy case weighing whether a U.S. president can bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.

4. ICE’s secret detention centers

The federal office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is confining people in 186 unlisted and unmarked subfield offices, many in suburban office parks or commercial spaces that reveal no information about their ICE tenants. Reporting in The Nation, Jaqueline Stevens describes ICE’s jail network and the agency’s penchant for secrecy when it comes to withholding public information about the facilities. “The absence of a real-time database tracking people in ICE custody means ICE has created a network of secret jails,” Stevens writes. “Subfield offices enter the time and date of custody after the fact, a situation ripe for errors … as well as cover-ups.” As a result, detainees can literally be “lost” by attorneys or family members for days or weeks at a time after being transferred.

5. Blackwater in Pakistan

The notorious private military contractor Blackwater has changed its name to Xe Services, but it hasn’t escaped scrutiny. According to a story that ran in The Nation in December 2009, the contractor is at the center of a covert program in Pakistan run by the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in Karachi. Xe is involved in planning targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, and helps direct a U.S. military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the U.S. military intelligence apparatus who spoke with the Nation. The Pentagon has disputed the claim, stating: “There are no U.S. military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan.” More recently, The New York Times reported that Xe had created a web of more than 30 shell companies to win defense contracts, and specifically mentioned that the company employees had loaded bombs and missiles onto predator drones in Pakistan.

6. Cause of death: lack of health care

As the health care debate raged on and Americans heard over and over again about supposed “death panels,” “Obamacare,” and the government’s infringement on personal freedom, at least one important study was largely drowned out. Research led by the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center revealed that lack of health insurance may have figured into 17,000 childhood deaths among hospitalized children in the United States in the span of less than two decades.

The results of a study published in the Journal of Public Health compared more than 23 million hospital records from 37 states between 1988 and 2005, and found that uninsured children in the study were 60 percent more likely to die in the hospital than those with insurance.

“Can we say with absolute certainty that 17,000 children would have been saved if they had health insurance? Of course not,” notes a co-investigator. “From a scientific perspective, we are confident in our finding that thousands of children likely died because they lacked insurance or because of factors directly related to a lack of insurance.”

7. The African land grab

A “land grab,” according to this Project Censored story, is the purchase of vast tracts of land by wealthier nations from mostly poor, developing countries in order to produce crops for export. Throughout the African continent, an estimated 50 million hectares of land either have been acquired or are in the process of being negotiated for purchase over the last several years, with international agribusinesses, investment banks, hedge funds, and commodity traders leading the rush for cheap, undeveloped, arable land.

Ethiopia has approved at least 815 foreign-financed agriculture projects since 2007, but the food produced there will be exported rather than used to feed the 13 million people in need of food aid in that country. “Rich countries are eyeing Africa not just for a healthy return on capital, but also as an insurance policy,” notes researcher Devlin Kuyek. “Food shortages and riots in 28 countries in 2008, declining water supplies, climate change, and huge population growth together have made land attractive. Africa has the most land and, compared with other continents, is cheap.”

8. Massacre in Peruvian Amazon over Free Trade Agreement

While the story highlighted by Project Censored is titled, “Massacre in the Amazon,” a later installment by Laura Carlsen, the translator, appeared in the Huffington Post titled “Victory in the Amazon.” The story centers on a movement standing its ground even with tragic loss of life as the consequence: On June 5, 2009, 50 or more Peruvian Amazon Indians were massacred after a 57-day protest against the implementation of decrees under the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States. Decrees that would have opened vast swaths of indigenous land in the Peruvian Amazon to private investment by gas, mining, and oil companies prompted Amazon peoples to block highways and gas and oil pipelines. But the conflict escalated when armed Peruvian government agents attacked the protesters with rifles and, according to eye witnesses, burned bodies and threw them into a river. According to Carlsen’s account, Peru’s Congress voted 82 to 12 in the aftermath to repeal two of the decrees that the indigenous groups had been standing against. Daysi Zapata, a representative of the association of indigenous groups, celebrated the triumph: “Today is a historic day. We are thankful because the will of the indigenous peoples has been taken into account, and we just hope that in the future, the governments attend and listen to the people, that they don’t legislate behind our backs.”

9. Human rights abuses continue in Palestine

While there is a great deal of news coverage about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Project Censored highlights human rights abuses as a little-discussed aspect. After a 15-month study conducted by an international team of scholars, the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa concluded that Israel is, from the perspective of international law, an occupying power in Palestinian territories and that it has become a colonial enterprise that implements a system of apartheid. An Amnesty International report charges that Israel is denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies. And articles that appeared in Electronic Intifada detailed how Israel had begun barring movement between Israel and the West Bank for those holding a foreign passport, including humanitarian aid workers and thousands of Palestinian residents. Project Censored’s introduction touches on the topic: “Rare mainstream media glimpses of Israel’s apartheid system, like the CBS 60 Minutes segment ‘Is Peace Out of Reach?’ in January 2009, air and then fade away after drawing vitriolic, selectively focused criticism.”

10. U.S. funds and supports the Taliban

While this story appeared on the front pages of The New York Times and Washington Post, Project Censored claims they omitted some key facts. The Nation broke the story, and at the time Project Censored was researching it, there was nary a mention in the mainstream media of how American tax dollars wind up in the hands of the Taliban. In some cases, money goes to Afghan companies run by former Taliban members like President Hamid Karzai’s cousin, Ahmad Rate Popal, who was charged in the 1980s with conspiring to import heroin into the United States. U.S. military contractors in Afghanistan also pay suspected insurgents to protect supply routes. “It is an accepted fact of the military logistics operation in Afghanistan that the U.S. government funds the very forces American troops are fighting,” according to The Nation story, written by Aram Roston. The Nation article also highlighted a link omitted by the other publications: NCL holdings, a licensed security company in Afghanistan, is run by the son of the Afghan defense minister and has an influential former CIA officer, Milton Bearden, on its advisory board. NCL secured a highly lucrative trucking contract — despite having no apparent trucking experience.

Project Censored celebrates the release of Censored 2011 at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco on Thursday, Sept, 16 at 7:00 p.m. To learn more, visit www.projectcensored.org.

On the Cheap listings

David Talbot

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September 14, 2010

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On the Cheap listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 15

Bad Movie Night Argus Lounge, 3197 Mission, SF; (415) 824-1447. 8pm, $2. If you’ve got a bad film you’ve been secretly wishing to screen, here’s your chance to share it. Bring any film on DVD, made by you, that is under 10 minutes and enter for a chance to win a best worst mystery prize. Proceeds benefit the Cut and Run Tour, a traveling film festival specializing in short, avant-garde, and experimental film. With DJ Squid spinning punk, core, and alt rock.

"Hot and Cold Extreme Environments" Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way, SF; (415) 554-9600. 7:30pm, free. Join planetary scientist Chris McKay, from the Space Science Division of the NASA Ames Research Center, for a presentation on life in extreme environments and how it is relevant to the search for life in the Solar System.

Ten Fingers Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 441-4099. 8pm, free. Everyone has a story to tell, so come share yours at this live storytelling event where performers have a chance to win $150 or be featured on NPR’s Snap Judgment. The only rules are: no reading, keep it under 10 minutes, and aim for nonfiction. To sign up in advance, email stephanie@snapjudgment.org.

BAY AREA

El Grito Bicentennial Jack London Square, Franklin at Water, Oakl.; www.jacklondonsquare.com. 4pm, free. Celebrate the 200 year anniversary of Mexican independence from Spanish rule at this outdoor festival featuring artists, craft vendors, live music, activities, and more.

THURSDAY 16

Inside Storytime Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 505-0869. 6:30pm, $3-$5. A fun, cozy event where you can booze and schmooze with the San Francisco literati featuring readings from Raj Patel, author of The Value of Nothing, Justine Sharrock, author of Tortured, Gordy Slack, author of The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything, Anna Mantzaris, Hank Pellissier, and James Warner.

Project Censored City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus, SF; (415) 362-8193. 7pm, free. Each year, Project Censored lists the top 25 major news stories that were ignored or underreported by the mainstream press and presents the details of these stories in depth. Join Mickey Huff and Peter Phillips in discussing this year’s most censored stories and celebrating the release of Censored 2011.

FRIDAY 17

Readings from Joyland Dog Eared Books, 900 Valencia, SF; www.joyland.ca. 8pm, free. Catch the second stop of the Joyland American tour celebrating the release of books from Joyland founders Emily Schultz and Brian Joseph Davis who will be reading along with San Francisco writers Peter Orner, Tamar Halpern, Helene Wecker, Ruth Galm, and host Kara Levy. All authors have been published on the joyland.ca site, which aims to make the international local by providing a platform for unique voices in short fiction.

SATURDAY 18

J-Pop Summit Festival Post between Webster and Buchanan, SF; www.j-pop.com.

11am-6pm, free-$20. Take in the Japanese pop-inspired attractions at this annual festival featuring musical performances by some of Japan’s hottest bands, fashion shows, film screenings, art and anime booths, live art performances, Japanese food vendors, and more.

Literary Tribute to Al Robles Intersection 5M, 925 Mission, SF; (415) 626-2787. 6pm, $5 suggested donation. Join members of the Bay Area literary community as they honor poet, educator, community activist, and advocate for the poor and senior citizens, Al Robles. The evening of storytelling hosted by D. Scott Miller to include poetry, prose, conversation, and recollections of Robles with Jessica Hagedorn, Jack Hirschman, Janice Mirikatani, Alejandro Murguia, Jaime Jacinto, Ishmael Reed, and more.

BAY AREA

Artspark San Pablo Park, 2800 Park between Russell and Ward, Berk.; www.artsparkfestival.org. 11am-4pm, free. Enjoy this free, community sponsored festival promoting community health by offering free health information from East Bay health organizations and free art lessons in drawing, painting, dancing, spoken word, and more. Also featuring nutritious, hot meals for under $5 and entertainment and performances including live music, spoken word, and more.

SUNDAY 19

Dancing in the Streets Noe at Market, SF; www.castrocbd.org. 1pm-4pm, free. Enjoy a live band and dancing in the streets with the Byran Keith Country Band and Queer Ballroom giving free country two step lessons.

Leland Avenue Fair Leland at Bayshore, SF; www.sfvvboom.blogspot.com. 10am-4pm, free. Celebrate the recently completed Visitacion Valley public art and streetscape at this community festival featuring local talents including Latin jazz percussionist Pete Escovedo and his six-piece orchestra, artists, chefs, entertainers, and vendors.

Roadworks Street Fair Rhode Island between 16th and 17th St., SF; www.sfcb.org. Noon-5pm, free. Using a three ton steamroller, a team of featured artists will be making large-scale prints right in the street from carved linoleum blocks. Watch the action and enjoy the bazaar featuring wares from over 80 artists, vendors, and organizations, live music, entertainment, street food, and activities.

Comedy Day Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.comedyday.com. Noon-5pm, free. Thirty comedians will be performing in a non-stop relay of jokes to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Comedy Day. Comics to include up-and-coming talent, national and Bay Area favorites, and a few who performed at the original Comedy Day. Food and beverage vendors available.

The battle against desalination in the bay

David Talbot

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September 14, 2010

2

The battle against desalination in the bay

OPINION In July 2010, in one fell swoop, the Marin Municipal Water District’s board of directors ambushed an initiative that would force a public vote on an expensive an environmentally destructive desalination plant on the edge of the bay.

In August 2009, the board unanimously voted to approve an environmental study to pave the way for the desalination plant, which would suck up bay water, filter out the salt, and dump the briny extract back into the bay.

In response, a group of unpaid, grassroots volunteers gathered more than 18,000 signatures to qualify Measure T for the November ballot. The measure requires voter approval before up to $51 million in public money is spent on desalination planning.

On July 6, 2010, the board had a chance to avoid the ballot fight by adopting the proposed initiative as an ordinance. Instead, MMWD voted to “study” Measure T’s impact on desalination planning. And at a packed special four-hour meeting on July 26, the board announced that it decided to place its own rival initiative, Measure S, on the ballot, which allows the plant to move forward without delay.

Then, on Aug. 18, the board went a step further and enacted Measure S as law. Consequently, even if S loses in November, the path is cleared for the environmentally damaging project. And the only way it can be stopped is if Measure T wins.

MMWD argues that Measure T ties the agency’s hands and that the 18,000 signatories knew not what they signed. According to MMWD General Manager Paul Helliker (founding member of CalDesal, “a unified voice for water desalination in the Golden State,”) the actual cost of the plant could run as high as $400 million.

Measure T allows MMWD to study desalination, but the agency can’t start making concrete plans for the project — and start collecting permits and issuing multimillion dollar contracts — without a vote.

MMWD argues its desalination plant is a small capital expenditure for ratepayers. As one Measure T proponent, Bill Rothman, observed, MMWD’s profligate spending needs to be checked because its hands are “in our pockets.” In the past three years, for example, ratepayers have shelled out $252,176 in benefits to directors. It’s no wonder MMWD is drowning in $2.56 million in debt.

This November, the choice is clear: Measure T, the people’s initiative, endorsed by 18,000 Marin voters, would mandate a public vote before any further wasteful, costly, desalination proceeds for a plant that poses health risks from the toxic bay.

Yes on T, no on S.

Joan Bennett is a member of the Coalition for the Public’s Right to Vote About Desalination.

Benefits: Sept 8-Sept 14

David Talbot

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September 8, 2010

0

Ways to have fun while giving back this week

Thursday, Sept. 9

Coalition on Homelessness Auction
Attend this live and silent art auction featuring works by Bay Area artists, live music by Perranosperous, food by the California Culinary Academy, desserts from Kingdom Cake, and a raffle. Proceeds to benefit the Coalition on Homelessness.
5:30 p.m., $25
SOMArts
934 Brannan, SF
(415) 346-3740, ext. 307

Faubourg Tremé
Watch this documentary film about the history of the radical roots of one New Orleans community, where during slavery, Black people could earn their freedom and purchase a house. The film, fully titled Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans, concludes with new challenges facing the Black community after the Katrina disaster.
7:30 p.m., $6 donation
ATA Theater
992 Valencia, SF
(415) 821-6545

Free Community Health Programs
Support two free community health programs at this benefit concert featuring Embers, Speed of Darkness, Somnolence, and Crucifixion. One of the programs, the Street Level Health Project, offers medical screenings, a lunch program, mental health support, herbal medicine and nutrition, and more services for urban immigrant communities in the Bay Area. The other program, Casa Besu, aims to bring alternative, holistic treatments to the people of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico.
8 p.m., $5-$10
El Rio
3158 Mission, SF
(510) 533-9906

Saturday, Sept. 11

A’s Firefighter Appreciation Night
Local firefighters from around the Bay Area and Northern California will be honored at the Oakland A’s vs. Red Socks game. A portion of the ticket proceeds will be donated to charitable organizations that support burn foundations, fire safety, educational programs, and other community organizations when you buy them through the webpage oaklandathletics.com/firefighters, passcode: HERO.
6:05pm
Oakland Coliseum
7000 Coliseum, Oakl.
(510) 563-2336
www.oaklandathletics.com/firefighters

Ghirardelli Square Chocolate Festival
Enjoy San Francisco’s signature chocolate delicacies, sip wine, and take part in family activities. Proceeds benefit Project Open Hand.
Sat. – Sun. Noon-5 p.m., $20 for 15 samples
Ghirardelli Square
900 North Point, SF
www.ghirardellisq.com

Sunday, Sept. 12

True Blood Party
Watch the Season 3 finale of HBO’s True Blood series and enjoy a night of entertainment with host comic Marcella Arguello, a live blues performance by I See Read, a lesbian firedancer show, live tattooing with SkinFiend, a look-a-like contest, Creole food, and more. Proceeds to benefit the Red Cross.
6 p.m., $25-$50
The New Parish
579 18th St., Oakl.
www.thenewparish.com

Wild Salmon BBQ
Enjoy a BBQ dinner featuring sustainably harvested wild Alaskan salmon, fine California wine, live music by the Bay, and a silent auction in celebration of the sustainable marine life of Pacific Rim and the work of Pacific Environment. Proceeds to support Pacific Environment. Vegetarian and vegan options available.
3 p.m., $60
Olympic Circle Sailing Club
1 Spinnaker, Berk.
(415) 388-8850, ext. 309

Blocking the bridge

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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September 7, 2010

1

sarah@sfbg.com

The Sierra Club and Golden Gate Audubon Society have sued to block the final environmental impact report on the Lennar Corp. redevelopment project, a move that could force reconsideration of a bridge over Yosemite Slough.

The suit against the city, Board of Supervisors, and Redevelopment Agency charges that the final EIR for Lennar’s Candlestick Point-Hunters Point Shipyard project was inadequate, in part because it didn’t consider all the impacts of the bridge or look properly at alternatives.

The move comes as no big surprise: these environmental groups vowed to file a suit within 30 days of the city’s August certification of the project EIR. But advocates hope it will lead to a change in the proposal.

Arthur Feinstein, a member of the Sierra Club’s San Francisco Bay Chapter, said the EIR didn’t comply with the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA.

The introduction to the Sierra Club suit notes that “the FEIR failed to identify or underestimated the significance of environmental impacts associated with the project; failed to address the alternative proposed by Arc Ecology, which provides for a bus rapid transit route around Yosemite Slough; and failed to provide adequate responses to comments on the draft EIR.”

Or as Feinstein puts it: “There’s a bridge, and it’s going through a nature area where they say the sound level from the buses will be the equivalent to standing 50 feet from a freeway.

“They say there is no impact and that you can’t have an undisturbed nature experience in an urban area, but you can,” Feinstein continued, pointing to the Presidio, Golden Gate Park, and Crissy Field as examples of places where you can have undisturbed experiences.

Feinstein noted that Candlestick Point State Recreation Area is the only large park on the city’s eastern shoreline, and the only park that people in the Bayview can access easily.

“The city boasts about how much it was improving the Bayview, but this park is the only major open space where you can get away from urban stress — and folks have a lot of stress in the Bayview,” Feinstein said. He added that building the bridge will involve sinking pilings in Yosemite Slough that will disturb wildlife and stir up PCBs and other known contaminants.

“Noise, light and glare all have impacts on wildlife, but the city’s EIR said these are insignificant because these critters are insignificant,” Feinstein said.

Feinstein noted that the city’s final environmental impact report did make a finding of overriding concern that the project will cause air pollution at levels that exceed Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) health standards.

“But [the city] decided that this was a regional problem, so they did not attempt any mitigations for the 25,000 new residents that this 700-acre redevelopment plan is supposed to bring into the Bayview — which already has the city’s highest asthma and cancer rate and the largest number of polluting sources,” Feinstein said. “But they could say that all buses going into the development need to be electrified, or they could limit the number of parking spaces the way they did at Octavia-Market and South of Market.”

Feinstein said the next step in this CEQA lawsuit in a pretrial negotiation session to see if a settlement can be reached. “We’re not looking for a long drawn out fight. We’re ready for one, but we’re also ready to negotiate because that’s how you achieve things.”

Feinstein also noted that the Sierra Club had to go to Los Angeles to hire a traffic consultant to work on its suit because Lennar has contracts with just about every shop in the Bay Area, thanks to its various projects at Hunters Point, Treasure Island, and Mare Island.

“The related problem is that the city is no longer looking at the project with a steely eye,” Feinstein said. “Instead, they have become the developer — except that they are working with Lennar and not reviewing Lennar’s plans with objectivity. By filing this lawsuit, we’re keeping the conversation about this project alive and reminding folks that you don’t have to take everything this mayor and his administration gives you.”

The Sierra Club/Audubon Society suit came four days after the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the California State Parks Foundation entered into an agreement with Lennar to help prepare conceptual designs that reportedly will be used as the basis for the actual bridge over the Yosemite Slough.

Some critics interpreted the timing of CSPF’s announcement, which the Chronicle reported under a confusing “Environmentalists to help design span” headline, as an attempt by Lennar’s well-oiled PR machine to undermine the Sierra Club/Audubon Society suit.

They also questioned CSPF’s independence from Lennar, and from the Mayor’s Office, because Guillermo Rodriguez Jr. from the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development sits on CSPF’s board. So does Peter Weiner, a partner at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, which has contracts with Lennar. Representatives from Southern California Edison, Toyota, the Walt Disney Company, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., and several other companies that either have contracts with Lennar or have given to Mayor Gavin Newsom’s campaign for lieutenant governor campaign also sit on the park foundation board.

CPSF’s President Elizabeth Goldstein told us that “as park supporters and defenders, we consider ourselves environmentalists.” CSPF originally planned to fight approval of the project’s final EIR when it came before the board in July. But unlike the Sierra Club, CSPF pulled its appeal at the last minute.

Goldstein told the Guardian that the foundation reversed its decision because it had initiated what she characterized as “a fruitful discussion with Lennar.”

“We wanted to play that out,” Goldstein said. “And now we’re glad we did, because the design criteria look quite good and hopefully will be compatible with the project.”

“What we’ve agreed with Lennar about is a set of design criteria to be applied to the bridge, she continued. “These criteria are intended to make sure the bridge fits aesthetically into the park as much as is possible. Lennar asked us, and we agreed, to develop the first set of conceptual plans — obviously in cooperation with them — to make sure that they are, from their first iteration, as sympathetic as possible to the park.”

Goldstein said that some of these design criteria are “quite global.”

“Some are big arcs of things that are very important to us, such as impact from light, glare and noise,” she said, noting that they don’t want to see the proposed bridge lighted at night, à la the Golden Gate Bridge.

“We want the environment at dusk to be as unimpacted as possible,” she said.

Other CSPF concerns are more situation specific.

“We want safe, attractive, easy-to-use signage,” Goldstein said, referring to need to help users and neighbors find their way around and across the bridge. “We also talk about minimizing piers in the water at the slough, and if possible, eliminating them altogether since they impact vehicles and kayaks.”

Goldstein agreed that the foundation’s roots are not in political advocacy. “We were founded as a philanthropic land acquisition partner to the Department of State Parks.” But she noted that the group was involved in blocking a proposed toll road through Orange County and is a leading supporter of Proposition 21, which seeks to raise nearly $500 million a year for state parks by tacking on an $18 vehicle registration fee that would give all vehicles registered in California free access to the majority of state parks.

As Feinstein observed, “The CSPF does great work, but they are not usually advocates for conservation and biodiversity. That is what the club and Audubon Society does.”

Stuart Flashman, attorney for the Sierra Club and the Golden Gate Audubon Society, said that in the long run the lawsuit won’t stop the project from going forward. “But in the short term, if the court finds that the EIR wasn’t adequate and that there are significant impacts from the bridge that could have been avoided, then the city has to go back and redo that part of the EIR, a process that could take two to four months. And if they conclude, yeah, the impacts from the bridge are unavoidable, then they’d have to redo it to go around the slough.”

Flashman says he hasn’t seen the proposal CPSF and Lennar are working on. “But as part of this suit, we are required to sit down with the city and see if we can settle — and we are hopeful we can do that.”

The case for SEIU at Kaiser

David Talbot

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September 7, 2010

6

Editors note: In last week’s issue, we ran an op-ed piece by two hospital workers who are members of Service Employees International Union and want to change their affiliation to the new National Union of Healthcare Workers. SEIU asked for the right to respond, so we’re presenting the arguments of an SEIU worker who opposes the change.

OPINION I’m a licensed vocational nurse (LVN) at Kaiser Permanente Oakland, where I’ve worked for 26 years. As an LVN and a union shop steward, I have two passions: patients and workers.

I do home health visits. My patients are sick and sometimes feel anxious and upset. Those feelings can be overwhelming. When I walk into a patient’s house, that person has my full attention. Little things like that make people feel better and heal more quickly. That’s what’s important.

I also know that healthcare givers can’t provide good care if we don’t have the basic things we need. I worked for another hospital before, but I came to Kaiser because the benefits, wages, and working conditions were better — and the union was better.

Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), my union, is the largest at Kaiser and has represented workers here since the 1930s. It’s through our union that we’ve been able to make our jobs some of the best in California at one of the state’s largest employers. Kaiser workers are not just providing quality healthcare throughout the state, we’re also contributing to local our economies and getting our communities through these tough times.

I was one of 121 workers to be elected to the national bargaining team that negotiated our union contract, the largest committee ever in the history of our union. Members filled out surveys to set our priorities and we were able to win 9 percent raises over three years, no change in the cost of our fully-paid family healthcare, and some of the best job protection in the industry. I’m very proud that everyone’s voice was heard and that we had the largest ever rank-and-file member vote to approve our contract. But now all that could be lost.

On the heels of winning the contract, another union — the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) — filed a petition for an election to represent Kaiser workers. Now Kaiser workers will vote on which union they want: SEIU-UHW, the union we won this contact with, or NUHW, which hasn’t bargained a contract for anyone.

People want to know the truth, even if it’s a hard truth. Here’s the truth about NUHW: it was formed by former leaders of our union who were removed from office and have been found in federal court to have misused members’ money. NUHW was ordered by a federal judge to repay $1.57 million in damages to SEIU-UHW members. They then filed a motion to delay payment, saying it would potentially bankrupt the new union. But their motion was denied. Let’s face it — NUHW needs us more than we need them.

What’s going on right now with this union election is a shame. I see some of my coworkers getting afraid and angry — afraid that we could lose the wage increases and healthcare benefits we fought so hard for and angry that NUHW is coming after us like this and creating these distractions. I tell them what I tell my patients: just focus on healing and moving forward.

We have a long history at Kaiser of supporting each other as coworkers, which is why it’s so important that we resolve our differences and keep going. We’ve walked picket lines together, even when it’s to support workers in other hospitals, and have fought to improve the quality of care we deliver to patients. We’ve worked hard to create good jobs in this community while people around us are losing everything. All this has been possible because workers are united in our union SEIU-UHW. *

Earlene Person is a home health licensed vocational nurse at Kaiser Permanente Oakland and a member of the national bargaining committee for SEIU-UHW.

Alerts

David Talbot

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September 7, 2010

0

alert@sfbg.com

THURSDAY, SEPT 9

Feminists for Pubic Education

Attend this meeting to kick off a door-to-door campaign to help defend and extend free public education in San Francisco and the Bay Area. All are welcome to participate in the discussion and planning. Dinner with vegetarian option will be available at 6:15 p.m. for $7.50.

7 p.m., free

Radical Women

New Valencia Hall

625 Larkin, SF

(415) 864-1278

Free community health

Support two free community health programs at this benefit concert featuring Embers, Speed of Darkness, Somnolence, and Crucifixion. One program, the Street Level Health Project, offers medical screenings, a lunch program, mental health support, herbal medicine and nutrition, and other services for urban immigrant communities in the Bay Area. Another program, Casa Besu, aims to bring alternative, holistic treatments to the people of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico.

8 p.m., $5–$10

El Rio

3158 Mission, SF

(510) 533-9906

"Nine Years Later"

Hear Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international studies at USF and an expert on Middle Eastern politics, U.S. foreign policy, international terrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, strategic nonviolent action, and human rights, gives a talk titled "9/11: Nine Years Later. Where Has This Country Gone?"

6:30 p.m., free

Red Victorian Peace Café

1665 Haight, SF

www.pdamerica.org

Running Dry

National Geographic explorer and author Jonathan Waterman reads from and discusses his new book, Running Dry: A Journey from Source to Sea Down the Colorado River, about his trip down America’s most iconic whitewater river. The shrinking river irrigates 3.5 million acres of farmland and supports 30 million people on arid lands throughout the western U.S. and northern Mexico.

6 p.m., $10

The David Brower Center

2150 Allston, Berk.

(510) 848-1155

SATURDAY, SEPT 11

9/11 Rally and March

Honor the 104th anniversary of Ghandi’s nonviolent direct action practices by gathering in the Panhandle for speakers and performances promoting peace and an end to torture, occupations, racism, police violence, and other civil rights issues. Following the rally, there will be an 11 a.m. march through the Haight and Golden Gate Park to the Power to the Peaceful Festival.

10 a.m., free

Gather at the Panhandle

Fell at Ashbury, SF

(650) 857-0927

TUESDAY, SEPT 14

Choosing Children

Celebrate the 25th anniversary of the 1985 documentary that introduced viewers to the first generation of lesbians and gay men who chose to become parents after coming out, and to the challenges and joys faced by this early generation of parents. This screening and reception includes a discussion by Debra Chasnoff and Kim Klausner, the two Bay Area filmmakers who produced the film.

6:30 p.m., $25

Herbst Theater

401 Van Ness, SF

www.cityboxoffice.com

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.

Desperately seeking 2011 bee calendars

Mary Magee

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September 7, 2010

0

Since writing about this summer’s squash bee hunt, I’ve received a number of enquiries about how to view the 2011 North American bee calendar that was referenced in my article. The answer is fairly simple: visit the website for Dr. Gretchen LeBuhn’s Great Sunflower Project or for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.
According to native bee advocate Celeste Ets-Hokin, who produced the first ever North American Native bee calendar in 2010 in collaboration with Dr. Lebuhn, an environmental science professor at San Francisco State University, the bee calendars are a fundraising effort for Lebuhn’s Great Sunflower Project.
“The Great Sunflower project currently boasts an online membership of roughly 80,000 citizen scientists from across the United States and Canada who have joined Dr. LeBuhn in the hunt for bees,” Ets-Hokin said.”Members plant sunflowers in their garden and time how long it takes bees to visit, allowing Dr. Lebuhn to collect data on the health of the bee community across the continent.”
Sales of the 2011 North American Bee Calendar will continue to support the research of The Great Sunflower Project, as well as the pollinator conservation efforts of the Xerces Society of Portland, Oregon. Calendars may purchased here and here. Hope that clears up the mystery! (Apparently, the calendars only went on sale today September 7.) And enjoy learning more about the amazing lifestyles of North American bees!

Labor Day heroes

David Talbot

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September 3, 2010

0

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

Let’s pause for a moment this Labor Day to recognize some of our most important, yet most maligned workers.

They’re teachers and librarians, police officers and firefighters. They’re bus drivers, doctors and nurses. Judges and lawyers, landscape gardeners and arborists. They’re laborers and other maintenance and construction workers . . .

They are, of course, public employees. There are millions of them, who every day perform many thousands of the essential tasks that keep our country going.

It is they who keep our streets and highways, our parks and playgrounds safe and clean, who help educate our children, provide emergency health care, convey us to our jobs and back home, who sometimes risk their very lives to protect us from harm.

Yet for all that, public employees have come under heavy bipartisan attacks by political leaders and would-be leaders who find them an easy target to blame for the budget shortfalls that beset government at all levels. Labor costs, after all, make up the bulk of government spending everywhere.

The politicians and too many others who benefit from the public employees’ services – and, in fact, demand the services – say public employees are paid too much and their fringe benefits are way too generous, especially their pensions.

The employees’ pay and benefits were in most cases the result of democratic give-and-take collective bargaining and are guaranteed in union contracts that their government employers agreed to, sometimes after a long and difficult struggle by the workers.

But that was then, this is now. This is a time to make scapegoats of public employees, to shift the blame for economic troubles to them.

Public servants they were then, but public enemies they are now in many quarters, where they’re characterized as overpaid and underworked members of greedy and much too economically and politically powerful unions.
Their unions are now in the vanguard of the labor movement, growing larger and stronger while other unions shrink, and becoming serious new threats to anti-labor forces on Wall Street and elsewhere that seek profit from the work of others in private and public employment alike.

There’s no legitimate reason for any government entity to finance operations at the expense of its employees, whose jobs are among the nation’s most important, or to deny them much deserved pay and benefit increases. There’s plenty of money available to cover the costs.

And where is that treasure trove to be found? Where else but in money-hungry corporate America. It’s simple. Repeal the huge tax cuts that President Bush and his corporation-loving, union-hating Republican colleagues bestowed on their wealthy friends.

That would bring in an estimated $3.75 trillion over the next ten years and just about erase the federal budget deficit. But that’s not going to happen as long as Republicans retain enough votes in Congress to wage a filibuster.

GOP leaders would rather try to reduce the deficit by such outrageous steps as raising the Social Security retirement age from 67 to 70, and thus deny much-needed benefits to millions of the working class Americans who we honor on Labor Day.

None are more deserving of our appreciation, none more deserving of being honored than the men and women who do the work of government that benefits us all.

Happy Labor Day.

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

Save the bees, save the planet

Mary Magee

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August 31, 2010

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Native bee advocate Celeste Ets-Hokin didn’t just spend time this summer helping me find squash bees. She also spent months putting together a 2011 native bee calendar, and days writing letters to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about upcoming food safety regulations that will affect all U.S. food growers.

“The FDA sets regulations on how they grow food,” Ets-Hokin explained. “And that could have a negative impact on organic and sustainable growers if the FDA creates regulations that conflict with conservation.”

Farmers are stewards of the majority of the world’s arable areas, Ets-Hokin observes.

“And as stewards of 90 percent of the planet’s arable land, it’s important that growers understand the need for bee habitat and conservation,” she said. “This can be done by restoring habitat, putting in insectary plantings and hedgerows, and other measures.”

Ets-Hokin rejects the notion that bee conservation efforts are elitist.
“If it were so elitist, you wouldn’t have all these preexisting federal programs like the National Resources Conservation Service,” Ets-Hokin said.

But most agriculture operations are run by huge corporations that are not physically present on the land they control, she observes.
“So, when the growers plough under thousands of acres of field, leaving only a patch of dirt, they don’t have to see how it looks,” Ets-Hokin said. “But when farmers put hedgerows and insectaries around farms, they see flowers that bloom all year. That’s refreshing to the spirit. It provides ecosystem services like pollination and beneficial pest control. But it also provides a spiritual uplifting. And I think that is under valued.”

Ets-Hokin worries about the negative impacts on native bees and other beneficial pollinators if the FDA develops a one-size-fits-all approach to food safety.

“If they develop a model that’s tailored to industrial operations, and force it on smaller operations that don’t pose the same risks as bigger operations, with lots of middle men and plastic packaging processes, you incur another risk,” she said, referring to outbreaks of E. coli (Escherichia coli) food poisoning, which are caused by the ingestion of E. coli bacteria.

“When you bring organics to the farmer’s market, there is not one recorded case of E.coli,” Ets-Hokin continued. “But if you impose the same testing protocols and fees on small growers, you disincentivize conservation. And that’s too bad. We need the mosaic.”

In an effort to spread awareness about the importance of bee habitat, Ets-Hokin focussed her newly published 2011 bee calendar on the central role that bees, including native bees, play in ensuring the safety of our food supply and the health of our ecosystem.

“Without native bees, many of the plants that anchor our terrestrial ecosystems would eventually disappear,” Ets-Hokin wrote in the introduction to her calendar.

“So, it’s not enough to say that we’ll put aside a little area for conservation on farms,” she told me, as we hung out in her bee-friendly yard. “It must be done in a regenerative cycle, in which we reuse waste on farms as input for the next round of crops.”

Ets-Hokin also told me how she got into the bee calendar business.

“Originally, I was going to try and produce flash cards, but it turned out that a someone had already done that,” she recalled. “So, then I thought, why not do something more visible and affordable to a broader audience. And so I stole Rollin for the project.”

Ets-Hokin is referring to entomologist and insect photographer Rollin Coville. His kick-ass images helped make Ets-Hokin’s 2010 native bee calendar an instant classic.

“With insects, it’s important to focus on their eyes,” Coville told me in July, as we hunted for sthe elusive squash bee. And I think you’ll agree he’s right about bees’ eyes, when you check out the amazing images of these furry little vegetarians that illustrate Ets-Hokin’s 2011 bee calendar. Here’s hoping that her calendar will inspire growers and gardeners to include and conserve bee-friendly plants and habitat wherever they can. Save the bees, save the planet!