Media

CLINT REILLY AND JOSEPH ALIOTO ANNOUNCE A PRESS CONFERENCE ON THEIR ANTITRUST SUIT AT 10:30 WEDNESDAY MORNING

-
0

Stop the presses or rev up the presses: as the case may be. Check the Guardian website and the Bruce blog for full coverage, commentary, and viewing of all unsealed documents. B3

Media Contact: Brooke Halpin – Halpin House West 310-702-6300

MEDIA ALERT

CLINTON REILLY AND JOSEPH ALIOTO WILL BE HOLDING A PRESS CONFERENCE TO ANNOUNCE A MAJOR NEWS DEVELOPMENT REGARDING THE LAWSUIT AGAINST MEDIA NEWS GROUP, INC., THE HEARST CORPORATION; STEPHENS GROUP INC.; GANNETT CO., INC.; and CALIFORNIA NEWSPAPERS PARTNERSHIP

ATTN: BUSINESS, LEGAL and CONSUMER REPORTERS

WHAT: DETAILED NEWS REGARDING THE LAWSUIT WILL BE
DISCLOSED AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE. TIME SENSITIVE MATERIALS TO BE DISTRIBUTED.

WHEN: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2007 AT 10:30AM PACIFIC

WHERE: CLINTON REILLY HOLDINGS
MERCHANTS EXCHANGE BUILDING
465 CALIFORNIA STREET
MAIN LOBBY
SAN FRANCISCO, CA

And now Matier and Ross do a little flacking for PG&E and lots of shorting of public power

-
0

By Bruce B. Brugmann

The day after Earth Week, the Chronicle’s star columnists continued the Hearst policy of flacking for PG@E and censoring public power and greenwashing Earth Day coverage with a telling omission in their front page story on Monday April 23 how the San Francisco 49ers are hoping to get Santa Clara to pony up $l80 million or so for their $800 million new stadium.

In listing the various public fund possibilities for Santa Clara, Matier and Ross reported as a major option: “The reserve fund for Santa Clara’s electric utility. According to city officials, that fund exceeds $300 million.”

Then, two paragraphs later, the columnists wrote “That still leaves the Niners counting on tens of millions from the Silicon Valley Power reserves.” Wow, where do you suppose that kind of money comes from in a small city like Santa Clara deep down in the Peninsula? Matier and Ross know perfectly well where that money comes from. It comes from the fact that Santa Clara is a public power city, has been for years, and therefore has cheap public power that provides low electric rates for the city at the same time it provides huge gobs of money for the utility and the city.

The political and public policy point: Santa Clara gets the enormous advantage of public power. San Francisco, the only city in the country mandated by federal law to have public power (because of the Hetch Hetchy dam and the public power mandates of the federal Raker Act), does not. PG@E gets the huge profits from our Hetch Hetchy system, not San Francisco. That is the heart of the scandal.

Question for Matier and Ross (and Hearst corporate): Why didn’t you do normal reporting on this story, properly identify the Santa Clara utility as a public power utility, and explain the PG&E/public power context? When will you start telling the truth about the PG&E scandal? (Note: the Guardian is not for a moment suggesting that Santa Clara give up its public power reserves to the 49ers. In fact, we think the city will be much better off without the 49ers and the enormous public expense of subsidizing a stadium. We just think that it is high time for San Francisco to get the same kind of huge revenues and public power benefits that Santa Clara gets.)

Stay tumed, this is the tip of the biggest scandal in U.S. history involving a city and alas you may read about it only in the Guardian and the Bruce blog. Keep a sharp eye for more media greenwashing for PG&E. Let me know. B3

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (4/23/07)

-
0

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (4/23/07): 46 Iraqi civilians killed.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi civilians:

At least 46 Iraqi civilians were killed today in suicide bombings across the country, according to the Associated Press.

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

62,281 – 68,289: Killed since 1/03

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

For a week by week assessment of significant incidents and trends in Iraqi civilian casualties, go to A Week in Iraq by Lily Hamourtziadou. She is a member of the Iraq Body Count project, which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq.

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 15 April 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/41/

For first hand accounts of the grave situation in Iraq, visit some of these blogs:
www.ejectiraqikkk.blogspot.com
www.healingiraq.blogspot.com
www.afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com

U.S. military:

3,570: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

For the Department of Defense statistics go to: http://www.defenselink.mil/

For a more detailed list of U.S. Military killed in the War in Iraq go to:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/2007.04.html

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

153 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war four years ago, making Iraq the world’s most dangerous country for the press, according to Reporters without borders.

156: Killed since 3/03

Source: http://www.infoshout.com/

Refugees:

The Bush administration plans to increase quota of Iraqi refugees allowed into the U.S. from 500 to 7,000 next year in response to the growing refugee crisis, according to the Guardian Unlimited.

Border policies are tightening because one million Iraqi refugees have already fled to Jordan and another one million to Syria. Iraqi refugees who manage to make it out of Iraq still can’t work, have difficulty attending school and are not eligible for health care. Many still need to return to Iraq to escape poverty, according to BBC news.

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

Many refugees were displaced prior to 2003, but an increasing number are fleeing now, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ estimates.

U.S. Military Wounded:

50,502: Wounded since 3/19/03 to 1/6/07

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (4/23/07): So far, $419 billion for the U.S., $53 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

Here is a running total of the cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayer, provided by the National Priorities Project located in Northampton, Massachusetts. The number is based on Congressional appropriations. Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD originally created the count in 2003 on costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts.

To bring the cost of the war home, please note that California has already lost $46 billion and San Francisco has lost $1 billion to the Bush war and his mistakes. In San Francisco alone, the funds used for the war in Iraq could have hired 21,264 additional public school teachers for one year, we could have built 11,048 additional housing units or we could have provided 59,482 students four-year scholarships at public universities. For a further breakdown of the cost of the war to your community, see the NPP website aptly titled “turning data into action.”

Can we stop media monopoly?

-
0

MediaOwners_2005_TV_Stations.jpg
(chart from dailykos.com)

By Tim Redmond

With Clint Reilly’s case against the Bay Area’s newspaper barons heading for a trial that will start April 30, it’s interesting to note that there’s actually a bill in Congress to limit media ownership.

I suspect this isn’t going anywhere soon — the nation’s political leaders are notorious for their refusal to take on the monopolists — but it’s on the agenda and won’t go away.

Ben Bagdikian comments on the monopolization capers of Hearst and Gannett in l937 and Hearst, Singleton, and Gannett in 2007

-
0

A note from B3: Ben Bagdikian knows more and has written more about the monopolization of the press than
just about anybody. He is the author of six editions of the media classic, “The Media Monopoly,” and dean emeritus of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California- Berkeley.

In Bagdikian’s first media monopoly book in l983, he wrote that 50 or so conglomerates controlled most of the U.S. media. With each edition the numbers shrank and for years, whenever I would speak on journalism, I would call Bagdikian and ask him what the current magic monopoly was. It went from 26 in l987 to 23 in l990 to ten in l996 to five with his latest edition, “The New Media Monopoly.”

He is retired from teaching and living in Berkeley in the shadow of the Hearst and Singleton empires. But since I haven’t seen him quoted in any of their papers, I sent him an email asking if he would like to weigh in with any comments on the latest monopoly proceedings of his local papers and on the upcoming Reilly vs. Hearst antitrust trial. This is his answer.

ANTI-TRUST REDISCOVERED?

By Ben Bagdikian

When Judge Illston ruled recently that she may open the secret deals that turned the San Francisco Bay Area into a newspaper monopoly paradise, it’s possible that like the biblical Adam and Eve paradise, the parties —- Singleton, Hearst, McClatchy —are stark naked.
For while crazy things were happening that looked like the bad old days when monopoly was the standard newspaper mode of operation while government and judges looked the other way.
Hearst owned the wobbly afternoon Examiner and Nan McEvoy, the minority De Young stockholder in favor of avoiding monopoly, got outvoted by the new model newspaper shareholders. Hearst was about to toss the Examiner into the Humboldt Current to freeze to death while Washington Anti-Trust cops in Washington were asleep in a nice warm bar provided by the Bushies (the Bushies have a knack for finding Attorneys General whose approach is “tell me what you want and I’ll tell you it’s legal”). Most of the de Young heirs, like most third and fourth generation newspaper stockholders, sold their Chronicle stock for seven-plus-digit lump sums instead of annual dividends. They sold the Chron to Hearst.

The power of press pressure

-
0

By Steven T. Jones

The power of the press can be overstated. Over two decades in this business, I’ve written many good words about too many bad situations and watched nothing change. So it’s nice to know that a couple drums that I’ve beaten recently have been heard and heeded by the powers-that-be.

gonzo.jpg

We were the only media outlet actively shaming Mayor Gavin Newsom for not trying to broker a Healthy Saturdays compromise and calling out police Capt. Denis O’Leary for his punitive approach to setting fees for the How Weird Street Faire (issues I also hammered on my TV gig, City Desk NewsHour). And lo and behold, while I was off on vacation for almost a week, both men did the right thing. I’ll discuss the complicated Healthy Saturday’s compromise after the jump, but the latest news on How Weird is that O’Leary capitulated and brought the event fees back to last year’s levels. Event organizers say he got a call from City Hall and that during their last meeting, O’Leary was calling me out by name as a troublemaker and thorn in his side (he still hasn’t returned my call seeking comment). I’m so proud. Whoda thunk this Fourth Estate stuff actually works?

Circus city

-
0

by Molly Freedenberg
TissueThumb.jpg

My friends are circus freaks. Literally. And one of my favorite circus freaks is Marina Kardjieva (pictured), a Bulgarian beauty who is as talented at aerial work (silks, straps, aerial hoop, trapeze) as she is sweet. Lucky for me, I’ve gotten to see a lot of her lately, as she’s been in town rehearsing with musician/performer/community activist extraoardinaires think13 for balance, a multi-media performance opening this Friday at Fort Mason Center.marina.jpg

I stopped by the think13 rehearsal last night to watch the incomparably beautiful Hollis try on her costume, and the scrumptious and hilarious Brennan Figari practice his aerial tissu, and to hear think13 co-founder Dee Kennedy’s strong, haunting voice layered over her partner Christoph’s rockin’ tribal music. And, of course, to watch Marina do what she does absolutely best.

I didn’t see the whole run-through, so I can’t really report on what it will be like. But I do know there will be modern dance, fire dancing, plenty of aerial work, spoken word delivered by a cute boy in a kilt, live drumming, video projections, and lots of think13’s rich, ethereal (think Amy Lee) music.

I also was duly impressed with the performers I did see, and with the story the performance purports to tell. If all goes as I expect, balance will be a gorgeous spectacle that continues to blur the boundaries between the music scene and the performance art scene (which, by the way, sooo needs to be blurred).

If nothing else, it’ll be another reflection of the circus that is this city. Long live the freaks.

Extra! Extra! PG&E buys the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle. The shame of Hearst. Why people get mad at the media (l9)

-
0

By Bruce B. Brugmann

And so Hearst, after decades of shamefully operating as a PG&E shill and shamefully censoring the PG&E/Raker
Act scandal out of its papers (both in its old Examiner and its new Chronicle), ran a large cheery PG&E ad in the right hand corner of the front page of yesterday’s April l8 Chronicle.

The ad ran without the usual identification “advertisement,” even though it was a pure political ad and part of PG&E’s phony “let’s green the city” campaign. The ad, spiffy and lime-colored,
was classic PG&E greenwashing: “Green is giving your roof a day job. To sign up for PG&E’s solar classes, visit Let’sgreenthiscity.com.”

In a classic of self-immolation, publisher Frank Vega sought to justify the front page ad with a short publishers’ statement on page two. He wrote, “Today, the Chronicle begins publishing front page ads. Our advertisers recognize the value of the Chronicle brand, our audience and the priority of delivering key messages to you, our reader. In the recent past, newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and USA Today have all announced their willingness to accept advertising in prominent positions.

“The Chronicle is committed to delivering you important news, information and advertising in a variety of new and engaging ways.”

Vega hasn’t been around long, and he may not know the history of Hearst’s obeisance to PG&E and so he may not realize that he was selling the front page to the utility that has created the biggest scandal in American history involving a city. But couldn’t someone over at 5th and Mission fill him in?

Meanwhile, over at City Hall, Hearst’s greenwashing for PG&E barreled along as usual. While Hearst allowed PG&E to take over the front page, the Chronicle was pitching in for PG&E on the news side by blowing off a major press conference and story by Sups. Tom Ammiano and Ross Mirkarimi on their introduction of their community choice aggregation plan. This is a major step toward public power that involves the city buying environmentally sound energy in bulk and selling it to the public at lower prices than what PG&E charges, which PG&E hates. Wyatt Buchanan, obviously new to the issue, buried the news in three dopey lines at the bottom of a supervisors’ roundup story. And he didn’t get the public power point, didn’t explain the plan properly, and didn’t even use the correct name the plan is known by “community choice aggregation.” And then Buchanan reports without blushing, “The plan faces a series of major hurdles before it came be implemented,” not mentioning that the major hurdle is that good ole greenwasher perched on the front page of his paper and spending millions on its greenwashing campaign. Doesn’t anybody over there fill in the virgin reporters about the PG&E crocodiles in the back bays of City Hall?

Let me start with but one point: The Guardian and I have for years documented how Hearst reversed its policy of supporting the building of the Hetch Hetchy dam and public power and has censored its news and editorials on behalf of PG&E since the late l920s. The reason has perhaps been best explained in the book “The Chief:The Life and Times of William Randolph Hearst” by David Nasaw, who is the chair of the doctoral history program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Nasaw writes in his book, published in 2000, that Hearst and his old Examiner, the Hearst flagship paper, were for 40 years promoting “full municipal ownership and control of Hetch Hetchy water and power.” Hearst was opposed by the “business and banking communities, led by (Herbert) Fleishhacker, a board member of several of the bank and power trusts, who hoped to be able to privatize at least some of the Hetch Hetchy resources.” Fleishhacker was also the president of the London and Paris National Bank of San Francisco and Hearst’s chief source of funds on the West Coast.

Thus, Nasaw writes, “the basis for a Hearst-Fleishhacker alliance was obvious. Hearst needed Fleishhacker to sell his bonds, while the banker needed the Hearst newspaper to promote his (privatization) plans for Hetch Hetchy.”
Nasaw outlines the secret deal: Hearst got desperately needed cash. Fleshhacker and PG&E got a Hearst reversal of policy to support PG&E and oppose Hetch Hetchy public power–a policy that has lasted up to yesterday when Hearst sold its front page to PG&E (much too cheaply) and then stomped down an anti-PG&E, public power news story inside.

“No longer would the Hearst papers take an unequivocal stand for municipal ownership,” Nasaw writes, based on Hearst correspondence with John Francis Neylan, his West Coast lieutenant and publisher of the Examiner. “No longer would they employ the language and images that had been their stock in trade.”

And so PG&E bought Hearst in the mid-l920s and Hearst has stayed bought up to this very day. Through the years, as we have developed this theme story, I have asked every local Hearst publisher and many reporters and editors why their pro-PG&E/anti-public power campaign continues on, much to the damage of the paper’s credibility and much to the embarrassment of its staff. Nobody can explain. If anybody can, let me know.
Believe me, there will be much more to come on this issue, in the Guardian and in the Bruce blog.

Postscript: Awhile back, during the latest public power initiative in 2002, Susan Sward and Chuck Finnie did a splendid story on the scandal. But it was a quickie affair and the two reporters and their story were snuffed out, not to be heard from again.

Bruce B. Brugmann, who sees the poisonous fumes of the Mirant Power plant from my office window at the bottom of Potrero Hill, courtesy of PG&E, Hearst, and the San Francisco Chronicle and its greenwashing for PG@E campaigns B3

pg&e.jpg

New York Times beats libel suit in Texas

-
0

By G.W. Schulz

The 2003 package of investigative stories known as “A Dangerous Business” ranks highly among adoring muckrakers. It was put together as a joint PBS Frontline episode and series of articles in the New York Times, all led by journalistic juggernaut, Lowell Bergman. The series highlighted in excruciating detail workplace safety problems at a pipe manufacturing plant in Tyler, Texas, owned by the Alabama-based company, McWane, Inc. and earned the contributors a Pulitzer Prize.

The Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency launched criminal investigations into McWane plants the same month that the series launched.

bergman1.jpg
Lowell Bergman to world:
“Don’t fuck with public television.”

But after it actually ran, a cloud of sorts was cast over Bergman’s reporting when the owner of a workplace safety medical provider called Occu-Safe sued for libel arguing that the Times articles included false statements about the quality of care provided to McWane employees by Occu-Safe.

A judge has dismissed the libel suit as of Tuesday without offering a written opinion, meaning it’s not clear what argument made by Times attorneys in a motion for summary judgment worked. But the Times legal team had argued that the articles could not be legally regarded as defamatory, because they described conditions and events at the plant truthfully. A Times vice president believes Occu-Safe will appeal, but he says they’re sure to prevail again.

The entire package is a riveting primer for anyone even remotely interested in how workplace safety regulation works (or doesn’t, depending on a number of factors) in the United States. Bergman more recently completed a series of pieces for Frontline on the fate of newspapers (and other media) in the United States and is a professor at Berkeley’s graduate School of Journalism.

*Image from Berkeley’s journalism school Web site

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (4/18/07): 171 Iraqi civilians killed today in the deadliest day since the latest American-led security plan took effect.

-
0

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (4/18/07): 171 Iraqi civilians killed today in the deadliest day since the latest American-led security plan took effect.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi civilians:

171 Iraqi civilians were killed today in Baghdad in a series of attacks targeting Shiites. This was the deadliest day in Iraq since the most recent American-led security plan was implemented, according to the New York Times.

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

61,728 – 67,703: Killed since 1/03

For a week by week assessment of significant incidents and trends in Iraqi civilian casualties, go to A Week in Iraq by Lily Hamourtziadou. She is a member of the Iraq Body Count project, which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq.

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 15 April 2007.

For first hand accounts of the grave situation in Iraq, visit some of these blogs:
www.ejectiraqikkk.blogspot.com
www.healingiraq.blogspot.com
www.afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com

U.S. military:

3,546: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

For the Department of Defense statistics go to: http://www.defenselink.mil/

For a more detailed list of U.S. Military killed in the War in Iraq go to:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/2007.04.html

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

153 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war four years ago, making Iraq the world’s most dangerous country for the press, according to Reporters without borders.

156: Killed since 3/03

Source: http://www.infoshout.com/

Refugees:

The Bush administration plans to increase quota of Iraqi refugees allowed into the U.S. from 500 to 7,000 next year in response to the growing refugee crisis, according to the Guardian Unlimited.

Border policies are tightening because one million Iraqi refugees have already fled to Jordan and another one million to Syria. Iraqi refugees who manage to make it out of Iraq still can’t work, have difficulty attending school and are not eligible for health care. Many still need to return to Iraq to escape poverty, according to BBC news.

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

Many refugees were displaced prior to 2003, but an increasing number are fleeing now, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ estimates.

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html

U.S. Military Wounded:

50,502: Wounded since 3/19/03 to 1/6/07

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (4/18/07): So far, $418 billion for the U.S., $52 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

Here is a running total of the cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayer, provided by the National Priorities Project located in Northampton, Massachusetts. The number is based on Congressional appropriations. Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD originally created the count in 2003 on costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts.

To bring the cost of the war home, please note that California has already lost $46 billion and San Francisco has lost $1 billion to the Bush war and his mistakes. In San Francisco alone, the funds used for the war in Iraq could have hired 21,264 additional public school teachers for one year, we could have built 11,048 additional housing units or we could have provided 59,482 students four-year scholarships at public universities. For a further breakdown of the cost of the war to your community, see the NPP website aptly titled “turning data into action.”

Meeting acute

-
0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

REVIEW In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, one of the only voices raised on behalf of understanding Timothy McVeigh — that is, as someone slightly more complicated than a Hollywood-style incarnation of pure evil — was that of Gore Vidal. Vidal insisted on pointing to the obvious: the bombing of offices that included the local headquarters of the FBI and the ATF — although utterly cruel and misguided in leading to 168 deaths — was not arbitrary wickedness but a carefully considered act of revenge. As Vidal put it in his article on McVeigh for Vanity Fair, the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City "was the greatest massacre of Americans by an American since two years earlier, when the federal government decided to take out the compound of a Seventh-Day Adventist cult near Waco, Texas."

McVeigh — a decorated military hero of the Gulf War, as it turned out — had counterattacked a government he claimed was waging war against the American people. In this opinion, McVeigh, who insisted he had no accomplices, was not alone. He represented a growing libertarian movement afoot in the American heartland. Moreover, as Vidal, a critic from the left of federal tyranny, pointed out in a 1998 piece for Vanity Fair, "Shredding the Bill of Rights," the government had violated Posse Comitatus in laying its siege of the Branch Davidians.

For Vidal’s attention to the matter, McVeigh began a correspondence with him, even inviting the writer to attend his execution — an invitation Vidal declined. This immediately sounds like a fascinating, even dramatic dialogue. But stageworthy? Edmund White’s two-hander, Terre Haute, shrewdly ups the ante a bit, imagining an actual date between Vidal and McVeigh — respectively cast as the lightly fictionalized writer James Brevoord (a fine John Hutchinson) and the transparently McVeigh-like terrorist Harrison (a fiercely magnetic Elias Escobedo, who even bears a strong physical resemblance to the original). They encounter each other in the flesh in a series of brief meetings across a plastic security screen in the maximum-security prison in Terre Haute, Ind., during the days preceding Harrison’s execution.

On death row Harrison has had time to think over his actions. Neighbor Ted Kaczynski, we learn, has suggested he would have done better to blow the building up at night, when it was empty of innocents. But Harrison remains unrepentant, even if we see the burden of responsibility close over him when the lives of innocent "collaterals," particularly the children at the day care center, get mentioned. Brevoord — who is there to write on the meaning of Harrison’s act and to boldly ask the whys so studiously erased in the media — sympathizes with Harrison’s anti-imperialism while provoking the younger man with mounting scorn for his embrace of feeble right-wing conspiracy theories.

Besides a political tête-à-tête, the meeting is the occasion for a clash of personalities, temperaments, and backgrounds, all of which White brings out starkly in the dialogue: Brevoord, for instance, is the kind of man who has no trouble using kerfuffle in an idle sentence, although an indeed is more than enough to throw Harrison for a loop. The tension here is often lightly comical, but the point about education, intellect, and political opposition (and the art of the interviewer) is well made. And if the script feels overly expositional at times, the actors offer strong and credible performances throughout.

The New Conservatory Theatre Center’s US premiere is a sharp and intimate production, staged by director Christopher Jenkins with intelligent assurance, including a concentration on character that garners moments of alternately subtle and electric intensity between two men negotiating an extraordinary situation. Yet the director can’t resist kitschy flourishes, introducing the McVeigh character, for instance, with a short piercing scream of sound and a light that illuminates Harrison standing like Hannibal Lecter behind the see-through wall of the visiting cell. Scenic designer Bruce Walters’s visiting room, meanwhile, is a simple but convincingly dire arrangement of wire-woven Plexiglas walls, yellow-taped borders, and blinking security cameras.

White draws the facts of the case, as well as the style and argument from Vidal’s relevant essays, into well-crafted if sometimes information-laden dialogue. It can be too clashing and unnecessarily confrontational, but it is generally graceful and filled with absorbing ideas, especially in the monologues given to the Vidal character. Unfortunately, the play gets distracted from the meat of its story. That tale not only sports an intriguing tension between two very different sorts of rebels but is politically urgent and deep, ranging from the correct response to a truly totalitarian encroachment on fundamental liberties to the dissolving relation between cause and effect in a culture dominated by mind-numbingly interchangeable images of good and evil.

Instead, the play ends up veering off into carnal considerations of repressed desires, a layer to the characters’ relationship that was probably best left hinted at. The best you might say about it is that it further humanizes a figure too quickly passed off as a cartoon rather than a riddle that needs solving. But in practice it tends to trivialize what’s gone before, inevitably mixing an unhelpful pinch of Freud into the media-repressed why of a terrible public act. *

TERRE HAUTE

Through May 6

Wed.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; $22–$40

New Conservatory Theatre Center

25 Van Ness, SF

(415) 861-8972

www.nctcsf.org

>

Guide to greener living

-
0

ECOLOGY CENTER


This is your one-stop ecoshop for green resources in the Bay Area. Want to know how to convert your home to solar power or learn how to compost, garden, or use nontoxic pest control? The Ecology Center has answers and classes. Want to go biodiesel? Visit the Berkeley Biodiesel Collective, one of the center’s sponsored projects. The center also runs Berkeley’s curbside recycling program, prints Terrain magazine, and publishes an eco-calendar of green events and classes in the Bay Area.

2530 San Pablo, Berk. (510) 548-2220, www.ecologycenter.org

GREEN ZEBRA


"We started the Green Zebra as a way for consumers to start enjoying nearby environmentally conscious businesses," founder Anne Vollen says of Green Zebra’s coupon book, which offers 300-plus pages of discounts on green restaurants, spas, travel, cultural activities, and much more. "But we’ve had such an enormous response from businesses and buyers alike that it’s become a virtual directory of all the green-minded things the Bay Area has to offer."

www.thegreenzebra.org

GREEN CITIZEN


Don’t let your used electronics go to e-waste. Green Citizen recycles obsolete and unwanted computers, CDs, cell phones, batteries, printers, and TVs (among other media-related things) and helps you hook up with institutions and programs in need of them. Can’t lift that antique monitor? Green Citizen also offers pickup service.

591 Howard, SF (and various locations). (415) 287-0000, www.greencitizen.com

PLAN-IT HARDWARE


Buildings consume a third of the country’s energy; substantially reducing that usage amount is possible through mindful construction and design. Plan-It Hardware is a green-focused, San Francisco–based hardware and home improvement distributor with hundreds of products and ideas for making your home greener, including environmentally conscious paint, weather stripping, flooring, gardening tools, and plumbing fixtures.

www.planithardware.com<

BAUER’S WORLDWIDE TRANSPORTATION


Eco-friendly limo. Sounds like another term for “VW Vanagon full of hippies going to the prom,” doesn’t it? But in the case of SF-based Bauer’s, it isn’t anything close. Bauers’ 120 electric, biodiesel, and compressed-propane-powered shuttles and cars may be the largest fleet of eco-friendly vehicles in the U.S., but they aren’t lacking for luxury. Stretch and hybrid limo-style vehicles, including the 2007 Lexus RX 400H SUV hybrid, come equipped with leather seats, Wifi, high end CD and DVD systems, LCD monitors for presentations, and even ports to plug in your iPod or phone. That’s a long way from van benches soaked with bong water.

Pier 27, SF; (800) LIMO-OUT, www.icars.cc

TREE FROG TREKS


Pry your rug rats away from those glowing screens and aim them at something natural. With Tree Frog’s programs, kids can go tide-pooling at Duxbury Reef, take a nature hike on Twin Peaks, and get creepy-crawly at Frog Hall with "Ross’s Ravenous Reptiles!" program. There they’ll meet Bully the bullfrog, Sid the snake, and Cletus the three-toed box turtle.

2112 Hayes, SF. (415) 876-3764, www.treefrogtreks.com

THIMMAKKA


Wanna eat green? Thimmakka’s Resources for Environmental Education, a registered nonprofit, helps restaurants and bars get green certification — and also helps consumers find them through its comprehensive Web site.

www.thimmakka.org

WORLD CHANGING


World Changing’s Web site presents itself as a forum for figuring out how technology can be used to preserve and improve our world rather than destroy it. Read about and comment on digital houses; the 200 shared bikes of Barcelona, Spain; and state-of-the-art hydroturbines.

www.worldchanging.com

SCRAP


Pablo Picasso once declared himself "king of the ragpickers." Some of his most amazing art was made from found objects — other people’s trash. Since 1976, SCRAP (the Scroungers’ Center for Reusable Art Parts) has been helping ragpickers get art materials. The center operates a store and offers workshops on basket weaving, lamp rewiring, and other useful recyclables skills.

834 Toland, SF. (415) 647-1746, scrap-sf.org

BEDBUSTERS


Don’t just throw your old mattress on the street, leaving it to collect rainwater, dirt, fleas, and other unsavory grime. Bedbusters guarantees that your mattress will avoid the landfill, its steel springs and other materials will be recycled, and your conscience will be clear, for a reasonable fee.

(415) 516-5865, www.bedbusters.com

NATURE IN THE CITY


Think you have to go to Yosemite or Point Reyes to commune with nature? Think again. This organization is all about teaching San Franciscans how to recognize and care for the indigenous plants and animals living in our urban landscape — or as some call it, the Franciscan bioregion (from San Bruno Mountain to the Golden Gate Bridge). Check out the Web site to learn more, join a stewardship effort, and find green events.

(415) 564-4107, www.natureinthecity.org

GARDEN FOR THE ENVIRONMENT


Realize whirled peas (and carrots and broccoli) with help from Garden for the Environment, a nationally acclaimed program that teaches organic gardening, urban composting, and sustainable food systems at community workshops, the Gardening and Composting Educator Training program, outreach programs for local schools, and a one-acre urban demonstration garden. Plus, most classes and workshops are free.

780 Frederick, SF. (415) 731-5627, www.gardenfortheenvironment.org

LIVABLE CITY


Everything you ever wanted to know about living car-free in the city. Part resource, part activist organization, Livable City hosts workshops on walking, biking, and using public transit, as well as advocates for parking reform, better street planning, and the creation of a landscaped greenway to connect parts of the city.

995 Market, SF. (415) 344-0489, www.livablecity.org

SF ENVIRONMENT


An extensive and well-designed green resource guide for the city, this government Web site has information on everything from where to recycle toner cartridges and mercury thermometers to how to dispose of asbestos and biohazardous waste. (Choose the item in the easy "ecofindeRRR" box or search through resources one by one.) This is also the place to join Green Connect volunteer events, learn about green-leaning celebrations and meetings, and find links to news stories about the environment.

www.sfenvironment.com

PLANTSF


PlantSF is a grassroots program that provides information on permeable landscaping and urban farming and works with the city on land-use conversions. If you’ve ever wished the expanse of concrete outside your house were a little less paved and a bit prettier, these are the people to talk to about making that happen.

11 Grove, SF. (415) 355-3700, www.plantsf.org

TRANSPORTEDSF


All aboard the ecobus! This organization takes Das Frachtgut, the veggie oil–fueled bus Jens-Peter Jungclaussen uses as a mobile classroom, on an ecofriendly party tour. Movie nights are all about watching modern classics and then doing some kind of relevant outdoor activity (e.g., see The Big Lebowski, then bowl outside). Dance nights turn the bus into a mobile DJ booth and an instant, impromptu club. It’s fun, safe (no drunk driving, kids!), and above all, Earth friendly. *

www.transportedsf.com

GREEN KEY REAL ESTATE


There was a time when real estate was all about making money – and realtors were like the characters in American Beauty. Thankfully, times they are a changin’. Now you can buy or sell your house through Green Key Real Estate, the first (and only) green real estate brokerage in San Francisco. Green Key runs a sustainable business (minimizing office waste, donating a portion of profits to green building organizations, running the office on wind power) while encouraging sustainable building and remodeling. Most importantly, though, it’s experienced real estate agents linking like-minded people to each other and to the services they need.

28 Clayton, SF; (415) 750-1120, www.greenkeyrealestate.com

GREEN HOME


This online superstore is like Target (or Fred Meyer, for you Pac Northwest transplants) for environmentally sound products. We’re talking organic soy wax candles (since paraffin pollutes the air), recycled glass tumblers, picture frames made of reclaimed wood, super efficient refrigerators, all-natural hardwood furniture (since pressed wood products use formaldehyde and synthetic adhesives), household cleaners, baby clothes, and so much more. Plus, the Richmond-based (but exclusively online) store maintains a list of useful articles, news, and tips about living green, as well as a directory of green service providers, from dry cleaners to long distance phone companies.

877-282-6400 www.greenhome.com

A LIVING LIBRARY


Based on the principle that if we learn about our local surroundings, we learn about our world, this non-profit strives to turn barren, ugly, or otherwise underutilized public spaces into beautiful, relevant, useful parks and gardens, called living libraries and thinkparks, using local resources – human, ecological, economic, historic, technological, and aesthetic. The public can visit one of the SF sites in Excelsior or Bernal Heights, take kids to a Living Library in- or after-school program, or get involved in a free adult green skills job training class specially designed for low income adults (and especially immigrants).

(415) 215-5992, www.alivinglibrary.org

Sustainable Business Alliance


Green business is good business – at least, that’s the philosophy behind this membership organization linking companies committed to sustainability. This networking and resource group hopes to educate members about sustainability and then strengthen their businesses through involvement with each other through meetings, workshops, seminars, a green business directory, and events such as East Bay Drinks, a monthly meetup on third Wednesdays at Triple Rock Brewery in Berkeley.

PO Box 11944, Berk. (510) 931-6560, www.sustainablebiz.org

Love machine

-
0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

REVIEW To look at the formally austere self-portraits made by the American artist Charles Sheeler (1883–1965) at various points throughout his career, you might surmise, from the repeated images of his stiff, unsmiling visage, that he toiled in obscurity for dry, dusty decades as an administrative underling at a low-level law firm, forever obsessed with organizing his paper clips, pausing from his tedious task only long enough to clean his spectacles on a crisply starched pocket handkerchief and tie the laces of his uncomfortable shoes, polished deep black the previous evening while listening to news of the Lindbergh kidnapping on his wooden Philco tube radio. As the crotchety stepfather of modernism, Sheeler cultivated a stern yet slightly mewling look of quotidian routine, as if neither he nor any other mere individual should assume particular importance amid the daunting technological advancements of his era. Like all true-blue men of meager means in the early part of the 20th century, Sheeler was enthralled with industrial progress and glorified all things steel and chrome. If this clerk allowed himself one indulgence, it was basking in the cult of the machine.

If modernism taught us anything, however, it’s that appearances can — no, should — be deceiving. Hat, coat, and desk chair notwithstanding, Sheeler was no paper-pushing nine-to-fiver. Indeed (a word I imagine he uttered frequently, accompanied by a nearly imperceptible tilt of the head), this self-proclaimed precisionist was rather radical in behavior, artistic methodology, and aesthetic philosophizing — though always politely so. Working with deliberate pacing and patience as a filmmaker, photographer, and painter and alarmingly proficient at drawing and printmaking, Sheeler established a unique dichotomy between new and old, rendering the former as oddly antiquated and the latter as the cat’s pajamas. Fittingly, his remarkable body of work remains strikingly contemporary; thus the "Charles Sheeler: Across Media" exhibition, handsomely installed in the upper galleries of the appropriately angular de Young Museum, has not the aged patina of a haphazard retrospective begrudgingly granted to a doddering éminence grise of yesteryear but the luminous sheen of a classy chassis careening into J.G. Ballard’s Crash by way of the icy David Cronenberg adaptation. Sheeler is Vaughan, so turned on by cogs and shafts, bolts and pylons, that he becomes the ghost in his own machine.

Born in Philadelphia, Sheeler studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, then booked passage for Paris, where he looked askance at Pablo Picasso’s and Georges Braque’s cubist conundrums before returning to the States, plonking down a fiver on a Brownie camera and taking up commercial photography with an emphasis on architecture.

In 1920, Sheeler collaborated with photographer Paul Strand on Manhatta, a six-minute city-symphony film ostensibly based on portions of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass yet excising virtually all traces of the bearded bard’s insatiable lust for life in favor of abstractions formed by bridges, skyscrapers, and the sun setting over the Hudson River. Widely considered the first American avant-garde film, Manhatta screens repeatedly in the gallery and is surrounded by related photographs that further reveal Sheeler’s New York state of mind.

Sheeler soon settled in a rented farmhouse in Doylestown, Penn., with fellow artist Morton Shamberg, but it was the home’s 19th-century stove that Sheeler referred to as his "companion," so enamored was he of its utilitarian exactitude and sensuous shape. Comfortably ensconced in the farmhouse, Sheeler spent years deftly rendering his kitchen and bathroom in ink, paint, and the darkroom’s chemical bath.

Having gained a reputation as a fastidious exemplar of precisionism, Sheeler was hired by the Ford Motor Co. to photograph and make paintings of its factories. Soon after, Fortune magazine commissioned Sheeler to produce a half dozen paintings that "reflect life through forms and trace the firm pattern of the human mind." Naturally, Sheeler looked not to living things for inspiration but to objects simultaneously beautiful in their simplicity and threatening in their potential to destroy: waterwheel, railroad, airplane, dam, steam turbine, and hydroelectric turbine (he really loved turbines).

Among many other career and exhibition highlights are the iconic, ironic American Landscape, in which human-made structures — cylinders, silos, smokestacks — have entirely supplanted natural splendor (score one for culture); experimental photographs of the interior of an 18th-century Quaker fieldstone house; and the dazzling The Artist Looks at Nature, from 1943, in which Sheeler paints himself in the process of sketching his 1932 drawing Interior with Stove, which in turn was based on his much earlier photograph The Stove. In this singular work, Sheeler links various media in which he excelled, positions himself in a perfectly logical space-time continuum, and moves into the realm of the uncanny. For an artist who implicitly championed the places, products, and processes of capitalism and whose every invisible brushstroke stoked the fires of the first corporation generation, this tricky bit of derring-do signals a metarebellion against the industry under whose wheels Sheeler’s entire century would soon be crushed. It’s enough to make you fall in love with that old stove all over again. *

CHARLES SHEELER: ACROSS MEDIA

Through May 6

Tues.–Thurs. and Sat.–Sun., 9:30 a.m.–5:15 p.m.; Fri., 9:30 a.m.–8:45 p.m.

De Young Museum

Golden Gate Park

50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, SF

$6–$10 (free first Tuesday)

(415) 750-3614

www.thinker.org/deyoung

>

Green isn’t PG&E

-
0

› amanda@sfbg.com

You’ve seen the ads, lime colored and screaming from the sides of Muni buses, papered to the walls of BART stations, popping up on local news Web sites. "Let’s green this city," they proclaim in a chummy, we’re-all-in-this-together way. Like any good ad campaign, these broadsides, brought to you by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., are designed to snap your eco-consciousness into thinking, "Hell yeah! I’m going to get right on that!"

And like any good greenwashing campaign, they are also designed to distract you from what’s really going on at the $12.5 billion utility company.

"There’s an advertising rule that’s based on the idea to advertise where you’re weakest," says Sheldon Rampton, cofounder of the Center for Media and Democracy, which regularly tracks corporate greenwashing. "What typically happens with greenwashing is an attempt to create a superficial image without changing anything the company’s doing that would affect their bottom line."

Yes, PG&E has the fourth largest alternative fuel fleet of any utility in the country. (That’s if you define natural gas as an alternative fuel, a resource in which this utility happens to have $9 billion already invested. It’s still a fossil fuel and only burns 30 percent cleaner than oil and coal.)

Yes, PG&E is making environmental strides with increased investments in solar, biogas, and wind energy. (But the company will, by its own admission, fail to make the state-mandated goal of selling 20 percent renewables by 2010.)

Yes, PG&E has committed $1 billion over the past three years to energy-efficiency programs. (Actually, that money isn’t a kindhearted gift from the shareholders. It’s mandated by state law. And much of it comes from the ratepayers — see the "Public Goods Charge" on your monthly bill.)

Yes, PG&E has been donating solar panels to local schools and nonprofits. (Less than 1 percent of PG&E’s power comes from solar energy.)

Yes, the folks at PG&E have been loudly announcing all their good deeds. Here’s what else they’ve been working on, a little more quietly.

GREEN IS NOT A SUPERHERO


A recent PG&E television commercial shows children playing with Renewable Energy Man and chanting, "Sun, water, wind" as the future sources of power. But consider:

• PG&E’s current power profile is 44 percent fossil fuels, 24 percent nuclear, 20 percent large hydro, and only 12 percent renewable.

• As of 2006, PG&E had planned to integrate 300 megawatts of renewable energy sources a year into its overall profile in an effort to make the state-mandated goal of 20 percent renewables by 2010.

• In 2006 Securities and Exchange Commission filings, PG&E projected it would miss that goal by a couple percentage points and is relying on the "flexible compliance" that the law allows.

• The utility is currently building 1,350 megawatts of fossil fuel–burning plants, which are permitted to emit up to 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour.

In December 2006, PG&E filed permit applications with the California Pubic Utilities Commission for 2,300 megawatts of conventional, nonrenewable power sources.

Renewable Energy Man is looking pretty weak.

GREEN ISN’T NATURAL GAS


PG&E is working to secure permission to build an $850 million, 232-mile gas pipeline, called the Pacific Connector, to bring one billion cubic feet of natural gas a day from Oregon into PG&E’s California customer territory starting in 2011. Some facts about natural gas:

• PG&E customers currently use 836 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year, or 2.3 billion cubic feet per day. Over the past 20 years, natural gas usage in California has increased in concert with the rise in population — about 1 to 2 percent per year. The new pipeline would increase daily supply by 50 percent.

• Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is considered the cleanest of the fossil fuels, but it’s still a hazardous, flammable material and can freeze-burn skin, crack ship decks, and asphyxiate.

• A "small" LNG tanker is the length of three football fields and burns 170 metric tons of fuel (natural gas and heavy-duty diesel) per day. Planners anticipate at least six to seven ships will dock per month at a new LNG terminal in Coos Bay, Ore.

PG&E recently showcased a hybrid natural gas–electricity plug-in Toyota Prius with V2G, or vehicle to grid, technology. Unlike those of other electric cars, the connection is two-way — power comes from the grid to the car, but power can also go from the car to the grid. PG&E has said that if enough people own these cars, each one will be a miniature storage unit of power for the utility to draw on during peak hours — eliminating the need for more power plants. If the utility takes too much electricity from your battery while you work or sleep, you can still run the car on natural gas. But either way, you’re paying PG&E for the electricity and the fuel, and since PG&E electricity is hardly renewable, it isn’t doing much for the ecosystem.

GREEN IS NOT A NUKE


Twenty-four percent of PG&E’s so-called nonemissions burning power comes from nuclear plants in Humboldt Bay and Diablo Canyon. When asked if PG&E is considering future nuclear power plants, spokesperson Keely Wachs said, "We’re not ruling it out." Some reasons to worry:

• One of PG&E’s newest board members is Richard Meserve, former chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

• The decommissioning of nuclear power facilities is set to begin at the Humboldt Bay plant in 2009 and at the Diablo Canyon plant in 2024, at a cost of $2.1 billion, or more than $5 billion in future dollars — all of which you will pay.

• PG&E will undergo a $16 million study of the feasibility of relicensing Diablo Canyon (at your expense).

• PG&E currently has contracts out for $539 million of nuclear fuel, which you will pay for.

And, of course, PG&E spends millions fighting public power (which is almost always more environmentally sound than PG&E’s private mix). Green city or greenwashing? It seems pretty clear to us. *

Dean and Phil, are you tough enough for Trounstine and Grade the News?

-
0

By Bruce B. Brugmann
To: Dean Singleton, vice-chairman and CEO of the MediaNews Group in Denver, immediate past chairman of the board of directors of the Newspaper Association of America, chairman of the board of directors of the Associated Press, and publisher of a flood of newspapers in California and elsewhere
To: Phil Bronstein, editor of the San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst who once claimed that, despite everything, the Chronicle would be aggressively competitive with the San Jose Mercury News and other Singleton papers in the Bay Area

To: all other editors and publishers of the big chain publishers who are collaborating in secret to kill competition and monopolize the newspaper market in the Bay Area and much of California (MediaNews Group/Singleton, Hearst, Gannett, Stephens)

Repeating my blog question of yesterday: Will you run the piece by Phil Trounstine, former political reporter for the San Jose Mercury News,
and comments from John McManus, director of Grade the News.org, a Bay Area consumer report on news quality.
(Grade the News posted the Trounstine piece on its website on Monday April l6 and I posted it yesterday on the Bruce blog.)Next question: If you won’t run Trounstine or McManus, will you run a comparable analysis and commentary from comparable experts or any of your unions or staff members in any of your chain papers? If not, why not?

I asked Trounstine if he had had any response to his piece, which was posted on the Romenesko newsletter yesterday and on many other sites. “As of today, I have received very positive feed/back from some reporters and editors inside both Hearst and MediaNews outlets and from several news media watchers around the Bay Area and some other parts of the country. But I’ve heard nothing from any official at Hearst or any MediaNews outlet, although they are likely aware of the piece since it was linked to (at least) Editor and Publisher, Romenesko and Rough and Tumble.”

I also asked McManus if he had any comment. “The codes of ethics of journalism demand that journalists cover the exercize of power in a community, explicitly including the exercise of their own enormous power over what becomes part of the public consciousness and what does not. I’m very disappointed at how little coverage and initiative the Chronicle and MediaNews papers in the Bay Area have shown in the important issue of newspaper consolidation here.

“You can bet that if one company owned all of the grocery stores in the region, or there was a secret agreement between Costco and Safeway to cooperate rather than compete, news coverage would be intense. Media monopoly has even greater implications because news has the unique power to define reality, especially when one company owns almost every daily in the Bay Area.”

Looks to me like front page stuff for any legitimate competitive newspaper! Or at least good op eds! Dean? Phil? Anybody else at any Hearst, Singleton, Gannett, or Stephens papers? B3

For more on Singleton check G.W. Schulz on the politics blog Newspaper execs pose uncomfortably for camera.

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (4/16/07): 34 Iraqi civilians killed in 6 separate bomb attacks Sunday.

-
0

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (4/16/07): 34 Iraqi civilians killed in 6 separate bomb attacks Sunday.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi civilians:

At least 34 Iraqi civilians were killed in six different bomb attacks Sunday, according to the New York Times.

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

61,391 – 67,364: Killed since 1/03

For a week by week assessment of significant incidents and trends in Iraqi civilian casualties, go to A Week in Iraq by Lily Hamourtziadou. She is a member of the Iraq Body Count project, which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq.

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 15 April 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/40/

For first hand accounts of the grave situation in Iraq, visit some of these blogs:
www.ejectiraqikkk.blogspot.com
www.healingiraq.blogspot.com
www.afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com

U.S. military:

3,542: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

For the Department of Defense statistics go to: http://www.defenselink.mil/

For a more detailed list of U.S. Military killed in the War in Iraq go to:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/2007.04.html

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

153 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war four years ago, making Iraq the world’s most dangerous country for the press, according to Reporters without borders.

156: Killed since 3/03

Source: http://www.infoshout.com/

Refugees:

The Bush administration plans to increase quota of Iraqi refugees allowed into the U.S. from 500 to 7,000 next year in response to the growing refugee crisis, according to the Guardian Unlimited.

Border policies are tightening because one million Iraqi refugees have already fled to Jordan and another one million to Syria. Iraqi refugees who manage to make it out of Iraq still can’t work, have difficulty attending school and are not eligible for health care. Many still need to return to Iraq to escape poverty, according to BBC news.

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

Many refugees were displaced prior to 2003, but an increasing number are fleeing now, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ estimates.

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html

U.S. Military Wounded:

50,502: Wounded since 3/19/03 to 1/6/07

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/


The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (4/16/07): So far, $417 billion for the U.S., $52 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

Here is a running total of the cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayer, provided by the National Priorities Project located in Northampton, Massachusetts. The number is based on Congressional appropriations. Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD originally created the count in 2003 on costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts.

To bring the cost of the war home, please note that California has already lost $46 billion and San Francisco has lost $1 billion to the Bush war and his mistakes. In San Francisco alone, the funds used for the war in Iraq could have hired 21,264 additional public school teachers for one year, we could have built 11,048 additional housing units or we could have provided 59,482 students four-year scholarships at public universities. For a further breakdown of the cost of the war to your community, see the NPP website aptly titled “turning data into action.”

Still censored: the story and debate on the impacts of media consolidation in the Bay Area

-
0

By Bruce B. Brugmann

For years, the Guardian has been publishing on its front page the “Project Censored” story, a list and story of the most “censored” stories of the past year as compiled by Project Censored, a respected 30-year-old media research project at Sonoma State University. We always include our local version of major stories the local mainstream media miss and note that they always “censor” the big local stories involving their own papers. And of course the mainstream press makes the story even better by “censoring” the Project Censored story every year.

The latest “censored” story, as attentive readers of the Bruce blog know, is
the story of the terrible impact of media consolidation in the Bay Area and the documents of secrecy, stonewalling, and collaboration that the nation’s biggest chains are using to censor and obfuscate the story.

This morning April l6, on the widely read Romenesko media newsletter on the Poynter Institute website,
an important story was posted that made the censorship point in 96 point Garamond Bold.
It was headlined “The Crisis of Consolidation in Bay Area News Media” and laid out in a telling argument that the Hearst/Singleton consolidation would mean that “coverage of virtually every level of government, education, sports, criminal justice, arts and business would be in the hands of one organization with a single set of principles, perspectives and purposes. This is the situation one expects in a totalitarian regime, not in pluralistic America.”

This is the kind of commentary that ought be a regular feature of every daily paper and major broadcast station in the Bay Area. The Hearst/Singleton deal ought to be a major running story in the local media. How many regional stories will be covered by one reporter? Will there be real Washington and Sacramento bureaus? Will there be a joint line on editorial policy and endorsements? Will the same candidates get the endorsements for president, U.S. Senate, the House, and other state and local political offices? How much will local news suffer? Will one critic cover a show or opening for all the papers? How many sports writers will be covering the Giants, Athletics, and 49ers? Who will cover all those local meetings? How can any of the papers be real local watchdogs? There ought to be informed discourse and debate on such serious impact questions, but there isn’t and there most likely won’t be in the monopolizing press.

Instead, the crisis commentary was written by the former political editor of the San Jose Mercury News, Philip J. Trounstine. He wrote the commentary as a consultant to plaintiff Clint Reilly in his antitrust trial in federal court aimed at blocking the monopoly deal. Trounstine was also the former communications director for Gov. Gray Davis and is the founder and director of the Survey and Policy Institute at San Jose State University.

So there you have it: the Hearst and Singleton press that owns all the daily papers from Vallejo to Santa Cruz refuse to do the story on the impact of the deal. Citizen Reilly has to sue to get the story out and bring in Trounstine to do an analysis of the impact. The analysis gets out only by being posted on the Grade the News.com, a media watchdog site, and picked up by Romenesko and the Bruce blog.

Trounstine ends with a crucial point: “The tragedy for the public interest is that instead of reallocating resources to increased local coverage, newspapers across the country and throughout the region are instead using the economic gains made from consolidation for short-term gains in profitability.

“With no meaningful daily competition on significant regional and statewide stories, there is no pressure on news operations to intensify coverage of any issue or event. Just the opposite in fact: consolidation ushers in the decline in the range and depth of information that citizens need to make intelligent civic decisions.”

Now, out of embarrassment or principle, will any Hearst or Singleton or Gannett or Stephens paper anywhere in the U.S. run Trounstine or do a comparable story on the Hearst/Single consolidation and its toxic impact on one of the most liberal and civilized regions in the world.? Let me know. Stay alert. B3

Shocked! Shocked! And shocked again!

-
0

Not one of the nation’s biggest newspaper chains (Hearst, Singleton, Gannett, Stephens)
saw fit to run a story on a key decision in favor of the Guardian motion to unseal the records during and after the Riley antitrust trial. Why people get mad at the media (l5)

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Federal Judge Susan Illston’s latest decision was an important free press and public access victory and may lead to an unprecedented public examination of the Hearst/Singleton/Gannett/Stephens move to monopolize the press in the Bay Area and much of California, yet the chain papers and the Associated Press, their wire service, didn’t run the story.

Impertinent rhetorical questions: Why? Will they publish the story? Will they continue to fight to seal the documents despite the judge’s order? Will they continue their policy of promoting the publishers’ side and tossing a bone now and then to plaintiff Clint Reilly?

I think attentive readers of the Guardian and the Bruce blog have a pretty good idea. But, being objective and fair-minded on monopoly issues, I will pose the questions and see if I can get some answers:

To Hearst corporate in New York and MediaNews Group/Singleton corporate in Denver, and Gannett corporate in Arlington, Virginia, and Stephens in Las Vegas: Why didn’t you do the unsealing story? Will you? When? Will you continue to fight to seal the documents despite the judge’s unsealing order?

To the editors and publishers of the San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst, Oakland Tribune/Singleton, Contra Costa Times/Singleton, San Jose Mercury News/Singleton, San Mateo Times/Singleton, Independent Journal in Novato/Singleton: Why didn’t you do the unsealing story? Will you? When?

To the Associated Press: I called the AP office in San Francisco and found that the editor on the story was Brian Corovillano, but he was away from his desk. So I emailed him the questions. He later emailed me this note: “We covered Tuesday’s ruling and I’m attaching the story below (B3: Illston’s decision to allow the lawsuit to proceed.) We decided yesterday’s development didn’t rise to the level of another AP story. But we’ll certainly be keeping a close eye on developments in the caae as it continues.”

To the attorneys and law firms representing the chains in their sealing motions Gary L. Halling , Michael W. Scarborough,and Tyler M. Cunningham from Sheppard, Mullin, Richter, and Hampton in San Francisco and Alan L. Marx and Steven C. Douse from King & Ballow in Nashville, Tennessee (both firms representing Singleton and the chains’ partnership California Newspapers Partnership).

And Gordon L. Lang from Nixon Peabody in Washington, D.C., and John H. Riddle and Paul J. Byrne from the
Nixon Peabody office in San Francisco (representing Singleton): Did you advise your clients not to run the story? Will you continue to fight to seal the documents in this case despite the judge’s unsealing order?

Let me know. You can email me the answers. I assure you that many of us — staffers on your papers, the rest of the press in your circulation area and beyond, and many readers, advertisers, and members of the public — would like to know. More to come, B3

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (4/12/07): 8 Iraqi parliament members killed in Green Zone. 10 Iraqi civilians killed in bridge bombing.

-
0

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (4/12/07): 8 Iraqi parliament members killed in Green Zone. 10 Iraqi civilians killed in bridge bombing.

“How the president and people around him can say things are going well is really hard to comprehend,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

A suicide bomber killed at least 8 Iraqi parliament members today after slipping through the tightest security net in Baghdad, according to the Associated Press.

To read a daily reports of violence and military operations in Baghdad, click here.

Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi civilians:

At least 10 Iraqi civilians were killed when a bridge in northern Baghdad was demolished by a suicide truck bomb, according to CNN.com.

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

61,294 – 67,243: Killed since 1/03

For a week by week assessment of significant incidents and trends in Iraqi civilian casualties, go to A Week in Iraq by Lily Hamourtziadou. She is a member of the Iraq Body Count project, which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq.

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 8 April 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/39/

For first hand accounts of the grave situation in Iraq, visit some of these blogs:
www.ejectiraqikkk.blogspot.com
www.healingiraq.blogspot.com
www.afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com

U.S. military:

3,526: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

For the Department of Defense statistics go to: http://www.defenselink.mil/

For a more detailed list of U.S. Military killed in the War in Iraq go to:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/2007.04.html

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

153 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war four years ago, making Iraq the world’s most dangerous country for the press, according to Reporters without borders.

Source: http://www.rsf.org/

156: Killed since 3/03

Source: http://www.infoshout.com/

Refugees:

The Bush administration plans to increase quota of Iraqi refugees allowed into the U.S. from 500 to 7,000 next year in response to the growing refugee crisis, according to the Guardian Unlimited.

Border policies are tightening because one million Iraqi refugees have already fled to Jordan and another one million to Syria. Iraqi refugees who manage to make it out of Iraq still can’t work, have difficulty attending school and are not eligible for health care. Many still need to return to Iraq to escape poverty, according to BBC news.

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

Many refugees were displaced prior to 2003, but an increasing number are fleeing now, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ estimates.

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html

U.S. Military Wounded:

50,502: Wounded since 3/19/03 to 1/6/07

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (4/12/07): So far, $416 billion for the U.S., $52 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

Here is a running total of the cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayer, provided by the National Priorities Project located in Northampton, Massachusetts. The number is based on Congressional appropriations. Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD originally created the count in 2003 on costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts.

To bring the cost of the war home, please note that California has already lost $46 billion and San Francisco has lost $1 billion to the Bush war and his mistakes. In San Francisco alone, the funds used for the war in Iraq could have hired 21,264 additional public school teachers for one year, we could have built 11,048 additional housing units or we could have provided 59,482 students four-year scholarships at public universities. For a further breakdown of the cost of the war to your community, see the NPP website aptly titled “turning data into action.”

Rev up the presses! Judge Illston rules in favor of a Guardian motion to open all the Hearst/Singleton records during and after the Reilly antitrust trial

-
0

By Bruce B. Brugmann (scroll down for the publishers’ briefs and monopoly news you will see nowhere else)

There’s bad news and good news today. The bad news is that Federal Judge Susan Illston ruled today
April l2 that the Hearst/Singleton documents of secrecy and stonewalling remain under seal in the Reilly antitrust trial. She adopted the proposals for sealing as put forth by the Hearst/Singleton/Gannett/Stephens attorneys.

The good news is that Illston was clearly exasperated with the publishers’ continuing demands for sealing records and stated that “during and after the trial” the public will have a “highly compelling interest in access to all evidence presented by the parties.” She concluded her one paragraph order by saying that “the instant sealing orders will therefore have no effect on the sealing of any evidence presented at trial.”

Attorney James Wheaton of the First Amendment Project in Oakland had earlier won a ruling from Illston to unseal the Hearst/Singleton court records, but allowed the publishers to seal a new batch of records during a later filing. Wheaton asked for a review and argued that Illston “should apply the more stringent standard applicable to dispositive motions” and that the court “should not seal a record submitted with a dispositive motion unless defendants have made the required showing of ‘compelling reasons’ and a balancing of ‘all relevant factors’ to justify sealing.” A dispositive motion is one directed toward or effecting dispositon of a case.

Illston responded to Wheaton’s appeal with today’s order that would unseal the Reilly trial documents and in effect open up the publishers’ monopoly moves to lock up the press of the Bay Area and much of California to an unprecedented examination by the staffs of the chain papers, the rest of the press, and the public.

Wheaton is representing the Guardian and the Media Alliance in this action. See my previous “Stop the presses” blog for more information on the secrecy and stonewalling battle and copies of the publishers’ filings asking for the lastest batch to be sealed. See Illston’s unsealing decision below and Wheaton’s appeal in my previous blog. The Guardian will put up all records during and after the trial on its website at sfbg.com.

Professional note to Reilly and his attorneys Joe Alioto and Dan Shulman: make sure you get all the relevant monopolizing documents of the nation’s biggest chains into the trial so that the Bay Area, and the rest of the world, can see how it is done and how monopolies censor and mangle the coverage of their own monopoly moves. This is one of the big Censored Stories of our time. And it is indeed chilling to watch these events unfold.

Repeating the key question: why is it that a reader and an intervening alternative newspaper have to do the job of the California Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney’s office? Antitrust? What’s antitrust these days? B3

Click here to view Judge Illston’s order to unseal

Stop the presses! Here come the documents of secrecy, stonewalling, and collaboration from the nation’s biggest chains (Hearst, Singleton, Gannett, Stephens) Why people get mad at the media (l4)

-
0

By Bruce B. Brugmann

As expected, Federal Judge Susan Illston ruled on Tuesday April l0 that Clint Reilly can go to trial in his antitrust suit opposing the Hearst/Singleton deal to monopolize the Bay Area newspaper market.

The San Francisco Daily, a free daily, played the story the way it ought to be played: on the front page, with a strong head, “Newspaper monopoly trial allowed, Bid to block it quashed,” and a good lead that said, “A federal judge yesterday cleared the way for an unprecedented jury trial to determine if the consolidation of newspapers in the Bay Area violated antitrust laws.”

The Chronicle and the Singleton papers continued to run the story as if it were a rummy little squabble between a lone angry reader and a big company out there somewhere, without any redeeming journalistic or public interest values.
But the Chronicle did move the story from its usual burial spot in the business section to a new burial spot: straddling the fold on page 4 of its Bay Area section with yet another Rip Van Winkle sleeper head, “Judge permits trial over newspaper deals.”

The story is even harder to find on the Chronicle’s website. When I checked about 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, It ranked 23rd on the list of Bay Area stories, behind Farley the cartoon strip, and behind such blazers as “Bay Bridge Labor Day closure may begin early” and “Rain, rain will go away–’til possibly Saturday” and “Out to pasture they go–3 police horses retire/Long in the tooth, these mounts head to Santa Rosa ranch” and “Muni breakdown creates delays.” However, it did rank ahead of “Miniature boats provide major fun.”

More: not only are the Galloping Conglomerati blacking out and mangling a major story involving their own papers,
but worse they are continuing to reverse their own historic free press and sunshine-in-the-courts positions. They are continuing to press the documents of secrecy, stonewalling, and collaboration in federal court to cover their
moves to monopoly.

Alas, Illston allowed the publishers to keep their records sealed, and the Reilly responses sealed, in their latest filings on April 6, despite her earlier order to open the court records on the demand of the Guardian and the Media Alliance. (The Guardian is appealing her decision and will continue to press to open up the records and keep them open throughout the trial, which is scheduled to begin on April 30.)

Too bad. You can tell, just by glancing at the extensive list of Reilly declarations and records that the publishers want to keep under seal, that there is a lot of explosive stuff in the hopper. Meanwhile, the Riley case remains the only major impediment to the Hearst/Singleton deal. And I am getting the impression that Riley is building a strong case and that Hearst and Singleton are getting extremely nervous about the outcome. It’s going to be a helluva trial.

Check the publishers’ filings below for a preview of coming attractions and the lengths to which they will go behalf of court secrecy and stonewalling. Check also the move by the Guardian attorneys, the First Amendment Project in Oakland, to request Illston to review her sealing order. Most important, check Illston’s excellent, well-reasoned order denying summary judgment. She nails the Hearst/Singleton position on point after point. B3

1. Click here to view the declaration of Joseph J. Lodovic, president of MediaNews Group/Singleton

2. Click here to view the declaration of Daniel E. Ehrman J., vice president of planning and development of Gannett

3. Click here to view the proposed order to seal from the San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst, MediaNews Group/Singleton, Stephens Group, Gannett, and California Newspapers partnership (B3: a business partnership of the papers)

4. Click here to view the proposed order to seal from the MediaNews Group/Singleton

5. Click here to view the letter from the Guardian and its First Amendment Project attorneys asking Judge Illston to review her decision allowing the publishers to seal documents

6. Click here to view the Illston order of April l0 denying the Hearst/Singleton motion for summary judgment and giving Clint Reilly standing to sue

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (4/10/07): 36 Iraqi civilians killed. 4 U.S. soldiers killed yesterday.

-
0

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (4/10/07): 36 Iraqi civilians killed. 4 U.S. soldiers killed yesterday.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

To read a daily reports of violence and military operations in Baghdad, click here.

Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi civilians:

Today Baghdad experienced some of the worst fighting since the intensified Baghdad security plan began nearly two months ago. 36 Iraqi civilians were killed in a suicide bombing, according to the New York Times.

Source.

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

61,074 – 67,015: Killed since 1/03

For a week by week assessment of significant incidents and trends in Iraqi civilian casualties, go to A Week in Iraq by Lily Hamourtziadou. She is a member of the Iraq Body Count project, which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq.

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 8 April 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/39/

For first hand accounts of the grave situation in Iraq, visit some of these blogs:
www.ejectiraqikkk.blogspot.com
www.healingiraq.blogspot.com
www.afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com

U.S. military:

4 U.S. soldiers were killed yesterday, according to the New York Times.
Source.

3,524: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

For the Department of Defense statistics go to: http://www.defenselink.mil/

For a more detailed list of U.S. Military killed in the War in Iraq go to:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/2007.01.html

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

153 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war four years ago, making Iraq the world’s most dangerous country for the press, according to Reporters without borders.

Source.

156: Killed since 3/03

Source: http://www.infoshout.com/

Refugees:

The Bush administration plans to increase quota of Iraqi refugees allowed into the U.S. from 500 to 7,000 next year in response to the growing refugee crisis, according to the Guardian Unlimited.

Source.

Border policies are tightening because one million Iraqi refugees have already fled to Jordan and another one million to Syria. Iraqi refugees who manage to make it out of Iraq still can’t work, have difficulty attending school and are not eligible for health care. Many still need to return to Iraq to escape poverty, according to BBC news.

Source.

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

Many refugees were displaced prior to 2003, but an increasing number are fleeing now, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ estimates.

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html

U.S. Military Wounded:

47,657: Wounded since 3/19/03 to 1/6/07

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (4/10/07): So far, $415 billion for the U.S., $52 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

Here is a running total of the cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayer, provided by the National Priorities Project located in Northampton, Massachusetts. The number is based on Congressional appropriations. Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD originally created the count in 2003 on costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts.

To bring the cost of the war home, please note that California has already lost $46 billion and San Francisco has lost $1 billion to the Bush war and his mistakes. In San Francisco alone, the funds used for the war in Iraq could have hired 21,264 additional public school teachers for one year, we could have built 11,048 additional housing units or we could have provided 59,482 students four-year scholarships at public universities. For a further breakdown of the cost of the war to your community, see the NPP website aptly titled “turning data into action.”

Hot Lex

-
0

› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Lesbians: is there nothing they can’t do? They can run a contemporary art gallery in thigh-baring Versace, tossing back their Paul Labrecqued locks as they leap from their roofless 330Ci. They can go from homeless crack addict to nude Hugo Boss model without gaining a single ounce. They can be a smokin’-hot Latina named Papi, a sassy, brassy canoodler who just happens — surprise! — to be a whiz at hoops. Astonishing lesbians!

Oh, wait. That’s The L Word — about as far from the real world of gloriously rambunctious, wild San Francisco dykes as you can get without scarfing down a gift sack of MAC Pervette lip frost, doing Pilates to Ashlee Simpson ("I am me!"), and microwaving Cheeto, your stump-tailed calico cat. Yes, yes, I know the writhing isle of televised lesbos that L makes LA out to be is one big, fat, easy, anorexic target. Don’t get your Mary Green panties in a bunch, Caitlyn. Just lie back, relax, and think of Joan Jett and Carmen Electra. It’s OK. But just as Chuck D. once bemoaned the fact that most of his heroes don’t appear on no stamps, so my homo heroes don’t appear on no Showtime.

Case in point: Lila Thirkield, the superhumanly vivacious owner of SF sapphic outpost the Lexington Club. When I first moved here in the early ’90s, I almost turned straight or something. The San Francisco my naive dreams envisioned was full of hot, scruffy, tattooed boys into hip-hop and punk, all of them on goofy, gleaming bicycles, occasionally in drag. What I got were mostly overgymed proto–circuit queens in pink spandex thongs and cracked-out twinks you could practically see through. Great if I needed to floss, but … And while all the cute ex–ACT UPers were somewhere adrift — busy shearing sleeves off flannels, maybe — it was the rough-and-tumble sistas who really dotted the t’s on my fanboy résumé. Dykes ruled it.

That was back when wallet chains were radical and FTMs were the new It girls. I’m dating myself, but who wouldn’t, hello? Alas, despite all those Sister Sledge–soundtracked strides up the rainbow of equal signs, women could still get kicked out of bars for making out. Wha? It was a gay man, man, man’s world, and the few lesbian watering holes hewed strictly to the old-school standards: alternadykes, calm down.

Thirkield, a spiky-souled kid at the time, stepped up and opened the Lexington in 1997 to give dykes of a different stripe a dive of their own. Like all bars clever enough to fill a cultural gap, the Lex galvanized its community and reinforced the new, boisterous lesbo aesthetic that combined street activism, machismo appropriation, punk rock attitude, and a winking yen for girly pop culture. And hot sex, of course.

"It seemed so important to have a space where we could be creative, where artists, street kids, and young people could hook up and express themselves," Thirkield says. "It was my first time running a bar, but it was like the whole community was running it with me."

Over the past decade the Lex has persevered in the same spirit. "The economics of the city have really changed," Thirkield says. "Our crowd has a really hard time living here now — that’s why we never charge a cover and we always support other things going on. But really, we’re doing better than ever."

The young drinking dyke crowd has also expanded, finding homes over the years in such spaces as the Phone Booth and Pop’s, as well as legendary joints such as Sadie’s Flying Elephant and the Wild Side West. New bar Stray is catering to a mostly female clientele, and, although lesbian spaces Cherry and the old Transfer have succumbed, a slew of roving dyke dance parties have taken root.

"The dyke scene has changed in the past 10 years too," Thirkield says. "It’s more diverse. Certain aspects of it are more visible in the media — some people expect different things. We get a lot more complaints from people coming in for the first time, saying things like ‘It’s such a dive!’ Well, yes, that’s exactly what it is. I mean, it’s great that lipstick types exist. I hope they find a place that makes them happy. But if you want to flick your lighter and sing along to old Journey songs with a roomful of babes from around the world — like during Pride last year — this is the place."

And what about that pesky L Word? "We get a big crowd to watch it on Sunday nights — mostly because they can’t afford cable. Then they stay for an hour afterward, drinking and bitching about it. So it’s great for business!" *

LEXINGTON CLUB 10TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

Sat/14, 8 p.m.–2 a.m., free

3464 19th St., SF

(415) 863-2052

www.lexingtonclub.com

1...104105106...121Page 105 of 121

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org