Opinion

Weird Wine of the Week: A Carignane by any other name

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Amy Monroe shares her favorite unusual, overlooked, and underappreciated wines every Tuesday. Check out her previous installment here.

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Carignane is the viticultural equivalent of Jon & Kate, the Duggars, and Octo Mom. Left to its own devices, it bears prodigious amounts of fruit. This is bad. When it comes to wine, high yields equal poor quality. Much like parents whose broods creep into double-digit territory, growers of Carignane spend the majority of their time attempting to keep the vines under control. Typically, they are rewarded with grapes that are very tannic, very acidic, and generally acknowledged to be harsh. Add to these charming qualities the fact that English speakers can’t pronounce it (it’s Care-In-Yawn, by the way), and it’s no wonder you hardly ever see Carignane’s name on a wine label.

I used to be a buyer for a wine shop, which basically means I got paid to taste wine. During that time, for me, Carignane lived up to its infamous reputation: I hated every one I tried. They all tasted like burnt rubber, and a single sip was often so acidic that I worried about the state of my tooth enamel. I didn’t like Carignane, and I told people so – customers, colleagues, friends. In my opinion (about which I was vocal), it was just plain bad, the trailer trash of wine grapes. Then I tasted Trinafour “Niemi Vineyard” Carignane.

The nativists are restless

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news@sfbg.com

The comments sections of the Guardian‘s Politics blog and the San Francisco Chronicle‘s SFGate Web site have been lit up over the past week with angry (and sometimes overtly racist) denunciations of Latino immigrants, triggered by the latest Chronicle stories challenging San Francisco’s Sanctuary City policies and by Guardian revelations that Chronicle writer Jaxon Van Derkeken accepted an award and substantial cash payment from a controversial nativist group.

While Van Derbeken, two Chronicle editors interviewed by the Guardian, and other critics of San Francisco’s longstanding policy of not notifying federal authorities about the arrests of undocumented immigrants have denied trying to stir up nativist furor, the tone and content of many of these comments seems to indicate they’ve done exactly that.

The saga began June 19 when we published “Chronicle accepts award and cash from anti-immigrant group” on our Politics blog. The story began: “San Francisco Chronicle reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken recently accepted an award and cash prize (he refuses to say how much) from the Center for Immigration Studies — which a Southern Poverty Law Center report in February 2009 criticized for its overtly racist roots and extreme anti-immigrant agenda — for his controversial articles on San Francisco’s Sanctuary City policies.

“CIS paid for Van Derbeken to accept the award at the National Press Club and conservative Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders to introduce him earlier this month, an appearance they used to make derogatory comments about San Francisco, its values, and local immigrant rights activists, while saying little to rebuke the group for stirring up hateful nativist furor around what has become perhaps the country’s most divisive issue.”

Van Derbeken would only address the issue by e-mail, sending us two terse replies to our inquiry and refusing to answer most of our questions, including much how cash he received for a prize that we discovered paid $1,000 in 2001 (the complete e-mail exchange is include in our post).

“No one should mistake their decision to endorse my work for my endorsement of theirs,” was Van Derbeken’s most substantive comment, although he refused to offer an opinion on CIS or the SPLC report, which he didn’t read until after accepting the award. “I haven’t drawn any conclusions about it.”

CIS executive director Mark Krikorian, author of The New Case Against Immigration, Both Legal and Illegal (2008, Sentinel), responded to our inquires with an e-mail blaming the “jihad against dissent from the elite consensus for open borders” and referring to a column he wrote for National Review Online criticizing SPLC’s fundraising.

But in the past, Krikorian has called for the federal government to cut off funding to San Francisco and even prosecute local elected officials, writing in his CIS blog, “Local neutrality on immigration is no longer possible. Every jurisdiction in the country has a choice to make: Either buttress federal efforts at immigration control or subvert them. San Francisco has chosen the second option. It should now learn the consequences.”

We did phone interviews with Van Derbeken’s editors, Managing Editor Steve Proctor and Assistant Managing Editor Ken Conner, who both defended the stories and the decision to accept the award. Neither would reveal how much cash was involved, and neither would admit that it represented validating a group that recently has been vying for mainstream legitimacy.

“All issues have proponents and opponents,” Proctor told us, equating the award to those given for education and legal affairs reporting and denying that the immigration issue is more divisive and controversial. “At the end of the day, it isn’t about this group but about Jaxon’s stories,” Conner told us.

Those stories continued in high-profile fashion a few days later as Van Derbeken essentially rewrote a June 21 Los Angeles Times scoop about how San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris allowed a half-dozen undocumented immigrants to enroll in a rehabilitation program rather than turning them over to the feds. The details became front-page lead news stories in the Chronicle on June 22 and 23.

Local immigrant rights activists criticized the Chronicle stories and the paper’s decision to accept the CIS award and money.

“When I read these kind of stories that lead us down a dark path and play on people’s fears and paint immigrants with a broad brush — as a threat, as criminals, as dangerous to the community — I do think that there are anti-immigrant nativist centers egging on reporters like Jaxon down this dark path by giving him cash awards,” Phil Hwang, a staff attorney for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, told us. “It’s part of the strategy these anti-immigrant groups are employing. It’s why they created this award. And if you look at who founded CIS and their vision, it’s clear that they believe America is under threat from non-white immigrants,”

Angela Chan of the Asian Law Caucus, whom Van Derbeken mentioned by name in his CIS award speech, said she is worried this latest round would weaken Harris’ support for Sanctuary City policies. That’s what happened to Mayor Gavin Newsom last fall, when Van Derbeken wrote the stories CIS honored.

“I’d hate to see another series of anti-immigrant scapegoating being used to make hasty policy decisions that violate the rights of immigrants, tear apart families, and increase the state of terror in immigrant communities,” Chan told us.

Harris, who is running for state attorney general, defended her decision to let undocumented immigrants complete the Back on Track program after their presence was brought to her attention, but has since changed the policy to bar them from enrolling. “No innovative initiative will ever be created without some unanticipated flaws to be fixed along the way, but this must not stop us from tackling tough problems with smart solutions,” she said in a prepared statement.

“These are tough economic times,” Hwang added. “People are very nervous about their jobs. And that is often when the [anti-immigrant] rhetoric ramps up.”

The Chronicle writer and editors and Krikorian stopped responding to Guardian inquiries. But the blogs were lit up with comments — hundreds of them from around the country at the bottom of Van Derbeken’s latest stories — that had some disturbing themes, accusations, and suggestions. They indicate that the radical nativists are using this issue — and the Chron‘s spin on it — to promote a dangerous agenda.

Here’s a small sampling:

•<\!s> “Illegal aliens are like a plague.”

•<\!s> “Kick out all Illegals, return the city to its rightful owners”

•<\!s> “For God’s sake, STOP pandering to the ILLEGAL ALIENS and get rid of them!”

•<\!s> “Anyone caught crossing the border illegally should be shot as a spy.”

•<\!s> “The border ought to be land mined.”

•<\!s> “What is this sham that diversity is great? It is tearing this country apart.”

Such sentiments — which we usually counter on the Guardian Politics blog — were met with silence by Van Derbeken.

The massage parlor mistake

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OPINION Taking advantage of the recent turmoil over the huge city budget cuts, Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sup. Carmen Chu, have pushed though malicious legislation imposing criminal charges and restrictions on massage parlors. Many are outraged that this costly legislation was prioritized — we want to know why it was, and how much it will cost to implement. Lawyers are questioning its legality.

Under the guise of concern for women’s safety, Chu and Newsom falsely claimed that the law would stop sex trafficking. We’ve heard these lies before. Politicians who want to increase the criminalization of sex workers confuse prostitution, which is consensual sex for money, with trafficking, which is forced and coerced labor, sexual or otherwise. The reality is that most parlor employees work consensually and often collectively, without force or coercion. In Rhode Island, where indoor prostitution is legal, similar legislative maneuvers are in the works, also using the pretext of trafficking to make criminals of women working indoors.

Chu and Newsom claim they are targeting parlor owners, but by pushing the industry further underground, their legislation makes workers, many of whom are immigrant women, more vulnerable to violence and exploitation. Workers will suffer most from the increased raids, arrests, and criminalization. Fearing arrest and/or deportation will mean fewer women will report rape or other violence and exploitation when they occur.

What is the real political agenda here? Chu and Newsom have said that the proposals "could make it easier to close the 50 or so city-licensed parlors suspected of selling sex." If and where sex is being sold, parlor closures would force women onto the streets — where it is 10 times more dangerous to work. Those who are arrested are likely to end up in prison — to the devastation of their children — or deported. What good reason is there to endanger women’s safety and break up families this way, especially during hard economic times?

San Franciscans question why, when most trafficking cases occur in the agricultural, construction, clothing, and domestic industries, anti-trafficking measures target immigrant sex workers working of their own free will. We suspect racist gentrification policies are behind this legislation. Developers will be allowed to seize land in the Tenderloin and downtown areas if massage parlors are forced to close. This deceitful, profiteering law imposes huge fines, criminal charges, and has a punitive clause making the parlors pay for unspecified enforcement charges against them.

Considering that not long ago, police were exposed for taking thousands of dollars from massage parlor workers, involving them in the licensing process creates fertile ground for increased corruption.

What is wrong with selling or buying sex if both parties consent? After all, 42 percent of San Franciscans voted last November for Proposition K, which would have decriminalized sex work, despite a campaign of fear mongering and misinformation by the mayor and district attorney. New Zealand successfully decriminalized prostitution six years ago to "promote occupational health and safety" and "protect from exploitation." There has been no increase in prostitution, pimps, or traffickers, and women are more able to report violence and insist on their rights. It’s time for San Francisco to do the right thing and stop criminalizing sex workers.

Rachel West works with the U.S. PROStitutes Collective.

Lennar’s shipyard: more toxic than you think

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news@sfbg.com

OPINION "So, what do you want us to do?"

That was the question from a staff member at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) after he passed along reports of Lennar Corp.’s latest repeated releases of toxic dust containing asbestos, arsenic, lead, and other metals into the air in Bayview-Hunters Point, one of the last remaining African American communities left in San Francisco.

After grudgingly levying more than $500,000 in fines against Lennar in 2008 for earlier brazen violations (after fierce community pressure), why is BAAQMD’s enforcement of clean-air standards against a notorious corporation on a dangerously toxic site still a negotiation?

After years of broken promises and half-hearted mitigation, the toxic partnership between the city and Lennar to develop the shipyard continues to threaten public resources and poison our communities in more ways than one.

In the last few months, with the help of the Mayor’s Office, Lennar is backing away from the promises it made in Proposition G. Instead of making 32 percent of its housing at the shipyard "affordable" to city residents (never mind that this definition of "affordable" is still well out of the reach of the great majority of Bayview residents), Lennar is now placing responsibility back on the city to build the affordable housing. As the Mayor’s Office prepares to use public money to subsidize Lennar’s broken promises, this revised arrangement blows a huge hole in the budget of the Mayor’s Office of Housing and threatens to destroy 30 years of efforts to create and preserve affordable housing elsewhere in the city.

As reported by Sarah Phelan last week ("Eliminating dissent," 6/17/09), state Sen. Mark Leno has legislation that seeks to trade 25 percent of Candlestick Point State Recreation Area for small strips on the shipyard so Lennar can build condos on the parkland (see "Selling the park" in this issue).

With the consent of City Hall, the Navy and Lennar continue to make deals in a backroom, with no public participation. The plan for development of the shipyard is getting even more toxic than you think, and its dangers threaten everyone in San Francisco.

That’s why a large coalition of grassroots organizations is joining forces for a community protest at the front gate of the Hunters Point Shipyard at 1 p.m. Tuesday, June 30. If the government won’t protect our communities from contamination and corporate greed, then we will do it ourselves.

For details, call Greenaction at (415) 248-5010 x107. *

Kelly is president of the Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association. Schwartz is co-director of People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER). Harrison is a community organizer at Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice. Brooks is the campaign coordinator for Our City.

Chronicle accepts award and cash from anti-immigrant group

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By Steven T. Jones and Sarah Phelan

San Francisco Chronicle reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken recently accepted an award and cash prize (he refuses to say how much) from the Center for Immigration Studies – which a Southern Poverty Law Center report in February 2009 criticized for its overtly racist roots and extreme anti-immigrant agenda – for his controversial articles on San Francisco’s Sanctuary City policies.

CIS paid for Van Derbeken to accept the award at the National Press Club and conservative Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders to introduce him earlier this month, an appearance they used to make derogatory comments about San Francisco, its values, and local immigrant rights activists, while saying little to rebuke the group for stirring up hateful nativist furor around what has become perhaps the country’s most divisive issue.

Van Derbeken and Ken Conner, the Chron’s assistant managing editor for news (who the reporter consulted before accepting the award), told the Guardian that they see nothing wrong with accepting the award and they don’t see it as validating the views of a group that has been desperately seeking mainstream credibility with which to push its anti-immigrant agenda.

“No one should mistake their decision to endorse my work for my endorsement of theirs,” Van Derbeken wrote via e-mail in response to questions, although he wouldn’t offer an opinion on the CIS agenda. He said he was unaware of the SPLC report when he accepted the award, and now that he’s seen it, he wrote, “I haven’t drawn any conclusions about it.”

Conner also dismissed concerns that accepting the award and its cash supplement amounts to validating the group and letting it benefit from the Chronicle name. “We don’t think that’s true. They gave us this award. We didn’t seek it,” Conner told us.

PG&E attacks consumer choice

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rebeccab@sfbg.com

A ballot initiative backed by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. could amount to a death sentence for community choice aggregation (CCA) and expanded public power in California.

Dubbed the Taxpayers Right to Vote Act, the proposed initiative would require a two-thirds majority vote at the ballot before any local government could establish a CCA program, use public funding to implement a plan to become a CCA provider, or expand electric service to new territory or new customers.

The new hurdle would make it very difficult for a local government to move forward with a CCA, while at the same time making it much easier for a utility to defeat public power at the ballot.

Signed into state law in 2002, CCA allows local governments to buy up blocks of power to sell to residents, making it possible for cities and counties to set up alternatives to private utilities such as PG&E and, in many cases, to offer electricity generated by clean, renewable power sources.

The initiative is in its earliest stages, and it likely would not be placed on the state ballot until the June 2010 election. At this point, "it’s unclear how much of a campaign it’s going to be," according to Greg Larsen of the Sacramento public relations firm Larsen Cazanis, a spokesperson for the effort. "It’s a long way off."

That hasn’t stopped local CCA supporters from sounding alarm bells. "Urgent/Bad! PG&E State Ballot Measure To Kill Public Power & CCA," public power activist Eric Brooks wrote in the subject line of a widely disseminated e-mail last week. "It’s red alert time boys and girls," he wrote, saying the proposal "will kill all new Public Power and Community Choice Aggregation projects statewide."

Brooks isn’t alone: everyone the Guardian spoke with who is involved in the creation of San Francisco’s CCA voiced concern that the proposal could kill any future community choice efforts.

The proposed initiative was submitted to the California Attorney General’s office May 28 with the contact listed as the Sacramento law firm Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller & Naylor, a powerful player with a long history of working with PG&E on ballot initiatives. Larsen confirmed that PG&E had provided the $200 filing fee, the only amount spent so far on the embryonic proposal.

The official proponent of the initiative is Robert Lee Pence, apparently the same person who was listed as an opponent of Proposition 80, a 2005 ballot measure that dealt with utility regulation. Opposition to Prop. 80 was heavily funded by PG&E and other utilities, and the initiative failed by a wide margin.

Pence’s group, Californians for Reliable Electricity, listed Steve Lucas as a contact on 2005 campaign documents. Lucas is also listed as the point person at Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller & Naylor for questions regarding the Taxpayers Right to Vote Act.

The address listed for the organization is the same as that of Townsend, Raimundo, Besler and Usher — a Sacramento political consulting firm that also has a long history of working with PG&E on political campaigns. When asked about the PR firm’s role in the Taxpayer Right to Vote Act, Larsen acknowledged that they "may be involved as the campaign goes forward," but cautioned that any discussion so far has been preliminary.

The rationale behind the initiative is to protect taxpayers, Larsen said, because CCA programs "are major issues that communities undertake and require millions or billions of public dollars." The proposed initiative, he said, seeks to "ensure that voters — and frankly, their descendents — who will wind up being responsible for these programs have a say." If the measure passes, Larsen added, voters could still approve CCA programs — but with two-thirds of the vote, a supermajority that he contends is "staying in line with many other California requirements."

California Sen. Mark Leno, however, has a very different opinion. "I would hope that Californians would have come to understand that two-thirds vote thresholds are probably more responsible for damage to the state of California in the past 30 years than any other single factor," he said. "To hand a small minority controlling power is anti-democratic. This must be defeated." Leno also said he believes that the initiative would have drastic consequences for CCA programs if it passes.

Meanwhile, local CCA supporters say there is more to this than merely sticking up for taxpayers’ rights. If programs like Clean Power SF — the CCA initiative currently being developed in San Francisco — are fully implemented, then PG&E, which makes good money from its monopoly status, would face some actual competition. Naturally, the powerful utility would have an incentive to eliminate the alternative altogether.

Under the current system, PG&E "has to rely on the elected officials to kill CCA, and its much harder … to do that," says John Rizzo of the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club. But if the Taxpayers Right to Vote Act is enshrined in state law, "they could just pour in money and spread propaganda. Particularly the two-thirds requirement is just outrageous — it basically makes it impossible" to secure approval for any step toward CCA implementation.

"It’s a nasty ballot initiative," Mike Campbell, director of San Francisco’s CCA at the Public Utilities Commission, told us. "I think it’s clearly aimed at the heart of CCA." Campbell added that while he has been in discussion with SFPUC staff and others involved in hammering out Clean Power SF, he wasn’t at liberty to discuss a strategy for fighting the proposed initiative just yet.

Ross Mirkarimi, who chairs the city’s Local Agency Formation Commission — the body tasked with working in tandem with the SFPUC to implement San Francisco’s CCA — called the proposal "heinous — and yet I expect nothing less from PG&E.

"They can try to win by well-funded misinformation blitzkrieg," Mirkarimi noted. "If they’re able to spend $10 million without blinking here in San Francisco [on defeating a public power measure], they’re poised to spend tens of millions on this. As a state battleground, this elevates the fight that much more. We have to act in solidarity with other municipalities. We should be well-armed in repudiation of this effort."

There may be ways to attack the initiative in advance. The CCA legislation bars private utilities from seeking to undermine local CCA efforts. Assembly Member Tom Ammiano told us that the Legislature should look at how PG&E could be blocked from mounting a statewide effort to kill CCAs. "I think there’s some potential there," he said.

Julian Davis, who chaired the Prop. H campaign for public power last year, said he found the proposal very worrisome. "If you shut down community choice, you’re shutting down one of the major vehicles for clean energy," he said. To Davis, the initiative highlights "a disturbing trend of corporate America finding ever-more clever ways of tying the hand of local government in general. You know they’ll dump millions into this," he added. "The ultimate irony here is that none of us have the right to vote on anything PG&E does. None of us has a seat at the PG&E board table. It’s doublespeak."

Rachel Buhner contributed to this report.

Eliminating dissent

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sarah@sfbg.com

For years, the Hunters Point Shipyard Restoration Advisory Board has served as the Bayview-Hunters Point community’s main voice in the U.S. Navy’s environmental cleanup plans for the toxic former naval station. But the committee is suddenly being disbanded just as the cleanup enters a crucial phase.

Used for shipbuilding and submarine maintenance and repair, and the decontamination, storage, and disposal of radioactive and atomic weapons testing materials, the shipyard was added to the Superfund national toxic site cleanup list in 1989. But it is also at the heart of where Mayor Gavin Newsom has partnered with Lennar Corp. on the city’s biggest development proposal, involving 10,500 homes and a new stadium for the 49ers.

As the Navy prepares to release a series of important studies and reports concerning the cleanup of the dirtiest parcels on the former shipyard, community members were outraged by the Navy’s announcement in late May that it is preparing to dissolve the RAB in the next 30 days.

In July the Navy will release draft feasibility studies for the cleanup of Parcel E, along with a final remedial investigation/feasibility study for Parcel E2, the dirtiest parcel on the base, and a radiological data-gathering investigation in the sediment surrounding Parcel F, which is the underwater portion of the base.

Some insiders say the announcement was not unexpected, given an escautf8g series of confrontational RAB meetings with the Navy over the last two years. But they fear the community will lose its ability to give the Navy direct, timely, and meaningful feedback, even if many believe the Navy wasn’t listening.

"The Navy fully supports the need for open, meaningful dialogue with the diverse Bayview-Hunters Point community regarding our environmental cleanup actions and decisions. However, the RAB is not fulfilling this objective," the Navy’s Laura Duchnak wrote in a May 22 letter to the RAB.

In her letter, Duchnak said the RAB meetings no longer provide community input on the Navy’s environmental cleanup program, that their atmosphere is not productive to effective public discourse, and that Navy attempts to improve the process have failed. "The revised community involvement program may include community environmental forums, including using Internet-based technologies to more easily reach a diverse audience, expanded monthly progress reports and fact sheets, and hosting technical discussions and tours of cleanup sites for interested community members," Duchnak wrote.

Duchnak’s announcement followed a tense January meeting in which RAB members reacted with horror when the Navy announced it was moving forward with controversial plans to cap radiologically-affected areas on the shipyard’s Parcel B instead of digging and hauling them, which the community preferred (see "Nuclear Fallout," 07/16/08).

Led by RAB co-chair Leon Muhammad, who teaches at the Nation of Islam’s Center for Self Improvement, which has been repeatedly dusted by unmonitored asbestos (see "The corporation that ate San Francisco," 03/17/07), and joined by newly sworn-in members Archbishop King, Marie Harrison, and Daniel Landry, the board voted to seek a civil grand jury investigation into whether local truckers are getting their fair share of the Navy’s shipyard contracts.

Members then voted to remove the city’s public health representative Amy Brownell from the RAB, and to call for the stoppage of all work on the yard until the Department of Defense, the Navy, and the city can prove, as Muhammad said, "where the ongoing dust exceedences are coming from."

The final straw, insiders say, occurred in February when members voted to remove the Navy’s RAB co-chair Keith Forman from the advisory board. Eric Smith, who was sworn onto the RAB in January but did not vote to remove Brownell and Forman, said the Navy’s dissolution response wasn’t surprising.

"The dissolution of RAB is not a good thing in terms of what it is supposed to do. But it was also doing things that were dysfunctional," Smith said. "The bitter irony is that the folks who caused the trouble were trying to get the Navy to sit up and take notice."

Smith said there is frustration with the Navy’s communication style, which the community feels is patronizing. "But the RAB was naïve to think the Navy would allow a forum over which it has unilateral authority to become a platform for attacks," Smith said.

RAB member Kristine Enea, who missed the RAB’s last two meetings, confirmed that the atmosphere got increasingly confrontational but added that the Navy ignored suggestions her calls for wider community involvement.

"It’s ironic that the Navy had decided to respond to criticisms, which include the charge that it is a poor communicator, by cutting off communications with the community," said Enea, who works at the India Basin Neighborhood Association. "Dissolving the RAB is a drastic step. There is so much going on, and so much that we need to know."

But Enea hopes IBNA can help fill that void, noting that the association has applied for a US Environmental Protection Agency technical assistant grant to review shipyard clean-up documents, provide fact sheets, and host community meetings.

The Sierra Club’s Arthur Feinstein said that his group’s main concern around the dissolution is that Parcel E2, which contains an industrial and radiologically-impacted dump that burned for six months in 2000, and Parcel F are both coming up for analysis.

"These are some of the most significantly contaminated areas on the shipyard, so the timing is terrible," Feinstein told the Guardian, observing that some RAB members did not appear to be looking for solutions and were so aggressive they destroyed meetings.

"Unfortunately there weren’t enough forceful people to say ‘shut up and sit down,’" Feinstein said. "But without a RAB, there will be no public forum where folks are able to get and read materials ahead of the meeting, and then ask and submit questions."

Harrison, a member of the environmental justice group Green Action, believes the Navy’s intent is that there be no meaningful interaction with the community. "When you don’t toe the line and play like good little children, the Navy shuts you down," said Harrison, whose group, along with the Nation of Islam and the Caravan for Justice, are planning a June 30 demonstration at the shipyard to protest the move.

In another point of controversy, Sen. Mark Leno has legislation that seeks to trade 25 percent of Candlestick Point State Recreation Area, the only major piece of open space in the Bayview, for small strips on the shipyard so Lennar can build condos on the parkland.

Noting that Sen. Leland Yee and Assembly Members Tom Ammiano and Fiona Ma oppose the parks-for-condos plan (see "Going Nuclear," April 29), Harrison said, "What possessed anyone to believe that we’d say, okay, take the only open space in the Bayview, and in exchange we’ll accept contaminated land scattered around on the shipyard?"

Environmental advocates believe the Sierra Club intends to fight Leno’s legislation with a challenge under the California Environmental Quality Act, but Leno told the Guardian that he is "continuing to work and meet with the lobbyists for the Sierra Club here in Sacramento to see if there are any additional amendments we can take that would get them to a neutral position on the bill.

"I think there is a good possibility we can get there," Leno said.

In February, Arc Ecology released a 133-report titled "Alternatives for study" that recommended the removal of the Parcel E2 landfill and explored changes in land use arrangements in the current redevelopment proposal to avoid environmental impacts (see "Concrete Plans," Feb. 4). Unfortunately, they were largely ignored by the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, which is working with Lennar on the public-private development deal.

Arc Ecology executive director Saul Bloom remains undaunted, recalling how 87 percent of voters citywide supported Proposition P, an advisory measure he wrote and that then-Sups. Ammiano, Leno, Michael Yaki, and the late Sue Bierman placed on the ballot in 1989 to establish community acceptance criteria for the shipyard, under federal toxic cleanup guidelines.

"The Navy had offered their opinion that voters in San Francisco, and especially in the Bayview, would accept a nonresidential industrial level cleanup for the shipyard because they were primarily interested in jobs," Bloom recalled. "We said that this was a mischaracterization and we’d go ahead and prove them wrong."

He believes the current struggle with the Navy over the RAB, and with the city and Lennar over Arc’s alternatives, are "emblematic of the problem facing the Bayview with regard to accessing good information and being told the straight story on health and development issues."

A bailout for the middle class

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OPINION I don’t need to remind you that our economy is in trouble. The current banking crisis has demonstrated to all of us just how fragile and susceptible to manipulation our current system is. President Obama has spent billions of dollars and untold hours trying to bail out our failing banks and financial institutions. Whatever your opinions about his efforts, I think we can all agree we should also be helping out American workers — the real engine of the economy. The Employee Free Choice Act, currently being debated in Congress, offers needed help.

In 1979, 23 percent of the American workforce earned the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $20 an hour. This level of pay, about $41,000 per year, is generally considered the minimum necessary for a family of four to live something like a middle-class lifestyle. I wish I could say that progress marched on, that every year after 1979 the percentage of workers earning the minimum to support a middle-class family grew. In fact, the opposite happened — today only 18 percent of American workers earn enough to support a family of four.

What happened to the other end of the spectrum during that time? In 1978, American CEOs earned 35 times what the average worker earned. Over the next 10 years, this ratio grew, so that in 1989 the average CEO was earning 71 times what the average worker was earning. By 2007, the ratio had grown to an unbelievable 275.

The causes of this imbalance are many, but one is declining labor union membership. In 1983, 17.7 million workers were members of unions, accounting for 20.1 percent of America’s workers. In 2008, only 16.1 million workers were unionized, accounting for 12.4 percent of our nation’s workforce. These numbers are critically important because union membership makes a large difference in the well-being of America’s workers. In 2008, the average union worker earned $886 a week, while the average nonunion worker was paid only $691.

With all the effort we’re putting in to a bailout of the banks, we need to be discussing a bailout of the middle class. We don’t have to wait for the Treasury Department to come up with the plan — it’s sitting there in Congress and is called the Employee Free Choice Act. The bill would give workers a fair, direct route to forming a union without illegal interference from corporations.

Unfortunately, the middle-class bailout is stuck in Congress. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the other shills for mega-corporations have turned up the pressure and succeeded in preventing the Employee Free Choice Act from moving forward in the Senate. Our own Sen. Feinstein recently said she wouldn’t vote for the bill because of the economic downturn, even though she cosponsored the legislation last year.

With the current state of our economy, we need a middle-class bailout — and we need it soon. Feinstein has the ability to make that happen. She should deliver the one bailout we all really need. *

Debra Walker is a San Francisco artist and progressive activist.

FOR THE RECORD


The caption for last week’s dine review should have referred to Fly, not Terzo.

The zone

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS I believe it’s called "garbage time." Can’t speak for soccer, but in American football it’s when the team in the lead runs the ball up the middle, again and again. The game is decided. It’s just a matter of letting the clock wind down.

That’s where we were at. In this case, my team, the good guys, had a big lead. The other team, the bad guys, had just scored but it was way too little, way too late, and we were going to win the championship. In 40 years of playing team sports, three different ones, three cities on two coasts and a cornfield, in two pretty different bodies, it would be my first championship. Well, second. My first since I was 11.

I’m 46. Just to give you some idea how great everyone else on my team is. To win it all, with me on your side, takes 35 years!

My team is an old team, the oldest in our league. We don’t have a lot of subs, none for the women, and it was our third game of the day. The other team had played three games too. You have to, in a tournament, if you keep winning. So everyone on the field was in a similar boat. Outcome decided. Garbage time. Tick. Tick.

I thought: if ever I was going to score a goal, now would be the time, while everyone else was sleeping. And as our goalie returned the ball to midfield, I sneaked myself from my usual position (fullback), right up there too, along the left sideline. I leaned in a slightly droolish way that let our forwards know exactly what I was thinking.

One tapped the ball to the other, and there was my pass, the pass, the one you wait for all your life, perfect and perfectly unexpected by everyone on the field but me. Nobody was there. The ball rolled like a lullaby on a green sea before me. Nobody, nothing, between me and it, and the net. Even the goalie seemed gone, as I hoofed and huffed and entered into "the zone." You know that zone where athletes go, where they are the ball, where the roar of the crowd, the elements, everything else just peels away and you can pretty much do whatever in the world you want?

This wasn’t that zone. It was a different, dreamier one, where everything peels away, including the ball and the goal. I realized in that moment what an intensely, insanely sociable creature I have become. I felt lonely. Actually lonely. Where was everyone? It just seemed all wrong all of a sudden.

What I did … I stopped running and stood there, and the ball just dribbled slowly away from me and over the end line. Then I turned to face my incredulous teammates and the whistle blew. Game over. Winners!

I didn’t know, though.

I touched hands with the other team and said, "Good game, good game," and they said so too. I posed for the team picture. I took off my uniform and put on my jeans and my new championship T-shirt. I checked my cell phone to see if President Obama was trying to call or anything. (He wasn’t.) And then I got in my car and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to the Marin Brewing Company, because that’s where the team was going to meet for pitchers of not-cold-enough beer and overdone, overpriced hamburgers.

It was three in the afternoon, and I had just played three soccer games on basically a bowl of oatmeal and some cherries. So you can imagine my hunger. Are you imagining? The reverberating weirdness of that breakaway loneliness moment, with all its psychological and philosophical implications — on an empty stomach!

And the guitar duo out on the patio, where we sat, played "Amy," and "Sweet Caroline," and worse.

Boasts the menu: "The Marin County Health Dept. is of the opinion that any meat cooked below medium-well (157 degrees) is undercooked. We proudly prepare your burger to any temperature you request."

"Rare," I said. (Are you still imagining my hunger? My excitement?)

It was one of the deadest burgers I ever ate. It was over well-done, gray, not a drop of moisture to it, save ketchup. Yet I was too insanely hungry, or nice, or sociable, to send it back.

Where would I be without this column?

MARIN BREWING COMPANY

Sun.–Thu. 11:30 a.m.–midnight;

Fri.–Sat. 11:30 a.m.–1 a.m.

1809 Larkspur Landing Circle, Larkspur

(415) 461-4677

Beer & wine

MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

PE credit for JROTC up tonight

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Editors note: The San Francisco School Board will vote tonight on a convoluted plan to allow physical education credit for JROTC. Since the military-recruitment program doesn’t meet state standards for PE, the board is trying a runaround — students would get “independent study” gym credit if they sign up for JROTC.

Marc Norton, who has been in the forefront of the opposition to JROTC, sent us this commentary:

by Marc Norton

Right-wing Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders jumped into the JROTC end-game with an opinion piece on Sunday. In April, Saunders, who endorsed John McCain for President, opined that “In Obamaland… the left chants, ‘torture doesn’t work…’ But common sense tells you that techniques like sleep deprivation [and] waterboarding… work, at least some times.”

In her latest rant, Saunders recounts the pro-JROTC mythology at length, but her real play is to torture the truth with the claim that the California Board of Education has “said local school districts have the authority to offer PE [physical education] credits for JROTC.”

What the California Board of Education actually did was revise its Physical Education Framework to say that JROTC classes “may not” meet PE standards, instead of “do not” meet PE standards. But, “if a district desires to award physical education credit for courses such as JROTC, marching band, cheerleading, and drill, it is the responsibility of the district to determine how each particular course, as conducted in its district, supports a course of study for grades nine through twelve… and substantially meets the objectives and criteria” for state PE curriculum and credentialing requirements.

Those who have followed the JROTC story know that bipartisan efforts in the state Legislature have tightened up PE standards in recent years because of the crisis of physical fitness among our youth, particularly low-income youth and youth of color. That is why PE credit has been withdrawn from JROTC programs all over the state, including San Francisco.

In fact, a recent report from San Diego compared physical fitness records of students who took PE and those who did not. Fitnessgram results for JROTC students actually declined during the same period that results for students in PE increased. The Fitnessgram is the test students generally take in the 9th or 10th grade to show their progress in physical education.

Prison report: What should government do?

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By Just A Guy

The debate rages around the “early” releases of 19,000 non-violent/non-serious offenders and turning over to the custody of the Feds another 19,000 illegal immigrants, for a total of 38,000 releases. There have been myriad articles and opinion pieces written around this, but not too many represent our — that is, the inmates’ — side of the story, nor are many inmate voices being heard around this issue. So I happily volunteer mine.

There is an editorial in the Marysville Appeals-Democrat that I find very interesting and that I agree with to some degree, but there are areas in this editorial which need to be addressed because it seems as if editorials like this are legitimized and not thought through by the general reader.

The editorial claims that the state government has many purposes, one of the more legitimate purposes is to protect its people from criminals. It states, “Government has no inherent duty to medicate, educate, nurture or provide recreation for its citizens. But it is legitimately charged with protecting their rights to life, liberty and property.”

Is it just me or is the writer being a bit contradictory? To say that it’s government’s inherent duty to protect our right to life, but not an inherent duty to “medicate” is to say it’s only government’s inherent duty to use force to protect life and not medicine. Basically this writer is saying that government’s only duty is to keep people from hurting each other and taking one another’s property — that it’s not governmental responsibility to make sure someone who can’t afford life-saving medicine receives that medicine even if it’s protecting that life.

I am no proponent of big government and think that government is far too deeply inserted into our lives and everything we do, but to make a statement like that just bothers me. Someone will read it, not think about it beyond the first layer and next thing you know that statement has become a component of their belief system and they’re protesting in front of abortion clinics during the day and by night they’re protesting the anti-death penalty protesters.
The editorial also states:

“Whether criminals should be released before completing their sentences, or into federal custody to be deported, should not be determined by finances.”

Huh?

How can the writer possibly say this in the same editorial that says:

“Nevertheless, the state has run California’s prison system badly, with little regard for costs imposed on those supposedly being served, but with great concern for those paid to do the job.”

Objects in mirror

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Readers:
Since I can’t write this week, I thought I could at least rerun a letter germane to recent discussions.

Dear Andrea:

I met a guy through his very explicit and fun Craigslist ad describing the weird-ass kinky sex he wanted. So we e-mailed, met, and had a great time. He’s handsome, intelligent, artsy … totally my type. We end up in bed, he gives me some quality oral sex, and then he ejaculates within two minutes. He makes no move to get me off either, just makes some remark about that being "my random Craigslist hookup." I’m too flabbergasted to ask for more oral sex. And then he wants to spend the night and cuddle. I’m frustrated and confused, but let him, and don’t comment on his premature ejaculation for fear of damaging his ego. Later we have sex again, and again he ejaculates within minutes. What do I do when he calls? What should I have said at the time?

Love,

UnListed

Dear List:

I once sat on a panel with Craig from Craiglist and I’m imagining him being mortified by this entire story. He’s a shy boy. I would also dearly love to link to the offending ad, but it seems faintly unethical, although it’s often said that once you post something on the Web, it’s public, period, and ripe for linkage. He’s probably taken it down by now, anyway. I can attest that the ad was lengthy, floridly descriptive, occasionally inept ("Bring your noble breasts"), and kinky in a cutely sophomoric, let-me-mash-grapes-in-you kind of way. It certainly did not read it as an offer of a two-minute, one-night stand complete with sexual frustration and dismissive jokes.

What to do if he calls? Doesn’t that depend on whether you wish to see him again? If you do, you will have to say, "But I want to do the stuff you said in the ad! Not five minutes of sex and then goodnight. OK?" If you don’t want to see him again, you say "no thanks."

There are ways to ask for more without bruising a boy’s ego — some boys, anyway. The ones to whom one is not allowed to say anything but "Wow! That was the best sex ever!" are not worth playing with. Yours doesn’t sound at all like the brutally macho type, more like your typical under-experienced urban dweeb-boy, so you would be quite safe in expressing an opinion, especially if you’re upbeat about it: "That was hot! I’m still hot! C’mon, let’s do some more." Not: "Well, that sucked. In fact, you suck." I can’t see the point of accusing him of premature ejaculation specifically, nor was that his greatest offense. What was, then? False advertising, of course. He proposed lengthy, goofy, sexy fun to ward off the looming, glowering gloom of autumn. Did he deliver any of that? No, he did not, and you would have been within your rights to point this out. On closer reading of his ad, though, I notice that he included an escape clause: "Not looking for mind-blowing, end-of-the-world sex."

I fear we shall all end up bringing our lawyers with us on first dates. End-of-the-world sex, indeed.

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

I recently hooked up with an inexperienced 23-year-old man. Sex has not been great for him in the past. With his ex, he always initiated, she never seemed to enjoy anything he tried, she refused to offer suggestions, they both became resentful, and now he’s afraid of sex. He told me he’s nervous and insecure, and when we finally got to it, he lasted about 15 seconds.

I find this guy unbelievably hot. I wouldn’t have guessed he was so inexperienced, and I get turned on thinking about how some really great fucking could rock his world. So far I’ve tried to not judge him and to be patient. I’d like to show him how great sex makes life worth living. But I don’t want to coddle or condescend to him. I also have no experience dealing with quick ejaculators. (It only happened once, but I’d like to know some techniques for keeping it from happening again.)

Love,

Mama Teach

Dear Mama:

He is, for your purposes, a babe in the woods. Coddle all you want. I wouldn’t suggest actually condescending to him, if only because condescension, unlike, say, humiliation or scorn, lacks essential hotness. Assume that he is attracted to you at least in some part for your worldliness, and play it up. He is a tender, pink-eared schoolboy. You are Jeanne Moreau.

There is no instant technique applicable to premature ejaculation (and yes, 15 seconds is premature); it’s all longer-term stuff. If interested, he can apply himself to his studies and gradually train himself out of coming so quickly, especially since it is likely nothing but nerves. Far simpler, though, is the magical solution available mostly to very young men and their partners: do it again. And again. And again.

Love,

Andrea

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

A hard look at the prison budget

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OPINION Last week’s grim budget news from Sacramento reminded me of Edward Lorenz’s often-quoted maxim, according to which the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil sets off a tornado in Texas. California’s budget, which we have consistently ignored and abused since the passage of Proposition 13, turns out not to have been limitless. And many residents, for whom our prison system had been invisible, may have found out for the first time that our correctional apparatus constitutes more than 7 percent of the state’s annual budget. Perhaps we are finally ready to become aware of the impact of our prisons on our wallets — and our lives.

Californian prisons are at nearly 200 percent capacity; 170,000 people are kept behind bars, and many more are under parole or probation supervision. The prison medical system has been declared unconstitutional by the federal courts and handed to a receiver. Among the many reasons for this catastrophe are our irrational sentencing scheme, a collage of punitive voter initiatives approved since the 1980s, and our deficient parole system, which leads 70 percent of those released back into prison for largely technical parole violations. Not only is this system inhumane and counterproductive, it’s also expensive: it costs about $40,000 dollars a year to keep a prisoner behind bars, and much more to treat aging, infirm prisoners who are in the system due to legislative constructs such as the three strikes law.

The silver lining of the budget crisis is the opportunity to rethink our social priorities and reassess how we may transform them to make the system less expensive and cumbersome. The indications of this transformation are everywhere: the resuscitated debate on marijuana legalization (and taxation); prioritizing violence and public harm over other offenses; a reinvigorated public discussion regarding the usefulness, and costs, of the death penalty; avoidance of expensive prison expansions; the national crime commission initiative, propelled by the failure of the War on Drugs; and the California Sentencing Commission Bill, which will soon come before the Assembly for a third reading.

Californians may not be as punitive as voter initiatives suggest. When informed of the existence of prison alternatives and of their costs, the public tends to choose less punitive options. Our current mentality of scarcity presents, therefore, a remarkable chance to decrease the size of our inmate population. This would lead not only to immense savings, but also to the release of many people who don’t belong behind bars. How we use this opportunity, however, depends on our ability to imagine, and implement, a new set of priorities.

We must understand that short-term, emergency measures of mass releases will be ineffective unless we use this opportunity as a catalyst to rethink our beliefs on corrections. Without a strong set of rehabilitative and reentry programs, many of those released under the new policy will return to the prison system. If we want to avoid more expenses, and a revolving prison door, we must reform and rationalize our sentencing regime to conform to sensible, fact-based principles, rather than political fads and panics.

Such measures are the flaps of the proverbial butterfly’s wings, and if we act not only swiftly, but deeply and wisely, we may be able to escape the tornado.

Hadar Aviram is associate professor of law at Hastings College of the Law and the author of the California Corrections Crisis blog, www.californiacorrectionscrisis.blogspot.com.

ChevWrong

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news@sfbg.com

When Chevron Corp. holds its annual shareholders meeting at its San Ramon headquarters May 27, its top executives are expected to give investors a glowing report on how this global enterprise came to rake in a profit of $23.9 billion last year — a staggering 28.1 percent increase over the past year.

As Chevron CEO Dave O’Reilly put it in the company’s annual report, 2008 was "a momentous year." Apparently O’Reilly will also claim that his company’s activities are improving people’s lot worldwide. "Energy," he writes, "is not a luxury — it’s the foundation for economic growth. By investing in the future, we’re creating value not only for our stakeholders, but we’re also building economic prosperity around the globe."

But O’Reilly’s high opinion of his company is not shared by a growing coalition of groups who believe that Chevron’s fifth consecutive year of record profits was earned, once again, at the cost of degrading the environment and its poorest communities, both here in Richmond and further afield, from the Amazon and Nigeria to Iraq and Kazakhastan.

Critics, who include what they describe as "a coalition of those directly affected by Chevron’s operations, political control, consumer abuse, and false promises," planned to hold a May 26 press conference to release The True Cost of Chevron, an alternative annual report that seeks to provide Chevron shareholders "with the most comprehensive exposé of Chevron’s operations — and the communities in struggle against them — ever compiled," according to the report’s authors.

The study includes reports from Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, the Gulf Coast, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Utah, Washington, D.C, and Wyoming as well as Angola, Burma, Canada, Chad, Cameroon, Ecuador, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, and the Philippines.

The next day, people carrying shareholder proxies intend to enter Chevron’s annual meeting to discuss the report with shareholders while a protest is held at Chevron’s front gates.

"Chevron’s 2008 annual report is a glossy celebration of the company’s most profitable year in its history, and one in which CEO David O’Reilly became the 15th highest paid U.S. chief executive, with nearly $50 million in total 2008 compensation," the authors state. "What Chevron’s annual report does not tell its shareholders is the true cost paid for those financial returns or the global movement gaining voice and strength against Chevron’s abuses."

The 44-page report details numerous lawsuits against the company, nationally and around the world — cases, the report’s authors claim, that have "potential liabilities in excess of Chevron’s total revenue from 2008, posing a material threat to shareholder value and the company’s bottom line."

As they wrote: "When a company operates in blatant disregard for the health, security, livelihood, safety, and environment of communities within which it operates, there can be real financial repercussions."

The report concludes with six specific obligations demanded of Chevron and leaves shareholders with the following message: "Chevron is right. The world will continue to use oil as it transitions to a sustainable green renewable energy economy. Whether Chevron will be in business as we make the transition depends upon what sort of company it chooses to be and whether the public is willing to support it."

The report also includes a series of large "ChevWrong Inhumane Energy ads" that spoof Chevron’s Human Energy ad campaign — images that popped up all across San Francisco last week after a group of renegade Chevron critics gathered at an secret location, mixed batches of wheat paste, and grabbed armfuls of the freely downloadable posters and set off into the night to bomb the city streets with the series of subvertisements.

Claiming that Chevron’s Human Energy campaign, which depicts smiling people alongside phrases like "I will try to leave the car at home more" is an attempt to greenwash the petro-giant’s activities, this group of mostly youthful critics pointed to the ongoing pollution, human rights abuses, and wars in regions where the oil company is stationed as they set off on bicycles, skateboards, and foot, armed with glue rollers and stacks of "ChevWrong" images. Some stashed their tools in Banana Republic shopping bags, which gave them an almost comical air of being disoriented tourists as they lurked and lingered on city street corners searching for suitable spots to paste their alternative ad campaign.

Soon newspaper racks on Market Street, pillars outside the Ferry Building, buildings in the Richmond District, and walls in North Beach bore the fruits of their work — along with the glass office door of public relations consultant Sam Singer, who represented Chevron in criticizing two renowned Ecuadorian environmental activists who were in town to receive the Goldman Prize.

"I will not complain about my asthma," states one such subversive ad, which depicts a beautiful but non-smiling young black man beside the claim that "Chevron’s refinery in Richmond, Calif. poisons the community." The ad is accompanied by a retooled logo that says "ChevWrong."

"I will try not to get cancer," states another that hot glue artists had affixed to Sandra Bullocks’ buttocks — or at least a life-sized depiction of the actress featured on a Market Street billboard promoting The Proposal.

"I will suffer in silence" states another, alongside the claim that Chevron props up Burma’s military dictatorship.

An ad reading "I will give my baby contaminated water" portrayed a smiling Nigerian woman alongside the claim that Chevron refuses to clean up its mess in Nigeria.

One activist told the Guardian she got involved "because Chevron is poisoning communities and cutting corners across the world, and is even shameless enough to do that here in Richmond."

Another said he was inspired to take this action because of a billion-dollar lawsuit Chevron is fighting in Ecuador, and because of its activities in Nigeria.

Others said they decided to drop the subvertisements all over the city after they heard that CBS Outdoor refused May 14 to sell the group space for the images on billboards citywide.

As they noted, the images are all freely downloadable from truecostofchevron.com, a site supported by Amazon Watch, Crude Accountability, Global Exchange, Justice in Nigeria Now, Rainforest Action Network, CorpWatch, Filipino-American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Trustees for Alaska, Communities for a Better Environment, Mpalabanda, Richmond Progressive Alliance, and EarthRights International.

Mitch Anderson, corporate accountability campaigner with Amazon Watch, confirmed that members of the truecostofchevron coalition approached CBS Outdoor but were told that CBS has a policy not to run negative or attack ads — a claim Anderson found laughable. "What about all the attack ads we see posted during election season?"

A CBS Outdoor spokesperson confirmed that CBS had refused to accept the proposed ad campaign, and that it is the company’s policy not to run negative or attack ads.

Calls to Rachel Sutton, Chevron PR person at its corporate headquarters in San Ramon, seeking comments about truecostofchevron’s charges remained unanswered as of press time.

But at Amazon Watch, Anderson said he thought it was "great that the Bay Area community took to the streets this week to tell Chevron that our hearts and minds are not for sale.

"Chevron is trying to paper-over its widespread human rights and environmental problems across the world by spending millions to propagate insulting lies," he continued. "From its disaster in Ecuador to its hiring of global warming deniers as lobbyists, this company has shown complete disregard for the environment, human rights, and yes, wisdom. Chevron is on the wrong side of history. Just as there can be no social justice on a dead planet, Chevron should know that you can’t profit off a dead planet either."

In a final swipe at Chevron’s Human Energy campaign, critics are distributing posters that ask "Will you join us?" and show a woman smiling alongside the promise "I will protest Chevron."

Revenge of the nerds

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

"Fukú Americanus" does not actually translate as "fucked-up American," but it might as well. Fukú refers to a curse, a bad piece of destiny that clings to your behind like a genetically transmitted boot up the ass, passing on through generations until it runs its course, which is who-knows-how-long. And if you want to get really specific about it, as does the narrator in Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, fukú is an imprecation brought to the Americas in the mouths of kidnapped Africans, amounting to nothing less than "the Curse and Doom of the New World." Which means we all get a turn.

So maybe it’s appropriate that Díaz’s titular hero is a chubby nonentity, an hombre of no importance, and a fully fledged geek whom his mom (Maria Candelaria) can barely stand and no girl seems destined to come within a quarter mile of. Despite a passion for women unusual even among his fellow Dominicans — according to confessed player and reluctant sidekick Yunior (Carlos Aguirre) — Oscar (Brian Rivera) stands to be the first Dominican man to die a virgin. Ultimately, however, he’s more than a subtraction sign. As incarnated with zest and goofy likeability by Rivera, he’s an indefatigable survivor, maybe even the fifth member of the Fantastic Four, if only in his own mind. He’s also a mad scribbler, ever composing his magnum opus in an endless series of marbled notebooks. (The "Wao" comes from someone’s misapprehension of an Oscar Wilde reference that sticks to our Oscar ever after. A fervent sci-fi, anime, Dungeons-and-Dragons dweeb, he’s actually trying to look like Doctor Who at the time, so the confusion turning a "who" from the D.R. to a "wao" in the U.S. becomes all the more poetical, and culturally laden.)

Oscar’s terrible virginity is only one of several burdens propelling the action in the world premiere of Fukú Americanus, Campo Santo’s boisterous post–hip-hop stage adaptation of Díaz’s 2007 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, now up and pulsing — with lots of high-end but not enough in the bass — at Intersection for the Arts. The play cuts its largest swath through the New Jersey–based chapters of Diaz’s immigrant tale (which loosely aligns with the author’s own childhood passage from the D.R. to the U.S.), and features the travails of Oscar’s razor-sharp but wounded sister, Lola (Vanessa Cota), a goth-clad teen rebel against their cancer-ridden but nevertheless indomitably feisty mother. Meanwhile, Lola’s macho onetime-boyfriend Yunior gets cast in the role of Rutgers roomie and caretaker to Oscar.

Back of these plot points, and the transnational culture they limn, stands the inscrutable but ever-present designs of Fukú, in the lanky human form of our narrator (Biko Eisen-Martin), shirtless and shoeless in a black suit and silver bling. When not listening in on the action, he jumps in, usually literally, with a choice bit of information or opinion culled from the novel’s hefty footnotes and digressions. Intertwined with fukú is the burden of histories familial and colonial.

Given its subaltern subject matter, its slang-fueled homeboy/homegirl wisdom, curbside humor, and restive energy, Diaz’s novel would seem a natural fit for the kind of hip hop–inspired theatre Intersection for the Arts has championed with the Living Word Project as well as recent successes like Angry Black White Boy. On stage, however, it amounts to a high-energy but shallow distillation of the ample novel’s several decades of private history that are set meaningfully against a diasporic backdrop of colonial peonage, imperial intervention ("Santo Domingo was Iraq before Iraq was Iraq!"), hopeful and desperate migrations, New World ennui, oppression under a series of local and globetrotting top dogs — especially dictator Trujillo, here introduced only in the second act and a bit too inconsequentially — and disillusionment with that American Dream.

Codirectors Marc Bamuthi Joseph (of LWP) and Sean San José (who directed Angry) find their way into the material through a fluid physicality and driving beat (although actual beatboxing from Aguirre and singing by the cast are kept to a minimum). The effortless bounce and verve never gets close to the bone, though, since the relentlessly playful tone and broad if charming characterizations can’t sustain the full weight of the narrative. Straddling comedic melodrama and turned-out hip-hop performance, Fukú satisfies the requirements of neither too well, leaving its deeper themes marooned in the shallows of a fleetingly infectious celebration of outsider status.

FUKÚ AMERICANUS

Through June 21

Thurs-Sat, 8 p.m., $15–$25

Intersection for the Arts

446 Valencia, SF

(415) 626-3311, www.theintersection.org

Racial justice: A to G spells victory

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OPINION On Tuesday, May 19, poor and working-class families of color packed the San Francisco School Board with a powerful message of hope, opportunity, and justice: we want the right to a secure future in our own city. To get a good job here, we know we need a high quality education that prepares us for college, career, or union trade — not poverty or prison.

After a year of research, organizing, and talking to thousands of families, collecting 3,000 postcards, and mobilizing hundreds of parents and youth, our proposal — that every San Francisco student have access to the so-called A–G classes — was approved, setting the stage for a systemic change in our public schools that could dramatically improve the lives of tens of thousands of students of color over the next few years.

A–G describes the high school coursework that state colleges require for admission. Setting A-G as part of the graduation requirement will finally give low-income black and Latino students access to high expectations and our state college system.

We will have to stay on top of the district and monitoring will be intense and long-term, but we have parent and student leaders ready for the task, because their own lives are at stake.

Our experience is that thousands of parents and students get the issues, but that so many San Franciscans, even progressive ones, just don’t. In San Francisco, 75 percent of children are black, Latino, Asian, or Pacific Islander, and more than 80 percent of those families are low income. A full 90 percent of the students in public schools are students of color. This means kids’ issues in San Francisco are issues of racial and economic justice.

Our issues are often not the ones that make front page news. Education outcomes for black children — right here in San Francisco — are the worst of the state’s urban districts. But this gets lost in the inside baseball reporting about City Hall politics, the flinging about of political self-righteousness, and frankly, issues like JROTC.

We believe that organizing families for racial equity in our public school system is core to a progressive agenda in the 21st century. Consider the following.

•<\!s> Young people’s future in the 21st century San Francisco economy now requires a college education. More than 50,000 blue-collar jobs that paid a living wage without requiring a degree have disappeared from SF over the last generation.

•<\!s> Only one in three students from SF schools graduated from high school prepared for a four-year university in 2008. Without access to college and career-ready A-G classes, most graduating students weren’t even eligible for either the U.C. or California state universities or prepared for a union apprenticeship exam.

•<\!s> Most black, Latino and Pacific Islander students do not have access the A-G college, career, and union trade path in San Francisco. In fact, five out of six Latino students and 9 out of 10 African American students graduated without the A-G classes required to even be eligible for a U.C. or state university.

This new school board policy might be one of the most important steps toward racial equity in a generation. Join our work to make San Francisco public schools a vehicle of economic opportunity, racial justice and democracy. *

N’Tanya Lee is executive director of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth.

Prop. 8 protests — where to go

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Sfist has a handy-dandy guide to today’s protests here.

And here’s Assemblyman Tom Ammiano’s statement:

“Today’s Supreme Court opinion upholding Prop. 8 is a stark reminder that the struggle for equality and justice must and will go on. We have come a long way since the days when Harvey Milk and I fought against the discrimination of the Briggs Initiative and Proposition 8 was no different. Harvey’s message then was one of hope and we can see how that message is making progress throughout the country – five states now embrace marriage equality and several more are on the verge.

History has shown that equality cannot be denied to any group and it is only a matter of time before justice prevails. I encourage the supporters of same sex marriage to engage in peaceful, focused actions and we will transform the anger that is felt today into a successful message of political change. The decision today only strengthens my commitment and resolve to restore equality for all Californians.”

FAIR: Tell ABC to Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate

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fair.gif


Tell ABC: Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate
Network says June 24 special will cover ‘all sides’

6/22/09

ABC News is preparing for a day of in-depth of coverage on President Barack Obama’s healthcare proposal on June 24, broadcasting from the White House and including an interview with Obama on Good Morning America and an hour-long Primetime “town hall” discussion featuring Obama and questions from audience members. Concerns have been raised about whether ABC’s special programming will convey a full spectrum of opinion on the healthcare reform debate–but the views perhaps most likely to be left out have so far gotten little attention.

Complaints from the right about ABC’s plans have gotten widespread play. The Republican National Committee, which attempted to buy ad time during the specials and was rejected, condemned “ABC’s astonishing decision to exclude opposing voices on this critical issue” (Real Clear Politics, 6/17/09).

Examiner denies climate change

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By Steven T. Jones

I’ve learned to have low expectations of editorials in the San Francisco Examiner, which endorsed John McCain for president and seems to always reflect the right-wing extremism of the paper’s Denver-based owner Phil Anschutz. But today’s editorial, which questions whether climate change is happening, is a new low.

In “Cap-and-trade scheme will wreck economy,” the paper refers to how some people believe burning fossil fuels is “allegedly” causing global warming and writes, “The problem for such advocates, however, is that Earth average temperatures have been declining for the last decade, and a fast-growing number of climate and other scientists now question the root idea of a global warming crisis.”

That statement is a lie. It is the opposite of truth, and not simply a matter of opinion or perspective, but a ridiculous and calculated effort to fool readers (I’m waiting for a response from Executive Editor Jim Pimentel and Managing Editor Deirdre Hussey and will add it to comments if I hear back from them).

Global temperatures in the last decade are some of the hottest on record, which is why the polar ice caps are melting. And the scientific community – real scientists, not those who work for industry or right-wing think tanks – is united (as much as scientists ever are about anything) in its belief in climate change and its connection to excessive carbon output.

It’s so clear that even George W. Bush and most Republicans believe it. Even the oil companies, the biggest single cause of global warming and the industry that will be hit hardest as we combat it, run ads acknowledging that it’s happening. But the Examiner appears to be the last holdout. Wow.

Confessions: Size matters

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By Molly Freedenberg

I have a healthy appreciation for the male anatomy, especially that scene stealer, the penis. (Too bad, testicles. Apologies, anus. You’re always going to play bit parts as long as Dick’s in the movie.) That said, I’m not particular about size. Or rather, there are so many other factors that are more important to me: color, shape, the feel of the skin, and perhaps most important, the body (and soul) it’s attached to.

In short? To me, size matters much less than just about everything else.

I realize, however, that not everyone shares my opinion. Case in point? The girl I recently overheard talking about her newest lover. (Names and places omitted to protect the guilty.)

This lovely little Latina with a delightfully filthy mouth was discussing, in detail, her new partner’s member. Both long and wide, it was perhaps the biggest she’d ever seen. And oh, did she like it. Much better than a thin penis, which she called “pencil dick,” or a short stubby one. “What is that, an eraser?”

JROTC: Now, the lawyers

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By Tim Redmond

It’s no surprise, really, that the School Board voted to reinstate JROTC last night.. ONce Norman Yee announced he was going to support the program, the deal was done.

By the way: We endorsed Yee in part because he voted not to allow phys ed credit for JROTC, and without PE credit, the program’s going to die eventually anyway because not enough students will sign up. Now, since the state (sort of) claims that JROTC qualifies for credit, Yee says he’s willing to accept that and keep the miitary recruitment program going.

I’m not happy about that, and neither are a lot of other progressives who supported Yee. But for the record, I don’t think Yee would ever have brought this back on his own; it took Rachel Norton and Jill Wynns to do that. And love JROTC or hate it, credit (or blame) for this lies squarely with those two board members.

Not letting Yee off the hook, but facts is facts.

Now then: It’s still not as simple as it seems. Even if Norton is right, and the board’s resolution killing PE credit only covered last year, it’s still not clear that the San Francisco schools can legally award class credit for JROTC. IN most cases, only people who have a state teaching credential are allowed to teach classes for credit in California public schools. The California Department of Education says that JROTC instructors can teach PE wihtout that credential:

JROTC instructors, who have a state and federal credential to teach the military course, would not need a PE credential, said Phil Lafontaine, the department’s director of professional development and curriculum support.

“They’re appropriately credentialed,” he said, even if students are earning PE credit.

But John T. Affedlt, managing attorney for the San Francisco law firm Public Advocates, says that’s completely wrong. In a May 12, 2009 letter to the SFUSD (warning, PDF), he notes:

Mr. Lafontaine’s opinion is not only wrong, it is utterly of no consequence … in California, it is the Commission on Teacher Credntialing (CTC) — not the California Department of Education — which implements and interprets state law regarding what constitutes appropriate credentials.

He adds:

There is no statute authorizing individuals possessing only JROTC credentials to teach PE.

So the School Board and legal counsel have some figuring to do. I think the whole PE credit question ought to come back up before the board — and JROTC supporters should hold off on celebrating until that messy legal issue is settled.

How to fix public transit

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OPINION As San Franciscans deal with the shock of ever-worsening budget cuts, it’s time we look to fundamental structural changes in the way government does business. That’s a scary thought because, as Naomi Klein warns, free market ideologues use shocks to accomplish a very damaging type of structural change that cuts public service, increases privatization, and strengthens class division. Those of us who support collective responsibility and a strong public sector had better work together to propose our own structural change.

In transportation, to reduce driving — which accounts for 47 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in this city — we must increase public transit ridership dramatically. Yet the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is cutting its budget by 16 percent. The solution is simple, but not easy: car transportation will have to cost more, in terms of money and time. Transit, walking, and bicycling will have to be easier, faster, and safer. We can use the funds from increases in driving costs to fund improvements to other forms of transportation.

The alternative is an abandonment of the great equalizer that is public transit — and a kind of privatization that provides the automobile as an option for the middle class but at the cost of miserable transportation for the 30 percent of San Francisco households who don’t have cars.

For this to work, public transit must be not just a little bit better, it must be a great deal better. It must remain affordable for families and serve the whole city efficiently, at all hours of the day. Residents should need cars so rarely that transit costs, plus occasional car-sharing and car rentals, are cheaper alternatives than car ownership.

With a higher gas tax and tolls on freeways (measures a recent San Francisco Planning and Urban Research analysis shows to be among the most cost-effective policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions), we can make public transit work better. SFMTA should implement its proposed rapid network on the routes that carry 80 percent of Muni’s passengers, speeding up the vehicles by at least 20 percent. That will cost car drivers some time: mixed traffic lanes will have to be converted to bus lanes. Turns will have to be restricted and parking will have to be removed.

The city also must make bicycling safe and easy. Our bikeways need to be safe for 8-year olds, who need systems that forgive mistakes and allow for slow and easy riding, and seniors, who are not physically able to ride fast and cannot afford to make emergency stops that may cause a fall. That means we need effective 18 mph traffic-calmed zones and a system of car-free bike paths, including one down Market Street.

Transportation is a regional issue that San Francisco cannot solve on its own. We must do a better job of matching our regional development patterns to our needs to promote walking, bicycling, and transit.

To make all this work, we must stop sprawl immediately and concentrate growth in cities and existing suburbs. More density in cities means more people to support transit (through fares and a higher tax base) and more people to support local shops so that walking to your grocery store is an option for more people.

Dave Snyder is transportation policy director at SPUR.

CJC just criminalizes the poor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recurrent Energy project passed on 7-4 vote

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By Rebecca Bowe

The Board of Supervisors voted 7 to 4 this afternoon to approve a 25-year power purchase agreement with Recurrent Energy, a private firm that plans to construct a 5-megawatt photovoltaic array at the Sunset Reservoir. Supervisors John Avalos, David Campos, Chris Daly and Ross Mirkarimi voted against the agreement, voicing concerns that the city would be locked into a bad financial deal for years to come and asserting that the city could strike a better deal with Recurrent. Part of the problem, Mirkarimi noted, is that the city would be locked into paying a fixed price for solar energy even if the going rate drops significantly in coming years.

The Guardian has weighed in on the project at several junctures. While everyone at the table believes that the end goal is laudable – adding 5 megawatts of clean energy to the city’s renewable portfolio – Supervisors Mirkarimi and Campos have expressed opposition to contract terms that they say would ultimately sell San Francisco ratepayers short. At a joint meeting between LAFCo and the SFPUC on April 24, Mirkarimi also worried that the Recurrent Energy project could undercut the efforts of San Francisco’s fledgling Community Choice Aggregation initiative.

The power purchase agreement was originally put forth by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Supervisor Carmen Chu. Chu advocated strongly for it during today’s meeting, saying she believed it was a good deal and noting that it would create 71 jobs.

Daly weighed in heavily against it, calling the deal a politicized “rush job.” The result, in his opinion, is that “we get electricity that is green, but it is too expensive to give anyone else the opportunity to do it too. … Going green doesn’t mean going green stupid. If it seems like gymnastics for a deal, there is a better way.”

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