Health

“Failing to grasp the big picture”

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By Steven T. Jones

The supervisors that voted 4-1 yesterday to reject the MTA’s budget were smart, deliberate, curious, and forward-looking, so it’s no surprise that the Mayor Gavin Newsom’s flack Nathan Ballard told the Chronicle that they were “failing to grasp the big picture” and causing cuts in public health and other city services.

If those cuts happen, that’s Newsom’s fault for blocking the new revenue measures that President David Chiu, who also led this charge in questioning a budget that will hurt Muni and the city, tried to create. Instead, Newsom supports this utterly dishonest MTA budget, which takes even more than the $26 million per year that voters in 2007 said they wanted Muni to have by approving Prop. A and using it to fund pet projects that he wants to claim in his run for governor.

Newsom was also the one who decided to pay MTA director Nat Ford $316,000, the highest salary in the city, and to negotiate overly generous contracts with city police, fire, and management unions that he’s now having to try to go back and undo. He lets taxpayers pay Ballard and other highly paid political operatives and lets his precious 311 call center charge the MTA almost $2 per call, which is more than it costs to ride the bus. And he wants MTA is increase the number of fare inspectors, even though that program costs $8 million and only netted $350,000 in fines. On and on it goes, as the hearing yesterday clearly highlighted.

But don’t take my word for it, go to SFGTV and watch the Budget and Finance Committee hearing, starting around the third hour when this item began. Watch Chiu respectfully and intelligently ask insightful questions of Ford that clearly showed just how bad this budget is. Then you’ll grasp the big picture and appreciate who’s really running the city and who’s willing to sacrifice this city on the altar of his personal ambitions.

Supervisors seem primed to reject MTA budget

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By Steven T. Jones

While the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee hearing on President David Chiu’s proposal to reject the Municipal Transportation Agency’s disastrous budget is just getting underway, the fact that Chiu has six co-sponsors (giving him the seven votes required to reject it) seems to indicate that this budget is going down.

“If people have to pay more for less, they will stop taking Muni,” Chiu said at the hearing, referring to an MTA budget that closes a $126 million budget deficit mostly with Muni fare increases and deep service cuts.

Chiu and Sup. David Campos also took issue with the $66 million that the MTA is planning to pay out to other city agencies, most notably the police and health departments and the 311 call center, a pet project of Mayor Gavin Newsom. “Whatever money riders of Muni pay into the system should be used for public transportation,” Campos said, adding that his Mission District constituents are angry that the MTA is being used as a piggy bank by other city departments. “I’m very troubled by that and I believe the voters of my district are troubled by that.”

While this saga will take at least another week or two to play out at the board level, if Chiu’s co-sponsors remain supportive, the board is going to make the MTA come up with a fair, smart budget that doesn’t subsidize unrelated services or discourage public transit use when we need it most.

Mirant’s last gasp?

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rebeccab@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY A new multipronged effort to shut down San Francisco’s Mirant Potrero Power Plant is raising hopes that the end could be in sight for the controversial fossil-fuel-fired facility.

An ordinance proposed by Sup. Sophie Maxwell suggests that the entire facility — including the primary unit 3 and the smaller, diesel-fired units 4, 5, and 6 — could be shut off without having to create any new fossil fuel generation within city limits. The legislation would direct the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to figure out how to bridge the in-city electric generation gap using energy efficiency, renewable power, and other alternatives.

Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed against Mirant by City Attorney Dennis Herrera targets Mirant’s failure to perform seismic upgrades. The effort wouldn’t close the plant directly, but could make it more burdensome for Mirant to do business here. Mirant did not return calls for comment.

"Mirant has been given a free pass for a while, and the city doesn’t want to give it to them any more," Deputy City Attorney Theresa Mueller told the Guardian. "Part of the reason they’ve gotten away with not doing it is because it was expected to close."

City efforts to replace the Mirant plant’s power with combustion turbines that San Francisco already owns were derailed last year after Mayor Gavin Newsom withdrew his support for the plan, instead backing an alternative pushed by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. that would have retrofitted the Mirant plant, a proposal that consultants said didn’t pencil out and that failed to win Board of Supervisors’ approval (see "Power possibilities," 11/5/08).

Despite various city efforts to shutter the plant going back nearly a decade, Mirant Potrero still runs an average of 20 hours per day, according to figures released by the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO). In 2007, the plant released 235 tons of harmful pollutants into the air, and 336,300 tons of carbon dioxide.

For now, Cal-ISO requires Mirant to continue running to guarantee that the lights would stay on in the city even if major transmission lines fail. But with the installation of the Trans Bay Cable — a high-voltage power cord that will send 400 MW of electricity under the bay from Pittsburgh in 2010 — Mirant’s largest unit will be unnecessary.

"We assume that the Trans Bay Cable will be in service sometime in mid 2010. We can then drop Potrero [unit 3]" from the reliability contract, says Cal-ISO spokesman Gregg Fishman. The dirtier, diesel-powered units 4, 5, and 6 would still be required, he says.

Not everyone accepts this as the final word on the matter. Maxwell’s legislation calls for the SFPUC "to take all feasible steps to close the entire Potrero power plant as soon as possible." That ordinance, expected to go before the Land Use Committee on May 11, would direct the SFPUC to update a plan for the city’s energy mix, called the Electricity Resource Plan, to reflect a goal of zero reliance on in-city fossil-fuel generation.

The original plan, issued in 2002, was also designed to eliminate the Potrero plant. This time around, key assumptions have changed. Last year, as Newsom and some members of the Board of Supervisors battled over the Mirant-related projects, PG&E sponsored a study indicating that the city might not need new local power generation.

Maxwell’s new proposal, citing information from the PG&E assessment, now suggests that after the installation of the Trans Bay Cable and other transmission upgrades, the electricity gap for in-city generation will be much smaller than previously assumed. This gap, which Joshua Arce from the Brightline Defense Project likes to refer to as the "magic number," has apparently shrunk to 33 MW in 2012, as opposed to 150 MW. But Arce said, "We want the magic number to be zero."

Barbara Hale, assistant manager for power at the SFPUC, confirmed that the city agency was preparing to update the plan and noted that it would likely contract with a Colorado-based firm, Rocky Mountain Institute, to do it. "We are hoping we can meet San Francisco’s electricity needs in a way that does not involve fossil fuel generation in San Francisco," Hale told the Guardian.

Encouraged by the recent activity, environmental justice groups are organizing for what they hope will be the last push to shut down the Potrero plant. Tony Kelly, president of the Potrero Boosters and an activist on power plant issues, is optimistic. "There really is an end in sight to that power plant," he says.

Some eyebrows have been raised over the implications of the Trans Bay Cable, which by most accounts will be plugged into a fossil fuel-powered facility in Pittsburgh. "We really are going to be highlighting that San Francisco needs to take responsibility … so that we don’t have clean air on the backs of poor people and people of color in the East Bay," says Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice.

Nor is everyone feeling optimistic that the closure of the plant is near. Joe Boss, a member of the city’s Power Plant Task Force for about nine years, says he still doesn’t expect Cal-ISO to budge, and believes the city will have to live with the Potrero plant for years to come.

Fishman, from Cal-ISO, said that as things stand, units 4,5, and 6 will "almost certainly" still be required. Almost. "Between now and when the Trans Bay Cable is in service, we can conduct … studies on transmission projects that are officially presented to us," he added. "Based on the hard data that comes from those studies, we may reevaluate the need for local generation."

Shop local, City Hall!

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news@sfbg.com

On Dec. 3, 2008, just before noon, Mayor Gavin Newsom arrived at a press conference in Noe Valley to remind city residents why it’s important to shop locally. The mayor climbed out of his shiny new hybrid SUV, walked into the Ark Toy Company, showed charts and graphs, and talked about how money spent in town helps the local economy. Joined by Steve Falk, president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, Newsom urged holiday shoppers to look first in San Francisco before buying something on the Internet or in some suburban mall.

The mayor’s shop-local press conference was a clear sign that the debate over the role of small business in the San Francisco economy is over. Everyone from the mayor’s business advisors to the Chamber of Commerce to small business advocates and progressive economists now agrees that small local businesses provide the vast majority of the jobs, keep their money in town, and generate more tax dollars, more wealth, and more prosperity for this city than the big out-of-town chains.

It was a picture-perfect scene, until KPIX-TV reporter Hank Plante asked the mayor an embarrassing question: Why, he wanted to know, did the Mayor’s Office buy Newsom’s new car in Colma?

Newsom said he didn’t have a clue.

Actually, the reason was pretty simple: the dealership in Colma submitted the lowest bid. But San Francisco lost out on the sales tax, a local Chevy dealer that was going out of business lost a local sale, San Francisco workers lost a commission — and in the end, the city almost certainly lost more on the deal than it saved with the Colma discount.

That’s the untold story behind the mayor’s promotion. San Francisco, as a buyer of goods and services worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, does a terrible job at shopping local. Indeed, for years small business advocates have been trying to get city officials to make it easier for local merchants to get city contracts — and they’ve made very little progress.

"I’ve worked so hard on this, year after year, and nothing ever happens," Scott Hauge, a small business activist and organizer, told us. "After a while, I just threw in the towel."

Hauge is devoting his energy these days to statewide issues. But on the local level, there’s a growing sense that the city needs to do more to help small local businesses get their share of the massive public spending pie.

"The Small Business Commission has made it clear that this will be a priority over the next year," Regina Dick-Endrizzi, the commission’s acting director, told us.

Nobody knows exactly what percentage of city contracts for goods and services go to local businesses. Hauge said the Mayor’s Office did a limited survey about a year ago, but the data wasn’t very good. And while Newsom signed an executive order in 2005 directing departments to look for ways to patronize local businesses, there’s not much to show for it.

"I think probably less than 10 percent [of city spending] goes to local businesses," Hauge said.

Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, a former small business commissioner, agrees. "I think it’s accurate to say that at least 70 to 90 percent of all city contracts go to out-of-town businesses," he told us.

As Dick-Endrizzi pointed out, city purchasing has strict rules — and for good reason. "In most cases, you have to put out a request for proposals and take the lowest bid," she said. "If you didn’t have that, you’d have a big problem with favoritism."

But when the lowest bid is the only criterion, San Francisco businesses are at a distinct disadvantage.

"Say a city agency wants to buy five hammers," said Steven Cornell, owner of Brownie’s Hardware. "I have the hammers for $6, but somebody in Nowhere, Miss., can sell them for $5.99.

"Well, the shop in Mississippi doesn’t have to pay San Francisco’s minimum wage, doesn’t have to pay for sick days, doesn’t have to pay for health care … We’ve asked businesses to contribute to all these good social policies, then those businesses get penalized because someone else can sell something cheaper."

Cornell — who says he agrees that local businesses should pay well and give their workers benefits — is frustrated that when it comes to purchasing, the city doesn’t give anything back. "We lost S&C Ford, we lost Ellis Brooks Chevrolet," he said. "Those were all union jobs, with good benefits. And how many cars did the city buy from them?"

When Cornell was on the Small Business Commission, he remembered some small locally owned cabinet-making shops came to complain about a $4 million city contract for woodwork. "They told us that they lost the contract to a Canadian firm," he said. "The costs of operating in San Francisco were higher than in Canada, so they couldn’t compete."

"We do not as a city reflect the fact that we ask employers to do good things for their workers," Chiu added. "When we spend perhaps $1 billion a year in city contracts, those employers don’t have a level playing field."

Sure, on the surface and in the short term, the city gets a better deal when it awards contracts based entirely on price. But San Francisco has, as a matter of public policy, already decided there are good reasons to give minority-owned contractors some advantage in bidding, and that public contractors should pay prevailing union wages and offer benefits to domestic partners. Local enterprises get a modest advantage in some bids, but nowhere near enough to make up for the cost difference of operating in San Francisco.

And as Newsom himself has made clear, spending money locally has a long-term economic benefit that almost certainly outweighs the price differential in most bids. "When Newsom bought his car in Colma, the city lost the sales taxes, and lost the multiplier effect of the money being spent in town," Cornell noted.

In fact, a 2007 study by Civic Economics, sponsored by the San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Alliance, showed that if city residents shifted just 10 percent of their purchasing from national chains to locally-owned businesses, the city would gain 1,300 new jobs and $200 million in economic activity every year.

Imagine the activity — the positive benefits to the local economy — that would come with the city shifting, say, 25 percent of its spending to local businesses.

Obviously the city can’t buy everything in town. "Nobody in San Francisco makes Muni trains," Cornell noted. But a lot of what city departments buy, from hammers and paper to cars and trucks, is available from local suppliers — or could be. "If the city made it known it was looking to buy something locally, some entrepreneur would come along and figure out a way to supply it," Cornell said.

So how could this work on a policy level? It’s not that complicated. The city controller, or the Human Rights Commission, which oversees contracting policy, could devise a formula showing how much the cost of complying with city laws like the minimum wage, health care, and sick days (laws that most of us, and many small businesses, fully support) drives up the cost of doing business in San Francisco. Then give local merchants an equivalent advantage in the bidding process.

In other words, if the hammers at Brownie’s Hardware cost 25 cents more than the hammers in Nowhere, Miss., because Cornell pays for his workers’ health insurance, he should only have to come within 25 cents of the cut-rate suppliers’ price to get the city’s business. And if the taxpayers have to fork over a few cents more to buy local hammers, the money will come back, and more, from the demonstrated benefits of shopping locally.

Chiu thinks that’s a good idea, and he’s already taken the first steps to forcing the city to shop local. Chiu introduced legislation in April requiring the city to set aside a portion of all contracts for locally-wned businesses and to increase the financial advantage local firms get in bidding.

And at Chiu’s request, the HRC will appear before the supervisors Land Use Committee May 11 to present the latest data on how much city spending goes to local businesses. "I’ve been asking for this for two years," Chiu said.

"It is unwise for our city not to take $1 of public money and give it to a local business that will pass that dollar onto its local employee, who will then spend it at another local business," he added. "The multiplier effect of this is that money spent locally is better for the economy, and for the taxpayers."

Hoof it

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superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Hey, Shakes, have you puffy-penned and bedazzled your hamdemic flu mask yet? Mine’s totally going for that retro postapocalyptic electro look (so future yesterday!) and says "oink pAArty." I made it by running a pair of florescent New Balances and last-season Bottega Veneta remnants through my vintage Ronco Dial-O-Matic. Then I simply collaged. When the World Health Organization says "panic," I think "personalized nightlife accessory opportunity." Are they still serving bourbon bacontinis at Pop’s Bar on 24th Street? Flask us a threesome of those, text my porky ass from the Powerhouse trough, and let’s greet humanity’s swine song on the dance floor, chop chop.

TOPPA TOP


All praise to invaluable hometown hosts Jah Warrior Shelter HiFi Sound System for this weekly dancehall and reggae refresher at Club Six. None fear dread the mad decent cover, smoked-out vibe, and sticky-fresh deep-needling by the likes of Jah Yzer, Irie Dole, and Ivier at SF’s only "reggae happy hour". Wait, isn’t every reggae hour supposed to be happy hour?

Thursdays, 9 p.m., $5. Club Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com

FREQO DE MAYO


Right after you sleep off your crudo de Cinco, step to this annual wigout’s mixed piñata of up-to-the-nanosecond styles. Vibesquad, a.k.a. Denver crunkadelic producer and DJ Aaron Holstein, brings the dirty future bass. Scuba, my current sonic crush, kills with dubstep depth that suddenly rounds up into sweet release, and New York City’s DJ Sabo is the coolest baile breaks kid on the globaltronic block. Headliner Kid Kenobi is less intriguing — a slick Aussie techno-popper with a B-boy lite patina. But at that point, you may just want to drop a lime and cut loose in your funny hat.

Fri/8, 10 p.m., $15. 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com

DIRTYBIRD PAJAMA JAM


Ha ha ha, I feel so spring break. Famed local techno label Dirty Bird matches its goofy sensibility with a no-slumber party, bunny slippers and all. DJs Claude VonStroke, Worthy, Justin and Christian Martin, and up-and-comer J. Phlip bring the post-minimal hijinks, you bring the stripy drawers and stuffed E.T. dolls.

Fri/8, 10 p.m., $15, Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

MALUCA AND ISA GT


Ladies, it’s your turn. I’m fainting for bad-girl MC Maluca’s raw and minimal electro-mambo heartstopper "El Tigeraso" single — her Dominican-via-Brooklyn roots tangle in all the right places. Colombian turntable whiz Isa GT sets her filters on stun and techs up the new-cumbia phenom with some major bounce and rave-y buildups. She’s got big names like Crookers in her corner, remixing her blog hit "Pela’O," but she’ll carve out killer stratospherics of her own in her SF debut.

Sat/9, 10 p.m., $10. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com

NICKY SIANO **CANCELED! D’OH!


There is no house, there is no techno — there’s only a vast rainbow continuum of disco. So goes the current theoretical trope of dance music criticism (which unfortunately negates years of pre-mirrorball funk and kraut innovation). Still, if disco is Genesis, then DJ Nicky Siano of legendary ’70s Big Apple club the Gallery, which inspired Paradise Garage and Studio 54, is Adam — and this four-hour farewell set on the eve of his retirement should be a revelation.

Sat/9, 9:30 p.m., $15. Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom, SF. www.paradisesf.com

BIONIC


The 11-year-old Sunday chunky house and techno weekly has settled in nicely to its new digs at Triple Crown, just in time for some excellent weekend recovery comfort and joy. Sure, we all miss the great Top in Lower Haight, but the Crown’s primo sound system suits DJs Nikola Baytala, Solar, and surprise special guests quite rightly. Freak factoid: the night started out as "Bionic Peanut Butter" after the classic Gwen Guthrie throwdown. Yummers.

Sundays, 10 pm, $5, Triple Crown, 1760 Market, SF. www.triplecrownsf.com

CJC just criminalizes the poor

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OPINION Two SF police officers stood; another was in the car at the curb, door ajar, lights flashing onto the sidewalk. It was 3:00 p.m. and the lights, the three police officers, and the squad car were all focused on one small man huddled next to a shopping cart and a torn Hefty bag, shining steel handcuffs glittering off his deep brown wrists. The man said nothing as they arrested him. His "crime": sitting, standing, sleeping while houseless in San Francisco.

It’s illegal to be houseless in the United States. In fact, arguably it’s illegal to be poor in a nation that has somehow equated urban messiness with the presence of youth, adults, and elders sitting, standing, and convening in public and cleanliness with emptiness and the lack of people, color, and things. Since the new $2.7 million Community Justice Center (CJC) — a.k.a. the poverty court — opened in San Francisco, police have been out in droves drumming up customers.

There are so many wrong things about the CJC, beginning with criminalizing people in poverty just for being poor. As a poverty scholar and formerly houseless child and young adult who was incarcerated for the sole act of living without a home, I can say for a fact: it didn’t matter how many times you arrested me or my Boricua houseless mama — it didn’t take us out of homelessness. In fact, it made our situation more compounded, more complicated, more intractable.

The city is grappling with a $350 million budget deficit — it has been cutting back and closing vital emergency services for houseless people, like the Tenderloin Resource Center (TARC) and Caduceus, for example, which does truly revolutionary work with houseless folks who struggle with a psychological disability.

But I think one of the most terrifying aspects of the CJC is the institutionalization of a new form of criminalized service provision. This stems from the idea that the delivery of services, advocacy, mental health, physical health, and housing are somehow more urgently needed, deserved, or valid if they are triggered by arrest and adjudication.

At the hour of 3:00 p.m., near the corner of Hyde and Larkin streets, the system was triggered by Richie, a 56-year-old who used to hold down a construction job until he was laid off. Arresting him didn’t get Richie a job. The CJC didn’t get Richie a job. But, the folks there would argue, they referred him to job training and a temporary shelter bed. And guess what? Other organizations that didn’t arrest Richie also referred him to job training and a temporary shelter bed.

My mother and I didn’t get affordable housing, mental health services, or access to free child-care for my infant son because I was arrested.

Acts of revolutionary legal advocacy, art, support networks, and political awareness, like the ones I learned through the Suitcase Clinic, POOR Magazine, WRAP, the Coalition on Homelessness, and People Organized to Win Employment Rights, were what took me out of the sorrow and desperation and depth of struggle of poverty.

Criminalization, arrest, and adjudication of people in poverty really accomplishes only one thing: it brings the prison industrial complex to a neighborhood near you. *

Tiny a.k.a. Lisa Gray-Garcia is the author of Criminal of Poverty: Growing up Homeless in America and the cofounder of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork.

Prison report: Health care, the Rolling Stones and Oscar Wilde

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Editor’s note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His reports from the inside appear Mondays and Thursdays. He will respond to questions and comments, but since communications out of the state prison system are often difficult, it may take a little while.

By Just A Guy

Last week’s blog didn’t get as much response as I had hoped, but got what I expected. It is obvious that even the left is less concerned with the general living condition of prisoners than with the impact on the economy and society in general, but I think it is being overlooked that the way we are treated often results in de-sensitized individuals being released into to a world they now view as more agressive and unfair. I will use this to seque into medical and mental health care as this is a portrait of how we’re treated, too.

To say there is inadequate mental health care would be a gross understatement, this has been verified (by Elaina Jannell in previous posts) with respect to California State Prison-Solano. Keep in mind that Solano is supposed to be a pilot program prison, a place where they bring the politicians and tour groups to show what a great job the California Deparment of Corrections and Rehabilition is doing and how all your tax money is being spent.

Well, that’s Solano, not here or the other thirty-two prisons. If the mental health care is inadequate at a pilot program, imagine what it’s like somewhere that isn’t under the microscope!

I am one of those people that is supposed to be getting mental health care, but I have not seen anyone from the mental health staff in well over a year. While I feel I am well adjusted and, quite frankly, don’t hold the services in high regard (for obvious reasons) there are people around me who have blatantly obvious mental/psychological disorders that DO NOT receive care. The CDCR answer seems to be paint.

Betchya wonder what the hell I’m talking about.

Public access TV faces the axe

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By TIm Redmond

San Francisco stands to lose the vast majority of its public-access cable programming June 30th unless Sup. Ross Mirkarimi is able to convince his colleagues to try to force Comcast, the local cable operator, to keep paying the tab.

Comcast for years has paid enough money through its francise agreement with the city to fund the San Francisco Community Television Corporation, a nonprofit, at a level of roughly $700,000 a year. That pays for the studios on Market Street and a staff to manage 134 local programs that show on channels 29 and 76. It’s a wonderful mix of stuff, put together for what amounts to a bargain price in decidedly low-overhead studios, and demonstrates exactly what the notion of public-access TV is all about.

But in 2006, the state Legislature took the authority to regulate cable franchises away from cities — and that left San Francisco unable to continue demanding the payment for public access. Mirkarimi has figured out a way around it, and he has the support of state Sen. Mark Leno, who argues that the state legislation never intended to prevent cities from mandating public-access fees.

The technical glitch is language that seems to imply that the city can force Comcast to pay for facilities, but not for operating costs. Since the city’s pretty broke right now, it’s going to be hard to get $700,000 in General Fund money to pay the CTC staff. In fact, CTC applied to renew its contract, but the city said it was only going to be able to pay some $100,000 a year going forward.

But frankly, without a staff to operate the access channels, the whole enterprise will die.

Mirkarimi’s bill would hit Comcast with a new fee — and based on a letter he’s received from Leno, he thinks it will fly legally. But the cable company says it will simply pass that on to customers (who frankly don’t have a lot of choice in the market). The Chronicle’s Marisa Lagos put it this way:

A city report estimates that consumers, who currently shell out $6.24 per year, could end up paying 352 percent more, or $28.20 per year

That sounds like a whopping fee hike — 352 percent more! — but in reality, we’re talking about all of $21.96 a YEAR, or $1.83 a month. Which is pretty minimal.

At the Budget Committee, Mirkarimi and Sup. John Avalos voted to send the bill to the full board, which takes it up tomorrow, May 5th. Saving public access TV isn’t as important as saving public health, but it’s a part of San Francisco, and it’s a way for diverse and creative voices to get on the air — and it would cost the taxpayers nothing and cable subscribers pennies. This one needs community support.

What do (people) want?

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andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:
Have you heard of a study that analyzed biometric feedback from self-identified male bisexuals, and the notable finding was that the overwhelming majority of these men were in fact homosexual, not bisexual? The conclusion of the study was that "true" male bisexuality is extremely rare. (For what it’s worth, I consider myself a "true" male bisexual, but what do I know?)

I also heard about another study from at least 10 years ago that tracked the sexual fantasies of self-identified lesbians, and the surprising result was that some 50 percent of these women actually fantasized about men while doing it with their female partners.

Have you heard of these, and would you care to comment?
Love,

Actually Here!

Dear Here:

I have, of course, and they’re all fascinating, partly for the science (which is generally super-simple and not easily misinterpreted) and partly for the reactions in the various communities whenever one of these studies is reported, which are frankly pretty funny.

The "there’s no such thing as male bisexuality" studies have received the most press, and the biggest, most offended reactions, but it’s not like the researchers at Northwestern University and the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto set out to disprove the existence of an entire sexual orientation! All they did was hook up some volunteers to a plethysmograph and show them porn. I think the first researchers were probably as surprised as anyone when the self-identified bi men failed to respond in a recognizably "bi" manner. About three-quarters of the bi men read as completely gay according to their penises (do penises lie?), while the rest were indistinguishable from the self-identified straight guys. There was no recognizable "bi" pattern of arousal, and the subjects seemed overwhelmingly to fall on one or the other end of the Kinsey scale:

Regardless of whether the men were gay, straight or bisexual, they showed about four times more arousal" to one sex or the other, said Gerulf Rieger… the study’s lead author.

So obviously, you think you exist but you’re wrong, Bi Guy!

Okay, no. What do I really think? I think, for one thing , it’s all funny since in my little bubble of not only San Francisco-ness but San Francisco sex educator-ness, fake bi guys who are actually straight but want hot bi chicks to think they’re cool way outnumber bi guys who are actually gay but closeted. Also, I do think you exist. Clearly truly bi men are rarer even than we thought, but I’m fairly certain that you are not a figment of your own or my imagination, and I think sexuality is a mite more complicated than penile plethysmography.

Another study, described here in a ScienceDaily article from 2003, and distinguished by including only people who identified as gay or straight, turned up more bisexual women than expected, but replicated earlier results where gay and straight (but not bi) men responded consistent with their self-identification: In contrast, both homosexual and heterosexual women showed a bisexual pattern of psychological as well as genital arousal. That is, heterosexual women were just as sexually aroused by watching female stimuli as by watching male stimuli.

The extraordinary article on female desire that ran in The New York Times Magazine (www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25desire) introduced recent research by Meredith Chivers, who’s been following up on the research above with the added fillip of throwing some ape porn in the mix and requiring volunteers to report their own perceptions of their arousal levels, which proved wildly inaccurate: During shots of lesbian coupling, heterosexual women reported less excitement than their vaginas indicated; watching gay men, they reported a great deal less; and viewing heterosexual intercourse, they reported much more. Among the lesbian volunteers, the two readings converged when women appeared on the screen. But when the films featured only men, the lesbians reported less engagement than the plethysmograph recorded. Whether straight or gay, the women claimed almost no arousal whatsoever while staring at the bonobos.

Good to know!

As for the studies (self-reported behavior, no telemetry) that show a high percentage of self-described lesbians fantasizing about men while having lesbisex, eh. People fantasize about all kinds of things, particularly things they feel uncomfortable about. Are those women fake lesbians? The furthest I can go with that is to say that we’ve seen that women are much (so much!) more likely than men to be bisexual by attraction. I’m assuming that some of the women studied are physically attracted to both, but emotionally more attached to women ("Whom do you fall in love with?" is a hugely important but oft-neglected measure of sexual orientation) and some are into women but enjoy fantasies of committing unnatural acts with men. That some must be really not that into chicks but have chosen for whatever reason to live as lesbians is undeniable but just not that important. They wouldn’t be the first people to partner with someone not of their preferred gender, or the last, and their existence does not cast doubt on anyone else’s authenticity. Can anyone do that?

Love,

Andrea

Don’t forget to read Andrea at Carnal Nation.com.

Arnold’s big hoax

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The choice facing California voters May 19 is, to put it mildly, unpleasant. The budget deal hammered out by the governor and legislative leaders — which these six ballot measures will confirm and implement — at least kept the state solvent and prevented a financial catastrophe. But the solution is just terrible, and will lock the state into a budgetary nightmare for years to come.

State Sen. Mark Leno, who supports the deal, makes no attempt to soft-peddle what went on here. It was, he told us, the result of "extortion." Because California has an arcane and counterproductive rule mandating that any state budget and any tax increases must be approved by two-thirds of both houses of the Legislature, and because Republicans control just enough votes to block any budget, and because those Republicans have all signed a written promise never to raise taxes under any circumstances, and because Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can’t get the GOP to go along with his compromises and is unwilling to accept Democratic proposals that might escape the onerous supermajority, budget stalemate in tough times is almost guaranteed. And in this case, because the state was running out of cash and hundreds of thousands of people were about to be put out of work as state-funded projects shut down, the Democrats were forced to accept a compromise none of them like.

A small number of Republicans insisted on vast changes in the way California does business — and because the Democrats saw no other options, the GOP faction got much of what it wanted. The result: the Democratic Party leadership is campaigning for a series of measures that reflect, to a significant extent, a Republican view of how the state should be run.

The opposition to the package comes from the far right (which is upset because the budget deal includes some new taxes, albeit regressive ones) and, increasingly, progressives, who argue that the measures will make it harder for the state to meet the needs of a growing (and aging) population.

We’ve listened to both sides, researched the measures in depth, and concluded that the best choice for Californians is to reject Propositions 1A through 1F. The proposal may address (most of) this year’s budget woes and keep the state running for a while, but it will create a fiscal straightjacket on the order of Proposition 13 that will damage California and undermine any progressive policy hopes for many, many years into the future. If the voters accept this deal today, they’ll come to regret it.

Proposition 1A doesn’t quite reach the Republican holy grail — a cap on annual government spending — but it goes a long way in that direction. The measure would require the state to make annual contributions to a budget reserve fund until the reserve reaches 12.5 percent of general fund revenue. The state would have to set aside reserve money every year, even in very bad years. If next year’s budget deficit is as bad as this one, Prop. 1A would make it worse. It restricts the use of "unanticipated revenues" — meaning the state can’t spend money it might have in very good years. There’s a really complicated formula for when the state can dip into the reserve, and how it can be used, but the California Budget Project, the respected policy watchdog group, points out that the measure amounts to a cap in spending, one that won’t keep pace with California’s needs.

"Prop. 1A would not address California’s existing structural shortfall — the gap between revenues and expenditures — that exists in all but the best budget years," CBP notes. "By basing the new cap on a level of revenues that is insufficient to pay for the current level of programs and services, Prop. 1A would limit the state’s ability to restore reductions made during the current downturn out of existing revenues."

The guidelines for future spending don’t take into account the increased demand for public services California will face in the next few years. The population will increase by 29.4 percent over the 2000 level by 2020, state officials project, but the number of people 65 and older will increase by 75 percent. That will put a huge new demand on state services — and if Prop. 1A passes, the budget won’t be able to expand to meet those needs.

The budget compromise included some temporary tax increases. The sales tax is slated to go up by one cent on the dollar, the vehicle license fee will rise slightly, and there’s an across-the-board increase in income taxes. Sales taxes are the most regressive way to raise revenue, and the income tax hikes hit the rich and the middle class evenly — hardly a fair or progressive plan.

But that money is needed to close the horrendous budget gap, and the propositions are designed to make it hard for progressives to say no. If Prop. 1A and Prop. 1B go down, the taxes expire after two years. If those measures pass, the taxes continue until 2012.

Prop. 1B is part of a deal that the governor cut with the California Teachers Association, the largest union of educators in the state. It shifts some more money to the public schools to make up for what was cut this year and last. It’s a complicated formula, but in effect it probably does nothing more than what Prop. 98 — the state’s mandate to fund education — already requires. The problem is that the governor and the school districts disagree on what Prop. 98 says, and without 1B, it’s unlikely that money will be forthcoming. The money California’s public schools get under 1B is still woefully inadequate; and again, this does nothing to address the structural problems.

Prop. 1C allows the state to borrow $5 billion from future lottery revenues to help balance the current budget. Of course, that money won’t be available in future years — unless, as 1C suggests, the lottery can find ways to sell more tickets. The idea here: increase lottery revenue through better marketing, thus taking more money from poor people (the lottery is an overwhelmingly regressive source of income).

Prop 1D’s title, "Protects children’s services funding," is a complete lie. Instead it redirects money earmarked for early childhood programs into the general fund, essentially de-funding some of the most effective and inexpensive programs California offers. Prop. 1E is a similar deal — it temporarily suspends the program that funds mental health services with a tax on the very rich, and puts that money into the general fund instead.

Prop. F is just stupid — it prevents lawmakers and the governor from receiving pay increases when there’s a budget deficit. That’s not going to change anything in Sacramento.

We’re acutely aware of the risks inherent in voting down this intricately orchestrated budget compromise. In effect, the Legislature, which has been paralyzed by the two-thirds rule, will have to go back and try again. The governor, who is ineffective at best and a severe roadblock at worst, will be little help. And the anti-tax forces will claim that the voters have vindicated their position.

But let’s look at reality. The tax increases will be in effect for the next two years anyway. The state’s budget position has worsened in the past month, so the Legislature will have to figure out how to deal with an $8 billion additional shortfall no matter what happens.

And in the fall of 2010, state voters will almost certainly have a chance to repeal the two-thirds budget rule — and have a good chance to elect a Democratic governor.

California needs major, structural budget reform. If we thought this were just a temporary painful deal that would postpone the worst of the state’s problems until Schwarzenegger and the GOP obstructionists were gone, we’d be tempted to support the package. But these measures lock the state into an unacceptable budget situation forever.

Vote no on 1A–1F.

Pitting poor against poor

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OPINION In 2004, California voters passed Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA), to fund the expansion of community-based mental health services. MHSA is funded through a 1 percent tax on the portion of a taxpayer’s income in excess of $1 million. It was a form of uniquely appropriate progressive taxation, making the rich pay for all the ways they test our sanity, made especially acute today in the wake of foreclosures and job losses.

Today, Gov. Schwarzenegger is leading a bipartisan assault on Prop. 63, which funds an array of needed services in California and San Francisco. By placing Proposition 1E on the May ballot, the governor is asking voters to divert MHSA money to pay for the budget deficit. This maneuver ignores the fact that California is a safer, saner place because of the act — 200,000 people are now enrolled in mental health services who were not in 2004.

The proposition pits the poor against the poor, making mental health consumers pay the price for the budget deadlock in Sacramento. Mental health services are designed to improve the lives of communities by minimizing the potential for homelessness and hospitalization. Prop. 1E, pitched as a two-year measure, leaves effective programs in the lurch, threatening resources in every neighborhood.

MHSA funds programs for youth and families affected by street and gang violence, queer youth showing early signs of mental health issues, and residents in supportive housing. One of its key accomplishments has been the expansion of resources designed to reach consumers in culturally appropriate ways, with an open process, allowing communities to design solutions to their own problems.

"After Prop. 63 was passed, people with untreated mental health needs saw a glimmer of hope," remarked James Keyes, who serves as a member of the San Francisco Mental Health Board. "In San Francisco alone, we were able to do workforce training, prevention, and housing retention among people with mental health concerns. These innovative programs might not be with us if Prop. 1E passes."

For whatever short-term savings Prop. 1E might provide, the long-term consequences are disastrous. The costs of untreated mental illnesses affect our public health system. Those who never get care, or who lose care, will likely find their jobs, housing, and relationships in peril, and will rely on the remaining (and much more expensive) threads of the social safety net.

Vote No on 1E and send a message to the state government that long-term budget solutions start with Prop. 63’s logic — progressive taxation on those with the most ability to pay. Letting the governor and the legislature cut essential survival services to balance the budget sets a horrible precedent. If voters let them get away with it, they will surely target poor people every time the budget is deadlocked. *

James Tracy works with Community Housing Partnership.

alt.sex.column: What do (people) want?

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By Andrea Nemerson. View more alt.sex columns here. Email your questions to Andrea: andrea@altsexcolumn.com

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Dear Andrea:
Have you heard of a study that analyzed biometric feedback from self-identified male bisexuals, and the notable finding was that the overwhelming majority of these men were in fact homosexual, not bisexual? The conclusion of the study was that "true" male bisexuality is extremely rare. (For what it’s worth, I consider myself a "true" male bisexual, but what do I know?)

I also heard about another study from at least 10 years ago that tracked the sexual fantasies of self-identified lesbians, and the surprising result was that some 50 percent of these women actually fantasized about men while doing it with their female partners.

Have you heard of these, and would you care to comment?
Love,

Actually Here!

Dear Here:

I have, of course, and they’re all fascinating, partly for the science (which is generally super-simple and not easily misinterpreted) and partly for the reactions in the various communities whenever one of these studies is reported, which are frankly pretty funny.

The "there’s no such thing as male bisexuality" studies have received the most press, and the biggest, most offended reactions, but it’s not like the researchers at Northwestern University and the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto set out to disprove the existence of an entire sexual orientation! All they did was hook up some volunteers to a plethysmograph and show them porn. I think the first researchers were probably as surprised as anyone when the self-identified bi men failed to respond in a recognizably "bi" manner. About three-quarters of the bi men read as completely gay according to their penises (do penises lie?), while the rest were indistinguishable from the self-identified straight guys. There was no recognizable "bi" pattern of arousal, and the subjects seemed overwhelmingly to fall on one or the other end of the Kinsey scale:

So you’ve decided to do a juice cleanse

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By Paula Connelly

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Click here to read the Spring 09 Feast article, Get juiced: Fresh, healthy alternatives to the Master Cleanse.

I asked Carolynn Kraskouskas, owner and operator of Be Whole Again! bodywork and nutritional therapy (Be Whole Again!, 3150 18th Street Mlbx 511, Suite 536, SF; www.bewholeagain.net) to help lay out the basics of planning a detox:

It is important to remember that each person is unique and each cleanse should be designed to work towards your personal goals. Your first step should be to set a goal and figure out the organs you’d like to target in your cleanse. Specifically, what you want to move, slow down or remove. Most people cleanse for weight loss and greater regularity, when they feel like their system has become sluggish, generating a feeling of a lack of health. They are interested in digestive cleanses, which allows their organs to rest and cleanse themselves. However, it is crucial to remember that if you cleanse anything you often take the good with the bad. That is why one of your primary goals in cleansing should be rebuilding. Cleanses need to be sandwiched with a program that rebuilds the organs as well as cleanses them. Rainbow grocery sells popular cleanses in a box that also rebuild.

Keep in mind that our eliminative channels for waste and toxins function in a hierarchy: bowels, kidneys, lungs, skin, and, for women, menstruation. Spending some time cleaning out your bowels before you detox can help to lessen the stress on your other channels during detox, and considerably lessen adverse detox symptoms during your fast, like headaches, rashes and diarrhea. Then you can tackle your targeted organs. It’s good to do some gentle exercise like walking or yoga and a sauna or steam room can help you to sweat out some of those stubborn toxins. Also, you should be aware that you might have to deal with surfacing emotions. This is also a mental cleanse. Food, and the habit of eating food, provides a comfort zone that distracts us from fully experiencing some emotions. Most of the time this is a good thing because we need to function productively and not dwell on negative things. However, every once in a while it’s good to “clear our cache” to lighten the accumulated mental load of every day life. Expect to go through highs and lows and don’t attempt any cleanse for less than two weeks because you’ll likely experience more negative effects than positive.

Get juiced

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culture@sfbg.com

I hate the Master Cleanse.

Fighting against our bodies to make them do what we want is counterproductive. Instead, if you cultivate better communication with your body’s needs and reward yourself when it does what you want, you’ll find you’re more in control of your health.

Detoxing can be a beneficial part of doing this, and I have reaped many benefits from raw vegan detoxes. But contrary to popular belief, I think the Master Cleanse does exactly the opposite.

For those who don’t know, the Master Cleanse is a program in which you drink a concoction of water, lemon, maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and sea salt — exclusively — for anywhere from three to 30 days. The cleanse was recently made popular stars like Beyonce as a last-minute way to look good on the red carpet. But some experts say that the cleanse can do more harm than good.

One issue, says Carolynn Kraskouskas, owner and operator of Be Whole Again! Bodywork and Nutritional Therapy (Be Whole Again!, 3150 18th Street Mlbx 511, Suite 536, SF; www.bewholeagain.net), is that cleansing is supposed to allow your organs to rest and rebuild themselves. But the average person doesn’t eat a healthy enough diet to sustain itself during the Master Cleanse. Therefore the diet creates a system where the body doesn’t think you will treat it right, throwing the internal balance off. “For most people who are sick, run-down, tired, or stressed out, it simply stresses the system out more, creating inflammation and a rise in the pH of a person,” she said. This can create an acidic environment that, she says, is the basis for all disease.

So what’s the alternative? Many experts recommend raw juice cleansing or fasting. (Juice is considered raw when it comes from fresh fruits and vegetables, never frozen or pasteurized.) Some say a juice fast can diminish the ill effects of fatigue, skin issues, headaches, insomnia, weight loss and gain, and more.

But what of the lemons used in the Master Cleanse? Cherie Calbom, the “Juice Lady” on Raw Vegan radio (www.rawveganradio.com) admits these do provide some pH regulation and antioxidants, but not enough to deal with the amount of toxins being released during the cleanse. “If you don’t have antioxidants to bind to those toxins, they can do tissue damage,” she says. “Vegetable juice fasting is a much healthier way to go. Antioxidants bind the toxins and carry them out of the body.”

The toughest part about a raw juice fast is that the juice is extremely perishable and should be drunk immediately. There are steps you can take to store fresh juice for up to 24 hours, but, as you can imagine, this could be a full-time job. We’ve assembled a list of places in the city that can help you maintain a healthy juice fast while still having a life. Some places, like Juicey Lucy’s, even provide personal consultations to determine the best cleanse for you and then deliver a full, raw, seasonal, organic juice cleanse to your door three days a week. And don’t forget that even if you’re not fasting, fresh juices are a healthy — and delicious — addition to any diet.

(For more specific information on juice fasting, visit our Pixel Vision blog at www.sfbg.com/blogs/Pixel_Vision.)

Juice Resources

Cafe Del Soul 247 Shoreline Hwy, Mill Valley. (415) 388-1852, www.cafedelsoul.net

Cafe Gratitude 2400 Harrison, SF. (415) 830-3014; 1336 9th Ave, SF. (415) 683-1346; 1730 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 725-4418; 230 Bay Place (in Whole Foods), Oakl. (510) 250-7779, www.cafegratitude.com

Cafe Venue 218 Montgomery, SF. (415) 989-1144, www.cafevenue.com

Estela’s Fresh Sandwiches 250 Fillmore, SF. (415) 864-1850

Frapez 4092 18th St., SF. (415) 503-1323, www.frapez.com

Herbivore 983 Valencia, SF. (415) 826-5657; 531 Divisadero, SF. (415) 885-7133; 2451 Shattuck, Berk., (510) 665-1675

Judahlicious 3906 Judah, SF. (415) 665-8423, www.judahlicious.com

Juicey Lucy’s market stand at Noe Valley’s farmers market on Saturday and Kaiser Permanente’s Geary Street farmers market on Wednesday; 703 Columbus, SF. (415) 786-1285, www.juiceylucys.com

The Plant Cafe Organic 3352 Steiner, SF. (415) 931-2777,www.theplantcafe.com Power Source Juice Bar 81 Fremont, SF. (415) 896-1312, www.powersourcecafe.com

Raw Energy Organic Juice and Café 2050 Addison, Berk. (510) 665-9464, www.rawenergy.net

Sidewalk Juice 3287 21st St., SF. (415) 341-8070

 

Homeless rally against budget cuts at City Hall

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By Rebecca Bowe

Proposed cuts to homeless-services programs drew a crowd of around 200 homeless people and service workers to the steps of San Francisco City Hall this afternoon. The Coalition on Homelessness, the Mission Neighborhood Resource Center, Tenderloin Health, the SRO Collaborative and other organizations set up an outdoor drop-in center and handed out bagged lunches to rally participants. A line of tents that had been set up on the lawn was labeled as the city’s homelessness plan.

“These are not times to cut any services,” said Laura Guzman, director of the Mission Neighborhood Resource Center, which assists homeless people by providing case management, housing or shelter placement, and other needs. Her organization has seen some 1,500 additional visits per month since the recession hit, Guzman noted, and that they’re constantly at full capacity.

“There’s just not enough bed space to go around,” noted Mission Neighborhood Resource Center staffer Cyn Bivens.

Ammiano for governor?

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By Tim Redmond

I don’t see why not — after all, Tom Ammiano as a supervisor was responsible for the two main accomplishments Mayor Gavin Newsom takes credit for in his slick campaign video.

Newsom says that San Francisco is “well on our way to universal health care.” Yes, that’s true — and it’s because Ammiano — with zero help from Newsom — pushed through the Healthy San Francisco law.

The mayor also claims that the city’s bond rating is up and that San Francisco is relatively fiscally sound because of the Rainy Day Fund. Again — that was Ammiano’s bill, and Newsom did absolutely nothing to help pass it.

“He want to be the governor of appropriations, because he appropriates everyone else’s ideas,” Ammiano told me.

Truthfully, Newsom has very little in the way of actual accomplishments (except for same-sex marraige, which is a major accomplishment he can take a lot of credit for, but isn’t pushing and doesn’t even mention in his campaign video.)

What a fucking fraud.

Do the right thing, Dianne

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OPINION At the end of World War II, approximately 36 percent of American workers belonged to a union. Today that number has shrunk to about 12 percent, lagging behind the world’s other industrial democracies. But now, with a Democratic president in office, we have a realistic chance of enacting the most significant piece of labor legislation in decades, the Employee Free Choice Act, which would protect the right of workers to organize into a union.

The opposition, of course, is well organized and well funded. Opponents will spend more than $200 million to defeat the bill in the Senate. They will argue that EFCA is just a special interest bill that helps big labor. But the truth is that the legislation should be part of the long-term economic recovery plan and is key to rebuilding the middle class.

In 1980, average CEO pay was 42 times that of the average blue-collar worker. By 2006, CEO pay had grown to 364 times the average blue collar worker’s pay. A survey of median weekly earnings in 2007 revealed that union workers make 30 percent more than their nonunion counterparts, and are 59 percent more likely to have employer-provided health coverage than other workers.

The key EFCA reform, and the one that has generated the most controversy, is called “card-check.” Under EFCA, if the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) finds that a majority of employees have signed written authorization forms designating the union as their collective bargaining representative, the union is certified.

Opponents of card-check often argue, erroneously, that EFCA will deprive workers of their right to a so-called secret ballot. In fact, EFCA preserves both options, but it places the choice in the hands of workers, not employers. Moreover, the history of these “secret ballot” elections shows that they are often anything but democratic. Too often employers use their power over unorganized employees to intimidate them into voting against the union. Such documented employer tactics have included mandatory attendance at antiunion meetings, one-on-one meetings, threats to close the business if the union wins the vote, and harassing or even firing workers engaged in organizing activity.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has an 87 percent lifetime voting record from the AFL-CIO and has co-sponsored EFCA in the past. But now, with EFCA finally within reach, she has announced that she is looking for a “less divisive” option.

Say it isn’t so, Senator.

For many years progressive activists have had concerns about Feinstein, even going as far as to seek her censure at a state Democratic convention two years ago. In 2007, the party leadership reminded the activists that although she may stray occasionally, Feinstein is really a good Democrat who shares our basic values and commitments. There was no censure.

But workers’ rights is no side-issue in our Democratic Party. Economic justice is the issue. This is a moment of truth for Feinstein — and all of us who are her constituents have an obligation to help her get to the right answer.

On April 28 at 7 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center, the SF Labor Council, Pride at Work, and the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club are sponsoring a community briefing on our campaign to urge Feinstein to support working people. Join us. *

Robert Haaland is the co-chair, SF Pride at Work. Rafael Mandelman is president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club.

 

SFIFF: 52 pick-up

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cheryl@sfbg.com

In early April, a long-range rocket blasted off from deepest, darkest North Korea; according to a Reuters.com news report, the communist country claimed that its satellite was "launched into orbit and [is now] circling the Earth transmitting revolutionary songs." Um, yeah. Most folks say the rocket failed — and that its real purpose was to test North Korea’s dropping-warheads-on-our-enemies capabilities. Recent rumors of ill health aside, North Korea’s Kim Jong-il appeared shortly after the incident to mark his re-election as the chairman of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s National Defense Commission.

As scary as it is to imagine the pompadored, isolationist "Great Leader" with his mitts on nukes, to focus on North Korea’s threat to the outside world takes away from the atrocities committed within its borders, against its own citizens. As NC Heikin’s quietly terrifying Kimjongilia reveals, the dictator’s country is a cruel, brutal place. The doc features interviews with North Korean refugees whose tales of escape are as harrowing as their recollections of life back home — a place where simply listening to music from a capitalist country or dropping a newspaper with a photograph of Kim on the floor were infractions that could mean imprisonment for three generations of a single family. Starvation, torture, and constant fear factor into nearly every story; families are separated, and even those who escape struggle, such as a woman whose "freedom" in China translated into years of sex slavery. For these people, WMDs are the least of their concerns.

Peering beyond what’s obvious is a theme at the 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival, with a slate that’s particularly doc-heavy. For every gesture that’s a little debatable (you can spin that Francis Ford Coppola directing award however you want, but Apocalypse Now came out in 1979, and 2007’s Youth Without Youth sucked), there are many that deserves high praise: groundbreaking local documentarian Lourdes Portillo receiving the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award, for example. Read on for the Guardian‘s coverage of this year’s fest, and keep watching the skies.

KIMJONGILIA

May 3, 3:30 p.m.; May 6, 3:15 p.m., Sundance Kabuki

May 4, 6:30 p.m., PFA


THE 52ND SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL runs April 23–May 7. Main venues are the Sundance Kabuki, 1881 Post, SF; Castro, 429 Castro, SF; Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, Berk; and Clay, 2261 Fillmore, SF. Satellite venues are Premier Theater, Letterman Digital Arts Center, Bldg. B, One Letterman Drive, Presidio, SF; and Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF. Tickets (most shows $12.50; special programs vary) and additional information at www.sffs.org.

More: Reviews, interviews, and more SFIFF 52 coverage on the Pixel Vision blog as the festival unfolds.

Uncivil unions

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steve@sfbg.com

Who really cares about an appointment to the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District Board of Directors? There isn’t a delicate balance of power on the board or any major initiative at stake in this fairly obscure district. San Francisco certainly has more pressing issues and concerns.

Yet the Board of Supervisors’ April 14 vote to reject Larry Mazzola Jr. and select Dave Snyder for that board says more about San Francisco’s political dynamics, the state of the American labor movement, the psychological impact of the recession, how the city will grow, and the possibilities and pitfalls facing the board’s new progressive majority than any in recent memory.

It was a vote that meant nothing and everything at the same time, a complex and telling story of brinksmanship in which both sides of the progressive movement arguably lost. And it was a vote that came at a time when they need each other more than ever.

"It was a win for the Newsom-oriented elements of labor," Sup. Chris Daly, who helped spark the conflict, told the Guardian.

The bloc of six progressive supervisors who shot down Mazzola — who helps run the powerful plumbers union and was the San Francisco Labor Council’s unwavering choice for an appointment that has traditionally been labor’s seat on the bridge board — is the same bloc the unions helped elected last year. It is also the same bloc that has been fighting the hardest to minimize budget-related layoffs.

The vote says a tremendous amount about the crucial alliance between progressives and labor, how that delicate partnership formed, and what the future holds.

PLUMBERS VS. PROGRESSIVES


The Mazzola name carries a lot of weight in San Francisco labor circles. The Web site for the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry Local 38 (UA 38) features a photo of U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis standing between Larry Mazzola Sr. and Larry Mazzola Jr., the father and son team that runs the union.

But the Mazzolas and their union are also controversial. As the Guardian has reported ("Plumbers gone wild," 2/1/06), the union owns a large share of the Konocti Harbor Resort (which a lawsuit by the Department of Labor said was a misuse of the union’s pension funds) and owns the Civic Center Hotel, which tenants and city officials say has been willfully neglected by a union suspected of wanting to bulldoze and develop the site. The plumbers and other members of the building trades have also fought with progressives over development issues and generally back moderate-to-conservative candidates.

Sup. Chris Daly and several progressive groups locked horns with the union over the hotel a few years ago, and Mazzola Sr. responded by opposing Daly’s 2006 reelection campaign, targeting him with nasty mailers and donating office space to Daly’s opponent, Rob Black. Yet more progressive unions like Service Employees International Union Local 1021, which represents city employees, convinced the Labor Council to back Daly and union support helped Daly win.

So when Mazzola Jr. came before Daly’s Rules Committee last month, the supervisor unloaded on him, and Mazzola gave as good as he got, telling Daly he didn’t want his support and defiantly telling the committee he didn’t know much about the bridge district, or its issues, but he expected the job anyway. Those on all sides of the issue agree it was a disaster.

"He was just patently unqualified for the position," Daly told the Guardian. Mazzola tells us his experience with labor contracts would be an asset for the position, but he admits the committee meeting didn’t go well. "I was caught off-guard and put in a defensive mode that altered my planned presentation," Mazzola told us.

Whatever the case, Sup. David Campos joined Daly in keeping the Mazzola nomination stuck in committee while the progressive supervisors privately asked labor leaders to offer another choice. "We said, ‘Give us anyone else as long as they can intelligently talk about transportation issues and the bridge district," Daly said.

But labor dug in. "It seemed as though the board was trying to dictate to labor what labor should do," Michael Theriault, who heads the San Francisco Building and Construction Trade Council. And the other unions decided to back the trades, for a number of complicated reasons.

"The reason we supported Larry Mazzola is because this was important to the plumbers union," said Mike Casey, president of the Labor Council and head of Unite Here (which includes the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union). "To the extent we can support the trades, we want to."

So when the four most conservative members of the Board of Supervisors used a parliamentary trick to call the Mazzola nomination up to the full board on April 14, the stage was set for the standoff.

THE STATE OF LABOR


Labor is truly a house divided, despite its universal interest in minimizing recession-related layoffs and taking advantage of a new Congress and White House that is generally supportive of labor’s holy grail: the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it far easier to form unions.

The April 25 founding convention of National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) in San Francisco caps a years-long battle between Sal Rosselli’s United Healthcare Workers (UHW) and their SEIU masters (see "Union showdown," 1/28/09). Rosselli and many others say SEIU under Andy Stern has become undemocratic and has climbed in bed with corporate America, while SEIU says getting bigger has made the union better able to advocate for workers. Both accuse the other of being power-hungry and not fighting fair.

"Inside SEIU, we’ve been struggling for four years basically on a difference of ideology and vision of what the labor movement is," Rosselli told us. David Regan, who SEIU named as a UHW trustee after ousting Rosselli, told us the union divisions have been overstated by the media. "Everyone is together in pushing the Employee Free Choice Act," he said, glossing over the fact that the legislation is in trouble and recently lost the support of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Nationally, SEIU has been at war with all of the most progressive unions. The union recently made peace with the California Nurses Association after a particularly nasty struggle that involves many of the same dynamics as SEIU vs. NUHW, including accusations by CNA that SEIU was a barrier to achieving single-payer healthcare and was illegally meddling in its internal affairs.

SEIU is also accused of breaking up Unite Here, which fought the most high-profile labor battle here since Newsom became mayor in its contract fight with the big hotel chains. Last month, a large faction from the old Unite affiliated with SEIU, whose officials say they were just helping out after the end of what all knew was a bad marriage. "This is an example of a merger that didn’t take," SEIU spokesperson Michelle Ringuette told us. But the building trades have backed Unite Here in its fight against Sterns’ SEIU. As Casey told us, "We’re in a major fight over our right to exist. There’s no other way to characterize it."

Yet in San Francisco, SEIU plays a different role. Local 1021 is the advocate for the little guy, representing front-line city workers who deliver social and public health services. It is the union facing the deepest layoffs in the coming city budget fight and is still negotiating contract givebacks with the Mayor’s Office. The union’s biggest allies in City Hall are the exact same six supervisors who voted against Mazzola.

So why this standoff? SEIU, Unite Here, and other progressive unions share the Labor Council with the building trades, which are traditionally more conservative and friendly with downtown and, these days, starting to really get desperate for work. "We have thousands of guys on the verge of losing their homes and families," Theriault said. "We are desperate."

That was one reason the San Francisco Labor Council last year cut a deal with Lennar Corporation to back Proposition G, which lets Lennar develop more than 10,000 homes in the southeast sector of the city. Daly, who wanted firmer guarantees of more affordable housing, was livid over the deal and has been at odds with the council ever since. But Daly said labor’s undercutting of progressives goes back even further and includes the early reelection endorsement Rosselli’s UHW gave Newsom in 2007, which helped keep big-name local progressives out of the race.

Tenants groups, affordable housing advocates, and alternative transportation supporters form the backbone of progressive politics, but on development projects, they often clash with the trade unionists who just want work. And labor expects support from the progressive supervisors. As Mazzola pointed out, "It was labor that got most of those guys elected."

But labor has its own fights on the horizon. SEIU fears deep city job cuts if the Mayor’s Office can’t be persuaded to start supporting new revenue measures. NUHW is getting challenged by SEIU for every member the try to sign up. And Unite Here’s hotel contracts start expiring in six months, reopening its battle with downtown hotel managers.

"We’re going to be in a real war with some of those employers," Casey said. Yet he said its actually good time for the otherwise distracting fights with SEIU over how nice to play with big corporations. "I embrace this fight because I think this is exactly the struggle we need to have in the labor movement."

But the Mazzola fight was one that neither side relished.

TO THE BRINK


The Board of Supervisors chambers was filled with union members flying their colors on April 14, but the progressive supervisors were just as unified, voting 6-5 to reject Mazzola. All that was left was the political posturing, the decision of what to do next, and the fallout.

"I am disappointed and surprised by the board’s action," Sup. Sean Elsbernd (who voted for Mazzola and publicly called it "a sin" to deny him) told us, refusing to confirm the private joy over the outcome that many sources say he has expressed. "What shocked me is a majority of the board turned their back on labor."

Daly admits that the standoff hurt progressives. "I’m not sure who came up with it, but it’s certainly true that the Sean Elsbernds of the world were able to take full advantage of the situation to drive a wedge between unions and progressives," Daly said.

Yet Daly noted how ridiculous is was for Sups. Elsbernd and Michela Alioto-Pier to be publicly professing such fealty to labor while opposing revenue measures that would minimize layoffs. "At the same time the plumbers were attacking me, I was sponsoring paid sick days," Daly said. "It’s the six members of the board that are the most pro-labor who voted against Larry Mazzola."

Politically, Elsbernd says the progressives misplaced their hand. "I think the easy middle ground for them was to reject Mazzola and send it back to committee," Elsbernd said. Others echoed that point. Instead, supervisors appointed Synder, a widely acclaimed transportation expert who created the modern San Francisco Bicycle Coalition then started Transportation for a Livable City (now Livable City) before becoming the first transportation policy director for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR).

"I don’t like how that went down, and I’m not happy with the inability of the board and labor to come to an agreement," Snyder told us. "I was stuck in the middle. I wish they had sent someone the board could have agreed to."

After the vote, Snyder went back to the SPUR office and resigned. SPUR director Gabriel Metcalf admits that labor leaders lobbied him to pressure Snyder to withdraw his name, and that he asked Snyder to do so. But Metcalf said he didn’t want to lose Snyder, whose vast knowledge of transportation issues as been a real asset to SPUR. "It was his choice and not my preference."

"This issue is not why I left SPUR, but it was the precipitating event," said Snyder, whose progressive values have occasionally differed from SPUR’s stands. "My sense of social justice has more to do with class issues than I was able to pursue at SPUR."

In fact, the clashes between progressives and developers (who are often backed by the trade unions) often revolve around how much affordable housing and community benefits will be required with each project approval. Snyder said the defining question is, "How do we accommodate development in San Francisco and maintain progressive values in a capitalist economy?"

He didn’t answer that question, but it is one the building trades also understand. Theriault said he supports holding developers to high standards, even when progressives have block certain projects to get them. "I’m okay with that as long as I see the endgame," Theriault said.

He expects the progressive board to listen to labor more than Daly or Democratic Party chair Aaron Peskin, who Theriault said helped shore up the progressive opposition to Mazzola (which Peskin denies). "With the exception of Daly, the relationships are reparable. But they have to show some independence from Daly and Peskin," Theriault said. "The real fear for me is what comes next."

Theriault was referring to things like new historic preservation standards that supervisors will soon consider, as well as the string of big development projects coming forward this year. And for progressives, they hope their efforts to save city jobs will be followed by labor support for progressive candidates for the Board of Supervisors (such as Debra Walker and Rafael Mandelman) in next year’s election.

"The one thing I know about labor is, we’ve been screwed by politicians on the left and the right," Casey said. "Are we angry about this and disappointed? Yes. But does that mean the alliance between labor and progressives is dead? No. We’re going to work through this stuff, talk, take deep breaths, and move forward."

NUHW’s founding convention takes place April 25 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Everett Middle School, 450 Church St., San Francisco.

Behind the Democratic Party lunch picket

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Chris Daly amid the picketers. Photo: Luke Thomas, Fog City Journal
By Rebecca Bowe

Imagine it’s a sweltering day, and you’re on a crowded sidewalk in a dark suit surrounded by about 200 tough, angry men who are booing you in unison, clamoring for your resignation, and yelling inches away from your face as you pass by. Do you try to dodge the swarm and duck into the building you’re headed to? Not if you’re Supervisor Chris Daly.

This afternoon, when Daly showed up downtown for the San Francisco Democratic Party Unity Luncheon at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, a crowd of building-trades union members greeted him with shouts and jeers. With cameramen shadowing his every move, Daly paraded up and down the line, seeming almost as if he enjoyed soaking in all the negative attention, getting into heated exchanges with some of the protesters and shaking hands with others. At one point, when the tradesmen started chanting, “What do we want? Jobs! When do we want them? Now!” Daly simply joined in with the chorus, punching his fist into the air for emphasis. Once people caught on, they stopped chanting and booed him all over again.

According to San Francisco Building and Construction Trade Council head Michael Theriault, the protest was over proposed changes to the city’s planning code that would strengthen historic preservation standards, which he said he feared would “freeze the entire city as a historic preservation district” and put a drain on already-scarce construction jobs. Much anger was directed toward the Historic Preservation Commission, a city body created by Prop J — a ballot measure authored by San Francisco Democratic Party chair and former Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin, placed on the ballot by an 11-0 vote of the supervisors, and approved by nearly 60 percent of the voters last November.

But the underlying issue was the Board of Supervisors’ 6-5 vote on April 14 that rejected Larry Mazzola Jr. as board director of the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District. Mazzola, who helps run the plumbers’ union, was the San Francisco Labor Council’s choice for the seat, but his appointment was blocked by the board’s six progressive members, who were more inclined to go with Dave Snyder — a transportation expert who was deemed more qualified. “The majority of the Board of Supervisors has taken up a war against labor, and they disrespect labor. It’s all about us losing our jobs and our health coverage,” Mazzola told the Guardian just before he turned and started chanting, “Daly, resign!” about three inches away from Daly’s face.
But in an interview for a Guardian story that will hit stands tomorrow, Daly said, “at the same time the plumbers were attacking me, I was sponsoring paid sick days. It’s the six members of the board that are the most pro-labor who voted against Larry Mazzola.”

A Hip Girl’s Guide to UTIs

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By Juliette “TMI?” Tang

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Cranberry prevention?

I am a chronic sufferer of urinary tract infections. Luckily I have a great doctor who has my local Walgreens on speed dial for the days when I call her crying into the phone for Cipro, otherwise I’d still be wailing on the floor at the moment, rather than spreading the good word on how you can avoid my predicament.

It helps knowing, in a sick way, that no matter how much pain I’m in, I’m not alone. For women, there’s no way around it: more than 50% of us will suffer the agony of a urinary tract infection at some point. And most of the time, this loathsome incursion burrows its way up our urethrae and into our lives, without warning, when we are sexually active. Urinary tract infections are the bane of an active sex life. They are the second most common type of infection in the body, and account for 10 million hospital visits each year (plus 1.5 hospitalizations, and $1 billion in health care costs). Along with unplanned pregnancy, STDs, and shameful flashbacks to what happened last Saturday at the Knock Out, UTIs are another way the universe has of zapping some of the fun out of sex. Luckily, unlike children or other STDs (and it is questionable whether a UTI even counts as an STD), a UTI doesn’t last forever — though when confronted with what feels like someone taking broken glass to the inside of your hoo-ha, forever will feel like a relative term.

Metal militia

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Guitar Hero: Metallica

(Neversoft, Xbox 360, PS3; Budcat Creations, Wii, PS2)

GAMER Metallica were recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which they surely had in mind while writing their 1983 debut album Kill ‘Em All (Megaforce). Back in the spotlight and riding high on the release of 2008’s Death Magnetic (Warner Bros), which many have optimistically heralded as a return to form, the Bay Area’s most famous thrash band returned to store shelves this spring with Guitar Hero: Metallica. The latest in a burgeoning string of rock ‘n’ roll rhythm titles, the game is the second to focus on an individual artist, following on the heels of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith but predating the upcoming Beatles collaboration with Guitar Hero competitors Rock Band.

The game’s catalog spans 49 songs, incorporating 28 Metallica master recordings from all phases of their career, in addition to 21 hand-picked songs by band-approved rockers like King Diamond and Kyuss. Its now-familiar format enables four people to get together on drums, bass, guitar, and vocals, following candy-colored prompts onscreen to crank out high-voltage facsimiles of classics like "Hit the Lights" and "Master of Puppets."

The band appears in the game as motion-captured metal titans, and Neversoft’s animators render them right down to the mole on Kirk Hammett’s face. Songs are performed in the venues of Metallica lore, including their legendary 1991 concert at Moscow’s Tushino Airfield, where a free show drew a million-odd frenzied Muscovite headbangers. A profusion of pyro onscreen does make you worry a little bit for the health of pixelated James Hetfield.

The intricate, speedy compositions are not for the faint of heart. And while beginners are afforded introductory difficulties to hone their skills, Guitar Hero vets will be surprised by the challenges they face, including double kick pedal support for the drumset. Stumbling blocks aside, Metallica’s music is rife with satisfying riffs, and recreating Lars Ulrich’s heavy-handed drum fills or the bands rapid-fire thrash is laden with lots of ineffable plastic-instrument delight.

If you like metal, and Guitar Hero, the game is a must buy. If you’re into the former, but not the latter, you might be surprised at the way the deceptively simple transcription enables a deeper enjoyment of the music. Conversely, if your fingers are already toughened by those five magical buttons but you don’t care for Metallica, you might just change your tune once you’ve nailed the guitar solo in "Orion." If you don’t like either, why didn’t you just skip to the next page?

Green living resource guide

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Living green is not just about buying organic vegetables and riding a bike. It’s about making conscious choices about where you shop, what you buy, and how you interact with your environment. Here are some resources that can help you align your lifestyle with your values.

Down at Home: Greening your domestic life starts with revising your habits, but the next step is revising your actual surroundings. A consultation from the folks at Sustainable Spaces (1167 Mission, SF. 415-294-5380, www.sustainablespaces.com) will identify the areas where you can make the most substantial difference. You can pick up green building supplies, like bamboo flooring or zero-VOC paint, from the savvy staff at Berkeley’s Eco Home Improvement (2169 San Pablo, Berk. 510-644-3500, www.ecohomeimprovement.com). Also consider leasing a solar panel from Solar City (2245 Quesada, SF. 800-765-2489, www.solarcity.com), a company that will come out and install a solar panel on your house. (You don’t have to put any money down and the lease may be less then your monthly utility bill.)

In the Bag: Shopping is a fact of life. We all need to clothe and feed ourselves. Opt organic where you can. For green threads, from jeans and tees to sexy slipdresses, shop crisp Russian hill boutique EcoCitizen (1488 Vallejo, SF. 415-614-0100, www.ecocitizenonline.com). Fill the fridge with locally sourced and organic food from eco-thoughtful co-op Rainbow Grocery (1745 Folsom, SF. 415-863-0620, www.rainbowgrocery.org) or natural market Real Foods (2140 Polk, SF. 415-673-7420; 360 Fillmore, SF. 415-567-6900, www.realfoodco.com).

On the Street: We live in a bike-friendly city, and the folks at Valencia Cyclery (1077 Valencia, SF. 415-550-6600) are stoked to put you on spokes. If you still drive, drive green. Take your car to the friendly mechanics at clean, inviting Luscious Garage (429 Clementina, SF. 415-875-9030, www.lusciousgarage.com), where broken auto parts are recycled and all invoices are digitized to save paper. Fill the tank with locally produced biofuel at Dogpatch Biofuels (765 Pennsylvania, SF. 415-643-3435, www.dogpatchbiofuels.com).

Skin and Soul: Stock up on health and wellness info, vitamin supplements, and chemical-free skincare products at Clary Sage Organics (2241 Fillmore, SF. 415-673-7300, www.clarysageorganics.com). If facials are your beauty indulgence of choice, go for an organic option at Epi Center MedSpa (450 Sutter, Ste 800, SF. 415-362-4754, www.skinrejuv.com), which is housed in a lovely, LEED certified space. Find focus and balance—and at mat made of recycled materials—at The Yoga Loft (321 Divisadero, SF. 415-626-5638, www.theloftsf.com).

Out and About: You don’t have to eat at Café Gratitude to dine green. Check out Thimmakka (www.thimmakka.org), an organization which helps restaurants and bars — most of them small, independently owned, and ethnic — become more eco-friendly. Thimmakka maintains a list of places they’ve certified, including San Miguel’s (3263 Mission, SF. 415-641-5866) delicious Guatamalan cuisine and Elixir’s (3200 16th St., SF. 415-522-1633, www.elixirsf.com) organic cocktails. Then shake your booty on the dance floor at Temple (540 Howard, SF. www.templesf.com), where the owner is so committed to being environmentally friendly that he’s working on a way to harness dancers’ energy to power the place. Catch a flick at Red Vic Movie House (1727 Haight, SF. 415-668-3914, www.redvicmoviehouse.com) a co-op that offers organic snacks.

Giving back: Support small businesses who are trying to be greener by using a Viv sticker (sign up at www.doyouviv.com). Every time you show it to a participating local shop or eatery, you’ll push the business to shift to greener cleaning products or energy efficient lights.

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