News

Dot Dash

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ISBN REAL Exciting news for the tangibility fetishists among us (digital space-children, just hum some binary code for a minute while we grasp at one more straw): Dash Shaw’s serial Web comic BodyWorld (dashshaw.com) will be gracing the third dimension in (earth-) bound form some time next year, as a graphic novel published by Pantheon.

BodyWorld, now up to chapter eight of 12, concerns Paulie Panther, a botanist in the not-too-distant future whose job is to update an encyclopedia of hallucinogenic plant life. This assignment has brought him to the insular forest community of Boney Borough, where an unknown specimen has been discovered on the grounds of the local high school. Panther, the romantically hopeless type (in other words, charmless, unkempt, occasionally suicidal, and still somehow attractive to women), makes a scummy motel room the base of his operation, which consists primarily of nursing and widening the scope of his addictions. Stuck in town waiting for the demurring plant to reveal its effects, he passively falls in with the goings-on of the school.

BodyWorld is most affecting and formally adventurous in its drug sequences, which sneak up on the reader as the plant’s effect — the opening of a conduit to any neighboring consciousness — sneaks up on Panther. Mind-melding and substance abuse (especially the romantically hopeless kind) aren’t the freshest of raw materials, but plot twists that could have been boring are elevated by the effectiveness of their representation. The laconic panel layout (three equally-dimensioned squares across and as many squares as necessary down) is subtly subverted here and there to convey the altered state. Most notably, the confusion of amateur telepathy is rendered with overlapping panels.

A digital space-child out of financial necessity, I read what’s available of BodyWorld before checking out any of Shaw’s earlier, off-line work. I wish I’d read it all in order. BodyWorld is a little disorienting without some wider frame of reference. Its noirish coyness seemed possibly rushed and incommunicative, and the sudden spikes of concentrated empathy came off as conciliatory attempts at cohesion. But it’s easier to trust that the comic’s erratic emotional register isn’t just a broken valve when considered alongside such tonally assured creations as 2006’s The Mother’s Mouth (Alternative Comics, 128 pages, $12.95) and Bottomless Belly Button (Fantagraphics Books, 720 pages, $29.99).

Shaw’s engagement with human frailty hasn’t fully shaken that tannic flavor of a detached exercise. I’m not sure what was preoccupying Dan Kois when he read Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, but Shaw has a way to go yet before his output’s "emotional jolt" — as Kois puts it in a recent New York magazine profile of Shaw — out-zaps that of Corrigan creator Chris Ware. Still, we’re talking about a 25-year-old who renders intimate character dramas that aren’t obviously autobiographical. That endeavor in itself deserves applause. Viewed as part of an impressive and varied body of work (Shaw created thousands of pages before he could even rent a car), BodyWorld feels genuinely experimental instead of rhythmically wayward. It’s an experiment moored by stimuutf8g visual syntax: shards of solid candy hues, evocative lapses in the coloring, those dreamy wandering panels. Plus, shopworn or not, drugs and ESP are just neat.

Raiding Long Haul

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› deborah@sfbg.com

Previously sealed documents related to the Aug. 27 police raid at the Long Haul Infoshop in Berkeley now reveal what the UC Berkeley Police Department was after, even if questions remain about its tactics.

The Statement of Probable Cause refers to e-mail threats against UC Berkeley researchers made by animal rights activists, sent from Long Haul’s IP address. Long Haul — along with its tenants Slingshot, a quarterly newspaper supporting radical causes, East Bay Prisoner Support, and Berkeley Liberation Radio — had several of its computers seized by an assortment of gun-wielding campus cops, Alameda County sheriff deputies, and federal agents who broke into the nonprofit locale, which has been providing office and meeting space for political and social justice groups since 1994.

During the raid, according to Kathryn Miller, one of the first Long Haul collective members to arrive on the scene, authorities wouldn’t show anyone the warrant until they finished breaking open cabinets and nabbing CDs and hard drives in pursuit of evidence. Miller says she even offered to unlock cabinets for them provided they show her the warrant, but the cops still refused.

That warrant explained little about the reasons for the intrusion, other than to refer to the Statement of Probable Cause affidavit filed with the Superior Court and to grant permission to confiscate property that could show a felony had been committed. Immediately after the raid, Robert Bennett, a staff member of Slingshot, expressed his suspicion that the raid was a form of "collective punishment" against left-wing groups, especially considering his publication’s support of the tree-sitters who have delayed a UC Berkeley construction project.

Carlos Villareal, who is part of a team from the National Lawyers Guild that will be representing the besieged nonprofit pro bono, told the Guardian that Long Haul and its tenants have grounds to contest the search as unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.

"I’m pretty confident that we have a good argument that the search was overbroad and the tactics were heavy-handed. Searches need to be limited in both their scope and how they’re done," he said.

Villareal didn’t even see the affidavit until Heather Ishimaru, an ABC Channel 7 news reporter, brought it to Long Haul seeking comment. Ishimaru obtained the document by accident from the Wiley Manuel Courthouse in Oakland on Aug. 8 when a clerk in training provided it to her even though it was under protective seal. If not for that lapse in procedure, Long Haul’s lawyers would have to petition a court to see the incriminating document.

The affidavit, written by Detective Bill Kasiske, details some alarming e-mails sent via free Internet e-mail accounts to a researcher at the university, like one demanding, "STOP TORTURING ANIMALS OR THINGS GET UGLY" or another that correctly stated the researcher’s home address and said, "im a crazy fuck and im watching YOU."

Kasiske concludes, "A search of the Long Haul’s premises could reveal logs or sign-in sheets indicating which patrons used the computers on particular dates." But he doesn’t draw a distinction between computers open to the public and those strictly for the use of tenant organizations.

Even if the search is limited to the public-access computers, not much information can be gleaned from them. Much like at the local public library, anyone — from the Unabomber and Osama bin Laden to an FBI agent — can walk in and use the computers without logging on or leaving any trace of their identity.

It’s unclear why Kasiske didn’t research Long Haul’s practices regarding patron use prior to filing the affidavit, and no one from UCBPD would respond to our calls for comment. Villareal, the legal spokesperson on the case, noted that, "there are less disruptive methods of law enforcement…. We don’t think they would do something similar to a business, Internet café, or library."

A safe sanctuary city

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› news@sfbg.com

OPINION Amid a sea of reporters, I sat in a community meeting in the Mission District last week as city officials struggled to address the rash of homicides that have occurred in the past two weeks. As we listened to the endless chatter, I was greatly dismayed because we were avoiding the elephant in the room — the complete lack of trust between the police department and our communities of color.

I fear that that the relationship between communities of color and the police department has deteriorated beyond repair — in part because of the San Francisco Chronicle‘s xenophobic and inflammatory headlines.

It has been two months since the Chronicle began its skewed campaign of blame, pointing the finger at SF’s Sanctuary City laws as responsible for the rise in crime in San Francisco. The paper limited its coverage to the most extreme cases, such as undocumented homeless youth forced to traffic in narcotics. The stories failed to mention that immigrants are statistically less likely to become involved in crime — and when victimized, are less likely to report the crime.

Now we have gutted our sanctuary-city status with a new policy — one requiring police and probation officers to report detained youth to immigration officials if they even suspect that the detainees are undocumented. There are already reports that the police are arbitrarily stopping and ticketing young Latino males for trivial infractions such as "rosaries obstructing car views" as part of their Violence Prevention Traffic Unit work.

This new policy mandates that we refer immigrant youth charged with felonies to deportation proceedings prior to determining their innocence. What happened to due process?

As a community organizer, I have seen firsthand the tragedy inflicted on families when city officials send students in San Francisco public schools to deportation before determining their innocence or guilt. This regressive policy avoids any input from those most qualified to give it — the district attorney and the public defender.

Here’s the irony of it all — further attacks on the Sanctuary City policy will not produce a safer San Francisco. Indeed, wives and girlfriends in our immigrant communities will be less likely to report incidents of domestic violence for fear their loved ones (or themselves!) will be summarily deported. Conscientious neighborhood residents will be less likely to report vandalism or other youth mischief for fear that children in their community will be spirited away overnight by immigration authorities. And what about homicide? Undocumented people witnessed the murder of a youth and a father in the last two months, but have refused to come forward out of fear that the police will report them to immigration authorities.

Immigrants already live in the shadows of this great nation. They are the economic backbone of California — washing our dishes, picking our produce, and generally subsidizing all of our lifestyles. Police collaboration with immigration officials will force an already exploited population further underground, and engender even greater distrust of those institutions purporting to serve and protect them. *

Barbara "Bobbi" Lopez is a community organizer with the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and a candidate for Board of Education.

A house divided

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› jesse@sfbg.com

Just as the US presidential election hits the home stretch, internal strife at one of the country’s largest labor unions appears to be diverting its focus from electing Barack Obama.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and its 2 million members helped Obama defeat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. Its ground operation and bulging political war chest are crucial to Democratic Party hopes in November, both in the presidential election and congressional races. But a recent corruption scandal and an ongoing internal dispute that threatens to blow up in the coming weeks could undermine the union’s political influence at the worst possible time.

"If SEIU didn’t have to deal with this distraction, it would be able to do more to influence the election," Dan Clawson, a labor scholar and professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, told the Guardian. "California [where nearly all of SEIU’s recent turmoil has taken place] is not where they should be."

But according to several sources within SEIU, the union will be devoting resources to the Golden State this fall, even though the state is widely expected to remain a Democratic stronghold. The sources contend that the organization is preparing to deploy hundreds of its staffers to the region to take control of a local union affiliate and to deal with any potential fallout. At least some of those staffers, the sources say, would have been devoting their time and energy to the election campaign if not for SEIU’s internal troubles.

Last month the union’s international office was forced to "trustee," or take over, its largest California affiliate after the Los Angeles Times ran a series of articles exposing alleged corruption by its leader, Tyrone Freeman. Then, in late August, SEIU announced it was initiating a process to assume control of its second-largest California local, the Oakland-based United Healthcare Workers–West (UHW). For months, SEIU president Andy Stern has feuded with UHW head Sal Rosselli over Stern’s push to consolidate local union chapters into larger and more centralized units [see "A less perfect union," 4/9/08, and "The SEIU strikes back," 4/16/08].

Stern and the international have charged Rosselli and other UHW officials with misappropriating millions of dollars. In late July, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by SEIU covering these same charges. Now SEIU has scheduled its own hearings on the matter to decide whether to clean out UHW’s leadership. The hearings are set for Sept. 26-27 at the San Mateo County Event Center. A separate lawsuit challenging UHW leadership brought by individual UHW members is also moving forward. Rosselli and his supporters strongly deny the allegations of financial misconduct. They claim the upcoming trusteeship hearings are simply Stern’s latest attempt to stifle dissent within the union.

"It’s a kangaroo court," Rosselli told us. "It’s a purely political move to silence our members. And it’s a huge distraction."

SEIU’s turmoil is not welcome news to progressives. Federal election records show that the union’s political arm has dropped more than $10 million into Obama’s candidacy, as well as millions more for other left-wing candidates and causes. Beyond monetary support, Democrats are counting on SEIU organizers to hit the ground across the country, especially in hotly contested states like Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Colorado, and Missouri. But because of the feud, a good number of those foot soldiers could be spending this autumn in safely blue California instead.

If the hearing officer hired by SEIU allows the union to take over UHW, another labor scholar, who spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity, said, "It’s hard to see how [SEIU] would do it without bringing in a significant number of people." He explained that in the event of a trusteeship, some or all of the staff may need to be replaced. The union also might have to contend with a large number of extremely disgruntled people in its 150,000-member affiliate.

Officials at UHW told us that members are planning "massive" demonstrations at the two-day hearings in late September. And the upheaval could easily drag on through the rest of the campaign season if the trusteeship moves forward. Rosselli predicts there will be "major resistance" from his rank and file. He would not elaborate on what that resistance would consist of, but a resolution passed at a recent UHW leadership conference struck a decidedly militant tone: "UHW will fight to keep our members united in one statewide healthcare workers union and will use all available means."

Rosselli told us that resisting SEIU’s trusteeship would "dramatically" curtail his local’s political activities. During the primary season, he added, UHW dispatched teams of organizers to Iowa, New Hampshire, and other critical states. But for the general election, they will be staying home. "We’re in a civil war," Rosselli said. "We need everyone here to defend against Stern’s dictatorship."

The Guardian has learned that Obama and other progressive candidates may not just be losing valuable campaigners from UHW. Several UHW sources said they expect SEIU to send large numbers of union organizers to the Bay Area in the wake of the hearings — and two management-level sources from the international’s staff confirmed those suspicions to us.

The first source, who asked not to be identified, told the Guardian that numerous colleagues at the organization have been approached by "senior international staff, attempting to recruit them and other organizers to come to California … to implement the [possible] trusteeship." The source added that people within the organization believe the union is planning to send "hundreds" of people.

A second management-level source at the international, who also requested anonymity, told us that they have personally assigned several organizers to campaign work only to see those staffers reassigned to the UHW matter by international higher-ups. The second source reiterated the first source’s contention that the union is looking to send "hundreds" of what the source termed "troops" to Northern California to replace any UHW staff who quit or are expelled, and to quell any uprising by disgruntled UHW members.

"This has been deemed an imperative at the top levels of the union," the second source continued. "People have been told [the] numbers of people they need to assign [to the UHW feud] and been told to look over their staff lists to see who they can assign."

Michelle Ringuette, a spokesperson for the international in Washington DC, told us that "no one is being pulled off of political work" to deal with the UHW situation. While she wouldn’t deny that some organizers who might otherwise be involved in lower-level political activities "like get out the vote operations" might be sent to California if needed, she denied that staffers who specialize in politics would be diverted or that hundreds of staffers would be involved. Get out the vote efforts such as phone banks and door-knocking are often performed by union workers on behalf of Democratic candidates — and they can be decisive in a close election.

"Of course this [the trusteeship hearing] is unfortunate timing," Ringuette said. "But … we don’t believe this is going to affect out advocacy for Barack Obama. That is our top national priority."

But a third employee of the international we spoke with rejected Ringuette’s description of a division of labor within the union’s organizers. The longtime employee, who also asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, told the Guardian that a small number of international staffers may specialize exclusively in political activism, but virtually all organizers would be working on the fall campaign in a normal election year.

"If they’re sending organizers to California [to deal with UHW], they’re definitely moving them away from battleground states. California is not considered a battleground state."

Our other two sources at the international echoed the third source’s characterizations.

In a strongly worded letter to Stern dated Sept. 9, UHW’s secretary treasurer Joan Emslie stated that the trusteeship hearings "can only distract" SEIU from political activism and "hinder our ability to put the greatest possible efforts into this critical national election." The letter ended by requesting that the trusteeship hearings be postponed until "a date no earlier than Nov. 10," one week after the presidential election. As of press time, the international has not rescheduled the hearings.

Obama campaign officials we contacted declined to comment on what one called "an internal union matter." But some labor observers were willing to voice their displeasure with the timing of the dispute. Professor Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy at UC Santa Barbara called the trusteeship hearings "a huge mistake." With the upcoming election, Lichtenstein went on, "the consequences could be enormous. What’s the rush?"

Victorian sensibilities

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY It’s hard to argue with Craig Nikitas when he says, "The greenest building is the one that exists now."

As a senior planner with the San Francisco Planning Department, Nikitas knows that a ton of energy is wasted tearing down the old and erecting the new. Energy embedded in the original materials and construction — which often last a century or longer — is also destroyed. And it all ends up in the dump, replaced by new products that might, if you’re lucky, hold up for a fraction of the lifetime of the old components.

Michael Tornabene is a designer at Page and Turnbull, Inc., a Nob Hill District architecture firm specializing in preserving historic buildings, notably the asbestos-laden Old Mint and the Ferry Building. He said the Bay Area is distinguished by its thousands of gorgeous Victorian, Edwardian, and Craftsman homes, as well as its green sentiment. Restoring old buildings can be tricky because their features aren’t standardized. Even so, their age can also be their best virtue.

"What’s great about sustainable upgrades to an historic home is most of the historic homes we’re dealing with were constructed before a mechanically integrated system was developed," Tornabene said, noting most pre-1950s structures already had nice green features such as passive solar orientation, designed into them rather than being built around unsustainable elements — think air conditioning — that are harder to green.

Where to start? First, pick off what Tom Dufurrena, a principal at Page and Turnbull, calls "all the low-hanging fruit — the easy things that have the least cost and the most benefit." Weather-stripping the doors and those rattling old windows, insuutf8g the attic (40 percent of heat is lost through the roof, he said), and replacing old, inefficient appliances with Energy Star models are the three simplest and best historic home improvements. All are noninvasive and energy conscious, and they don’t require a permit from the city.

Such suggestions were just the beginning of measures photographer Peter Bruce took to make his family’s 117-year-old Upper Haight Victorian more efficient and comfortable. Over a five year period, they knocked their monthly electric bill from $250 to $160 by replacing their refrigerator, installing a dishwasher that recycles heated water, and putting in nearly 100 percent efficient hot water heaters.

But Bruce didn’t ignore the low-tech, remembering to string a clothesline and using curtains as more than mere decoration. "Dark, heavy curtains make a world of difference," he said, explaining that they hung these over north- and east-facing windows to keep the rooms toasty. He put sheer, light-colored curtains over west windows to allow in afternoon warmth.

Curtains or no, windows are the controversial linchpin in any discussion of building preservation and sustainability. "There’s almost the knee-jerk reaction from a sustainability point of view to replace your windows with double-paned windows," Dufurrena said. "On an historic building, if the windows are a historic feature — which they almost inevitably will be — then there’s an issue right there with compromising the integrity of the building."

Old window frames are made from higher-quality materials — in San Franciscan Victorians this often means rare first-growth redwood — than most modern energy-efficient alternatives. The National Trust for Historic Preservation cites studies showing it could take a century or longer for a replacement window, typically made of toxic vinyl, energy-intensive aluminum, or a wood composite, to pay for itself in energy savings.

"The worst thing you can do is take out old wood windows and throw them away and replace them with vinyl," Nikitas said.

He said that when Sup. Aaron Peskin was working on the Green Building Ordinance last year, the big question was how to create incentives encouraging people to reuse historic buildings. They devised a system awarding points toward their mandated green building requirement for retaining historic features, and keeping the windows represents a big chunk of the points.

"It’s about the truth of the building and the preservation ethos," said Cara Bertron, Page and Turnbull’s cultural resources specialist. "Those are really hard things to articulate to people who may see the energy savings as worth it."

For more information, including details on upcoming events on greening historic homes, visit www.aiasf.org and www.builditgreen.org.

Waving the black flag

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PREVIEW First the bad news, straight from the wise-ass, too-literate, poetry-writing punk rocker who once muscled his way through Los Angeles hardcore byways and back: "I think McCain will win," Henry Rollins tells me over the phone in Los Angeles after humping a shipment of his new book, Fanatic! Vol. Three (21361), off the truck and into his offices.

"He’s just an awful person." Rollins pauses. "I’m one to talk, but I’m not as awful. I just think America will make the wrong choice again. After all, Democrats never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity — and Republicans cheat."

Ah, Rollins — a heady gust of hardcore wit ‘n’ wisdom, the punk progenitor driving the original, alternate-universe straight-talk express. On the eve of a so-called change election, leave it to the ex–Black Flag frontman and IFC regular to take a talking tour titled "Recountdown" to gauge the state of the nation. Rollins, no doubt, will hold forth on subjects ranging from Sarah Palin ("Who needs five kids? What are you, working in the fields? Are you selling them for meat?") to his recent documentary-making and travels in Thailand, South Africa, New Orleans, Pakistan, and Burma (of the latter he says, "it was five wacky white guys with expensive cameras trying to pass themselves off as tourists").

So in a world that seems to witness even the most obscure underground combo bellying up to the reunion trough, can we ever expect the still-influential Black Flag to reassemble? The good news: Rollins amiably notes that he wouldn’t have much say in the matter since "Black Flag basically belongs to Greg Ginn. But as a hypothetical, I’d pass."

HENRY ROLLINS Fri/19, 8 p.m., $25. Zellerbach Auditorium, UC Berkeley Campus, Bancroft and Telegraph, Berk. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

Clubs: The Great Steve Lady passes on

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steveladypic.jpg

“The way you fierced Middle-America with your thong-and-boots model stomp into that truckstop Diary Queen will be a moment I’ll never forget … ”

An amazingly sad evening, as news that The Steve Lady, stunning drag queen, winner of the first Miss Trannyshack, and, really, just a fierce human, a paragon of class and sexiness, with always a hilariously kind and sisterly word for me, has passed on. I use the word legendary a lot, but The Steve Lady really was it.

Tribute to the Steve Lady

From Juanita More’s Web site:

Dear Friends,

The Steve Lady passed away peacefully at home with her partner and father at her side. Over the past couple of weeks the notes that you left for her were shared with The Lady at her bedside. She was floored by your messages of love.

There will be a celebration of his life in San Francisco, date and time to come.

Love, Juanita

Read the many messages of love. You can help with donations, etc here.

The Steve Lady will be incredibly, sorely missed.

The Steve Lady and Juanita More perform “The Funky Watusi” at Trannyshack’s inflammatory “Wetback night” in ’99 …

Congratulations, Paul Krugman

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

I read the fleeting news break headline on the television monitor at the gym this morning. Paul Krugman, an op ed columnist for the New York Times, on Monday had been awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

The Times story said the prize committee lauded Krugman for “having shown the effects of economies of scale on trade patterns and on the location of economic activity.” And it went on to explain that Krugman had “developed models that explain observed patterns of trade between countries, as well as what goods are produced and why.”

That is all quite appropriate. But I think Krugman deserved this kind of recognition for the superb op ed column he has been doing in the Times since l999. On

Click here to read Paul Krugman’s column from today’s New York Times.

Click here to read the New York Times story on Krugman’s Nobel prize win.

Democracy in St. Paul

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› news@sfbg.com

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The bright white light of flash bombs can be seen everywhere among the scattering crowd. Loud explosions of concussion grenades mix with the lighter, metallic tinkling of tear gas canisters bouncing along the pavement. Lines of police dressed in full riot gear stretch beyond the sulfur-green clouds of smoke bombs. Shouts come from all directions in the darkness, suddenly lit up like a war zone.

"What are you doing? We’re peaceful!" some people scream.

"Turn around! Go back!" police shout.

People are scattering now despite cries from some protesters to stay together. As they retreat, demonstrators bump into police lines blocking off escape routes. The police — on horses, motorcycles and bicycles, in squad cars, even driving dump trucks with lowered snowplow blades — attempt to herd the crowd.

"No more tear gas!" some people yell as they try to escape, their eyes red and watery as medics attempt to help amid the chaos. Others scream, "Where do you want us to go?" as officers plug them with mace.

Still others are getting angry. "Fuck you, pigs!" they shout in defiance, attempting to hold their ground, at times hurling projectiles at the police as the explosions continue.

Despite attempts by police to herd the crowd, people are running wild through the neighborhoods surrounding the Minnesota Capitol Building in St. Paul. They dart through parking lots and unblocked streets, trying to escape and hoping to regroup. Cars screech to a stop and bystanders are swept into the mass as they, too, attempt to sidestep the onslaught of police firing from all directions.

Beginning with nearly 1,000 people, this demonstration has been reduced to around 200. It started earlier as an antiwar rally on the Capitol lawn, the latest in a week of protests and civil disobedience, a citizen response to the Republican National Convention taking place at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. It is Sept. 4, which means John McCain would soon be inside, offering his version of the next four years of America.

By the end of the convention, more than 800 people, including journalists, street medics and legal observers, will have been arrested in RNC-related protests, many having experienced a similar use of force by police.

There had been showdowns between zealous police and protesters all week.

On Aug. 29, police raided the headquarters of the RNC Welcoming Committee, an anarchist organization that says it was here to provide assistance to people who wanted to disrupt the convention through direct action and civil disobedience.

Police said the raid was the culmination of an undercover operation that began a year ago, in which officers claim to have heard discussions about plots to disrupt the convention. During that raid and subsequent raids of the homes of some local activists, police said they found caltrops for popping tires, buckets of urine to throw on police, and hand links for creating human barricades, among other items that could potentially be used to disrupt the convention.

The RNC Welcoming Committee refuted the police claims. "The raid was an effort to derail RNC protest organizing efforts and to intimidate and terrorize individuals and groups converging in the Twin Cities to exercise what are supposed to be their basic civil rights," said Tony Jones, a member of the group.

"We are not the terrorists," another spokesperson later said. "The terrorists are inside the Xcel Center."

Among some 10,000 protesters in St. Paul last week — far more than the contingent that protested at the Democratic National Convention the week before — was a strong contingent of self-proclaimed anarchists, whose direct-action style of protesting led to a near-continuous conflict with police. This became the focus of local and national media coverage, and while to some degree it represented the vibe on the streets, there were also thousands who came to engage in peaceful civil disobedience.

Despite last-minute revisions to the RNC schedule, thousands gathered on Sept. 1 for the March on the RNC protest — the largest of the week — to kick off the opening day of the convention. Throughout the day, confrontations broke out between police and autonomous groups of protesters attempting to block roads and bridges around the city. Some became violent, and there were mass arrests.

Tuesday night, the Poor People’s March For Our Lives" protest provoked confrontation, when several hundred people who marched to the free speech "cage" — a barricaded area outside the Xcel Energy Center reserved for protesting — refused to disband after police issued three dispersal orders. Like the previous day, police began firing tear gas into the crowd, eventually pushing the people to a park, where some 60 were arrested.

The Sept. 4 rally was permitted, but the march was not. The Twin Cities Anti-War Committee, which organized the event, made clear from the beginning it intended to march to the Xcel Energy Center to try to disrupt McCain’s acceptance speech.

At the rally, which preceded the march, a speaker commenting on the mass arrests of protesters asked the crowd, "Are the people responsible for the criminal war on Iraq and the war at home on the poor ever held accountable for their actions?"

"No!" came the reply.

Police had the rally surrounded and intermittently plucked people from the crowd, placing them under arrest for unknown reasons — the most common charges were unlawful assembly, felony property damage, and felony riot. Large clusters left the main body of the rally and surrounded the police, prompting tense stand-offs as the police removed those under arrest.

"Stay together," Katrina Plotz, an organizer with the Anti-War Committee, screamed from the stage. "They’re trying to steal our protest — we have to ignore the police intimidation."

What became a battlefield here in the streets of St. Paul began with a series of sit-ins, as impenetrable police lines continually stifled marchers not looking for a serious fight with police. Frustrated with repeatedly being halted — a slow process in which police used horses to divide groups and arrest only some protesters — demonstrators engaged in an improvised maverick march that went wherever it could, for as long as it could.

Now, in the quieter moments between concussion bomb blasts that pushed the group toward its ultimate fate in the Ramsey County Jail, a small debate broke out among some of the protesters about how effective their direct action was at this RNC.

"It makes sense at a WTO conference like Seattle in 1999, where policymaking can actually be halted," one said of the police presence. "But more than anything else the RNC is ceremonial."

Still, as the police ultimately herded this crowd onto a bridge that police then blocked on both sides before placing everyone under arrest, it was clear those here tonight were angry. Judging from chants throughout the week, most felt they could not meaningfully participate in the political system in any other way. They obviously wanted to be heard.

"The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!" they shouted as police shot pepper spray into the crowd, forcing its last few steps onto the bridge.

This report first appeared in the Louisville Eccentric Observer. Sam Stoker is a freelance reporter based in Chicago. Like many journalists covering the protests — including Amy Goodman and two of her DemocracyNow! producers — Stoker was arrested and charged with "presence at an unlawful assembly." Police confiscated his notes and camera gear.

Moment of truth

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› news@sfbg.com

The controversial and long-awaited Eastern Neighborhoods Community Plan — which includes a thicket of thorny planning and financing issues that will largely determine San Francisco’s socioeconomic future — has finally arrived before the Board of Supervisors.

Neither developers nor community activists are happy with the plan approved Aug. 7 by the Planning Commission, which sets zoning, policies, and funding levels for new development in the Mission District, eastern SoMa, Potrero Hill, and the Central Waterfront.

Developers objected to the fee levels and affordable-housing requirements, saying they would discourage growth, but the compromise plan of less than $16 per square foot in development fees (which vary widely, depending on many factors) and a maximum 20 percent affordable-housing requirement have left public needs severely underfunded. San Francisco Planning Department estimates indicate the fee structure will yield only about $150 million for the area’s $400 million in infrastructure needs.

“The plan right now is not balanced in favor of diversity and real neighborhood needs,” said Sup. Tom Ammiano, who plans to introduce a long list of amendments to the plan in conjunction with Sup. Sophie Maxwell and neighborhood groups that include the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition, the South of Market Citizen Action Network (SOMCAN), and the Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association.

On the other side of the equation, the Residential Builders Association and other developers say the city will end up with little development activity if they ask for too much, and they’re threatening legal action if the city pushes too hard. “Our members certainly aren’t happy, and the industry isn’t happy,” RBA president Sean Keighran told the Guardian, saying the plan allows for too little development. “Many of our members are meeting with attorneys and considering their options.”

The Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee will begin working through the myriad conflicts Sept. 15 with a series of at least four hearings running through Sept. 23, when the plan could head for the full board. But given the complex political dynamics at play — and the fate of Proposition B, the affordable housing set-aside measure that could help narrow the funding shortfall — key parts of the plan could be delayed until at least January, when the new board is seated, making the stakes of this November’s election even higher.

Political priorities will determine the plan’s emphasis, and the balance of power on the board now seems to favor increasing the amount of affordable housing that will be required in the eastern neighborhoods, home to much of San Francisco’s remaining working class. The supervisors also are leaning toward asking developers to pay more for parks and other infrastructure needs.

Planning Department staffer Steve Wertheim said the goal has been to “make the fees as feasible as possible” for developers and “to find a sweet spot” that will satisfy developers as well as community activists. While he said the commission “was as aggressive as possible with the tools we had available, we would have to subsidize every house if we want [more] affordable housing.”

Planners say they are constrained by city studies indicating that developers won’t build if required to offer more than 20 percent of their housing units below market rates. “As a resident of San Francisco, I would love to see housing cheaper. But we can’t make affordable housing requirements so high that we end up getting no housing at all,” Wertheim said. “We’ve done as much as we can, but the whole city has to commit.”

Indeed, the plan’s funding shortfall raises citywide questions. Tony Kelly, president of Potrero Boosters, said the unspoken assumption in the Eastern Neighborhood Plan is that voters will need to approve Prop. B: “This plan is a big argument for the housing fund.” Either the proposition passes or San Francisco simply becomes steadily less affordable for working families.

Keighran thinks there’s been too much focus on affordable housing. “This one goal should not take priority over the other goals,” Keighran said. “We feel we’re being asked for so many different things from so many different people.”

Yet the activists argue that San Francisco will lose its working class and families if the market alone is allowed to determine what kind of housing is built. The city’s own general plan states that 64 percent of new housing should be affordable. The activists are urging the supervisors to prioritize community needs over developer profits.

“It’s a huge, sprawling plan that has a lot of detail, and the details we wanted to see aren’t there,” said Nick Pagoulatos, coordinator of the MAC. “In terms of the housing, it’s a complete disaster for our housing needs…. The housing we’re seeing is the same old housing we’ve always seen in our neighborhoods, which is mostly market-rate housing.”

Given the amount of light industrial land in the plan area that would be zoned for housing — enough for an estimated 7,500 new units — Pagoulatos said the community has gotten very little. The Planning Department estimates that less than 30 percent of the housing developed under the plan will be considered affordable — less than half of what the city needs — and even getting to that level will require more funding, perhaps by creating new redevelopment districts.

Among other problems in the plan, Pagoulatos said there isn’t nearly enough land set aside for the fully affordable projects that nonprofit entities seek to build with city affordable-housing funds. “If we don’t get that, then we didn’t get anything for all the concessions that we’ve made,” he said.

While the plan now includes modest new affordable housing and community benefits requirements for developers who want to exceed the plan’s height and density limits, activists say the community isn’t getting enough for offering this carrot. They propose to require that 100 percent of the units exceeding current entitlements be affordable.

“Our main concern is there isn’t enough affordable housing in the plan,” said Chris Durazo, community planning director for SOMCAN. “We want the Board of Supervisors to get involved and take this seriously. They need to understand how this community is growing. The families here now should be able to remain here.”

SOMCAN formally appealed the Planning Commission’s approval of the plan’s environmental impact report, which didn’t include detailed traffic studies that must eventually be completed. “We’re appealing it based on them punting the traffic and transportation plan,” Durazo said.

Kelly said that was emblematic of the cursory approach planners have taken toward sizing up and providing for the needs of residents in the affected neighborhoods. “This whole plan is going to move forward with less than half the money for neighborhood improvements they say are necessary,” Kelly said. He notes that the population of the 94107 ZIP code could double under the plan, which makes no provisions for increasing transit services for that higher population or securing new land for parks.

“The gap in affordable housing and the loss of light industrial jobs is matched by a lack of funding for community improvements,” said Kelly, who said his association focuses on that latter issue but is supportive of community groups that focus on housing and jobs.

In fact, there has been an unprecedented level of community organizing and collaboration among groups of all political stripes around this plan, work that is expected to pay off more at the board level than at the commission level.

“Because the board and the commission are two very different political bodies, others may come out that weren’t at the commission hearings,” said Wertheim, noting that developers were well-represented at the commission level. “But the one thing I’ve learned from this whole process is not to be surprised.”

Keighran seemed to sense the changing dynamics. “Planning takes methodical procedural work,” he said. “Politicians are not best suited to doing planning.”

But the activists say this plan should be a reflection of the city’s values, not simply a product of discussions between developers and planners. Yet they understand that politics can cut both ways, particularly during an election season.

“Of course we need more housing, but building $6 million condos isn’t the answer,” said Marc Salomon of the Western SoMa Task Force, which broke away from the Eastern Neighborhoods planning process — a process he criticizes. “It’s not about housing people, it’s about investment. It’s ‘How do we give the developers what they want and give the natives the bare minimum, or just enough that they don’t burn down City Hall?'<0x2009>”

Salomon fears the Eastern Neighborhoods will continue to suffer from political pandering. “The [supervisors] are all looking for their next move,” Salomon said. “The discourse has moved so far to the right that you can’t be against market-rate housing. And what they’re doing is developing market-rate housing to suit developers, and at the same time purging this city of progressives.”

The buzz on urban bees

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY One would hardly even notice there was a beehive in the garden behind the Mission District’s Kaliflower Collective, except for the winged traffic shuttling industriously between the four-tiered bee box and the fruit trees flowering just overhead.

It’s not easy to imagine, given the scant handful of visible bees, that as many as 50,000 bees might be contained within the modest hive which, at less than two feet square and about three feet tall, looks as innocuous and unthreatening as a stack of closet organizers. It’s also hard, in this tranquil setting, to fully appreciate the crisis situation of colony collapse disorder (CCD), which has been quietly decimating honeybee populations nationwide since 2006. Some beekeepers report up to 90 percent losses. Since bees are responsible for pollinating a wide variety of urban plants — from fruit trees to garden veggies, from clover to cactus — beekeeping is more than a curious hobby. It’s an essential link in the chain of life as we know it.

The even-keeled behavior of San Francisco’s backyard bees is appreciated by most urban beekeepers. Roger Meier, a Castro District-based beekeeper whose home-produced honey appears in several local markets under the label Mint Hill, admits that despite their proven usefulness in city settings, the idea of kept bees can cause some consternation among the uninitiated. Swarming bees in search of a new hive (such as a recent incident in the Mission reported on SFist.com) is cited as a cause for alarm by nervous neighbors.

"It’s pretty frightening to wake up and find a big swarm of bees in your backyard if you don’t know much about them," Meier says. His neighbors have come to appreciate his honey-making habit over the years, not to mention their own well-pollinated apple trees, which he calls "happy with fruit." That Meier, like most experienced beekeepers, actively maintains his hives to prevent swarming also helps keep potential public relations problems in check.

Since swarms mainly occur when a hive gets overcrowded, Meier and his fellow apiculturists monitor the population growth of each hive and split their broods into empty bee boxes when necessary — a process known as "forced swarming." Despite these precautions, swarms can occur, but people are urged not to panic or reach for the Raid. Instead, the San Francisco Beekeepers Association offers removal referrals on its Web site, www.sfbee.org, and many urban beekeepers are happy to inherit a new brood.

Peter Sinton, president of the association, estimates there to be around 60 active beekeepers in a club with a membership of 171, a number that seems initially low until you consider that most beekeepers run multiple hives. Kept bees can be found across the area in backyards, rooftops, community gardens, the Alemany Farm, and the Crystal Springs watershed. Spreading the bee population over far-flung neighborhoods is one way to ensure the continued survival of diverse flora and means that even if the beekeeper loses one or two hives to infestation, infection, or CCD, there will be some survivors.

It’s not just a passion for pollination that brings nascent beekeepers into the fold. Nancy Ellis, animal exhibit coordinator at the Randall Museum, began her journey into apiculture when she became responsible for the upkeep of the museum’s exhibit hive. Nearly nine years later, she cares for four hives in various locations and bottles her honey harvests under the label Bee Bop. She waxes somewhat rhapsodic on the unique benefits of honey: "It’s bactericidal, like Neosporin," she explains, "and its chemical makeup keeps it from spoiling or getting moldy." Another unique benefit of honey is its reported effect on sufferers of pollen allergies, whom Ellis encourages to take a small dose of locally-produced honey per day to "inoculate" themselves against the allergens present in surrounding flora.

But it’s not just the medicinal that lures folks into apiculture. Suzi Palladino, youth program and compost education manager at the Garden for the Environment, cites her interest in urban sustainability and self-sufficiency as key to her forays into apiculture. Peter Sinton refers to the meditative state his beekeeping encourages.

"Handling bees is like tai chi," he says. "Do it with calm and grace, and bees usually do not get riled up."

Scary movie

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REVIEW The scariest movie of 2008 so far is, quite possibly, Dorothy Fadiman’s Stealing America: Vote by Vote, a stomach-turning look at election irregularities that stretch back as far as 1996, with a special emphasis on the über-fishy goings-on in Ohio circa 2004. A thorough array of charts, graphics, news clips (including, yes, some from The Daily Show), and credible talking heads examine the troubling facts: discrepancies between exit polls and actual vote tallies; suspicious situations involving voting machine software (including an interview with a computer expert who claims he was hired by Republicans to write a "vote-switching" program — oops, you just voted for George W. Bush!); inexcusably long lines at polling places; uncounted votes and purged voter lists; and the unwillingness of the mainstream media (and, according to the film, the John Kerry campaign) to seriously consider the anomalies to be the result of Republican fraudsters. Some twinkly uplift in the film’s last moments suggest hope, or at least the hope of accountability, for future elections — but are paper ballots that can actually be hand-counted (and re-counted) a practical solution? Stern narrator Peter Coyote suggests there’s more to it than that: "If this film does anything, it will make you take yourself, and your vote, and your country seriously enough to get engaged and go to work — and together, we’ll take our country back." Let’s just hope that vote you cast for change this November actually gets counted.

STEALING AMERICA: VOTE BY VOTE opens Fri/12 at Bay Area theaters.

Palin’s veto power

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By Sarah Phelan

-palin.jpg
So, maybe the pen IS mightier, after all? Palin’s budget vetoes.

Forget about using Wikipedia to find out the truth about GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin.

As online reports have noted, a sockpuppet called “Young Trigg” scrubbed the entry for Alaska’s first female governor the day before McCain publicly announced his VP pick.

That story should be a wakeup call for those tempted to rely on doctored or poorly researched online articles, in trying to find out who Gov. Sarah Palin really is.

The good news? There are plenty of other online resources that provide valid insights into Palin’s political priorities.

Consider, for instance, Governor Palin’s vetoes of Alaska’s FY 08 and 09 capital budget.

This shows that Palin vetoed a $350,000 statewide school substance abuse education and prevention program.

She also vetoed funding for wireless access and laptops in Alaskan community schools, including those in the North Pole district. (Guess Santa can spring for those, right?.)

And she eliminated funding for several native community projects, including the Kluti Kaah community recreation and learning center in the Interior Villages, the Jilkaat Kwaan cultural heritage center and Bald Eagle observatory in the Southeast Islands, and the Ilisagvik College Workforce Development program in the Artic.

Palin also vetoed a snow fence in the Bering Straits, a Zamboni blade sharpener for the Homer Hockey Association, statewide boy scout camp upgrades.

Oh, and she vetoed the Anchorage Police Department’s $17. 5 million request to expand its headquarters, for the second year in a row, along with a number of fire department’s requests for emergency safety equipment.

This summer, Alaskan lawmakers argued for a robust capital budget, which they said would help build the state and boost its economy. But Palin disagreed, saying she wanted to limit spending to public safety, health and infrastructure, and angering some representatives, by not giving them a chance to defend programs which either fell entirely victim to, or were halved, as Palin made $268 million worth of cuts, leaving Alaska with a $3.6 capital budget.

Here are Palin’s views on the line-item veto, taken from KTUU’s site.

“Well, you know, that’s the beauty of our system here — is checks and balances, provide for that tool to be used, if they deem that necessary, those who hold the purse strings and that’s the lawmakers if they want to override,” Palin said.

In addition to vetoing a $100,000 KTOO Government Transparency Project, Palin also axed a $50,000 community development center’s video project that was to have been called, “Alaska Teen Talk Show.”

The project aimed to produce pilot talk shows written and produced by the students, with students advised to audition several prospective hosts, rating each one on poise, intelligence, personality and looks.

“You should ultimately base your choice on a host’s familiarity with your show’s theme,” states the application.” If you hire the most attractive but vapid interviewer to host a political talk show and they don’t know anything about the presidential race, viewers will know it and change the channel.”

Sadly, I’m not at all convinced that viewers do change channel, just because a good-looking host is vapid. And while I don’t know why this particular project didn’t get funded, I can’t help imaging that whoever wrote this grant application must be wishing that they’d chosen some other example, when applying for this grant.

SF’s scary new Halloween plan

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Nimby_1985.JPG
Image from SF Party Party

By Steven T. Jones

San Francisco’s latest plan for Halloween, which falls on a Friday this year, is a ridiculously naive recipe for disaster. Even worse, mayoral flak Nate Ballard is still trying to peddle the ludicrous assertion that creating a police state and ending the Castro party early by turning water hoses on the costumed participants is sound civic policy, telling the Chronicle: “We’re optimistic this strategy will deliver a peaceful Halloween for the second straight year.”
I got news for you, Nate, Gavin Newsom, Bevan Dufty and the rest of the nervous nellies who are afraid to throw a decent party: occupation isn’t the same as peace. And it’s certainly counter to San Francisco’s values and economic interests. These people earlier this year hired Laura Fraenza at a ridiculously high six-figure salary to come up with a plan for Halloween and all they could do is propose a no-name concert in the baseball stadium that will appeal to none of the people who are drawn to the Castro each year. Lame, lame, lame.
Between trying to cancel the plan to issue identification cards to city residents, including those without immigration documents (which Newsom has no authority to do under the charter given that the Board of Supervisors created the program on a veto-proof 10-1 vote) and his efforts to end San Francisco’s Sanctuary City status, Newsom’s flirtation with running for higher office has made him scared of his own civic shadow. Toughen up, Mr. Mayor, because we don’t intent to sacrifice San Francisco’s most laudable initiatives and best civic gatherings on the altar of your political ambitions.

Locking up the press

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› sarah@sfbg.com

On Aug. 20 the San Francisco Chronicle reported that video blogger Josh Wolf, who spent 226 days in federal prison in 2006 for refusing to testify before a grand jury and hand over his video of a protest turned violent, had begun working as a reporter with the Palo Alto Daily Post.

"Video blogger gets job as ‘real journalist,’<0x2009>" crowed the headline.

The article noted that some critics believe Wolf was a protest participant and not an impartial news gatherer, and accurately observed that his case fueled the debates over what defines a reporter and who deserves to be protected by the reporter’s privilege to protect confidential sources.

But it failed to mention that one of Wolf’s harshest critics was Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders, nor did it clarify that in recent years several federal courts have found that reporters — all reporters, even from major newspapers — can be forced to testify before grand juries.

California doesn’t allow its courts to compel journalists to reveal unpublished information, but the federal government has no such shield law. That’s why prosecutors could jail New York Times reporter Judith Miller, charge Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada with contempt, and slap USA Today‘s Toni Locy with hefty fines — all for refusing to disclose confidential sources and materials.

And as reporters continue to face contempt charges in federal court cases nationwide, Congress has been considering two very different versions of a federal shield bill.

These two versions take widely varying approaches toward who and what is protected. And thanks to Senate Republicans, who blocked all business not related to energy legislation before Congress’ August recess, a vote on the Senate bill did not occur at the end of July.

As a result, if the Senate doesn’t act by the end of September, both versions of the federal shield will likely die. And, depending on whom you talk to, that may or may not be a good thing.

The Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 (HR 2102), which the House of Representatives passed in October of that year, only protects journalists if their work is done for a substantial portion of the person’s livelihood or for substantial financial gain. In other words, no protection for Wolf, for most bloggers, or for many freelancers.

The good news is that the House bill extends protections to any documents or information obtained during the newsgathering process.

By comparison, the Senate bill (S 2035) only protects the identity of confidential sources, and any records, data, documents, or information obtained under a promise of confidentiality.

The Senate shield would cover any journalist who "engages in the regular gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public."

But it no longer requires the government to prove by preponderance of evidence that the information it seeks is essential, or that it has exhausted all other methods. And it makes more difficult any challenge by the reporter, based on whether the information involved is "properly classified" or whether its disclosure would harm national security.

It also expands the list of exceptions for which protection would be precluded: if disclosure could prevent criminal activities, terrorism, kidnapping, or imminent death or bodily harm; identify a person who has released some categories of private business and medical information; and where reporters witness criminal or tortuous conduct.

"I can’t overstate how much better the House bill is," Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told the Guardian.

Although Dalglish is hopeful Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will schedule the bill for a vote, she fears there won’t be enough time for a conference committee to iron out the differences between the two bills before the end of September, which means that only one version will have a chance of passing into law.

"My guess is that it will be the Senate bill, because the House will pass the Senate bill in a heartbeat, but the Senate will never pass the House bill," Dalglish observed.

Reached on break from his reporter gig, Wolf voiced his opposition to the Senate bill. "A shield law riddled with holes is no shield at all," Wolf said.

"It boggles my mind that any journalist could support the bill the way it is written," said Wolf, who would like to see a common law reporter privilege similar to the one for psychiatrists and therapists. "This is a shield law, in which, as best as I can tell, every single federal contempt case is carved out as an exception," Wolf opined.

While Dalglish acknowledges that the Senate shield only addresses subpoenas that seek to identify confidential sources (about 20 percent of subpoenas), she believes the Chronicle‘s Williams and Fainaru-Wada would have been protected, as would Locy.

"But Josh [Wolf] would not have been covered because he was not protecting confidential sources, and Judith Miller would have had a shot, though her case would have a more difficult time because of national security implications," Dalglish said. "And while by far the most subpoenas don’t have to do with confidential sources, they are the holy grail of journalism ethics, and you certainly have to, at a minimum, protect them — and the Senate bill is minimal."

Dalglish believes that both the Senate and House bills would allow the truthful, accurate, and independent gathering of information to go public, so the public could use this information at ballot boxes and in city halls, and ensure that people who have information to share could share it with reporters and the public.

"It’s not about protecting reporters," Dalglish added. "Reporters are not that special, in any shape or form. It’s about protecting the right of reporters to freely work on the public’s behalf, without being viewed as agents of the US Attorney."

Noting that the law in the Senate is not going to change what happened to Wolf in that instance because he was not protecting a confidential source, Dalglish’s message for reporters facing subpoenas, first and foremost, is: "Resist, tell them you don’t have it.

"Your obligation is to be independent, not an agent of the government," he continued. "So take your video, put it on a Web site, and make sure the public gets to see it at same time as the US Attorney."

RNC: Protest Amy Goodman/Journalist arrests

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Coming to work this morning, I listened with outrage to the Thom Hartmann radio program on Air America (960AM) and his chilling interview with Amy Goodman, who detailed her arrest with her Democracy Now/Pacifica Radio/KPFA crew at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Here are the details of this important story the mainstream media is paying scant attention to. And what you can do about it. Watch for protests from the Society of Professional Journalists and other journalism and free press organizations.


Free Press Action Alert:

Yesterday, police in St. Paul arrested several journalists, including Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and an AP photographer as they were covering protests of the Republican National Convention.

Stand Up for Independent Journalism

Amy Goodman and others were released last night, but the story is not over.

We need you to cosign our public letter demanding that press intimidation cease immediately, and that all charges be dropped. It will be delivered immediately to St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, the RNC Host Committee and the local prosecuting attorneys. We need 10,000 signatures in the next 24 hours, so please take action now:

Sign the Letter: Drop All Charges Against Journalists

In addition to these arrests, police with firearms drawn raided a meeting of the video journalists’ group I-Witness and arrested independent media, bloggers and videomakers. We’re also receiving late-breaking reports of other arrests.

By signing this letter, you’re sending a powerful message: Officials must rein in aggressive and violent tactics by local law enforcement, stop the targeting of journalists and immediately drop all charges against them.

Reporting by independent journalists is vital to a functioning democracy. Americans must have access to diverse sources of information to hold their leaders accountable. Journalists must be free to do their jobs without intimidation.

Please Take Action by Signing this Letter

Don’t wait. We need a free press now more than ever. Tell your friends and take action now!

Thank you,

Josh Silver
Executive Director
Free Press
www.freepress.net

1. Watch the video of Goodman’s arrest.

2. See other journalists being arrested as reported by UpTake.

3. News of the AP arrest.

4. Learn more about the arrest of an ABC News producer during the Democratic Convention in Denver.

5. Watch the video of the police raid of I-Witness journalists (Caution: strong language).

McCain’s dangerous choice

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ByBruce B. Brugmann

Yes, McCain’s choice for vice-president is a dangerous one. Here’s the best summary I’ve seen demonstrating just how dangerous, from MoveOn.org. B3

Dear MoveOn member,
Yesterday was John McCain’s 72nd birthday. If elected, he’d be the oldest president ever inaugurated. And after months of slamming Barack Obama for “inexperience,” here’s who John McCain has chosen to be one heartbeat away from the presidency: a right-wing religious conservative with no foreign policy experience, who until recently was mayor of a town of 9,000 people.

Huh?

Who is Sarah Palin? Here’s some basic background:

She was elected Alaska’s governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.1

Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.2

She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000. 3

Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.4

She’s doesn’t think humans are the cause of climate change.5

She’s solidly in line with John McCain’s “Big Oil first” energy policy. She’s pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won’t be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.6
How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.7
This is information the American people need to see. Please take a moment to forward this email to your friends and family.

We also asked Alaska MoveOn members what the rest of us should know about their governor. The response was striking. Here’s a sample:

She is really just a mayor from a small town outside Anchorage who has been a governor for only 1.5 years, and has ZERO national and international experience. I shudder to think that she could be the person taking that 3AM call on the White House hotline, and the one who could potentially be charged with leading the US in the volatile international scene that exists today. —Rose M., Fairbanks, AK

She is VERY, VERY conservative, and far from perfect. She’s a hunter and fisherwoman, but votes against the environment again and again. She ran on ethics reform, but is currently under investigation for several charges involving hiring and firing of state officials. She has NO experience beyond Alaska. —Christine B., Denali Park, AK

As an Alaskan and a feminist, I am beyond words at this announcement. Palin is not a feminist, and she is not the reformer she claims to be. —Karen L., Anchorage, AK

Alaskans, collectively, are just as stunned as the rest of the nation. She is doing well running our State, but is totally inexperienced on the national level, and very much unequipped to run the nation, if it came to that. She is as far right as one can get, which has already been communicated on the news. In our office of thirty employees (dems, republicans, and nonpartisans), not one person feels she is ready for the V.P. position.—Sherry C., Anchorage, AK

She’s vehemently anti-choice and doesn’t care about protecting our natural resources, even though she has worked as a fisherman. McCain chose her to pick up the Hillary voters, but Palin is no Hillary. —Marina L., Juneau, AK

I think she’s far too inexperienced to be in this position. I’m all for a woman in the White House, but not one who hasn’t done anything to deserve it. There are far many other women who have worked their way up and have much more experience that would have been better choices. This is a patronizing decision on John McCain’s part- and insulting to females everywhere that he would assume he’ll get our vote by putting “A Woman” in that position.—Jennifer M., Anchorage, AK

So Governor Palin is a staunch anti-choice religious conservative. She’s a global warming denier who shares John McCain’s commitment to Big Oil. And she’s dramatically inexperienced.

In picking Sarah Palin, John McCain has made the religious right very happy. And he’s made a very dangerous decision for our country.

In the next few days, many Americans will be wondering what McCain’s vice-presidential choice means. Please pass this information along to your friends and family.

Thanks for all you do.

–Ilyse, Noah, Justin, Karin and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. “Sarah Palin,” Wikipedia, Accessed August 29, 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

2. “McCain Selects Anti-Choice Sarah Palin as Running Mate,” NARAL Pro-Choice America, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17515&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=1

3. “Sarah Palin, Buchananite,” The Nation, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17736&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=2

4. “‘Creation science’ enters the race,” Anchorage Daily News, October 27, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17737&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=3

5. “Palin buys climate denial PR spin—ignores science,” Huffington Post, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17517&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=4

6. “McCain VP Pick Completes Shift to Bush Energy Policy,” Sierra Club, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17518&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=5

“Choice of Palin Promises Failed Energy Policies of the Past,” League of Conservation Voters, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17519&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=6

“Protecting polar bears gets in way of drilling for oil, says governor,” The Times of London, May 23, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17520&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=7

7 “McCain met Palin once before yesterday,” MSNBC, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=21119&id=13661-3553856-mj902Fx&t=8

Want to support our work? We’re entirely funded by our 3.2 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

——————————————————————————–
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. This email was sent to lani silver on August 30, 2008. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.

Sarah Palin, Smith Barney, and Barney Smith

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Sarah Palin’s Portfolio Managed by Smith Barney, Her Policies Would Fail Smith Barney

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Let me admit that I had never really heard of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. I knew that every congressperson from Alaska was either under indictment or under criminal investigation but I didn’t know that much about the governor. I found out this morning from the Tom Hartman radio show on Air America that she herself is under an ethics investigation for interfering as governor with an investigation of her ex-brother-in-law in Alaska.

So I was fascinated to see the material gushing forth as breaking news from the Center for American Progress Action Fund. The one that caught my eye first outlined the Barney Smith angle. Its lead on a nifty political point: “Last night at the Democratic convention, a former Republican named Barney Smith spoke of the need for economic policies that “Help Barney Smith, not Smith Barney.

“Ironically, according to Saray Lskow at the Center for Public Integrity who analyzed Palin’s disclosure forms, Sarah Palin’s financial portfolio is managed by none other than Soloman Smith Barney.

“Furthermore, by joining McCain on the tdicket, Palin is now endorsing a radical $300 billion in tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy that would leave out mllions of American families while delivering $45 billion in tax breaks for America’s 200 largest corporations and at leasdt $6.3 billion for American’s largest financial firms.”

Click here to read B. Furnas’ blog, Sarah Palin’s Portfolio Managed By Smith Barney, Her Policies Would Fail Barney Smith, from the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s blog, The Wonk Room.

Check the following link for more telling bio information on Palin from The Wonk Room

The heads and stories in order make the point: “What Does Sarah Palin Thionk Of McCain’s Opposition to Equal Pay? Would Palin Still Carry a Pitchfork for Pat? Sarah Palin’s Portfolio Managed by Smith Barney, Her Policies Would Fail Smtih Barney. Sarah Palin: a Champion For Big Oil. On His Key Issue: McCain VP Pick Rolls The Dice. McCain And Palin: Promoting Failed Consumer-Driven Health Care.

American Dreamer: Dreams Deferred

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TheRoad.jpg
Steven T. Jones and Kid Beyond are driving to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, stopping by Burning Man on the way there and back, reporting on the intersection of the counterculture and the national political culture.

By Kid Beyond

On Tuesday afternoon, to a half-filled hall, Dennis Kucinich gives the best speech you won’t see on any front page, at the top of any news hour. He has the audacity to shout from the rooftops that the Emperor Has No Clothes. “Wake up, America! The insurance companies took over health care! Multinational corporations took over our trade policies! Wake up, America! We went into Iraq for oil!”

The man is en fuego. He’s a mean, green, righteous-indignation machine. In the crowd, mouths are agape. Check out the short guy! Incredulous jaws are hitting the floor. He’s whipping them into a frenzy. Black folks, white folks. It’s like Showtime at the Apollo, when the audience finally realizes, “Hey, that white boy can sing.”

Content-wise, it’s old news to most Guardian readers. But in the centrist halls of the DNC, speaking naked truth to power is a subversive act indeed. They’re still cheering Kucinich 30 seconds into the next speaker, the unfortunately-slotted California Controller John Chiang.

Letters

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PELOSI’S WRONG ON GEORGIA


This message is a reply to an editorial appearing in the Guardian, "Pelosi can’t duck the next Bush war," (8/20/08). In the editorial Rep. Nancy Pelosi sides with Republican and "bipartisan" House leaders to state that "in the strongest possible terms" that "the US is committed to Georgia’s absolute sovereignty [in that region of the world]."

Now, I always thought Pelosi had the common sensibility of a good San Fransisco liberal, but to side with Republican Reps. Roy Blunt and John Boehner is an alarming sign of poor judgment in character. And for her to imagine that the Soviet state of Georgia could any more be "sovereign" in that Russian region of the world is like imagining that that the US state of Georgia (or Oregon or Massachusets, etc.) could be "sovereign" in economic power over the United States simply because it had an oil port and was being extorted by a big foreign bully unafraid to pull the trigger. This battle is not about democracy and independence but about oil money and someone trying to steal another region’s resources.

I still love Nancy, though.

Tharon Chandler

Missouri

SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THE SFBG.COM BLOGS:

ON THE CITY REDACTING DATA FROM PUBLIC FILES


Kimo Crossman:

Ethics and John St. Croix have gotten the SF Redaction Cancer — the exemption allowing redaction before online posting is limited to currently elected and appointed officials only.

We are talking about information commonly available in commercial mailing lists and the phone book/online search.

Imagine if the Elections Department refused to post contact information of nonincumbents running for office — people who choose to be public? Or you were prohibited from accessing home sales records from the Assessor-Recorder — because it has a street address. Or the large majority of court records online.

How would one easily confirm the number of homes John McCain has?

ON THE CLOSURE OF MARIAN RESIDENCE


Terrrie Frye:

I am sure that when the city takes over what was the Marian Residence, it will not be as well run or treat the folks with as much dignity as I have heard about the Marian Residence. I am saddened by the loss. The city should keep it as a women’s shelter, just as it is, and put the respite beds at another location only for respite beds.

ON THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS


Chris Daly:

While there are currently four straight white men on the Board of Supervisors, it’s likely there will be only two next year. This is due to progressives’ strong candidates of color in this cycle. If progressives hold my seat in 2010, the Board could be down to one straight white man.

While there are only three female supervisors and few strong candidates in this cycle, the future of women at the Board is very bright. Debra Walker, Jane Kim, Christina Olague, Marie Harrison, Kim-Shree Maufas, Jaynry Mak, London Breed, April Veneracion, and Rachel Redondiez could each hold a seat in the next decade.

FOR THE RECORD


Due to a copy error, "The Circle Game: Parsing the return of the singer-songwriter" (8/20/08) inaccurately stated that Ruthann Friedmann is deceased; the singer-songwriter is very much alive.

The 8/20 Local Artist misidentified the school where Keith Rale received his BFA and MFA. Hale grduated from (and sometimes teaches at) San Francisco Art Institute.

The Guardian welcomes letters commenting on our coverage or other topics of local interest. Letters should be brief (we reserve the right to edit them for length) and signed. Please include a daytime telephone number for verification.

Corrections and clarifications: The Guardian tries to report news fairly and accurately. You are invited to complain to us when you think we have fallen short of that objective. Complaints should be directed to Paula Connelly, the assistant to the publisher. We’d prefer them in writing, but Connelly can also be reached by phone at (415) 255-3100. If we have published a misstatement, we will endeavor to correct it quickly and in an appropriate place in the newspaper. If you remain dissatisfied, we invite you to contact the Minnesota News Council, an impartial organization that hears and considers complaints against news media. It can be reached at 12 South Sixth St., Suite 1122, Minneapolis, MN 55402; (612) 341-9357; fax (612) 341-9358.

Reclaiming San Francisco — from cars

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY On Sunday, Aug. 31, the Mayor’s Office and several community groups join forces to bring San Francisco into an international movement to increase physical activity, break down invisible borders, and make scenic space available to all during the city’s first ciclovia.

More than 4.5 miles of streets will be closed to cars that day from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. for Sunday Streets, the first of two ciclovias scheduled this summer. The idea of the ciclovia — which is Spanish for "cycle way" or "bike path" — was conceived in Bogotá, Colombia, during the mid-1990s and has since spread throughout the world.

The concept is to take existing roads — the province of cars — and turn them into temporary paths for walking, jogging, cycling, and other physical activity.

"I think it really helps us re-imagine our city streets as places of safe, non-auto physical activity," said Wade Crowfoot, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s director of global climate change. "From an environmental perspective, it’s time we re-imagine our space and our streets, and to make streets accessible to everyone."

The route extends from Bayview Opera House, up Illinois Street to the Embarcadero, along the waterfront, and across Washington Street into Chinatown. Five activity pods will feature dance classes, yoga, hopscotch, jump rope, and more, and participants are encouraged to explore as much of the route as they can. The Giants’ stadium will be open to pedestrians and bikers who want to run the bases, and event facilitators say they hope this 4.5-mile stretch will grow into something bigger.

"We hope this is just the beginning, and that it succeeds all over the city," said Andy Thornley, program director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

The man largely credited with starting the ciclovia is Gil Penalosa, who implemented the idea as Bogotá’s commissioner of parks and recreation in 1995. Penalosa now runs a nonprofit called Walk and Bike for Life that promotes the ciclovia and other forms of active living.

San Francisco’s event is modest: Bogotá closes off more than 80 miles of looping streets every Sunday and on holidays. More than 1.5 million people turn out each week, according to the Walk and Bike for Life Web site. Ottawa closes more than 30 miles of space on Sundays from May to September, and events have taken place all over Europe in addition to the American continents.

The ciclovia is also part of the car-free movement, an international effort to promote alternatives to car dependence and automobile-based planning.

Besides saving energy and promoting fitness, event planners at ciclovias in Bogotá noticed the events were causing a cultural shift. The Christian Science Monitor reported in an Aug. 18 article that residents from different neighborhoods began interacting as never before. Indian residents of poorer neighborhoods used to halt at the imaginary dividing lines of the more affluent European neighborhoods, and vice versa, but now people mingle freely.

San Francisco organizers hope to use Sunday Streets to create a similar effect here.

"We deliberately chose the route that connects the Bayview to Chinatown, two communities that are historically disconnected," said Susan King, the event’s organizer. "We want people to go to Hunters Point and Chinatown and see what’s out there, with the hope that people will see things they want to come back to."

King also noted that these two neighborhoods lack adequate open space. "We want people in those communities to experience what people who live adjacent to Golden Gate Park and the Presidio get to experience on a regular basis — an opportunity to exercise and not worry about getting hit by cars," King said.

Another international trend that Sunday Streets continues is the reclaiming of waterfront space. Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City, said he recently visited Vancouver and experienced its 28 miles of bicycle and pedestrian paths along the water. Paris also has a ciclovia every summer that closes a major expressway and creates a beachfront and promenade along the Seine.

"[The Embarcadero] — that big, dangerous roadway — cuts the city off from the waterfront," Radulovich said. "We want to think about the possibility of reclaiming the water space more successfully for San Franciscans."

One of the few voices of opposition to Sunday Streets came from a group of Pier 39 merchants who worried about the economic impact.

The Board of Supervisors voted Aug. 5 not to delay the event until an economic impact report had been released, but Crowfoot said traffic impact analyses will be done this weekend so that there will be better understanding of the impact of any future events. But many ciclovias have actually increased business because people are more prone to stop and look in stores when they walk by instead of just driving past them.

It’s Joe…

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By Sarah Phelan

Biden bidden?
Online reports say Sen. Barack Obama has picked Sen. Joe Biden as his vice presidential nominee. SenatorJBiden.jpg
Obama supporters are supposed to hear by email early Saturday, so they’ll soon see for themselves.

…and here is the email confirmation, sent around 2 a.m:

Sarah —

I have some important news that I want to make official.

I’ve chosen Joe Biden to be my running mate.

Joe and I will appear for the first time as running mates this afternoon in Springfield, Illinois — the same place this campaign began more than 19 months ago.

I’m excited about hitting the campaign trail with Joe, but the two of us can’t do this alone. We need your help to keep building this movement for change.

Please let Joe know that you’re glad he’s part of our team. Share your personal welcome note and we’ll make sure he gets it:

http://my.barackobama.com/welcomejoe

Thanks for your support,

Barack

P.S. — Make sure to turn on your TV at 2:00 p.m. Central Time to join us or watch online at http://www.BarackObama.com.

Ethics? PG&E, Willie Brown, and Hearst

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What is there in the Hearst DNA that keeps it honoring the shameful deal that William Randolph Hearst made with PG&E in the late 1920s to reverse his long standing pro-public power and anti-PG&E position?

By Bruce B. Brugmann

And so when our Guardian reporter Amanda Witherell flashed the word that ex-mayor Willie Brown is still on the PG&E payroll, I sent the following note to Hearst corporate in New York City (which owns the San Francisco Chronicle):

“PG&E has disclosed a $200,000 payment to Willie Brown for ‘consulting services’ for 2007 in its annual report to the California Public Utilities Commission. Now that Willie is doing a featured top-of-the-page political column each Sunday in the Chronicle, I’m curious if he is doing a Chronicle column while still providing ‘consulting services’ for PG&E?

“If so, does Hearst have an ethics policy that covers this apparent conflict? Would it at minimum require disclosure of PG&E payments to Willie in this year and previous years and what was the nature of these ‘consulting services?’ I would appreciate a comment.”

Chronicle Editor Ward Bushee to his credit called me promptly to respond to my questions. (Let us just say his predecessors adopted a variety of stonewalling techniques to avoid answering such questions from the Guardian.)

As attentive Guardian readers know, there is a long history here between Hearst and PG&E and the Willie/PG&E incident is but the latest example of a geologic outcropping of some shameful Hearst history. Hearst was a powerful influence in pushing the original Hetch Hetchy public power project through Congress and beyond, then reversed his policy in the late 1920s as a condition to get a major loan from a PG&E-controlled bank. The pro-PG&E/anti-public power policy continues to this day and nobody I’ve talked to from Hearst through the years can explain why the policy is still in effect to this day.

There is also a juicy history with then Mayor Willie Brown and Hearst. Willie as mayor helped secretly orchestrate for Hearst the deal that allowed Hearst in 2000 to buy the Chronicle, give away the Examiner to the Fang family, and dissolve the Ex/Chron joint-operating agreement with the approval of the Justice Department. Remember all those horse-trading charges in which then Examiner publisher testified under oath that he had used the Examiner editorial pages as a bargaining chip with Willie. (“The Truth Hurts,” by Tali Woodward and Tim Redmond, Guardian 5/10/2000.)

Chronicle editor Ward Bushee to his credit promptly called me to respond. This was a refreshing change from his predecessors who went to creative lengths to stonewall on such questions. I asked Bushee if he knew about the PG&E payment to Willie and if Hearst considered this a conflict with its ethics policy for Willie to be on the PG&E payroll while, among other things, attacking the progressives who voted for the Clean Energy Act that PG&E is opposing with mighty muscle and many millions.

Bushee did not see a conflict nor think that disclosure of Willie’s clients was necessary. Bushee said that Willie is widely known, is “a man about town,” has a popular column, is subject to “strenuous editing,” but is “a freelance columnist who is free to pursue his business interests as any other person who is not a part of the staff.” He said that, if Willie were on staff, he would be subject to Hearst’s “ethical standards.”

Since this issue is of such journalistic importance, I summarized Bushee’s positions and sent him an email and asked if I had properly and fully reflected his and Hearst’s position. I also asked how he could reconcile his and Hearst’s position with the Ethics Code of the Society of Professional Journalists which states that “journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know…should avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived…disclose unavoidable conflicts. (The Guardian and many media use the SPJ code.)

Bushee responded by email by my deadline (missing it by two minutes). He wrote, and I quote in full,

“I’m not going to cover the same ground that we did this morning. However, I will say that since Willie Brown’s column was introduced into the Sunday Chronicle, it has been very well received by readers because it is amusing, topical, controversial and informed. Willie has special connections to the Bay Area. That Wiliie Brown has outside interests and income was well noted when he undertook the column and was no secret to anybody who has followed his career.

“A summary of his political career was published when the column was launched.

“You well know that Willie is one of the most quoted San Franciscans in the Chronicle and other media outlets around the Bay Area. He is a sought-after guest for local, regional, and national TV shows. I’m told that you have been a guest of his radio show with Will Durst. Willie is not a journalist or a member of the news staff of the Chronicle, but his column goes through extensive planning with one of our most experienced journalists and then then same rigorous editing processes as any staff produced article. Our freelance agreements give the newspaper complete control of the content we use including his column. So if you question is that Willie is somehow avoiding ethical scrutiny, that’s not correct.

“Look, Bruce. If we ever found that Willie had knowingly used his column to benefit his clients, we would end the relationship. As with any agreement, trust is implicit.

“The Chronicle news staff always has aggressively—and fairly—covered Willie Brown as a newsmaker. And I have told our editors that I expect nothing less when Willie Brown makes news in the future.

“Besides that, Willie writes a great column. I’m delighted he is in the Sunday Chronicle.”

Well, I am still unable to crack the Hearst corporate fortress that has protected and promoted PG&E all these years and is now protecting and promoting Willie Brown as PG&E’s Secret Agent Man in this critical Clean Energy election. PG&E is conducting the most massive and nasty campaign ever against clean energy and public power, with huge Lies, and Hearst is once again refusing to cover the story, correct the lies, or give any indication it is not going to once again back PG&E all the way. Why?

This enduring Hearst position of more than eight decades raises some of the most tantalizing questions in American journalism: What is there in the Hearst corporate DNA that forces its editors and reporters in San Francisco to keep in effect honoring, against early Hearst history, against all evidence, and against all ethical standards, the shameful deal that William Randolph Hearst made with a PG&E- controlled bank in the 1920s to reverse his pro-Hetch Hetchy/anti-PG&E stand and go forever after with PG&E and against public power? (For details, see previous Guardian articles, Bruce blogs, and the authoritative David Nasaw biography of Hearst called “The Chief.”) Repeating for emphasis:

Why does Hearst allow a key PG&E lobbyist to write a featured political column in its Sunday paper without proper disclosure by either Willie or Hearst? Will the Chronicle today, in August of 2008, with a non-Hearst publisher and non-Hearst editor (meaning Frank Vega and Ward Bushee, both experienced executives who came new to Hearst with solid Gannet credentials) be allowed to cast off this terrible yoke and start covering PG&E, clean energy, public power, and the Raker Act scandal in a professional manner? Will Hearst and the Chronicle cover this critical Obama/Clean Energy election honestly?

Meanwhile, I am waiting anxiously to see what Willie and Hearst will report on the big Newsom party that PG&E is helping pay for at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Newsom is gearing up to run as the “green progressive” candidate for governor, but there is no way in the world he can be Gavin the Green when he fronts for PG&E against the Clean Energy campaign in San Francisco and then lets PG&E stamp its logo on his forehead and derriere before a national political audience in Denver.

Newsom and Willie want to be known as real progressives but alas they are “PG&E progressives” and their opposition to the Clean Energy Act only illustrates the difference in 96 point Tempo
Bold between a real progressive with real green credentials and a PG&E progressive taking money to help with PG&E greenwashing and progressive bashing. Guardian City Editor Steve Jones will be at the Newsom event in Denver and will keep you posted. On guard, much more to come, B3

P.S. 1: The Hearst and Willie horse-trading story is my favorite example of Hearst ethics. (See our “The Truth Hurts” story.) Just a few hours into the Clint Reilly antitrust trial challenging the Hearst monopoly deal, Examiner publisher Tim White admitted, in no uncertain terms, that he had used the paper’s editorial pages as a bargaining chip with then Mayor Willie Brown shortly before Wille’s reelection bid in November of l999. White testified that at the Aug. 30, 1999 lunch with Willie, he suggested that the Examiner would give Willie more positive coverage if he’d get behind Hearst’s plan to take over the Chronicle and create a daily monopoly.

“You were doing a little horse trading of your own, weren’t you?” asked Reilly attorney Joseph M. Alioto.

“I was,” White said calmly.

The day after White’s testimony, Hearst issued a press release saying the company had “reaffirmed its policy that the content of news and editorial pages may not be negotiated or compromised in any way.”

And then came many pious denunciations from Hearst of White’s “horse-trading” with Willie and many solemn promises from Examiner and Chronicle editors that their news and editorial coverage wasn’t for sale. The ethics problem for Hearst was that, despite several news stories critical of Willie, the paper wound up two months after the lunch giving Willie a glowing endorsement for mayor with no reservations or discouraging words whatsoever. Willie had earned the endorsement by working with the ranking local and national Democrats to orchestrate the deal and knock out any official opposition. He even told Hearst that he had called then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and gotten assurances that the U.S. Justice Department would not intervene to stop the deal.

As we put it at the time: “The bottom line: it appears, based on all available evidence, that White was doing exactly what he had been sent out here to do–buy the Chron, shut down the Ex, and create a monopoly–and if he offered to trade positive coverage in the pages of the paper for the political clout it took to make that deal, that was just fine with the people at Hearst headquarters back in New York.”

However, we put some questions to Hearst and found that if such an ethics policy really existed at Hearst, nobody from Hearst could produce it, then or later, either at corporate in New York or at the Examiner in San Francisco. The Hearst spokesperson in New York told us that each Hearst publication had independent editorial policies and that we should contact the Examiner.

We contacted then Editor Phil Bronstein who told us the Examiner had an ethics policy, but that it covered reporters and editors, not publishers. “It certainly doesn’t cover situations like this,” he told us. He promised to fax over a copy but it never arrived. Again: Why don’t Hearst ethics policies apply to Willie and PG&E?

The circle game

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Say "Kumbaya," somebody. Despite vast differences in sound, intent, and commercial appeal, a thin yet unseverable bloodline connects the big, bold, Brill Building, pop-factory-perfect songcraft of Carole King, last heard coursing off the AM radio, and the stripped-raw, close-to-bare-bones rasp and moan of Tiny Vipers’ Jesy Fortino, delivered to a small clutch of listeners at the Elbo Room last year. Eyes squeezed shut, plucking her acoustic guitar beside just one other guitarist, Ben Cissner, she was a small dark star, poured fully concentrated into the sparse minor key chords of "Swastika," and, as gutsy as the loudest reaches of the underground, she sang as if her life depended on it: "If I would let you into my heart / Would you thank the Lord / Would you tear it apart?"

Superficially, so far away — doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore? — from King’s monumental oeuvre, which seems almost incidental amid the gushy, gossipy tidbits propelling Sheila Weller’s bio, Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and the Journey of a Generation (Atria), concerning King’s beleaguered marriage to her first husband and songwriting partner, Gerry Goffin, with whom she wrote such songs as "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," among many other classic pop numbers, even after he fathered a child with one of the pair’s vocalists. Likewise Weller makes much of Mitchell’s out-of-wedlock daughter and penchant for using her songs to seduce paramours like Leonard Cohen, Graham Nash, and James Taylor — the last often credited with spurring the singer-songwriter movement and acting as a unifying thread between Mitchell, King, and Simon — and Simon’s uninhibited, proto-pro-sex feminist "eroticism"; read: sex in a cab was "no problem." Yet as remote as the early-’70s phenomenon of the singer-songwriter seems, the form appears to have returned: could this be the revival of core values of craft and voice, the intimacy and immediacy of a writer on a single instrument, during a tumultuous time for the music industry, post-Auto-Tuned disasters and Ashlee Simpson lip-synch blowouts — the adult flip-side to the bubblegum remnants of High School Musical, Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas Brothers?

The initial energy of so many turn-of-the-millennium garage rock bands may have petered and innumerable hip-hop artists may have turned toward dully materialistic navel-gazing, so hail the return of the soft-spoken singer-songwriter who can break down a tunes to its bare, unadorned components. The stars are aligned; the signs, apparent: from Outside Lands headliner Jack Johnson landing at the top of the Billboard 200 chart with his latest album, Sleeping Through the Static (Brushfire/Universal), earlier this year, to ex–Castro Theatre ticket-taker, proudly folkie Devendra Banhart being adopted by Parisian couturiers and glitterati, from the MySpace-inspired success of Colbie Caillat and Kate Nash to the iTunes-buttressed popularity of Eureka native Sara Bareilles — hell, not to mention everyone and their dog documenting their solo acoustic version of "Bubbly" and posting the video on YouTube. This quiet flurry of activity undoubtedly whetted someone’s appetite for all things unplugged.

Those with eyes trained on pop cycles might point to the rise of antiwar sentiments throughout the country, coupling it with the renewed attention given to the softer, sincere sounds of singer-songwriters — a worthy theory, though apart from the many unfortunate CD-Rs of anti-Bush agit-pop that crossed my desk during the last two presidential elections, the generally apolitical vibe of the music from this crop of singer-songwriters seems to belie that notion: championing green issues are as didactic as these writers get. Instead this current wave of earnest songsmiths has more to do with both a reaction against the insincere, canned, possibly un-nutritious mainstream boy-band and Britney-centric breed of pop from the recent past — the likes of which could only be enjoyed with a semi-size dose of irony — and a response to an easy access of technology, which allows just about anyone and their mutt to make their own music at home, bypassing Brill Building–style hit-factories.

This time, the slew of sensitive men — solo fliers ranging from Iron and Wine, Conor Oberst, and Adam Green to Josh Ritter, Jonathan Rice, and Ray LaMontagne — sequestered behind acoustic guitars or pianos, working freak-folk, soft-rock, commercial pop, and Grey’s Anatomy–friendly veins, are being almost eclipsed by the multitude of womanly singer-songwriters. Natural women all, including Feist, Kimya Dawson, JayMay, Brandi Shearer, Yael Naim, and Ingrid Michaelson, among others. As much as King, Mitchell, and Simon are considered mothers of these singer-songwriters — along with predecessors like Woodside resident Joan Baez and ’60s folk hit mistress Judy Collins and successors like the many estrogen-laden ladies of the ’90s Lilith Fair outings — so too are indie sisters Liz Phair, Sarah Dougher, and Cat Power, a holy trinity to homemade, once-bedroom-bound DIY divas who make their own clothes, hope to carve out their own path, and find their own vox.

Of course, one can’t discount the release of resurrections and reissues of neglected and forgotten femme singer-songwriters such as Vashti Bunyan and Ruthann Friedmann and late greats Judee Sill and Karen Dalton, whose latest private recordings were unearthed via Green Rocky Road (Delmore) in June. And Mitchell’s unique guitar tunings, experimental mindset, and maidenlike purity of sound has made her one of the most oft-referenced artists of the last few years, thanks to such explicit shout-outs as Wayfaring Strangers’ Ladies from the Canyon (Numero, 2006). But no less influential is Phair, whose classic Exile in Guyville (Matador) got the royal reissue treatment this summer: her pro-sex, third-wave feminist, Midwestern rejoinder to riot grrrl writ large, with a gatefold sleeve and a slip of naughty nipple peeking through. At the same time, Dougher — cover girl in Johnny Ray Huston’s take on the last, more-riot grrrl-centered singer-songwriter movement in the Guardian about a decade ago — took a more polemical tack on the Northwest coast with her K Records releases, while working tangibly for greater female rock visibility by organizing the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls and teaching courses on the history of women in rock at Portland State University.

But Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power, appears set to be the Joni Mitchell of this generation — even as Marshall has largely turned her back on originals with her latest Jukebox (Matador). The Seattle-based Fortino’s almost gothic melodrama seems to draw more than a little inspiration from Marshall’s What Would the Community Think (Matador, 1996), while San Francisco transplant Thao Nguyen of Thao and the Get Down Stay Down borrows Marshall’s clarion-call, half-sung, half-spoken phrasing for her far more fancy-free, loose-limbed, and shambling songs. Nguyen sounds positively, happily tipsy on the old-timey bounce, finger clicks, and sandpapery soft-shoe shuffle on We Brave Bee Stings and All (Kill Rock Stars).

Yet Marshall’s most indebted sib might be Emily Jane White, 27, whose Dark Undercoat (Double Negative) evokes the former’s haunted and haunting, hollowed-out sensuality as well as her songwriting savvy and way with a hook. "Everybody’s got a little hole in the middle / Everybody does a little dance with the devil," the Oakland singer-songwriter croons on her "Hole in the Middle," sliding around the curves of this verb or the other and letting her voice drift off into the meaningful silences between the words.

The surprise is that this intensely eerie, closely miked singer-songwriter also turns out to be one of the more deliberately political-minded. Of "Hole," she said recently while breaking from the recording her second album with Greg Ashley, "I originally wrote that in response to the war in Iraq when that first started. Yeah, it’s about American imperialism."

And perhaps that’s the key to why the music by this former member of an all-girl band, the Diamond Star Halos — much like those seemingly apolitical numbers by other singer-songwriters — has increasingly relevance today: White and other crooners are foregrounding the everyday loves as well as the overseas skirmishes in a way that transcends the desensitizing glut and so-called objectivity of news headlines, sound-bites, and bloggable blurbs — and acutely personalizes it all. Call it the resensitizing of pop.

"I’ve always believed that your personal experience is political," says White, echoing the first wave feminist tenets, "and everyone has a story to tell, about how they’ve lived their lives and what has happened to them, and the experiences they’ve gone through. Not that what I think I do is revolutionary or anything, but one positive thing about being a singer-songwriter is people have contacted me and said they’ve felt a strong sense of encouragement or inspiration, so I think putting myself out there says something."

Emily Jane White plays Aug. 22, 8 p.m., $8, at the Uptown, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl. www.uptownnightclub.com

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