protests

Stiglitz: The Dangers of Deficit Reduction

David Talbot
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By Joseph E. Stiglitz

Here is our monthly installment of Joseph E. Stiglitz’s Unconventional Economic Wisdom column from the Project Syndicate news series. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University and the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics. His forthcoming book Freefall will be published this winter.

NEW YORK – A wave of fiscal austerity is rushing over Europe and America. The magnitude of budget deficits – like the magnitude of the downturn – has taken many by surprise. But despite protests by the yesterday’s proponents of deregulation, who would like the government to remain passive, most economists believe that government spending has made a difference, helping to avert another Great Depression.

Most economists also agree that it is a mistake to look at only one side of a balance sheet (whether for the public or private sector). One has to look not only at what a country or firm owes, but also at its assets. This should help answer those financial sector hawks who are raising alarms about government spending. After all, even deficit hawks acknowledge that we should be focusing not on today’s deficit, but on the long-term national debt. Spending, especially on investments in education, technology, and infrastructure, can actually lead to lower long-term deficits. Banks’ short-sightedness helped create the crisis; we cannot let government short-sightedness – prodded by the financial sector – prolong it.

Faster growth and returns on public investment yield higher tax revenues, and a 5 to 6% return is more than enough to offset temporary increases in the national debt. A social cost-benefit analysis (taking into account impacts other than on the budget) makes such expenditures, even when debt-financed, even more attractive.

Finally, most economists agree that, apart from these considerations, the appropriate size of a deficit depends in part on the state of the economy. A weaker economy calls for a larger deficit, and the appropriate size of the deficit in the face of a recession depends on the precise circumstances.

It is here that economists disagree. Forecasting is always difficult, but especially so in troubled times. What has happened is (fortunately) not an everyday occurrence; it would be foolish to look at past recoveries to predict this one.

In America, for instance, bad debt and foreclosures are at levels not seen for three-quarters of a century; the decline in credit in 2009 was the largest since 1942. Comparisons to the Great Depression are also deceptive, because the economy today is so different in so many ways. And nearly all so-called experts have proven highly fallible – witness the United States Federal Reserve’s dismal forecasting record before the crisis.

Yet, even with large deficits, economic growth in the US and Europe is anemic, and forecasts of private-sector growth suggest that in the absence of continued government support, there is risk of continued stagnation – of growth too weak to return unemployment to normal levels anytime soon.

The risks are asymmetric: if these forecasts are wrong, and there is a more robust recovery, then, of course, expenditures can be cut back and/or taxes increased. But if these forecasts are right, then a premature “exit” from deficit spending risks pushing the economy back into recession. This is one of the lessons we should have learned from America’s experience in the Great Depression; it is also one of the lessons to emerge from Japan’s experience in the late 1990’s.

These points are particularly germane for the hardest-hit economies. The United Kingdom, for example, has had a harder time than other countries for an obvious reason: it had a real-estate bubble (though of less consequence than in Spain), and finance, which was at the epicenter of the crisis, played a more important role in its economy than it does in other countries.

The UK’s weaker performance is not the result of worse policies; indeed, compared to the US, its bank bailouts and labor-market policies were, in many ways, far better. It avoided the massive waste of human resources associated with high unemployment in America, where almost one out of five people who would like a full-time job cannot find one.

As the global economy returns to growth, governments should, of course, have plans on the drawing board to raise taxes and cut expenditures. The right balance will inevitably be a subject of dispute. Principles like “it is better to tax bad things than good things” might suggest imposing environmental taxes.

The financial sector has imposed huge externalities on the rest of society. America’s financial industry polluted the world with toxic mortgages, and, in line with the well established “polluter pays” principle, taxes should be imposed on it. Besides, well-designed taxes on the financial sector might help alleviate problems caused by excessive leverage and banks that are too big to fail. Taxes on speculative activity might encourage banks to focus greater attention on performing their key societal role of providing credit.

Over the longer term, most economists agree that governments, especially in advanced industrial countries with aging populations, should be concerned about the sustainability of their policies. But we must be wary of deficit fetishism. Deficits to finance wars or give-aways to the financial sector (as happened on a massive scale in the US) lead to liabilities without corresponding assets, imposing a burden on future generations. But high-return public investments that more than pay for themselves can actually improve the well-being of future generations, and it would be doubly foolish to burden them with debts from unproductive spending and then cut back on productive investments.

These are questions for a later day – at least in many countries, prospects of a robust recovery are, at best, a year or two away. For now, the economics is clear: reducing government spending is a risk not worth taking. 

Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics. His most recent book Freefall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy is available in French (Le Triomphe De La Cupidité, Liens Qui Liberent) and will be available shortly in Japanese, Spanish, German, and Italian.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010.
www.project-syndicate.org

Protests demand more money for education

Sasha Cuttler
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Images from yesterday’s protests by Charles Russo

Yesterday’s Day of Action to protest deep cuts in public education and other vital services was far larger – and occasionally more militant – than many had expected, sending a strong message to Sacramento that it’s time to pursue new revenue options instead of simply cutting the public sector to the bone.

More than 150 people were arrested (including Guardian intern Jobert Poblete, who is still among at least 80 awaiting booking this morning at the overwhelmed Santa Rita Jail in Dublin) for allegedly climbing onto the freeway at Interstate 880 in Oakland and blocking traffic around 5 p.m., the most confrontational event in an otherwise peaceful yet forceful day of protest.

The biggest Bay Area event was outside San Francisco City Hall, were more than a dozen smaller events and marches converged at 5 p.m. Civic Center Plaza was filled with thousands of people of all ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities, from sign-wielding kindergarteners to United Educators of San Francisco President Dennis Kelly, who served as MC of a program that explicitly excluded elected officials.

“We’re here today because never again should any of us feel helpless,” Kelly boomed, declaring, “The budgets of California will not be built on the backs of our future.”

It was indeed an inspiring, passionate presentation to the largest crowd that has filled the plaza since the start of the Iraq War in 2003. Some speakers even drew on that connection in scoffing at statements by elected officials that the budget cuts – which have results in hundreds of teacher layoffs and steep tuition hikes — are unavoidable.

“When the government wants to wage war, the money is there. When the government wants trillions of dollars to bail out the banks, the money is there,” Chabot College teacher Kip Waldo said.

Susan Solomon, a San Francisco kindergarten teacher, said the budget decisions being made today are incredibly myopic and unjust. “We are here today to address a crime, the crime of stealing education from our kids,” she said, going on to attack the belittling mantra that educators need to simply live within the budgets they’re given. “We are sick and tired of doing more with less. Let’s try something new. Let’s try doing more with more.”

Then she spelled out what she – and the majority of people who were out there, people who don’t usually take to the streets in protest – are advocating: “We want progressive taxation. The people and the corporation who have all the money should pay their fair share.”

Whether this nascent movement can help bring that about is yet to be determined, but its leaders sounded confident yesterday. As California Faculty Association President Lil Taiz said, “We have here the seeds of a movement that can lead this state to the kind of future we believe in.”

Day of Action field reports

Sasha Cuttler
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We’re starting to get some field reports from today’s big Strike and Day of Action — which culminates in a 5 p.m. rally in Civic Center Plaza — from some Guardianistas who we have covering various marches. And it sounds like the turnout is big and lively.

Over at SF State, hundreds of protesting students blocked 19th Avenue before being cleared by police. Then, for those students who hadn’t walked out in protest of rising fees and declining class offerings, someone pulled a fire alarm and shut down classes that way.

Meanwhile, in the East Bay, intern Jobert Poblete is with a march that he estimates to be a couple thousand people that has taken Telegraph Avenue and is trying to go all the way from the UC Berkeley campus to downtown Oakland, where they’ll rally in the Frank Ogawa Plaza outside Oakland City Hall this afternoon. So far, they’ve met with little resistance or police activity.

Currently, there are already hundreds of protesters outside Oakland City Hall, which has been locked down, and the crowd is expected to swell to several thousand once the Telegraph protest and other East Bay events converge there. It’s the same story outside San Francisco City Hall, where a rally is now underway with several satellite protests making their way there now.

See Alerts for more on the various marches and check back to this post later for updates and photos.  

2:15 update: Brady Welch reports that around 100 Mission High students have walked off campus together and are now marching up Valencia Streets, banging drums and chanting slogans, with some SFPD squad cars providing an escort. We’ve also heard from various sources through SF and the East Bay that there’s been more than a dozen smaller protests, many of them involving grade school children carrying protest signs. SF Public Press has an interesting report by a former Guardian intern on that phenomenon.

Shot of crowd at East Bay march.

And a couple photos from Brady Welch:

 

This photo (taken from inside Oakland City Hall by my friend, Deputy City Attorney Alix Rosenthal, less than an hour ago) shows a smaller than expected turnout:

Meanwhile, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has issued a statement of support for the Day of Action that begins, ““I join the thousands of students, parents and teachers across California and here in San Francisco today calling for adequate, equitable education funding for our public schools and universities.”

Newsom also opposed the Iraq War but never took part in any of the peace marches (unlike progressive members of the Board of Supervisors, who marched and gave speeches at the events), but I’m headed to the Civic Center rally soon, so I’ll let you know if he makes an appearance. We’ll have more extensive coverage of today’s events and what they mean tomorrow.

UPDATE: Guardian intern Jobert Poblete was among 150-200 people arrested in the East Bay during the Day of Action protests this evening, a group that he says including several journalists. Details are sketchy in the brief messages that we’ve had from him, but most of the arrests reportedly occurred when the protesters briefly blocked Interstate 880. They’ve been taken to Alameda County Jail in Dublin where jail personnel tell us most of those arrested are likely to be cited and released sometime tonight. Meanwhile, a 5 p.m. rally at Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco was packed with an exhuberant crowd of several thousand, the largest demonstration there in years. We’ll have a full report of the day’s events tomorrow.

Expanding movement

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Expanding movement

rebeccab@sfbg.com

When University of California Berkeley students staged building occupations last fall, their furious, brazen response to startling tuition hikes and staff cutbacks captured the attention of the world, recalling the radical actions of earlier generations.

Yet the thrust behind the March 4 Strike and Day of Action, a mass mobilization for public education and services that is reaching into all corners of the state and spreading nationwide, appears to stem from widespread agitation that extends well beyond the flare-ups on college campuses.

"What’s historic about this is that pre-K through PhD has never walked together," said Lillian Taiz, president of the California Faculty Association, which represents faculty in the California State University system. "We have often been pitted against one another, and I think everyone feels finally, in the end, there is no difference in importance between pre-K and PhD. We need it all."

The historic new alliance faces an uphill climb in an environment characterized by a devastating budget crisis at the state level. California — the world’s eighth-largest economy — hovers around 47th in the nation in terms of per-pupil spending, and the most recent wave of budget rollbacks has cut to the bone.

Students and teachers across the Bay Area argue that with dramatic slashes in funding, the educational system is failing youth. Class sizes are ballooning to claustrophobic levels, students are unable to take their desired courses, fees are going up, bathrooms are getting cleaned less frequently, and staffers are getting stressed by overwhelming workloads. "Classes are jam-packed," Taiz says. "You have kids sitting on the floor. You have students just begging to be allowed in a class."

As University of California students decry a 32 percent hike in fees, the California State University system is suffering from damage inflicted by 2,000 faculty layoffs over the past year. The San Francisco Unified School District, meanwhile, is staring down an estimated $113 million budget deficit over the next two years, and 900 layoff notices recently were issued to teachers, librarians, secretaries, and other school employees to warn them that their jobs could be slashed by the end of the school year.

When San Francisco’s school district faced a gaping budget shortfall during the last budget cycle, it was propped up by a combination of Rainy Day Fund reserve dollars and stimulus funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. With no such safety nets in place this time around, anxiety levels are higher and the outlook is uncertain.

March 4 is shaping up to be more than an opportunity to vent frustrations to elected leaders. Instead, organizers describe it as a rallying point for a movement to defend public education that has caught on like wildfire, uniting people from different worlds. Pickets and rallies will be staged throughout the region. Thousands are expected to swarm Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco. Students from a handful of East Bay campuses are organizing marches to Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland. Students and faculty from Berkeley will be boarding buses to take the message to Sacramento. The Oakland Unified School district will host a districtwide mock "disaster drill" to call attention to the disastrous budget. Even public transit activists opposed to the latest round of Muni service cuts and fare hikes are joining the protests, hoping to expand the discussion to support vital public services (for details on these and other events, see "Alerts" opposite this page).

"We’ve never gotten this level of activism over anything in SF since I’ve been here," says Matthew Hardy, communications director for United Educators of San Francisco. "There’s a growing movement for progressive taxation and budget reform instead of draconian cuts."

Taiz, who teaches history at Cal State Los Angeles, described March 4 as an opportunity to fill a void in leadership. "Historically, in these moments where ordinary people step up to the plate, you end up leading the leaders," she said. "We are kind of shocked, but in truth, we do know what has to be done." Quality education isn’t just important for young people, but for society as a whole, she argued. "I am a baby boomer, and if the folks coming up behind me don’t have really, really good jobs, I’m going to be eating dog food. Because those are the people who pay Social Security and pay the taxes."

In the week preceding March 4, teachers and students throughout the Bay Area were in a frenzy of preparation.

Carlos Baron, a theater professor at SF State, was wondering whether the grand procession of papier-mâché puppets his theater students will unveil on the March 4 Day of Action should take a V-shape or some other form. "The main puppet is the Draculator," explained Baron, a Chilean who directed plays in the Salvador Allende era before he began teaching at SF State in 1978. "It’s a cross between the Terminator-Governor and Dracula. But also it doubles as a banker and a general."

When asked how funding cutbacks affect students, Baron didn’t hesitate. "It impedes the creation of a positive vision for themselves and this society," he said. It stunts "the development of the imagination," he added. "We are trained as individuals to accept our failure and our smallness because we’re familiar with it. They don’t want an educated population, a sensitive population, a dreaming population. Would we select Schwarzenegger?"

Nicole Abreu Shepard, a first-grade teacher at Buena Vista Elementary in San Francisco’s Mission District, was collecting permission slips from parents to take her students to a rally and march down 24th Street. "The entire school is walking out," Abreu Shepherd said. Buena Vista’s art program exists solely because parents volunteer their time, she explained. More than half the students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and many incoming kindergarteners or preschoolers are new to the English language. Now there are proposals on the table to increase kindergarten class sizes to 25 or possibly even 30 students. "It’s sort of tying their hands behind their back and asking them to teach on one foot," she noted, and worried about the eventual result. "It’s going to be harder and harder to keep parents who could afford private school in a public school system."

Meanwhile, at the UC Berkeley campus, Krystof Cantor was sitting behind a table heaped with piles of radical literature bearing titles such as "After the Fall: Communiques from an Occupied California." Cantor, who earned his PhD in vision science in 2005, was joining student organizers in making one last push to drum up student interest in March 4 events at a multi-faceted event called "Rolling University." Late on the evening of Feb. 26, a dance party on the Berkeley campus morphed into a street riot — replete with ignited Dumpsters — in downtown Berkeley. The incident attracted media attention and drew public criticism from administrative officials.

The radicalized student movement that has erupted on the UC Berkeley campus is "very much about seizing power," Cantor told the Guardian several days before. "It’s been disruptive, it’s been militant, and it’s been creative. That’s very scary," to the administrators the movement is targeting, he added.

That focused pressure on UC administrators sets these students apart from the coalition of UC Berkeley faculty members and student government members and allies who are coordinating bus trips to protest in Sacramento March 4, he explained. "Sacramento’s not innocent, but it’s not like the administrators are just doing what they have to do," he charged, pointing to new construction projects on campus even as workers are hit with layoffs and furloughs, plus an increasing trend of privatizing on-campus jobs and services. "You can save the public sector by pouring money into it. But it won’t work if the people in charge … want to privatize everything."

Jasper Bernes, a graduate student in English who was seated next to Cantor, noted that the occupation tactic is catching on at other campuses. "I have no doubt that March 4 will greet us with news of many occupations," he said.

Baron, the Chilean theater professor, noted that some SF State students had occupied a business school building in protest of budget cuts. "They were pissed," he said. "They wanted to do something radical. They really inconvenienced a lot of people — but they took chances nonetheless. I went there, and I locked arms with them for awhile." At the same time, he wondered about how effective it was, he said.

And for all the months of preparation and visioning, Baron said he also wonders what will ultimately be borne out of the marches, rallies, pickets, and procession of lovingly crafted street puppets he helped breathe life into. For all the hard work and planning, he says, "My problem is not so much March 4. It’s March 5."

Editor’s Notes

David Talbot
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Editor’s Notes

Tredmond@sfbg.com

Gavin Newsom never got any traction in the race for governor, in part because he completely alienated the progressive base in his hometown. And when you have unionized city employees holding protests outside your campaign fundraisers — and you’re in a Democratic primary in California — you’ve got serious problems.

And now, oddly enough, the progressives in San Francisco may be his biggest allies in the race for the second-place job of lieutenant governor.

There are some good reasons for that.

For starters, a lot of us thought that Newsom, whatever his positions on issues, wasn’t ready to run California — to deal with all of the massive problems the state faces and to take on the brutal politics of Sacramento. And I think his behavior during his brief gubernatorial campaign demonstrated that we were right.

But the Lite Guv job is a lot different. You don’t have to balance a state budget that’s $20 billion in the red; you don’t have to solve water problems. It’s a place where you can learn about state politics on the job, without really screwing things up.

And if his real goal is to run for U.S. Senate down the road, say, when Dianne Feinstein retires, he’ll be in a good place to launch that campaign.

But let’s face it. A lot of this is practical politics. With either Jerry Brown or Meg Whitman in the Governor’s Office, the state will continue to be screwed up and it will be even more important that cities take on their own economic destinies. And Newsom, as a bitter lame duck, simply can’t do that.

The progressive political community isn’t unanimous at all. But a lot of people are thinking that if Newsom’s ascension to Sacramento means that the district supervisors will have a chance to appoint a progressive mayor, it’s worth the trade-off.

A union that made black history

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The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was a pioneering union that led the battle from the l930s to l950s against racial discrimination that laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement of the l960s. 

Few of the groups that we should honor during Black History Month are more deserving than the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a pioneering union that played a key role in the winning of equal rights by African Americans. The union, the first to be founded by African Americans, was involved as much in political as in economic activity, joining with the NAACP to serve as the major political vehicle of African Americans from the late 1930s through the 1950s. It led the drives in those years against racial discrimination in employment, housing, education and other areas that laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

The need for a porters’ union was distressingly obvious. Porters commonly worked 12 or more hours a day, six or even seven days a week, on the Pullman Company’s luxurious sleeping car coaches for a mere $72.50 a month. And out of that, they had to pay for their meals, uniforms, even the polish they used to shine passengers’ shoes. They got no fringe benefits, although they could ride the trains for half-fare on their days off – providing they were among the very few with the time and money to do so. And providing they didn’t ride a Pullman coach. Pay was so low porters often had to draw on the equally meager earnings of their wives, almost invariably employed as domestics, to pay the rent at month’s end. It was a marginal and humiliating experience.

Porters were rightly proud of their work, a pride that showed in their smiling, dignified bearing. But they knew that no matter how well they performed, they would never be promoted. They could never be conductors. Those jobs were reserved for white men. Porters knew most of all that their white passengers and white employers controlled everything. It was they alone who decided what the porters must do and what they’d get for doing it. No point in arguing. No point in even correcting the many passengers who called all porters “George” — as in George Pullman, their boss — whatever their actual names, just as slaves had been called by their masters’ given names. When a passenger pulled the bell cord, porters were to answer swiftly and cheerfully. Just do what the passengers asked – or demanded. Shine their shoes, fetch them drinks, make their beds, empty their cuspidors. No questions, no complaints, no protests. No rights. Nothing better epitomized the huge distance between black and white in American society. Hundreds of porters who challenged the status quo by daring to engage in union activity or other concerted action were fired.

But finally, the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt granted workers, black and white, the legal right to unionize, and finally, in 1937, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters won a union contract from Pullman. The contract was signed precisely 12 years after union founder and president A. Philip Randolph had called the union’s first organizing meeting in New York City. But the long struggle was well worth it. The contract pulled the porters out of poverty. It brought them pay at least equal to that of unionized workers in many other fields, a standard work week, full range of fringe benefits and, most important, the right to continue to bargain collectively with Pullman on those and other vital matters. Union President Randolph and Vice President C.L. Dellums, who succeeded him in 1968, led the drive that pressured President Roosevelt into creating a Fair Employment Practices Commission aimed at combating discrimination in housing as well as employment. FDR agreed to set up the commission — a model for several state commissions – only after Randolph and Dellums threatened to lead a march on Washington by more than 100,000 black workers and others who were demanding federal action against discrimination.

Dellums and Randolph struggled as hard against discrimination inside the labor movement, particularly against the practice of unions setting up segregated locals, one for white members, one for black members. Randolph, elected in 1957 as the AFL-CIO’s first black vice president, long was known as the civil rights conscience of the labor movement, often prodding federation President George Meany and other conservative AFL-CIO leaders to take stands against racial discrimination.

The sleeping car coaches that once were the height of travel luxury have long since disappeared, and there are very few sleeping car porters in this era of less-than-luxurious train travel. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters is gone, too. But before the union disappeared, it had reached goals as important as any ever sought by an American union – or any other organization. Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

(Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century.)

Sitting boundaries

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Sitting boundaries

Aggressive lobbying efforts by the San Francisco Police Department and some of its allies who are pushing a proposed sit/lie ordinance have irked some current and former members of the Board of Supervisors.

The legislation was privately created by new Police Chief George Gascón and then played up in the mainstream media. It would make it illegal to sit or lie down on public sidewalks. Supporters say it would make it easier for cops to target people who harass neighborhood residents.

But in other cities where similar laws have been passed, protests have erupted from homeless-advocacy organizations and civil liberties groups, which say criminalizing this behavior unfairly (and unconstitutionally) targets homeless people who have nowhere else to go.

In Portland, Ore., a similar law was enacted then overturned by the courts. In Los Angeles, an ordinance against sleeping on the sidewalk was challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union, resulting in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in 2006 that unless adequate shelter is available for homeless people in L.A., arresting them for sleeping on the sidewalk amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

But an e-mail action alert included in SFPD Central Station Capt. Anna Brown’s monthly community newsletter encouraged people to contact the mayor and the Board of Supervisors to support the creation of a sit/lie ordinance. “Naturally, there is resistance from the left-leaning Board of Supervisors who feel this is an attack on the homeless population,” it noted.

That unusually overt political plea caught the eye of Aaron Peskin, former president of the Board of Supervisors and current chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, who called it “funky.” Peskin told us he’d never seen an advocacy pitch like this go out in a captain’s newsletter before, and he questioned whether this was an appropriate use of city resources.

But the City Attorney’s Office says this doesn’t fall under city laws banning electioneering by city employees, who are barred from using government resources to endorse a candidate or ballot initiative, or from doing any campaign-related work on city property.

Yet this kind of pitch “is not considered political activity,” Jack Song, a spokesperson for City Attorney Dennis Herrera, told the Guardian.

But Sup. David Campos, a former police commissioner, frowned upon it nonetheless. “Something like this is not really helpful to the Board of Supervisors and the Police Department working together,” Campos said.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi took a similar view. At a recent Board of Supervisors meeting, he requested a hearing about the ordinance because he said the media-driven public debate had occurred without formal discussion. Anti-loitering and public nuisance laws are already on the books, Mirkarimi pointed out.

“What makes those laws inadequate?” he asked. “How would the proposed law augment what is already in effect?”

The alert wasn’t actually written by Capt. Brown, who included it in her newsletter. It was drafted by the Community Leadership Alliance, an organization headed by David Villa-Lobos, a longtime resident of the Tenderloin and a candidate for the District 6 Supervisor seat.

Since Gascón floated the idea of creating a sit/lie ordinance, CLA has kicked into high gear to mobilize support, most recently issuing its action alert e-mail to 8,000 recipients. Police captains were included in the e-mail blast, Villa-Lobos told us, but each captain decides independently what to include in his or her newsletter.

People sitting and lying on sidewalks is “a really, really big problem, especially in the crime-ridden areas,” Villa-Lobos said. “God bless the homeless, but it’s a big problem there too.” Several years ago, his organization tried to mount a campaign for a sit/lie ordinance, but it didn’t go anywhere. “People came out and said we were trying to violate civil rights,” he said.

The Community Leadership Alliance is active in the Tenderloin, SoMa, and the mid-Market Street area, and the group occasionally holds monthly meetings at the Infusion Lounge, an upscale nightclub owned by Scott Caroen, the chair of the organization.

Gascón worked with deputy city attorneys to draft the ordinance and all district police stations have submitted to their commanders a list of areas that they feel could benefit from the law, according to a Tenderloin district newsletter. Mirkarimi told the Guardian that some supervisors were kept in the dark for weeks about the fact that an ordinance had been drafted. “This wasn’t collaborative at all,” Mirkarimi told us. “We never received it until we demanded to see it.”

The Haight-Ashbury, where residents and visitors have been complaining about harassment from wayward traveling youth, has been ground zero for discussion about a sit/lie ordinance. A small group of irate residents there and the Park Station Capt. Teresa Barrett have rallied in support of the law, saying it would give police a new tool to target these disruptive street kids.

But it’s clear that the ordinance’s supporters want to see it applied broadly and to be used to roust the homeless in neighborhoods throughout the city.

“CLA feels that our sidewalks should be enjoyable and a place of social gathering, and that the ordinance could go a long way in helping our neighborhoods feel safer,” reads the Community Leadership Alliance alert that was included in the police captain’s newsletter. “It may also reduce the overall homeless population in San Francisco by discouraging people from coming to the city to beg for money.”

Best of the Bay 2009: Sports and Outdoors

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Best of the Bay 2009: Sports and Outdoors

Editors Picks: Outdoors and Sports

BEST “HOLY SH*T!”

Although it has only been a mere season and a half since Barry Bonds went loudly into a toxic sunset, the San Francisco Giants have already refocused with a formidable team of unlikely upstarts that boasts one of the best records in the National League. Built around a colorful but humble lineup of players with nicknames like the Freak, Big Unit, and Kung Fu Panda, the current Giants roster is everything that Bonds was not — egoless, team-oriented, and free of baggage. And just as the Tim Lincecum-<\d>led pitching staff was shaping up as the team’s best asset for a successful playoff bid, along comes 26-year-old left-hander Jonathan Sanchez, from a demotion in the bullpen, to throw a masterpiece of a pitching performance. The Sanchez no-hitter against the Padres on July 10 was the team’s first since 1976. It provided an up-from-the-ashes victory that invoked tremendous optimism for the future, to the point where you can already hear it, clear with conviction and confidence: “Beat L.A.! Beat L.A.!”

BEST KID-FRIENDLY SUICIDE RUN

Never underestimate the urge — especially in somber, grizzle-haired grown-ups and perfectly sensible adults — to jam shiny, decal-stickered helmets on one’s head before shrieking downhill in plastic toy vehicles, playfully jockeying with others all the way to the bottom. Having just completed its triumphant ninth annual run this past Easter, the annual Bring Your Own Big Wheel race is spastic, daredevil fun. Any form of transport is legal, as long as it’s human-powered and about a third your size. Past races have seen some imaginative entries: office chairs figured in one racer’s wobbly run, while others constructed iffy rides from wood planks, masking tape, and a few ingeniously placed nails. Outlandish costumes never hurt, either: Big Bird, bunnies, and aliens run rampant. Once held on Lombard Street, the event now careens down Potrero Hill’s twistier Vermont Street. The only thing you can’t bring is alcohol. Shucks.

www.jonbrumit.com/byobw

BEST WORKOUT WITH A TWIST

Is it wrong to be kind of turned on by the Victorian-bondage-looking machines at San Francisco Gyrotonic? Even the word “Gyrotonic” makes us gyrate suggestively in our minds. (Pervs!) Intimately connected to the dance community, the Gyrotonic exercise program is an intriguing new approach to working out. The Gyrotonic Expansion System was invented in the 1950s by ballet dancer Juliu Horvath after an Achilles injury left him unable to dance. The workout uses a contraption with raised pulleys, similar to a Pilates machine, but moves your joints in a circular rather than linear motion, training the body to be more flexible. Classes are taught by former ballerinas who’ve danced in companies such as the San Francisco Ballet, New York’s School of American Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera’s American Ballet Theatre, and San Francisco’s Alonzo King’s LINES. In terms of dance workouts, nothing could be further from Billy Blanks’ Tae Bo. The studio attracts a fleet of nimble, limber dance-types, but beginners should not be intimidated, nor overexcited.

26 Seventh St. # 4, SF. (415) 863-3719, www.sfgyrotonic.com

BEST YO-YO WHAT’S UP

If we’ve learned anything from the most recent technological revolution, it’s that nerds are way cooler than we thought they were. “I’m a music nerd,” people will proudly say, or “I’m an art nerd.” Identifying as a nerd grants substantial cultural capital — and not just in a lame hipster sense, like when people wear glasses without lenses or pretend to appreciate B-movies. Skateboarders, cyclists, and gamers are good examples of this phenomenon, but none of these subcultures has a more nonconformist, fuck-you attitude than that of the gonzo yo-yo enthusiast. It’s true that yo-yo champion David Capurro and the other members of his local club, the Spin Doctors, probably spend their weekends practicing barrel rolls and smashers instead of drinking, dancing, and posing. But, well, come on, that shit’s for nerds. Cool people have better things to do … like winning tournaments, inventing new tricks, and traveling the world to battle other crews.

www.spindox.org

BEST WAY TO GET BLOWN AWAY

Perhaps you’ve seen kiteboarders skimming across the water like wakeboarders and flittering aloft, gliding like skydivers. If you’ve yearned to partake in the strange but intriguing sport of kiteboarding, but didn’t know where to start, look no further than Boardsports School and Shop. With three locations and plenty of certified instructors, it’s the most facilitative wind and board shop on the bay. Whether it’s kitesurfing, windsurfing, kiteboarding on land, or even stand-up paddle boarding, the staff can help you find what you’re after (don’t be put off by the dude-bro locutions) and teach you how to catch some major air safely. Boardsports has exclusive teaching rights in two of the bay’s best beginner spots, Alameda’s Crown Beach and Coyote Point in San Mateo, and offers lessons for first-time kite flyers or can arrange pro instruction for experienced boarders looking to push their skills to the next level. Boardsports also offers tidy deals on kite packages and equipment to help you lift off without lifting your wallet.

(415) 385-1224, www.boardsportsschool.com

BEST WET PUCKS

The Brits have started some internationally contagious sports, like football (soccer) and cricket. Now underwater hockey, which English divers created in the 1950s, is grabbing Americans’ attention. Locals are quickly jumping into the game with the San Francisco Underwater Hockey club. If you like swimming, dip your toes in new water and give it a shot. Sean Avent of the San Francisco Sea Lions club team explains its appeal: “Holding your breath, wearing a Speedo, and swimming after a lead puck on the bottom of a swimming pool is no more obtuse than trying to pummel a guy who is carrying a pigskin ball and armored in high-tech plastic. People, in general, are just more familiar with the latter of the two obtuse sports. And the first is just way more fun.” Pay $4 at the door of one of the games to try it out, or join the club and play in the Presidio or Bayview pools at a low cost.

www.underwater-society.org/uwhockey/sanfran

BEST YOGA WITH THE FISHES

Million Fishes Gallery, one of our favorite artist collectives in San Francisco, isn’t just an awesome place to see great exhibits by a revolving door of local artists and to catch raging late-night shows featuring bands like Jonas Reinhardt, Erase Errata, Tussle, and Lemonade. It also provides an effective and inexpensive way to get your rejuvenating twice-weekly yoga fix. Instructor Beth Hurley teaches a 90-minute vinyasa yoga class from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the gallery’s yoga studio (yeah, this artist space comes with its own yoga studio) that draws a nice mix of artists, Mission locals, yoga enthusiasts, and those who see the benefit in working out before hitting up El Metate next door. Hurley’s sessions are $7 to $11, which firmly places them among the least expensive yoga classes in San Francisco, and safeguards you from having to deal with yuppie yogis in head-to-toe Lululemon.

2829 23rd St., SF. www.millionfishes.com

BEST EYE-WATERING MEMORABILIA

Mission restaurateur Scott Youkilis has turned out quality American fare at Maverick for a few years now, while his brother Kevin continues to play at an MVP pace for the Boston Red Sox. Scott bottles a great homemade hot sauce; Kevin hits two-out home runs in the bottom of the ninth against the New York Yankees. Could there possibly be a way to merge these exceptional fraternal talents? Voilà: Youk’s Hot Sauce, a condiment that attempts to bottle the potency of Kevin’s hitting abilities with the flavor of Scott’s Southern-tinged cuisine. Available at Maverick or online, bottles go for $10 each, or $25 with Kevin’s autograph, and portions of all proceeds go to Kevin’s charity, Youk’s Hits for Kids. It’s a hot souvenir from a future Hall of Famer for the legions of Red Sox fans that make the Bay Area their home away from Fenway.

3316 17th St., SF. (415) 863-3061, www.sfmaverick.com, www.youkshotsauce.com

BEST NATIVE WORKOUT

When it comes to getting in shape, it’s almost a crime to have a gym membership in San Francisco. We live in the almost perpetually golden state of California, not Wisconsin in the third week of January. So get the hell outside and tackle some hills or run along the beaches. Better yet, do both with the Baker Beach Sand Ladder. Long known to local triathletes as an endurance-crushing beast, the sand ladder is 400 sheer steps of pulse-pounding “I think I’m gonna die” workout, set against the spectacular backdrop of the Pacfic Ocean flowing into the Golden Gate. Minus the cardiac arrest, it sure beats the fluorescent lighting, smelly funk, and steroidal carnival music of your local gym. The simple fact of the matter is that when you can run nonstop to the top of the sand ladder you’re officially in good shape. And best of all, it’s free.

25th Ave. and El Camino del Mar, SF. www.nps.gov

BEST BITCH-SLAP FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

Chevron has always been one of the Bay Area’s more vile corporations, whether it’s lobbying aggressively against global warming legislation or polluting communities from Richmond to Ecuador, all the while greenwashing its image with warm and fuzzy (and highly deceptive) advertising campaigns. That’s why we love to see groups such as the rainforest-protecting Amazon Watch and its anti-Chevron allies giving a little something back. Before this year’s Chevron shareholders meeting in San Francisco, activists plastered fake Chevron ads (“I will not complain about my asthma” and “I will give my baby contaminated water”) all over the city and staged creative protests outside the event. Ditto when Chevron CEO David O’Reilly spoke at the Commonwealth Club in May, sending Chevron goons into a paranoid frenzy. Amazon Watch and other groups are winning some key battles — voters recently approved steep tax increases on Chevron’s Richmond refinery, and a judge rejected plans to expand the facility. To which we can only say, “Hit ’em again!”

www.amazonwatch.org

BEST PUBLIC ACOUSTIC COCOON

Ear-piercing squeals, gut-rumbling skronks, the occasional wet fart sound — these are the unfortunate hallmarks of beginning brass instrumentalists. Those living in a city as dense and sensitive as our own have it rough when they want to work out their kinks: neighbors who sleep during the day or get up early yell at them, passersby take none too kindly to the squawking on busy sidewalks, and soundproofed studio space is economically out of reach. For all who need a place to practice, there’s the blessing of the Conservatory Drive tunnel, which passes under John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park. An array of practicing jazz combos and amateur tooters take up residence at the tunnel’s entrance during the day, providing entertainment to nearby Conservatory of Flowers visitors. The tunnel actually seems to crave music pouring into and echoing through its abyss — it forms a protective acoustic cocoon around performers that amplifies mellifluous passages and somehow blurs out less felicitous ones. Spontaneous jam sessions are common, so don’t sit on the grass — pick up your brass.

Conservatory Dr. and John F. Kennedy Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF

BEST MOUSETRAP FOR MINOTAURS

Little-known and charmingly miniscule, the Eagle Point Labyrinth is a jumble of twisty turns perched on the lip of a cliff near an offshoot of Lands End Trail. To reach it, you must set out with a compass in hand, hope in your heart, and fingers crossed. The labyrinth, one of three outdoor mazes known to exist in San Francisco, is a mysterious wonder that has so far avoided being marked on any map (although it can be glimpsed via a Google satellite image for those too faint to blindly wander in search of it). The superlative views it affords of the Golden Gate certainly justify hiking, sometimes panicked, through yards of unpruned foliage. The stone-heaped maze is handmade, and while we speculate about its mysterious origins — a mousetrap for Minotaurs, perhaps? — we can’t help but appreciate the karmic offerings of those who have reached the center before us, leaving a small pile of baubles. Mythic etiquette mandates you scoop up one of these and leave something of your own behind.

Lands End, Sutro Heights Park, SF.

BEST COMMUNITY STRETCH

Yearning to try yoga but needing to stretch your dollar? Every Monday through Thursday from 7:45 p.m. to 9:15 p.m., YogaKula packs its San Francisco location with eager newcomers for its affordable community class, available on a sliding scale ($8 to $16). Especially lively are the Monday and Wednesday classes with quirky and entertaining instructor Skeeter Barker, who offers genuine, palatable optimism and inspiration along with some much-needed recentering. Barker is an inspirational teacher who, as her Web profile says, “welcomes you to your mat, however you find yourself there.” Along with the community classes, YogaKula offers Anusara, a therapeutic style of yoga, in addition to a variety of other wellness practices. Its two locations — one at 16th Street and Mission, and one in North Berkeley — offer courses in yoga training, yoga philosophy, specialized workshops, Pilates, massage, and one-on-one yoga instruction.

3030A 16th St., SF. (415) 934-0000; 1700 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 486-0264, www.yogakula.com

BEST PLACE TO HIDE A JET

To be precise, the best place to hide a jet is behind Door 14 on the Alameda Naval Air Station. While many of the buildings on the former military base have been converted to civilian uses, such as sports clubs and distilleries, some continue to serve military functions, like storing the jet that used to be on display at the base’s portside entrance (until high winds blew it off its pedestal two winters ago). The naval station is also the perfect place to hide domesticated bunnies. A herd of them live in and around a tumbledown shed opposite the Port of Oakland. Then there are the jackrabbits, which flash across the base’s open spaces at night, hind legs glinting in the moonlight. It’s easy to miss the flock of black-crowned night herons, which pose one-legged every winter on the lawns of “The Great Whites”-<\d>houses where the naval officers once lived. But who could forget the hawk that roosts atop the Hangar One distillery and periodically swoops to grab a tasty, unsuspecting victim off the otherwise empty runways where The Matrix Reloaded was shot?

1190 W. Tower, Alameda

BEST PUTT-PUTT ON THE ‘CIDE

Since 1998, Cyclecide has been enchanting — and sometimes scaring — audiences with its punk rock-<\d>inspired, pedal-powered mayhem. But after 11 years of taking its bicycle-themed carnival rides, rodeo games, and live band to places like Coachella, Tour de Fat, and Multnomah County Bike Fair, the bicycle club is putting down roots, or rather, fake grass. This year the crew famous for tall bikes, bicycle jousting, and denim jackets with a cackling clown on the back is building Funland, an 18-hole mini golf course in the Bayview. Though sure to be fun for the whole family, rest assured that Funland will retain all of Cyclecide’s boundary-pushing humor and lo-fi sensibility. Yes, there will be a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge built by master welder Jay Broemmel, but you can also putt through Closeupofmyass, a landscape of rubber tubes springing from brown Astroturf. What else would you expect from a crew whose interests are “bikes, beer, and building stuff”?

www.cyclecide.com

BEST NO FRILLS FIRST AID

It’s nice for big companies to notice that women buy things other than cleaning supplies and facial cream. But do they have to make everything targeted toward the female demographic so freakin’ floral and pink and cloyingly girlie? Adventure Medical Kits — the Oakland-based company famous in sports circles for outfitting everyone from backcountry skiers to weekend car-campers with durable, complete first-aid packages — says a resounding no. Its women’s edition outdoor medical kit comes jam-packed with all the fixings adventurous boys get — wound care materials, mini tweezers, insect-bite salve, a variety of medications, and a first-aid booklet — plus a couple things only ladies need, like tampons, leak-safe tampon bags, menstrual relief meds, and compact expands-in-water disposable towels. And it’s all packaged in a sporty blue nylon bag that weighs less than a pound. No lipstick? No diet pills? No frilly, lacy case made to look like a purse or a bra or a tiny dog? We’re buying it.

www.adventuremedicalkits.com

BEST PLACE TO GET ROLLIN’

When one thinks of skate shops these days, one’s thoughts travel naturally to wicked Bloodwizard decks, Heartless Creeper wheels, and Venture trucks — everything you’d need to trick out your board before you cruise to Potrero de Sol. All those goodies are available at Cruz Skate Shop, as well as Lowcard tees, recycled skateboard earrings, Protec helmets, and much more. But boarding is boring. You’ve done it since you were 13. Isn’t it time to ditch that deck and take up a real sport like, say, roller skating? Hell, yes. And Cruz has everything you need to get started down that sparkly, disco-bumpy Yellow Brick Road to eight-wheelin’ Oz. From the fiercest derby-ready model to mudflap girl bootie shorts, this store will kit you up in the best way for your Sunday afternoon Golden Gate Park debut. We’re partial to the Sure-Grip Rock Flame set of wheels with, you guessed it, pink flames streaming up the toes. But an enticing array of more professional-looking speed skates is available, as is a knowledgeable staff to get you rollin’.

3165 Mission, SF. (415) 285-8833, www.cruzskateshop.com

BEST OF THE BAY ON THE BAY

If you’re looking to get on the water without getting wet, Ruby Sailing is an affordable option for you and your friends to get a taste of adventure. The Ruby sailboat has been taking guests around the bay for 25 years. For just $40 per person, owner and operator Captain Josh Pryor will lead you on a two and a half hour tour of the bay, passing Alcatraz and looping around Sausalito. Snacks are provided, and the skipper sells wine and beer by the glass for cheap. The Ruby is also available for fishing expeditions, including poles, bait, and tackle; for private parties up to 30 guests; for weddings; and even for funerals at sea. And since the boat boards at the Ramp restaurant on the Dogpatch waterfront, you’re covered for pre- and post-splash food and drink, if you have the stomach. No prior sailing experience is required, but, in the words of the skipper, “no two trips are the same,” so be ready to hang on.

855 Terry Francois, SF. (415) 272-0631, www.rubysailing.com

Best of the Bay 2009: Arts and Nightlife

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Best of the Bay 2009: Arts and Nightlife

Editors Picks: Arts and Nightlife

BEST BLOODY QUEEN

A gut-spewing zombie drag queen roller derby in honor of Evil Dead 2. An interview with The Exorcist‘s Linda Blair preceded by a rap number that includes the line, “I don’t care if they suck their mother’s cock, as long as they line up around the block!” A virtual wig-pulling catfight with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. All this and more have graced the proscenium of the Bridge Theater as part of the jaw-dropping (literally) Midnight Mass summertime B-movie fun series, brought to us by the always perfectly horrific Peaches Christ. Her wigs alone are usually enough to scare the jellybean-bejeezus out of us, but Peaches combines live craziness with wince-worthy flicks to take everything over the top. After this, her 12th season of disembowelled joy, Peaches is moving on from Midnight Mass to become a director in her own right — she just wrapped up filming All About Evil with Natasha Lyonne and a cast of local fleshbots. Look for it in your googleplex soon, and know that Peaches still stumbles among us.

www.peacheschrist.com

BEST FLAMIN’ FUN

Kids, really, don’t try this at home. Don’t hook up your two-player Dance Dance Revolution game to a row of flamethrowers. Don’t rig said game to blast your dance competitior with a faceful of fire in front of an adoring crowd if they miss a step. Don’t invest in enough propane to fuel a small jet, a flaming movie screen for projecting all those awkward dance moves onto, and a booming sound system to play all the Japanese bubblegum techno you could ever hope to hear. Leave the setup to Interpretive Arson, whose Dance Dance Immolation game has wowed participants and spectators alike from Black Rock City to Oaktown — and will scorch Denmark’s footsies this fall. Do, however, seek out these intrepid firestarters, and don a giant silver fireproof suit with a Robby the Robot hood. Do the hippie shake to the mellifluous tones of Fatboy Slim and Smile.dk, and prepare yourself to get flamed, both figuratively and literally.

www.interpretivearson.com

BEST PENGUIN PARTY, PLANETARIUM INCLUDED

Penguins are damn funny when you’re drunk. They’re pretty entertaining animals to begin with, but after a couple martinis those little bastards bring better slapstick than Will Ferrell or Jack Black. But tipsily peeping innocent flightless birds — plus bats, butterflies, sea turtles, and manta rays — is just one of many reasons to attend Nightlife, the stunningly rebuilt California Academy of Sciences’ weekly Thursday evening affair. This outrageously popular (get there early) and ingenious party pairs gonzo lineups of internationally renowned DJs and live bands with intellectual talks by some of the world’s best-known natural scientists. Cocktails are served, the floor is packed, intellects are high — and where else can you order cosmos before visiting the planetarium? Another perk: the cost of admission, which includes most of the academy’s exhibits, is less than half the regular price, although you must be 21 or older to attend. Come for the inebriated entertainment, stay for the personal enrichment.

Thursdays, 6 p.m., $8-<\d>$10. California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF. (415) 379-8000, www.calacademy.org/events/nightlife

BEST LINDY HOP TO LIL’ WAYNE

Retain a fond nostalgia for the 1990s swing revival scene? Swing Goth is the event you’ve been waiting for. Not quite swing and not even remotely goth, Swing Goth gives swing enthusiasts the go-ahead to boogie-woogie to modern tunes at El Rio. This isn’t your grandmother’s fox trot: rock, rap, ’80s, alternative, Madchester, Gypsy punk, and almost anything else gets swung. Held on the first and third Tuesday of each month and tailored for beginners, this event draws an eclectic crowd that includes dudes who call themselves “hep cats,” Mission hipsters, and folks who rock unironic mom jeans and Reebok trainers. If you’re new to swing, arrive at 7:30 and take a one-hour group lesson with ringleader Brian Gardner, who orchestrates the event, to get a quick introduction to swing basics before the free dance. Lessons are $5, but no extra charge for ogling the cute dykes who call El Rio their local watering hole. Swing? Schwing!

First and third Tuesdays, 7 p.m., free. El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. (415) 282-3325, www.swinggoth.com

BEST CELESTIAL TRAJECTORISTS

Who can take a sunburst of boomer rock inspirations — like The Notorious Byrd Brothers-<\d>era Byrds and Meddle-some Pink Floyd — sprinkle it with dew, and cover it with chocolaty nouveau-hippie-hipster blues-rock and a miracle or two? The fresh-eyed, positive-minded folks of Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound can, ’cause they mix it with love and make a world many believed had grown hack and stale taste good. Riding a wave of local ensembles with a hankering for classic rock, hard-edged Cali psych, Japanese noise, and wild-eyed film scores, the San Francisco band is the latest to make the city safe once more for musical adventurers with open minds and big ears. What’s more, the Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound’s inspired new third album, When Sweet Sleep Returned (Tee Pee) — recorded with help from Tim Green at Louder Studios — has fielded much press praise for space-traveling fuzzbox boogie blowouts like “Drunken Leaves” and blissed-out, sitar-touched jangle rambles such as “Kolob Canyon.” Consider your mind burst.

www.myspace.com/theassembleheadinsunburstsound

BEST DANCE DYNAMO

You can’t miss him. He has legs like tree trunks and arm muscles that ripple like lava. When he leaps you think he’ll never come down, and his turns suggest the power of a hurricane. He is dancer Ramón Ramos Alayo, Six years ago he founded the CubaCaribe Festival that now packs in dance aficionados of all stripes, and he’s one of the shaping forces behind the wild San Francisco Carnaval celebration. He runs Alayo Dance Company, for which he choreographs contemporary works with Afro-Cuban roots, and he teaches all over the Bay Area — as many as 60 people show up for his Friday salsa classes at Dance Mission Theater. But Ramos is most strikingly unique as a performer. Ramos is as comfortable embodying Oshoshi, the forest hunter in the Yoruba mythology, as he is taking on “Grace Notes,” a jazz improvisation with bassist Jeff Chambers. No wonder Bay Area choreographers as radically different as Joanna Haigood, Sara Shelton Mann, and Robert Moses have wanted to work with him.

www.cubacaribe.org

BEST BLUEGRASS AMNESIAC

Toshio Hirano packs a mean sucker punch. At first glance he’s a wonderfully eccentric Bay Area novelty, a yodeling Japanese cowboy playing native songs of the American heartland. Yet upon further inspection, it becomes as clear as the skies of Kentucky that Toshio is the real deal when it comes to getting deep into the Mississippi muck of Jimmie Rodgers-<\d>style bluegrass. Enchanted by the sound of American folk music as a Japanese college student, Toshio soon ventured stateside to spend years traveling and playing from Georgia to Nashville to Austin before finally settling in the Bay Area. Today, Toshio plays once a month at Amnesia’s free Bluegrass Mondays to standing-room-only crowds. Stay awhile to hear him play Hank Williams’s “Ramblin’ Man” or Rodgers’s “Blue Yodel No. 1(T for Texas).” It’ll clear that Toshio’s novelty is merely a hook — his true appeal lies in his ability to show that there’s a cowboy lurking inside all of us.

www.toshiohirano.com

BEST COMMUNITY CHOREOGRAPHERS

A collective howl went up in 1995 when it was announced that the annual festival Black Choreographers: Moving into the 21st Century at Theater Artaud was ending due in part to lack of funding. But two East Bay dancers, Laura Elaine Ellis and Kendra Kimbrough Barnes, actually did something about it, working to ensure that African-American dancers and dance-makers received attention for the range and spirit of their work. It took 10 years, but in 2005, Ellis and Kimbrough Barnes helped launch Black Choreographers Festival: Here and Now, which takes place every February in San Francisco and Oakland. The three-week event is a fabulous way for a community to celebrate itself and to invite everyone to the party. While the choreographers’ range of talent and imagination has been impressive — and getting better every year — the performances are merely the icing on the cake. Master classes, mentoring opportunites for emerging artists, and a technical theater-training program for local high school and college students are building a dance infrastructure the next generation can plug into.

www.bcfhereandnow.com

BEST MADCAP POP MAIDENS

San Francisco can always use another all-female band — and Grass Widow satisfies that need beautifully, cackling with brisk, madcap rhythms and rolling out a happy, crazy quilt of dissonant wails. Drummer-vocalist Lillian Maring, guitarist-vocalist Raven Mahon, and bassist-vocalist Hannah Lew are punk as fuck, of course — in the classic, pre-pre-packaged noncodified mode — though many will instead compare the trio’s inspired, decentered pop to dyed-in-the-bluestockings lo-fi riot grrrl. Still, there’s a highly conscious intensity to Grass Widow’s questioning of the digital givens that dominate life in the late ’00s, as they sing wistfully then rage raggedly amid accelerating rhythms and a roughly tumbling guitar line on “Green Screen,” from their self-titled debut on Make a Mess: “Flying low into trees. We exist on the screen. Computer can you hear me? Understand more than 1s and 0s?” Grass Widow may sweetly entreat the listener, “Don’t make a scene,” but if we’re lucky, these ladies will kick off a new generation of estrogen-enhanced music-making.

www.myspace.com/grasswidowmusic

BEST PURPLE SING-ALONG

Karaoke is one of those silly-but-fun nightlife activities that always has the potential to be awesome but usually isn’t. The song lists at most karaoke bars suck, the sound systems are underwhelming, and no matter where you go there’s always some asshole bumming everyone out with painful renditions of Neil Diamond tearjerkers. Well, not anymore! Steve Hays, a.k.a. DJ Purple, is a karaoke DJ — or KJ — who has single-handedly turned the Bay Area’s once tired sing-along scene into a mother funkin’ party y’all. DJ Purple’s Karaoke Dance Party happens every Thursday night at Jack’s Club. Forget the sloppy drunks half-assing their way through Aerosmith and Beyoncé songs. DJ Purple’s Karaoke Dance Party is all about Iron Maiden, Snoop Dogg, Led Zeppelin, and Riskay. No slow songs allowed. An actual experienced DJ, Hays keeps the beats running smooth, fading and blending as each person stumbles onstage, and even stepping in for saxophone solos and backup vocals when a song calls for it. And sometimes even when it doesn’t.

Thursdays, 9 p.m., free. Jack’s Club, 2545 24th St., SF. (415) 641-5371, www.djpurple.com

BEST FLANNEL REVIVAL

In this age of continual retro, it comes as a surprise that listening to mainstream ’90s alternative rock can give you, under the right inebriated circumstances, the kind of pleasure not experienced since heroin went out of vogue. Debaser at the Knockout has become one of the best monthly parties in San Francisco, largely because it gives ’80s babies, who were stuck playing Oregon Trail in computer class while Courtney Love and Kat Bjelland were rocking it out in Portland, the chance to live out their Nirvana-era dreams. Debaser promoter Jamie Jams is the only DJ in San Francisco who will spin the Cranberries after a Pavement song, and his inspired mixology is empirically proven to induce moshing en masse until last call, an enticingly dangerous sport now that lead-footed Doc Martens are back in style. Sporting flannel gets you comped, so for those still hung up over Jordan Catalano and the way he leans, Debaser is rife with contemporary, albeit less angsty, equivalents.

First Saturdays, 9 p.m., Knockout, 3223 Mission, SF. (415) 550-6994, www.myspace.com/debaser90s

BEST CRANIUM MONOPOLY SCRABBLE RISK

The shaky economy’s probably put your $60 concert plans on hold and relegated those high-rolling VIP nights to the back burner. So it’s a great time to return to the simpler forms of social interaction, such as shaking some dice and screaming, “Yahtzee, bitches!” or guffawing maniacally every time some poor fool attempts to pass your two hotels on Boardwalk. Fortunately, game night at On the Corner café on Divisadero fills your staid Wednesday evenings with enough card-shuffling, Pop-o-matic popping, I-want-to-be-the-thimble classics to sink your battleship blues. Plus, there’s coffee and beer. Working in collusion with the colossal collection of neighboring Gamescape, On the Corner provides a plethora of gaming options to fit its large tables and vibrant atmosphere. Stratego, Scattergories, and other trivial pursuits are all available, and the 7 p.m.-<\d>to-<\d>closing happy hour includes $2.50 draft beers and sangria specials. The tables fill up quickly, though — arrive early so you won’t be sorry.

Wednesdays, 7–10 p.m., free. 359 Divisadero, SF. (415) 522-1101, www.sfcorner.com

BEST PARTY OF ONE

Perfect moments are never the ones you work hard to create. Too much effort kills the magic. Instead, the moments we treasure are those that steal up on us, slipping past our defenses to reveal, for just an instant, the sublime wonder of the universe. This is precisely what happens during one’s first encounter with the Lexington Street disco ball, innocuously spinning its multifaceted heart out on a quiet neighborly block in the heart of the Mission District. One moment you’re just walking down the street minding your own business — perhaps rehashing the “should have saids” or the “could have beens” in the muddled disquiet of your mind — when suddenly you spot it, the incongruously located disco ball suspended from a low-hanging branch, throwing a carpet of stars across the sidewalk for anyone to enjoy. All is still, but the music in your heart will lead you. Hold your hands in the air, walk into the light, and dance.

Lexington between 20th and 21st streets, SF

BEST BLOCK-ROCKIN’ BIKE

Amandeep Jawa’s bright blue, sound-rigged party-cycle — Trikeasaurus — is our bestest Critical Mass compadre and bike lane buddy, and an essential component of his impromptu FlashDance parties. This three-wheelin’, free-wheelin’, pedal-and-battery-powered funk machine has been bringing the party to the people — and leading spontaneous Michael Jackson tributes — from the Embarcadero to the Broadway tunnel for the past two years. Even if you’re just out for a stroll or a bit of that ephemeral San Francisco “sun”-bathing, when Trikeasaurus comes rolling along you just have to boogie on down the road, bust a move, get your groove thing on, let your freak flag fly, and insert ecstatic cliché here. We can pretend all we want in the privacy of our own hip sancta sanctorum that Destiny’s Child or OutKast will never move us, but somehow when Trikeasaurus comes bumping by, we just can’t help but bump right back. Don’t fight the feeling! Join the 500-watt, 150-decibel velolution today.

www.deeptrouble.com

BEST HOLES FOR YOUR KRAUTROCK SOUL

If you’ve done ketamine, you know what it’s like to get lost in the cosmic K-hole. To those who have entered the mystical D-hole, however, your ketamine story is child’s play. The Donuts dance party, thrown at various times and locations throughout the year by DJ Pickpocket and visual artist AC, provides adventurous club-goers with that most delicious of drugs: donuts, given away free. First timers, be careful: these potent little sugar bombs are highly addictive and can often lead to an all-night binge of ecstatic power-boogie, which can result in terrible withdrawal symptoms. Like many other popular club drugs, donuts are offered in powdered form, though they can also be glazed, which leaves no tell-tale residue around the mouth. But as long as you indulge responsibly, entering the Hole of the Donut is perfectly safe. Amp up your experience to fever-pitch perfection with Donuts’ pulse-pumping Krautrock, new wave, retro disco, and dance punk live acts and beats.

www.myspace.com/donutparty

BEST PLACE TO PARTY LIKE A SLOVENIAN

If there’s one thing all Slovenians have in common, it’s that they know how to deck a muthafunkin’ hall, y’all. It stands to reason then that Slovenians run one of the biggest and best halls in town. The Slovenian Hall in Potrero Hill is available for all your partying needs — birthdays, anniversary bashes, coming-out fests, etc. The rooms inside the hall are spacious and clean, the kitchen and bar spaces are outfitted to serve an entire army, and there are plenty of tables and chairs. But it’s the decor that makes this place unique: Soviet-era and vintage tourism advertisements are sprinkled throughout the place and banners promoting Slovenian pride hang from the ceiling. The hall also hosts live music events — recently an Argentine tango troupe took up residence there, making things border-fuzzingly interesting, to say the least.

2101 Mariposa, SF. (415) 864-9629

BEST FUTURE RAP CEO

Odds are you’ve not yet heard of East Bay teen hip-hop talent Yung Nittlz — but one day soon you will. The ambitious, gifted Berkeley High student has already amassed five albums worth of smooth and funky material that he wrote, produced, and rapped and sang on. In August 2007, when he was just 13, the rapper born Nyles Roberson scored media attention when Showtime at the Apollo auditions came to town and he was spotted very first in line, having camped out the night before. And while Yung Nittlz wasn’t among the lucky final few to be picked, he did make a lasting impression on the judges with his strong performance of the song “Money in the Air” and choreography that included him strategically tossing custom-made promo dollars that he designed and made. The gifted artist also designed the professional-looking cover for his latest demo CD, which suggests fans should request the hit-sounding “Feelin’ U” on KMEL 106 FM. Stay tuned. You’ll likely be hearing it soon.

www.myspace.com/yungnittlz

BEST B-MOVIE SURVIVOR

The crappy economy has ruined many things. It’s the reason both the Parkway and the Cerrito Speakeasy theaters — where you could openly drink a beer you’d actually purchased at the concession stand, not smuggled in under your sweatshirt — closed their doors this year. But even a bummer cash crunch can’t dampen a true cult movie fan’s love of all things B. Deprived of a permanent venue for his long-running “Thrillville,” programmer and host Will “The Thrill” Viharo adjusted his fez, brushed off his velvet lapels, and started booking his popular film ‘n’ cabaret extravaganzas at other Bay Area movie houses, including the 4-Star and the Balboa in San Francisco, and San Jose’s Camera 3. Fear not, devotees of film noir, tiki culture, the swingin’ ’60s, big-haired babes, Aztec mummies, William Shatner, the Rat Pack, Elvis, creature features, Japanese monsters, and zombies — the Thrill ain’t never gonna be gone.

www.thrillville.net

BEST GAY FLIPPER ACTION

Much like travel agents, beepers, and modesty, pinball machines are slowly becoming relics of the past. But it’s difficult to understand why these quarter-fed games would fall by the wayside, since they’re especially fun in a bar atmosphere. What else is there to do besides stare at your drink, hopelessly chat up the bartender, constantly check your phone, and try to catch that one cute patron’s eye. At the Castro’s Moby Dick, pinball saves you from such doldrums. Sure, the place has the requisite video screens blaring Snap! and Cathy Dennis chestnuts, and plenty of hunky drunkies to serve as distractions. But its quarter-action collection — unfortunately whittled down to three machines, ever since Theater of Magic was retired due to the difficulty of finding replacement parts — is a delightful retro rarity in this gay day and age. So tilt not, World Cup Soccer, Addams Family, and Attack from Mars fans. There’s still a queer home for your lightning-quick flipping.

4049 18th St., SF. www.mobydicksf.com

BEST BLAST OF JUSTICE

Founded in 2002, the many-membered Brass Liberation Orchestra has been blowing their horns for social justice all over the Bay Area — from the San Francisco May Day March and Oakland rallies for Oscar Grant, to protests against city budget cuts and jam sessions at the 16th Street BART station. Trombones out and bass drums at the ready, this tight-knit organization of funky folk recently returned from New Orleans, where they played to support community rebuilding projects in the Lower Ninth Ward. With a membership as diverse as they come, the BLO toots their horns specifically to “support political causes with particular emphasis on peace, and racial and social justice” — especially concerning immigrants’ rights and anti-gentrification issues. But the most joyful part of their practice is the spontaneous street parties they engender wherever they pop up, and their seemingly impromptu romps through neighborhoods and street festivals. Viva la tuba-lution!

www.brassliberation.org

BEST WITTY WONG

Is your idea of hell being trapped in a room with a white, collegiate, spoken-word “artist” — or worse yet, being forced to wear an Ed Hardy t-shirt? Are you a veteran of the 30 Stockton and the 38 Geary, with the wounds and the stories to prove it? Can you just not help but stare at someone who somehow can’t resist an act of street corner masturbation? Then you’re ready to lend an ear to Ali Wong, the funniest comedian to stomp onto a San Francisco stage in a long time. Some people get offended by Wong, which is one reason she’s funny — comedy isn’t about making friends, and she’s not sentimental. She draws on her family history and writing and performing experience in implicit rather than overt ways while remaining as blunt as your funniest friend on a bender.

www.aliwong.com

BEST SITE FOR SHUTTERBUGS

Take a picture, it’ll last longer. Especially if you take it to — or even at — RayKo Photo Center, a large SoMA space that boasts a studio, a shop stocked with new and used cameras, a variety of black-and-white and color darkrooms, a digital imaging lab (with discount last-Friday-of-the-month nighttime hours), and classes where one can learn the latest digital skills as well as older and arcane processes such as Ambrotype (glass plate) and Tintype (metal plate) image-making. Devoted in part to local photographers, RayKo’s gallery has showcased Bill Daniel’s panoramic yet raw shots of a post-Katrina Louisiana and has likely influenced a new generation of shutterbugs affiliated with groups and sites like Cutter Photozine and Photo Epicenter. One of its coolest and truly one-of-a-kind features is the Art*O*Mat Vending Machine, an old ciggie vendor converted into a $5-a-piece art dispenser. And of course RayKo has an old photo booth, so you can take some quick candid snapshots with or without a honey.

428 Third St., SF. (415) 495-3773, www.raykophoto.com

BEST RAPPING CABBIE

The great myth about cab drivers is that they’re a bunch of underappreciated geniuses who write poetry and paint masterpieces when they’re not busy shuttling drunks around. Most cabbies, however, aren’t Picassos with pine-scent air fresheners. They clock in and out just like we all do, and then they go home and watch reality TV. There are, however, a few exceptions to the rule: true artists who have deliberately chosen the cabbie lifestyle because it allows them the freedom to pursue their passions on the side. MC Mars is such a cabbie. A 20-year veteran on the taxi scene, Mars is also a hip-hop performer, a published author, and an HIV activist. You can check his flow every Wednesday night at the Royale’s open-mic sessions. Or, if you’re lucky enough to hail his DeSoto, you can get a free backseat show on weekends. And don’t forget to pick up his latest CD, “Letz Cabalaborate,” available on Mars’ Web site.

www.mcmars.net

BEST FRESH POETICS

The Bay Area knows poetry. And people in the Bay Area who know poetry today realize that the San Francisco Renaissance, the Beats, the Language poets, and even the New Brutalists might inspire contemporary writers, but they don’t own them. You can encounter proof in places like Books and Bookshelves, and read it in publications like Try. As the Bay Area Poetics anthology edited by Stephanie Young made clear in 2006, Bay Area verse is enormous and ever-changing. One year earlier, David Larsen established a space for it in Oakland with his New Yipes Reading Series, which frequently paired poets with filmmakers. He’s since moved to the East Coast, but Ali Warren and Brandon Brown re-energized the concept, simplifying its name to The New Reading Series and refining its content to readings with musical interludes. It’s the best place around to hear Tan Lin and Ariana Reines and confront notions of the self through Heath Ledger. It’s also hosted a kissing booth, for all you wordsmiths who aren’t above romantic trappings.

416 25th St., Oakl. www.newyipes.blogspot.com

BEST HOUSE OUTSIDE

For 15 years, the much-loved and lovable warm weather Sunset parties have shaken various hills, isles, parks, patios, and boats with funky, techy house sounds. Launched by underground hero DJ Galen in 1994, the outdoor Sunset gigs have amassed a huge following of excited party newbies and familiar old-school ravers — and now even their kids. Early on in the game, Galen was soon joined by fellow Bay favorite DJs Solar and J-Bird, and the three — collectively known as Pacific Sound — have kept the vibe strong ever since. This year saw a remarkable expansion on the Sunset fan base: attendance at the season opener at Stafford Lake reached almost 4,000, and Pacific Sound just launched an annual — and truly moving — party on Treasure Island that had multiple generations putting their hands in the air. The recent Sunset Campout in Belden drew hundreds for an all-weekend romp with some of the biggest names in electronic music — true fresh air freshness.

www.pacificsound.net

BEST SECRET OF ETERNAL RAVE

According to murky local legend, sometime in the early ’90s a Finnish archaeologist named Mr. Floppy passed through Oakland on a quest to find an inverted pyramid rumored to hold the secret to eternal life. He didn’t find anything like that, of course, but he did discover a really cool apartment complex run by an obsessive builder named George Rowan. The sprawling place, which housed multiple dwelling units as well as an outdoor dance area and an out-of-use bordello and saloon famously frequented by Jack London in the 1800s, was an interconnected maze of rooms decorated with found objects and outsider art. It was a perfect spot to throw underground raves, which is exactly what Floppy and Rowan did until the day they got slapped with a fire-hazard citation. Nobody really knows what happened to the psychedelic archaeologist after that, although his spirit lives on: Mr. Floppy’s Flophouse has recently re-opened as a venue for noise shows, freaky circuses, and all-night moonlit orgies.

1247 E. 12th St., Oakl

Climate Change protests

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Text by Sarah Phelan

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“Human chain” protestors protect grassroots groups from all over the world from hundreds of riot police who turned out to keep climate justice activists from entering the Bella Center where the 15th Conference of Parties was being held.

Alicia Garza, co-executive director of the San Francisco-based People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) sent these photos from protests in Copenhagen. Media outlets are reporting that Danish police arrested about 250 protesters and used pepper spray and dogs to contain crowds in Copenhagen today, as a demonstration against the U.N. climate talks converged on the Bella Center ahead of crucial negotiations at the COP15 summit.

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As thousands of activists held a People’s Assembly outside the Bella Center where indigenous activists and G77 representatives walked out of climate talks, activists hung a banner from the trees which said COP15: Business as U$ual. Many activists said that the wealthier nations, such as the EU, France and the United States were prioritizing business interests over the fate of millions of people around the world who are severely impacted by current and impending climate crises.
viacampesinaatCOP1530.jpg

“Via campesina at COP 15” is an international grassroots organization of farmers and workers from around the world who led activists and civil society who were locked out of the COP. COP officials limited the amount of participation from civil society to 1000 people today, and intend to further limit participation to 90 people tomorrow.
.viacampesinamarch30.jpg

Holiday blues

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Holiday blues

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Ethea Farahkhan lost her city job Nov. 29, when a round of city layoffs impacting front-line workers took effect.
Farahkhan, a woman of color who was an administrative assistant at San Francisco’s Department of Children, Youth and their Families, said she would have a job if it weren’t for Mayor Gavin Newsom’s decision not to spend money approved by the Board of Supervisors to save people from job losses during the holiday season.

The layoffs rippled through city government as DPH employees with seniority exercised “bumping rights” to replace employees like Farahkhan, who was hired three years ago.

“No one’s in a festive mood. We’re concentrating on making mortgages and buying food to put on our table,” Farahkhan told us when we caught up with her Thanksgiving eve. “I know San Francisco is not exempt from the economic crisis,” she added, “but I feel like our mayor is out of touch. He’s never been in this position.”

If DPH layoff had been covered by existing funds and incoming grant money, as directed by a veto-proof, 8-3 vote of the Board of Supervisors on Nov. 24, she said, “I would definitely have a job to go to.” Instead, Mayor Gavin Newsom announced after the board vote that he was refusing to spend the reallocated funding to halt the 478 DPH layoffs and reassignments.

Farahkhan’s union, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021, spent months trying to save these jobs, finally winning over the final supervisor needed to overcome a veto, Sup. Sophie Maxwell, shortly before the vote. Then, for the second time in as many months, the head of the executive branch announced that he would simply ignore the legislative branch.

The impasse doesn’t bode well for a city that’s about to wrestle with a record midyear budget deficit again.
In October, Newsom declared that he would ignore the board’s passage of legislation — by the same 8-3 vote that could override a mayoral veto — to prevent deportation of undocumented youth in custody until they are convicted. It was the first of two actions that seemed to answer the question of whether the mayor is willing to work with the supervisors on the toughest problems facing the city.

That was the question raised last summer when the board discussed a budget analyst’s report that Newsom had either cut or refused to spend about $15.6 million of the $37.5 million that supervisors approved in budget add-backs for the 2008-09 fiscal year. With the mayor cutting 42 percent of program funding that the board fought to restore, trust was already eroding.

During budget deliberation, some progressive supervisors unsuccessfully tried to place hundreds of millions of dollars on reserve, which would give the board some leverage to force Newsom to honor his pledge to work with supervisors on midyear budget cuts, but the board ultimately decided not to do so.

The mayor’s latest rejection came after a long, embittered battle with the union. SEIU members resorted to drastic measures — staging protests in traffic intersections, distributing flyers outside Newsom’s PlumpJack restaurants, barging into his office unannounced singing civil-rights era ballads — to pressure the mayor. But neither those media stunts, nor compromise solutions developed by Sups. John Avalos, Bevan Dufty, and Board President David Chiu, could persuade Newsom to go along with revisiting the DPH cuts.

“Mayor Newsom cannot spend funds the city does not have,” Newsom’s press secretary, Joe Arellano, told the Guardian when asked for an explanation. “The board action didn’t provide any new money — it takes dollars already being used to pay other employees’ salaries.”

The money allocated by the board was already destined for salaries and benefits of other DPH employees, but Sups. Avalos, Chris Daly, and Ross Mirkarimi argued that new federal dollars en route to the city via state and federal channels would bring the department budget back into balance. An estimated $34 million in federal funding is expected to flow into city coffers for health services by mid-2010, but Arellano indicated that the mayor intends to use that money to help balance next year’s deficit.

As the city considers midyear slashes to cope with next year’s monstrous $522 million shortfall, the spirit of cooperation that Newsom publicly emphasized at the outset of last year’s budget cycle now seems dead. Chiu told the Guardian that the only way the board was able to achieve a palatable budget back in July was through controversial partnership with the Mayor’s Office. But when supervisors approached Newsom with alternative solutions for restoring the DPH layoffs, “the mayor was not interested in exploring these different options,” Chiu explained.

Now, Chiu said he’s worried by the implications of the mayor’s defiant approach to the board. “We have two branches of government — legislative and executive. Eleven of us are required to set laws for the city, and the mayor is supposed to carry it out. I hope and believe that the mayor would respect the roles of our respective branches,” Chiu said, carefully choosing his words when asked for his perspective on this trend. “I don’t know how we are going to get through next year if we can’t … not just agree to disagree, but figure out where we agree.”

Chiu’s persistent search for common ground stands in contrast to Daly’s more adversarial approach. In July, just before the board signed off on the 2009-10 budget, Daly floated a proposal to place $300 million on reserve — which would require additional board action to spend, thereby giving supervisors some leverage — but it failed to pass.

Daly also proposed a placing a charter amendment on the ballot that would have required the mayor to fund certain board-approved programs that supervisors deemed especially important. But that failed too when only Sups. Mirkarimi, David Campos and Eric Mar supported it. In a recent conversation with the Guardian, Daly indicated that this possibility could be revived. “It doesn’t matter how many supervisors it takes” to pass legislation, Daly said. “[The mayor] wants to govern unilaterally, and that’s not okay.”

As for the mayor’s latest announcement that he wouldn’t spend the money to restore DPH salaries, Daly said it’s not over yet. “There will be meetings. There will be discussions,” he said. “We’re going to move on this.”

At the same time, midyear cuts are speeding through the pipeline. By Dec. 4, city department heads will have to figure out how to slash their current budgets by 4 percent. By Feb. 20, Newsom is asking for plans to cut an additional 20 percent, plus an extra 10 percent in contingency funding in order to address next year’s gaping deficit.

Those “adjustments,” as they’re called in bureaucratic jargon, promise to be painful. As the next city budget squabble comes into focus on the horizon, the question of revenue measures is still out there and isn’t helped by the current acrimony at City Hall.

Progressive supervisors are also moving to tackle spending areas they deem wasteful, such as a surge in high-dollar management salaries or some of the mayor’s pet projects. Newsom is angling for opening the condo conversion floodgates by letting people buy their way out of the lottery system — a one-time moneymaker that progressives find repugnant because it depletes rental-housing stock.

As the city grows more financially anemic, accusations of mismanagement abound. After the board’s vote on DPH cuts, Newsom was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle saying that progressive supervisors are in a “reality-free zone.”

But Farahkhan and other SEIU employees who are facing layoffs during the holidays believe Newsom is the one who is living on a different planet. “He’s at the top of the pay scale,” Farahkhan said, “and out of touch with everyday working people.”

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MUNI CUTS BACK SERVICE

Service reductions that will affect about half of all Muni routes start Dec. 5, the result of San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s early summer deal to close a $129 million budget deficit for the current fiscal year. And that’s just the beginning of the bad news.
Less than halfway through this budget cycle, SFMTA is already looking at an additional $45 million deficit, partly because of the agency’s failure to follow through on plans to increase parking revenue, such as the stalled proposal to extend parking meter hours (see “We want free parking!” Oct. 28).
So additional layoffs and Muni service reductions or even another fare hike are possible, even though Muni fares have already doubled to $2 since Gavin Newsom became mayor. SFMTA officials say midyear budget reduction decisions will be made by the SFMTA Board of Directors over the next two months.
But for now, to find out how this week’s Muni service reductions will affect you, visit www.sfmta.com. (Steven T. Jones)

Run, Anna Conda, run

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By Marke B.

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Anna Conda runs in D6. Photo by Pete Werner, www.wernerimage.com

So, yes, punk-rock drag mistress, community spokesperson, tireless activist, party hostess extraordinaire, exceptional hairdresser, and all-around knockabout gal Anna Conda has thrown her bloody boa into the ring with about 15 others to slide into Cris Daly’s, er, seat in District 6. In an exclusive round of frantic Facebooking she told us:

My political stance for this campaign? I am not running my campaign only to win — because I have no control over winning or not. The voters do. I support repealing Prop 13 on commercial real estate. Many such properties are now owned by trusts and foreign interests — and why should they not be paying taxes when we can’t find money for ADAP [AIDS Drug Assistance Program]? Injustice by governing bodies is intolerable and it is now commonplace. What I hear from people, they feel like they can’t change anything. I’m here to say we can and we will.

annamaineprotest1209.jpg

Anna’s really found her political voice in the past couple of years, leading many “Take Back the Polk” protests against the dequeerification of that once proud pink hotspot and standing up against AIDS service budget cuts. In fact, there’s been a wonderful if odd surge of drag queen activism in the past year, perhaps accelerated by the passage of Prop 8. Well, one good thing came of that, I guess. Help on Heels.

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Anna Conda at a recent protest against ADAP cuts. Photo by Ryan Cleary

(Could we be seeing the resurrection of Sister Boom Boom‘s ghost?)

Gone, here

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Gone, here

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC No one has ever heard the real Sa-Ra, declares Shafiq Husayn during an evening phone interview. And I believe him.

Formed in 2001 between L.A. musicians Om’mas Keith, Taz Arnold, and Husayn (a former rapper/producer in Ice-T’s Rhyme Syndicate crew), Sa-Ra Creative Partners is more powerful as a myth than an actual group. It emerged in 2004 as part of Kanye West’s ill-fated G.O.O.D. Music venture with Columbia, fomenting buzz for its never-released debut, Black Fuzz. After the group left the label, many fans falsely speculated that Sa-Ra had broken up, dissipating like a midnight dream.

Since then, Sa-Ra Creative Partners has issued two collections of songs, 2007’s The Hollywood Recordings (Babygrande) and this year’s Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love (Ubiquity) The latter, a magnificent and powerful foray into drug and sex addiction, redemptive spirituality and love as a circadian rhythm, incorporates dozens of musicians both famous (Erykah Badu) and memorably eccentric (Rozzi Daime). Nuclear Evolution, patched together from songs recorded over the past several years, triumphs in spite of its sporadic assembly.

But Husayn, who sometimes refers to himself and Sa-Ra as third-person entities, says he doesn’t consider Nuclear Evolution a cohesive body of work. "Sa-Ra as a group has not released a debut album yet," he explains, perhaps perpetuating that myth himself. After all, wouldn’t a "Sa-Ra" album be the same as "Sa-Ra Creative Partners"? "We’re waiting for the right [distribution] situation to put it out. People are still sluggish, and not understanding." He adds, "What else do we have to do to show people that Sa-Ra is for real?"

So consider Husayn’s recent Shafiq ‘En A-Free-Kah a statement from a man in exile. He’s grateful to work with Plug Research, an L.A. indie best known for developing new artists. He’s also realistic about the small label’s ability to promote his music. "A lot of fans don’t even know that we have albums out," he rues.

Unlike the Sa-Ra Creative Partners collections, Husayn considers his solo debut a full-fledged philosophical treatise.

"’Kah’ in the ancient Kemetic language means spirit. So to be in the spirit of the Most High is infinite, it can’t be circumscribed by anything dealing with time and space. Thoughts originate in the spirit realm. They don’t originate on Earth," he explains. "So ‘en a-free-kah’ is a demonstration of using your higher self as a natural law. Or, as it is on Earth, shall it be in heaven, or as above shall be law, the unification of soul and mind, body and soul, all becoming one in a format of music. This is an album for the free nationals, meaning all in the international community who are not slaves, and when I say slaves, I mean not slaves in the mind, the ones that are open for a difference, for change. It is dedicated to the spirit of freedom."

It’s to Husayn’s credit that Shafiq ‘En A-Free-Kah sounds more fun than a history lesson. It sparkles with allusions to Loft-era disco and French coos ("Le’Star") and bass-bottom blues modernized with clipped electronic edits ("Lil’ Girl"). Protests against nuclear war ("Major Heavy") and fearless activism ("Rebel Soldier") play out against a fusillade of deep soul homage.

Sa-Ra may be the soul equivalent of DFA. While the home of LCD Soundsystem and Hercules and Love Affair rips off old Bohannon disco and Inner City techno tracks, Sa-Ra shamelessly references Sly & the Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Going On (1971, Epic). These reinventions soar through canny production tricks and fidelity toward the original’s bright futurism, editing out any postmodern commentary. Husayn’s "Changes," for example, revisits the same synthesized optimism elements as Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book (1972, Tamla/Motown).

But while DFA rules the indie-dance world through a distribution deal with international entertainment conglomerate EMI, Sa-Ra languishes, forced to license projects with modest albeit sympathetic companies. Husayn explains that his group is waiting to partner with a powerful company (ostensibly a major label) before it presents the full Sa-Ra experience.

"Any time Sa-Ra puts some music out, it should be a big deal," he says. "But you can’t know if it’s a big deal if you don’t even know it’s available." Well, now you know.

Batty up

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Batty up

superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Hi, I’m a big faggot who loves reggae. And I’m not alone in my puff-puff-pass pinkness — not just because everyone goes through an "experimental reggae phase" in college, but because I see tons of queer kids getting down to reggae-derived dancehall and reggaeton hits at the Crib parties (www.thecribsf.com) and the Café (www.cafesf.com). I’ve run into other reggays at the always welcoming Jah Warrior Shelter Hi Fi events (www.jahwarriorshelter.com), Dub Mission joints (www.dubmissionsf.com), and Reggae Gold nights (www.reggaegoldsf.com). And praise Miss Jah for all the laidback homo hotties at the annual Reggae in the Park fest.

Yet in the latest round of queer-reggae controversy, I felt like a rarer bird than ever. Here’s the bones: Almost 20 years ago, a young Jamaican reggae-dancehall singer named Buju Banton wrote a really catchy song called "Boom Bye Bye" that advocated murdering queer batty boys like me by, among other things, riddling us with Uzi bullets and melting us in tires. Charming. It made him famous, he still sells tons of downloads, and he seems to have no regrets. Every time he comes around on tour, members of the gay community get rightly pissed and attempt to shut him down. That’s what happened Oct. 12 when Banton was set to perform at San Francisco’s Rockit Room. Somewhat amazingly, Banton, who claims to have embraced a "more peaceful" lifestyle and to no longer perform "Boom," agreed to meet with gay folk for the first time. Everyone involved listened to each other for an hour, and the show went ahead as planned — this time at least with channels open and peaceful protests outside the club.

The frustrating part to me was watching many people on both sides overreact, allowing the whole issue to blow up into a giant "queers vs. reggae" thing, rather than a protest targeting one specific hater. People who should know better immediately raised the stakes into the ridiculous. At one point, SF Weekly falsely accused lead protester Pollo Del Mar of bursting into the concert in full drag and pepper-spraying the crowd, yeesh. Yes, my gays, reggae Rastafarianism is as queer-hating as most other religions, but there’s no such thing as "homophobic music," only homophobic people. Reggae, like hip-hop and rock, is a broad trope that encompasses all kinds of expression. You don’t have to be conflicted to be a fan. And no, Buju-heads, this wasn’t an attack by wily "gay activists" on reggae culture — and, by extension, black culture. Gayness isn’t a white thing, no matter what the Jamaican government says to justify its persecution of queers there. Many Buju defenders also keep framing the continuing nationwide protests as an attack on Banton’s freedom of speech. It’s not. He can say whatever he wants; it’s saying it in our community and making money off of it that people object to.

I have friends in each camp, and it sucked dreaded pubes to hear coded racism and homophobia creep into their comments. Worse, though, was the sense that we were all being played. This exact same thing happened three years ago when Banton came to town. Once again his name was in all the papers, like this one. Once again, his fanbase solidified in the face of a perceived threat. Tickets to his show were $40. Just sayin’.

KID SISTER

Electro hipsters, set your heads to explode. The spunky neon-rap artist and Swedish Pop Mafia protégé hits the Rickshaw bricks with toothy duo Flosstradamus.

Thu/22, 9 p.m., $20. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com

THE VERY BEST

MIA aptly channels Siouxsie Sioux on the wonderful Malawi-Parisian trio’s border-hopping, genre-popping debut, Warm Heart of Africa (Green Owl).

Fri/23, 10 p.m., $12 advance. 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com

CYRUS

The hypnotic dubstep originator heads a brutal Brit train of bass mechanics, including Cluekid, Kutz, and Darkside, in honor of Big Up mag’s first birthday.

Sat/24, 10 p.m.–3 a.m., $20. Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom, www.paradisesf.com

STEPPIN’

Who’s ready for a boogaloo revival? Knock out your Nuyorican doowops with some shaggy mambo as the Steppin’ band, featuring trumpet legend Oscar Myers, jazzes up Madrone. Total hot cakes.

Tuesdays, 9 p.m., $3. Madrone Art Bar, 500 Divisadero, SF. www.madronelounge.com

The plight of the insured

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The plight of the insured

OPINION How many horror stories will it take before Congress decides to act on the most ignored problem in the present healthcare debate, denials for people with insurance?

In September, San Francisco’s KPIX-TV reported the story of Rosalinda Miran-Ramirez of Daly City, who woke up one April morning with her left breast bleeding and her shirt soaked in blood.

She was rushed by her husband to the emergency room at nearby Seton Medical Center, where doctors found a tumor. Fortunately the biopsy was benign. Less benign was Miran-Ramirez’ insurer, Blue Shield which initially approved her emergency room claim, then denied it, demanding she pay the full charges, $2,791 under the dubious assertion she "reasonably should have known that an emergency did not exist."

After reporter Anna Werner called Blue Shield, the company decided to pay. Big of them.

We’ve seen this act before. In 2007, Cigna denied a liver transplant, recommended by her medical team, to 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan of Northridge. After national protests organized by Nataline’s family, community, and the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, Cigna relented — a week too late, and tragically Nataline died.

In a recent interview with New America Media, Cigna’s then-communications director, Wendell Potter, now an insurance critic, noted that "this is not an isolated case. People need to realize that there is a corporate executive who often stands between a patient and his or her doctor. That’s the reality."

Why? It pays. Insurance companies make money by selling policies they never intend to make payments on.

In August, researchers with the California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee uncovered previously hidden data on the California Department of Managed Care Web site revealing that six of California’s biggest insurers have denied on average nearly one-fourth of all claims every year since 2002. For the first six months of 2009, PacifiCare rejected 40 percent of claims, Cigna 33 percent.

Predictably, the insurers went ballistic, issuing a stream of denials about their denials. It’s all paperwork, or merely battles with doctors and hospitals, they insisted. These denials don’t mean people are being denied care.

But, they are, every day. The insurers claim the procedure is "investigational" or "experimental" or the policy did not cover that procedure, or the patient had neglected to disclose some prior health problem.

Even if many of the denials the insurers themselves reported to the state are just "paperwork," they are a reminder that 30 cents of every private insurance healthcare dollar is wasted, much of it on warehouses of bean counters looking for reasons to deny claims.

Fortunately, California Attorney General Jerry Brown is now investigating the denial scandal.

But Congress and the Obama administration remain appallingly silent. Too timid to propose the most comprehensive reform — single payer — that would actually lift the hands of the insurers off our necks. Too timid to crack down on insurance company price gouging or denials of care.

Deborah Burger, RN is co-president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.

Solidarity shown during UC walkout

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Story and photos by Sarah Morrison
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“No cuts, no fees, education should be free,” chanted thousands of UC Berkeley faculty, staff, workers and students as they protested in Sproul Plaza against state budget cuts, increased fees, lay-offs, and poor management of the UC system during yesterday’s campus-wide walkout.

While the protests began at 7.15 am yesterday with strikes initiated by the University Professional and Technical Employees union (UPTE) and the Coalition of University Employees (CUE) throwing up a picket line at the campus, by midday the plaza was crammed full with an estimated 5000 protestors in a scene reminiscent of the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s.

Outlining how budget cuts have led to staff shortages, reduced pay, and a lack of vital university services, UC Berkeley professor of art history Timothy Clark, who has taught at the university for more than 21 years, stressed how the Berkeley community felt they had been let down by the UC Board of Regents and the California Legislature.

“The UC won’t wear us down and if they think we won’t fight back then they are mistaken,” he said. “The crisis is real but from crises comes choices. The fight is begun and the fight will continue.”
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UC walkout could ignite a larger movement

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By Sarah Morrison
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UPTE’s logo for tomorrow’s UC walkout.

While UC Berkeley might have a long history of noisy protests and student activism, tomorrow’s UC-wide faculty and student walkout and worker strike seems unprecedented even within its own tumultuous history.

As a coalition of faculty, staff, students and workers across all of the UC campuses arrange to walk out of scheduled classes first thing tomorrow and protest against state cuts in funding, fee hikes, and changes to the traditional UC system of shared governance, the Berkeley community is expecting thousands to congregate in Sproul Plaza, the university’s traditional hub of student activity.

“The walkout tomorrow is just one milestone on what is likely to be a pretty long road to recovery,” said UC Berkeley professor of theatre, dance and performance studies, Catherine Cole. “It’s a moment to make visible the cuts and changes that are happening in our University – changes that are of profound importance and not yet necessarily made visible to all.”

Microfinance for radicals

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news@sfbg.com

In 1969, 11 antiwar protesters loced up at the Santa Rita County Jail began questioning each other about the future of the movement. By the time they were released, they’d decided that the creative nonviolent projects that were emerging would all need funding — and the Agape Foundation was born.

Agape, which celebrates its 40th anniversary Sept. 24, is not the only progressive foundation in San Francisco, and not the only source of money for small progressive groups. But it is, in many ways, the boldest, the one most willing to take risks on organizations that are new, small, and doing things far out on the political edge.

Nina Dessart, Agape’s administrative director, says the group is "unusual for funding only social justice or change." And unlike other foundations that look for long track records, Agape funds startups. Indeed, an organization must be less than five years old to be eligible for Agape’s funding options.

"We love to be the first ones [to give aid to an emerging cause,]" Dessart said. "It is hard to get grants to organizations without track records."

Some big, nationally prominent organizations also have benefited from Agape’s money, including Amnesty International, the National Farm worker Ministry, and Bread and Roses.

Agape — the name comes from the Greek word for altruism — also prides itself on helping the likes of People’s Grocery in West Oakland, a small operation that promotes food and health awareness in an economically depressed community.

And long before microloans became popular, the folks at Agape realized that a little money could go a long way. For example, the National Farmworkers Ministry "used [a] 1959 Plymouth station wagon [purchased with Agape funds] continuously until its demise in the autumn," according to Agape records. The group used the station wagon to bring food and relief to families whose families members had been jailed for picketing, to carry protesters to picket lines from jail, and to map out the picket lines.

Agape funds have supplied portable toilets for antinuclear protests. The group has been funding gay military counseling since 1972. That same year, Agape underwrote a four-day "consciousness raising" conference for ex-prisoners and their families. In 1975, Agape paid for the construction of the Trident Monster — a submarine-like sculpture used to raise awareness of nuclear weapons.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Agape gave money and support to antinuclear organizations such as the Honeywell Project and the Abalone Alliance — a time when groups that were constantly engaged in civil disobedience and defying federal and state authorities would have had trouble getting tax-exempt status.

Indeed, tax-status assistance has been one of Agape’s most powerful tools — groups can use the foundation as a fiscal sponsor and not have to worry about wrangling with tax documents.

Women for Genuine Security, a Bay Area advocacy group, uses Agape to process contributions to "minimize administrative aspects of getting a tax-exempt status," coordinator Gwen Kirk told us.

Five years ago Agape broadened its focus from fundraising by starting an annual awards program to spotlight the people and groups that are creatively and actively working toward peace. Nicole Hsiang, an Agape board member, explains that around the initiation of the Iraq War, Agape started giving out peace awards "to the real heroes."

Last year the Agape Peace Prize went to Nancy Hernandez, youth program coordinator of H.O.M.E.Y. (Homies Organizing to Empower Mission Youth). Hernandez used the money from the prize to take rival Mission District gang members camping. These youth — and those helped by Youth Together and other organizations funded, aided, and spotlighted by Agape — are "the next 40," Hernandez says, the ones at the forefront of social change for the next 40 years in San Francisco.

Jacqueline Cabasso, this year’s recipient of the Enduring Visionary Prize, is executive director of Western States Legal Foundation, which helped form the nation’s largest antiwar coalition, US Abolition 2000 and the People’s Nonviolent Response Coalition after 9/11.

Eileen Hansen, acting director of Agape, puts it simply: "We fund new, struggling, barely formed groups that can hardly call themselves an organization — and nobody else will take a chance on them," she said. "When you look back at the social justice movement over the past 40 years and all the groups we’ve helped, you have to wonder where that movement would have been without Agape."

Agape’s awards ceremony and anniversary party is Sept. 24, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Green Room, San Francisco War Memorial, 401 Van Ness. $50 donation. www.agapepeaceprize.org.

A new California tax revolt

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OPINION Don’t miss the struggle underway over the future of the University of California.

Some see it as just another chapter in the unfolding story of the state’s economic decline. That’s partly true. But what’s really interesting is what it could become.

If it’s played right, the showdown over university fees and salaries could inspire a revival of sorts of the California tax revolt. Except this time, the rebels wouldn’t be tax-haters, like we saw in 1978 with Prop. 13. This time, the protests would be coming from parents and future parents of UC kids, and future employers of UC graduates. They’d be protesting, alongside UC students and employees, the ever-steeper fee hikes — essentially an education tax — that threaten to make our public universities cost as much as any private school.

This pro-tax movement would force a rewrite of state law, arguing that higher education is a public good so important that property-owners and corporations are morally and economically obliged to chip in.

You already know the back story. The state and global financial crises have pushed the UC system into intense contraction, compounding years of rising student costs. Top UC administrators receive bonuses while issuing pay cuts, layoffs, mandatory furloughs, and sharply increasing student fees (undergraduate costs are rising by $2,500, to more than $10,000 next year, with more hikes likely soon).

Many people believe the fee hikes are inevitable. Is it true? Or have we been merely well-trained by the Thatcherian promise that there’s no alternative to a shrinking public sphere? In fact, the administration’s budget claims are impossible to verify because much of the university budget is, literally, a state secret.

What’s clear is that the UC system is less and less accessible to everyday Californians, who are already languishing in a flailing public school system. Meanwhile, the state’s economy depends heavily on UC graduates, who are both innovators and laborers in every economic sphere.

We know how we got here. Prop. 13’s budget-starving effects have intersected effectively with the prevailing inclination to privatize just about everything. The global financial crisis — and California’s particularly harsh variation of it — created the opening for long-imagined cuts across the board.

But the latest budget moves have jolted faculty and students awake. Bit by bit undergraduates, who are typically fairly mono-focused on their grades and individual futures, are paying attention. Graduate students from departments as diverse as English and chemistry are convincing colleagues to drop their dissertations (momentarily) to organize demonstrations.

If you know anything about academic life these days, in an age of constant budget cuts, economic restructuring, and individualistic competition, then you know how unusual this is. Widespread political mobilization on campus is rare. But on Thursday, Sept. 24, faculty are staging a systemwide walkout from classes. That same day, rallies, marches, direct action, and union pickets are planned in what could be the beginning of a season of protest on all ten campuses.

Let’s be real. In isolation these protests will simply be a marker on the steep downhill slide of our educational system.

But with broad and consistent community support, the campus insurrection could merge with tax-reform efforts already underway to form a California pro-tax revolt, a movement for property tax and budget reform to reverse Prop. 13’s ill effects. Pro-taxers could harness campus activism, arguing — perhaps even for the sake of the economy — to save public education in California. *

Rachel Brahinsky is a PhD candidate in the geography department at UC Berkeley. For more information, visit www.gradstudentstoppage.com/news-and-events.

The harshest cut

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news@sfbg.com

"I wake up at night at 3:30, hearing the logging trucks and knowing what’s happening," Susan Robinson complains. "It makes me sick."

Robinson lives just off State Route 4 in Arnold, a Calaveras County community perched on the western slope of the Sierra.

For the past nine years, this feisty retiree has been clamoring to get Sierra Pacific Industries, California’s leading timber company, to stop clear-cutting the forest. "I’m the daughter of a forester myself. I am not anti-logging," she told us. "Of course, SPI should be able to log its land. But it shouldn’t have the right to obliterate everything."

A decade ago, logging and forestry practices in the Sierra were big news. Media reports, protests, and legislative action focused on SPI’s practice of slicing through entire large tracts of land, hacking down every tree, bush, and seedling and leaving nothing but devastation behind.

But most of the news media have long since moved on to other issues — and the clear-cutting continues. If anything, the pace at which SPI is felling the forest has hastened since the intensive logging controversies grabbed headlines in the 1990s.

"When I recently read the June 2000 issue of the Guardian exposing SPI’s activities in the Sierra, I was pained because I thought, ‘Wow! This could have been written yesterday,’" said Marily Woodhouse, a Sierra Club organizer in Shasta County.

It’s not as if nothing has changed under the Sierra sun. Some timber companies have adopted more responsible practices. But SPI is still a major problem. And as the largest private landowner in the state, its footprint is huge. Conservation activists have been exploring new opposition tactics while maintaining their diligent efforts on the legislative, legal, and educational fronts.

Susan Robinson and the other members of the Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch often take visitors to tour the backcountry roads and see the damage for themselves. On Winton Road, plots managed by SPI are adjacent to the Stanislaus National Forest, which is administered by the U.S. Forest Service — and the contrast is staggering.

Patches SPI harvested two years ago are still bare due to herbicide spraying. Between stumps, 10-inch-long replanted ponderosa pines may poke their frail limbs out of the churned soil, but there’s nothing left on a 20-acre lot for deer, bobcats, raccoons, or woodpeckers to eat, rest on, or breed in. No bees pollinating. No chickarees denning. It will take decades for the seedlings to reach maturity.

On the opposite side of the gravel road, on Forest Service land, sugar pines, ponderosa pines, lodgepole pines, incense cedars, oaks, and white firs of different ages shelter ferns, mushrooms, and berry plants. The forest has been thinned to reduce fire hazard, but it has not been converted to a monoculture tree farm.

"What grows back after you clear-cut is a plantation," said Doug Bevington of Environment Now. "A forest is not simply a collection of trees. What makes a forest a vibrant ecosystem is its diversity, having different species and different ages. And it’s the diversity of the forest that creates the habitat to support more species of life."

CLEAR-CUT FRENZY


You don’t need to travel to the Sierra to get the picture — connecting to Google Earth will suffice. Zoom into Arnold and levitate above Highway 4. Beyond the lush forest "beauty strips," the landscape looks like a moth-eaten blanket of evergreens.

Over the past 10 years, SPI has clear-cut 18 square miles in Calaveras County alone. (Clear-cut also includes slightly more moderate logging techniques that leave few trees and snags remaining on an otherwise desert-like tract.)

State records show that between 1996 and 2006 SPI clear-cut 270,000 acres of forests and dumped 335,000 pounds of herbicide into the soil. That’s roughly 420 square miles of scalped woodland. SPI isn’t the only timber company clear-cutting in this state, it just happens to be the most zealous. And it owns 1.7 million acres.

Proponents and opponents of clear-cutting agree on one point: it’s the most productive and the cheapest way to grow timber. But environmentalists say the ecosystems pay a heavy price for the practice.

Mark Pawlicki, SPI’s director of government affairs, told us that the company meets the standards set by the state’s Forest Practice Rules, and that Californian clear-cutting regulations are the strictest in the country. California allows 20 acre cuts; in Washington, the denuded area can reach 240 acres.

Timber harvest plans are not only reviewed the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), but also by the California Department of Fish and Game, the Regional Water Quality Control Board, and the California Geological Survey. Recently, SPI has even started to replant its clear-cuts with two or three different tree species.

The scientific community recognizes that clear-cutting has greater ecological impacts than any other harvesting method. Such radical treatment may be the only way to salvage logs from woods killed by insects or fire. And the industry is forced to mitigate some of the impacts — buffer zones, for instance, are required for waterways supporting aquatic life.

But that’s not enough: the tiny tributaries feeding the waterways aren’t protected, so sediment and debris can end up in the protected streams, affecting water quality, fish species, and amphibians. The water cycle is inevitably disrupted, with snowpack melting earlier in the season and rainfall running off the naked slopes. The fragmentation of the forest displaces animals that move around for their living, putting pressure on surrounding lands.

Environmental organizations are also concerned about exacerbation of climate change.

In national forests, clear-cutting has been phased out for more than a decade. Members of Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch wonder why the state can’t make the same rules for private loggers.

"I do reckon that private companies have to make profits," said Forest Watch activist Addie Jacobson. "But we do see companies like Collins Pine harvest timber in a way that all of us are happy with yet make some profit."

GREEN WOOD


Collins Pine has been managing 94,000 acres of timberland in Plumas and Tehama counties since 1941. It primarily uses selective cutting, where only certain trees are sparsely removed. Chief forester Jay Francis says that after a month, you can hardly tell a logged area from a pristine one.

"Our owners do not want us to do anything that compromises the values of our Sierra mixed-conifer forest, whether its wildlife, clean water, recreation, esthetics," he told us. "So we do a very minor amount of clear-cutting. In fact, we just turned in a plan for a 15-acre clear-cut for health reasons. We have an infestation of root-rots in an area. That’s probably the first clear-cut we’ve done in 50 years."

Those cuts are less than six acres wide, meeting the rules of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international organization that certifies sustainable forest management. Since its inception in 1993, FSC has developed standards to accommodate the commercial, social, and environmental values of forestland. It has the backing of the world’s leading environmental groups, including Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund. Consumers can rely on its label to buy environmentally and socially responsible wood products.

Collins Pine was the first privately held logging company in North America to receive FSC certification, in 1993. There are now 22 certified companies.

Gary Dodge, director of science at FSC U.S., contrasted FSC’s approach to wildlife with CAL FIRE’s, which only protects state-listed endangered species. "We also believe that it’s the role of the forest to prevent common species from becoming rare, or prevent rare species from becoming extinct," he said.

In the iconic North Coast redwoods of Mendocino County, the Mendocino Redwood Company has taken its cue from Collins Pine. In 1998, MRC took over 228,800 acres from the environmental villain Louisiana Pacific. From the start, MRC managers stated that they aimed for the business to be a good steward and a successful business. The company received FSC certification in 2000.

"There are a lot of models for what it means to be a successful business, but there are fewer for what it means to be a steward of the land," Sandy Dean, chairman of MRC, told us. "We think quite literally that it is to leave it better than we found it. It includes a reduction in the level of harvest, the elimination of clear-cutting, and the adoption of a specific policy to protect old-growth trees."

SPI is not impressed by this trend. "By and large, the companies that exclusively use selective logging just have a different objective than we do," Pawlicki said. "They’re not growing as much timber as we are."

SPI, nevertheless, is also using the buzz-word sustainability. According to Pawlicki, the state of California requires timber companies to be sustainable anyway. "You can’t cut more than you grow under California law." Jumping on the green-building bandwagon, SPI has also sought certification — with an organization called the Sustainable Forest Initiative that is not recognized by the LEED green building rating system.

NEW BATTLEGROUNDS


These days, conservation activists are trying out new strategies to compel SPI to straighten up its act. ForestEthics’ Save the Sierra campaign aims at protecting forests using the market as a weapon. "The average person may not have heard of SPI," said activist Joshua Buswell Charkow, "but they know its clients: Home Depot, Lowe’s, Kolbe & Kolbe [Millwork Company].

Some environmental groups still resort to litigation. "I’m not too optimistic to think that the industry will reform itself," said Brendan Cummings from the Center for Biological Diversity.

The center recently filed three lawsuits against CAL FIRE for approving timber harvest plans without properly analyzing the greenhouse gas emissions from each specific project. Instead, the agency accepted SPI’s broad assertion that growing its tree plantation over the next 100 years would offset the immediate carbon release caused by plowing the soil and burning the slash. But even if that’s true, the nature of the climate crisis is such that we need to curb emissions right now, said Cummings. In response, SPI withdrew its plans.

Concerned Sierra citizens are also challenging logging plans in the courts. In Shasta County, Marily Woodhouse has been opposing a plan to clear-cut 809 acres in the vicinity of the Digger Creek that flows through her town of Manton for fear it will disrupt an already heavily logged watershed. The Battle Creek Alliance, the coalition she helped form, filed suit in January 2008. "What happens if they drop a plan? Eventually they come back again," she said.

"The lawsuits do slow things down. But the fact is, [the loggers are] never going away."

Past experience has taught activists to be wary. Ten years ago, when SPI’s frenetic activity first came under public scrutiny, rallies and media coverage curtailed the timber giants’ greed. Yuba Valley residents led a protest against a plan to scrape 171 acres along the banks of the South Yuba River. And farther South, locals from Arnold faced with an 884-acre clear-cut launched Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch. SPI kept a low profile for a while, even declaring to the press it would scale back clear-cutting in Calaveras County — only to redouble its practices a few months down the road.

The Yuba River site has been spared, thanks to the intervention of the Trust for Public Land, which has been able to purchase 110,000 acres from SPI. Those parcels, also located in the Tahoe region and Humboldt County, were transferred to public ownership for conservation.

On the policy front, Forests Forever has been leading the charge for 20 years. The lobbying group has sponsored three initiatives in Sacramento to ban or further restrict clear-cutting. The last bill was killed by the Assembly Natural Resources Committee in April 2008.

"There’s a lingering sense that logging is still an economic driver in the state," said Forests Forever executive director Paul Hughes. "But tourism and retirement, which depend on healthy forests, actually contribute more to the economy."

Skeptics say that 80 percent of the wood used in California comes from Washington and Oregon or from the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, where clear-cutting is the norm anyway. But as Hughes put it, "You’ve got to start somewhere to fight this abomination."

Baader to the bone

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"The Baader Meinhof gang? Those spoiled, hipster terrorists?" That was the response of one knowledgeable pop watcher when I told her about The Baader Mienhof Complex, the new feature from Uli Edel (1989’s Last Exit to Brooklyn). The violence-prone West German anarchist group, otherwise known as the Red Army Faction (RAF), still inspires both venomous spew and starry-eyed fascination (see Joe Strummer’s RAF T-shirt, Gerhard Richter’s paintings of its dead leaders, and Erin Cosgrove’s 2003 satirical romance paperback, The Baader-Meinhof Affair). Edel’s sober, clear-eyed view of the youthful and sexy yet arrogant and murderous, gun-toting radicals at the center of Baader-Meinhof’s mythology — a complex construct, indeed — manages to do justice to the core of their sprawling chronology, while never overstating their narrative’s obvious post-9/11 relevance.

Based on the nonfiction best-seller by onetime Der Spiegel editor Stefan Aust, The Baader Meinhof Complex finds its still, watchful center in Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck). Aust’s onetime fourth-estate colleague makes the dramatic trajectory from bourgeois wife and mother to underground radical crawling through Mideast dust and toting a machine gun under the tutelage of Fatah. She’s shocked by brutal police crackdowns on the student protests against the visiting shah of Iran and America’s Vietnam War — enacted with a cruelty reminiscent of the one-generation-removed SS and a reminder of a not-so-distant fascist past — and somewhat in awe of Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu) and Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek), who emit rock-star charisma.

Helping to bust Baader out of jail on the pretext of working on a book, Meinhof joins her crushes in life on the lam. The three and their followers declare an urban guerrilla war on West Germany until they are nabbed and stuck in solitary at Stammheim Prison. While their trial descends into bitter, kangaroo court-style comedy, the RAF members outside resort to heightened feats of bloodshed and desperation in the so-called "German Autumn" of 1977, killing the chief federal prosecutor, kidnapping a banker, and finally conspiring in the hijacking of a Lufthansa jet.

Edel has absorbed his share of criticism for his RAF portrayal: the director’s far from sympathetic when it comes to these self-absorbed, smug rebels, who relish offending their Muslim hosts by sunbathing nude, yet he’s not immune to their cocky, idealistic charms. Cool-headed yet fully capable of thrilling to his subjects’ eye-popping audacity, the filmmaker does an admirable job of contextualizing the group within the global student and activist movements and bringing the viewer, authentically, to the still timely question: how does one best (i.e., morally) respond to terrorism?

THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX opens Fri/4 in Bay Area theaters.

Confessions of a Bo-Fessional

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

That Bo & Sprite, I mix it up and tip it every day and night

— Shady Nate, "Bo & Sprite," The Bo-Fessional

DRUGS I’m in the backyard of Shady Nate’s aunty’s house on 28th and "Zipper" (Chestnut Street) in West Oakland, watching Lil Rue of Livewire pour four ounces of purple syrup into a liter of Sprite, which turns the hue of pink champagne. With the residue, he coats a cigarette, Shady coats a Black&Mild, and Jay Jonah coats a blunt, which sputters and foams as it burns. When Rue licks the syrup cap, however, Jonah protests this breach of etiquette, though the dispute dissipates as the bottle goes around.

The syrup in question is promethazine-codeine cough syrup, known variously as "lean," "sizzurp," even simply "purple" (wreaking linguistic havoc since "purple" also means weed). "Lean" derives from its characteristic side-effect: if you drink enough, you need to lean against something to stand. West Oakland’s term of choice is "Bo," as in "Robitussin." Bo first oozed into rap in the late ’90s via the South, associated with the slowed-down chopped and screwed sound invented by Houston’s DJ Screw. One of Shady’s OGs, Big Mayne, assures us Bo’s been in Oakland forever, though formerly cheap liquor was its vehicle. (Drinking it straight is called "raw.") Soda is a comparatively recent innovation, indicating Bo’s increasingly youthful demographic, which extends to middle school.

"In ’95, I ain’t seen no one sippin’ syrup but OGs," Shady recalls. "We didn’t know what it was. Around 2000, it started to pop — couple motherfuckers knew about it but not everybody. But now, it’s like a fad. Like Mac Dre came with the thizz, it’s syrup now."

As Shady notes, Bo has supplanted Ecstasy as the hood’s must-do drug. But Bo is more likley to kill you; promethazine causes extreme drowsiness and potentially, in large enough doses, heart attacks or respiratory failure. DJ Screw himself died of respiratory failure at age 29 in 2000. In December 2007, six months after his post-prison triumph with UGK’s No. 1-debuting Underground Kings (Jive, 2007), Pimp C, 33, succumbed to a lethal combination of syrup and his preexisting sleep apnea.

The possibility of death has, of course, never deterred drug use except in individual cases; even so, as a trend, Bo is a risky high. Addictiveness aside, the best part of the high, I’m told, occurs on the brink of nodding off. (Jonah claims that nodding off at the wheel, not overdose, is the leading cause of Bo-related death in West Oakland.) But the target — "catching your nod" — seems easy for the inexperienced to overshoot, particularly when the delivery method is a beverage that tastes like it was designed for kids.

Tastes? Well, yes, I took a few pulls from the bottle, purely for journalistic purposes. Four ounces among four people isn’t enough to make you lean or nod, but it’s enough to get the idea. I was pretty lifted for three hours, then mildly so the rest of the day. The promethazine considerably enhances the codeine: my head felt pleasant, like a halo extended a few inches between me and the world, yet the sensation was crisp, not foggy, at least at this dosage, peaceful rather than giddy. This was a one-time trial for me, but I could easily see wanting to extend the high.

Indeed, extension is the point; Shady’s ideal is to nurse four or more ounces over the course of the day. In terms of rap hedonism, Bo has ushered in a new vibe. You don’t guzzle, you "tip" or "kiss" it. Instead of ballin’, you brag on stinginess, "I ain’t sippin’ with you" being a common refrain. Generally I’ve found people in the ghetto generous with weed — the blunt’s a preeminently social event — so Bo’s antisocial element is striking. "I done seen fights over the lacers," Shady laughs, referring to the use of the residue. "It almost just went down — Jonah almost took off Lil Rue!"

On this day in July, Shady has a pair of projects in Rasputin’s rap Top 20: an album, Gasman Unleashed (PTB/Clear Label/SMC); and a mixtape, The Bo-Fessional (DJ Racks), on which every song is devoted to Bo. As we drink, I ask about its effect on his creative process.

"I can rap all fast," he says (an understatement), "but when I’m on syrup — I’m singin’, I’m harmonizin’. It slows me down."

The difference is palpable on "Bo & Sprite," his mixtape take on Kid Cudi’s "Day and Night." The choice itself is uncharacteristic, as is the weird thickness of his Bo-soaked delivery, discovering melodic filigrees only implied in the original as he spins an amusingly mundane tale of scoring — classic drug music. Most of Shady’s vocals on Gasman are lean-free by necessity, in order to achieve full speed, but Bo-Fessional serves as an inspired b-side, documenting what, in Oakland, may be the Summer of Bo.

But Bo’s already grown scarce; the members of Livewire say the police have cracked down and doctors aren’t prescribing it due to the widespread abuse. Already expensive — roughly $15 an ounce — Bo’s street price is ever increasing due to the drought, which limits Shady’s indulgence to roughly once a week. This might be frequent enough, given Bo’s potential dangers. I very much understand the attraction, but at the same time, Shady and Livewire are talented dudes with a lot to live for.

New SFPD chief sworn in

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By Steven T. Jones
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Newly sworn-in San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón addressed the media today, flanked by Mayor Gavin Newsom, mayoral crime adviser Kevin Ryan, and Police Commission President Theresa Sparks.

The Newsom Administration may still be exhibiting signs of brainlessness (today’s hastily arranged and poorly announced press conference with new Police Chief George Gascón was inexplicably moved up by 15 minutes just a half-hour before it was scheduled to start), but the new chief is already showing signs of being a better communicator than either his boss or his predecessor, shrinking violet Heather Fong.

While I missed the first half of the 20-minute press conference, Gascón seemed to offer direct, nuanced answers to the media questions, including fielding one in fluent Spanish, an important symbolic attribute for the head of a department that has often been at odds with the city’s Latino community.

“My goal is to take what is already a good organization and make it an excellent organization,” said Gascón, who hung around to answer more questions long after Newsom Press Secretary Nathan Ballard ended the official press conference, a cue that Newsom usually takes to bolt for the door.

Gascón also told me that he will soon come to meet with the Guardian’s editorial board to discuss a wide range of issues – such as abusive conduct by officers, harassment of the homeless and immigrants, inflexible and heavy-handed policies regarding protests and special events, and unnecessary secrecy and deception – that have long strained relations between the two entities.

Best of the Bay 2009: Sports and Outdoors

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Editors Picks: Outdoors and Sports

BEST "HOLY SH*T!"

Although it has only been a mere season and a half since Barry Bonds went loudly into a toxic sunset, the San Francisco Giants have already refocused with a formidable team of unlikely upstarts that boasts one of the best records in the National League. Built around a colorful but humble lineup of players with nicknames like the Freak, Big Unit, and Kung Fu Panda, the current Giants roster is everything that Bonds was not — egoless, team-oriented, and free of baggage. And just as the Tim Lincecum-<\d>led pitching staff was shaping up as the team’s best asset for a successful playoff bid, along comes 26-year-old left-hander Jonathan Sanchez, from a demotion in the bullpen, to throw a masterpiece of a pitching performance. The Sanchez no-hitter against the Padres on July 10 was the team’s first since 1976. It provided an up-from-the-ashes victory that invoked tremendous optimism for the future, to the point where you can already hear it, clear with conviction and confidence: "Beat L.A.! Beat L.A.!"

BEST KID-FRIENDLY SUICIDE RUN

Never underestimate the urge — especially in somber, grizzle-haired grown-ups and perfectly sensible adults — to jam shiny, decal-stickered helmets on one’s head before shrieking downhill in plastic toy vehicles, playfully jockeying with others all the way to the bottom. Having just completed its triumphant ninth annual run this past Easter, the annual Bring Your Own Big Wheel race is spastic, daredevil fun. Any form of transport is legal, as long as it’s human-powered and about a third your size. Past races have seen some imaginative entries: office chairs figured in one racer’s wobbly run, while others constructed iffy rides from wood planks, masking tape, and a few ingeniously placed nails. Outlandish costumes never hurt, either: Big Bird, bunnies, and aliens run rampant. Once held on Lombard Street, the event now careens down Potrero Hill’s twistier Vermont Street. The only thing you can’t bring is alcohol. Shucks.

www.jonbrumit.com/byobw

BEST WORKOUT WITH A TWIST

Is it wrong to be kind of turned on by the Victorian-bondage-looking machines at San Francisco Gyrotonic? Even the word "Gyrotonic" makes us gyrate suggestively in our minds. (Pervs!) Intimately connected to the dance community, the Gyrotonic exercise program is an intriguing new approach to working out. The Gyrotonic Expansion System was invented in the 1950s by ballet dancer Juliu Horvath after an Achilles injury left him unable to dance. The workout uses a contraption with raised pulleys, similar to a Pilates machine, but moves your joints in a circular rather than linear motion, training the body to be more flexible. Classes are taught by former ballerinas who’ve danced in companies such as the San Francisco Ballet, New York’s School of American Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera’s American Ballet Theatre, and San Francisco’s Alonzo King’s LINES. In terms of dance workouts, nothing could be further from Billy Blanks’ Tae Bo. The studio attracts a fleet of nimble, limber dance-types, but beginners should not be intimidated, nor overexcited.

26 Seventh St. # 4, SF. (415) 863-3719, www.sfgyrotonic.com

BEST YO-YO WHAT’S UP

If we’ve learned anything from the most recent technological revolution, it’s that nerds are way cooler than we thought they were. "I’m a music nerd," people will proudly say, or "I’m an art nerd." Identifying as a nerd grants substantial cultural capital — and not just in a lame hipster sense, like when people wear glasses without lenses or pretend to appreciate B-movies. Skateboarders, cyclists, and gamers are good examples of this phenomenon, but none of these subcultures has a more nonconformist, fuck-you attitude than that of the gonzo yo-yo enthusiast. It’s true that yo-yo champion David Capurro and the other members of his local club, the Spin Doctors, probably spend their weekends practicing barrel rolls and smashers instead of drinking, dancing, and posing. But, well, come on, that shit’s for nerds. Cool people have better things to do … like winning tournaments, inventing new tricks, and traveling the world to battle other crews.

www.spindox.org

BEST WAY TO GET BLOWN AWAY

Perhaps you’ve seen kiteboarders skimming across the water like wakeboarders and flittering aloft, gliding like skydivers. If you’ve yearned to partake in the strange but intriguing sport of kiteboarding, but didn’t know where to start, look no further than Boardsports School and Shop. With three locations and plenty of certified instructors, it’s the most facilitative wind and board shop on the bay. Whether it’s kitesurfing, windsurfing, kiteboarding on land, or even stand-up paddle boarding, the staff can help you find what you’re after (don’t be put off by the dude-bro locutions) and teach you how to catch some major air safely. Boardsports has exclusive teaching rights in two of the bay’s best beginner spots, Alameda’s Crown Beach and Coyote Point in San Mateo, and offers lessons for first-time kite flyers or can arrange pro instruction for experienced boarders looking to push their skills to the next level. Boardsports also offers tidy deals on kite packages and equipment to help you lift off without lifting your wallet.

(415) 385-1224, www.boardsportsschool.com

BEST WET PUCKS

The Brits have started some internationally contagious sports, like football (soccer) and cricket. Now underwater hockey, which English divers created in the 1950s, is grabbing Americans’ attention. Locals are quickly jumping into the game with the San Francisco Underwater Hockey club. If you like swimming, dip your toes in new water and give it a shot. Sean Avent of the San Francisco Sea Lions club team explains its appeal: "Holding your breath, wearing a Speedo, and swimming after a lead puck on the bottom of a swimming pool is no more obtuse than trying to pummel a guy who is carrying a pigskin ball and armored in high-tech plastic. People, in general, are just more familiar with the latter of the two obtuse sports. And the first is just way more fun." Pay $4 at the door of one of the games to try it out, or join the club and play in the Presidio or Bayview pools at a low cost.

www.underwater-society.org/uwhockey/sanfran

BEST YOGA WITH THE FISHES

Million Fishes Gallery, one of our favorite artist collectives in San Francisco, isn’t just an awesome place to see great exhibits by a revolving door of local artists and to catch raging late-night shows featuring bands like Jonas Reinhardt, Erase Errata, Tussle, and Lemonade. It also provides an effective and inexpensive way to get your rejuvenating twice-weekly yoga fix. Instructor Beth Hurley teaches a 90-minute vinyasa yoga class from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the gallery’s yoga studio (yeah, this artist space comes with its own yoga studio) that draws a nice mix of artists, Mission locals, yoga enthusiasts, and those who see the benefit in working out before hitting up El Metate next door. Hurley’s sessions are $7 to $11, which firmly places them among the least expensive yoga classes in San Francisco, and safeguards you from having to deal with yuppie yogis in head-to-toe Lululemon.

2829 23rd St., SF. www.millionfishes.com

BEST EYE-WATERING MEMORABILIA

Mission restaurateur Scott Youkilis has turned out quality American fare at Maverick for a few years now, while his brother Kevin continues to play at an MVP pace for the Boston Red Sox. Scott bottles a great homemade hot sauce; Kevin hits two-out home runs in the bottom of the ninth against the New York Yankees. Could there possibly be a way to merge these exceptional fraternal talents? Voilà: Youk’s Hot Sauce, a condiment that attempts to bottle the potency of Kevin’s hitting abilities with the flavor of Scott’s Southern-tinged cuisine. Available at Maverick or online, bottles go for $10 each, or $25 with Kevin’s autograph, and portions of all proceeds go to Kevin’s charity, Youk’s Hits for Kids. It’s a hot souvenir from a future Hall of Famer for the legions of Red Sox fans that make the Bay Area their home away from Fenway.

3316 17th St., SF. (415) 863-3061, www.sfmaverick.com, www.youkshotsauce.com

BEST NATIVE WORKOUT

When it comes to getting in shape, it’s almost a crime to have a gym membership in San Francisco. We live in the almost perpetually golden state of California, not Wisconsin in the third week of January. So get the hell outside and tackle some hills or run along the beaches. Better yet, do both with the Baker Beach Sand Ladder. Long known to local triathletes as an endurance-crushing beast, the sand ladder is 400 sheer steps of pulse-pounding "I think I’m gonna die" workout, set against the spectacular backdrop of the Pacfic Ocean flowing into the Golden Gate. Minus the cardiac arrest, it sure beats the fluorescent lighting, smelly funk, and steroidal carnival music of your local gym. The simple fact of the matter is that when you can run nonstop to the top of the sand ladder you’re officially in good shape. And best of all, it’s free.

25th Ave. and El Camino del Mar, SF. www.nps.gov

BEST BITCH-SLAP FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

Chevron has always been one of the Bay Area’s more vile corporations, whether it’s lobbying aggressively against global warming legislation or polluting communities from Richmond to Ecuador, all the while greenwashing its image with warm and fuzzy (and highly deceptive) advertising campaigns. That’s why we love to see groups such as the rainforest-protecting Amazon Watch and its anti-Chevron allies giving a little something back. Before this year’s Chevron shareholders meeting in San Francisco, activists plastered fake Chevron ads ("I will not complain about my asthma" and "I will give my baby contaminated water") all over the city and staged creative protests outside the event. Ditto when Chevron CEO David O’Reilly spoke at the Commonwealth Club in May, sending Chevron goons into a paranoid frenzy. Amazon Watch and other groups are winning some key battles — voters recently approved steep tax increases on Chevron’s Richmond refinery, and a judge rejected plans to expand the facility. To which we can only say, "Hit ’em again!"

www.amazonwatch.org

BEST PUBLIC ACOUSTIC COCOON

Ear-piercing squeals, gut-rumbling skronks, the occasional wet fart sound — these are the unfortunate hallmarks of beginning brass instrumentalists. Those living in a city as dense and sensitive as our own have it rough when they want to work out their kinks: neighbors who sleep during the day or get up early yell at them, passersby take none too kindly to the squawking on busy sidewalks, and soundproofed studio space is economically out of reach. For all who need a place to practice, there’s the blessing of the Conservatory Drive tunnel, which passes under John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park. An array of practicing jazz combos and amateur tooters take up residence at the tunnel’s entrance during the day, providing entertainment to nearby Conservatory of Flowers visitors. The tunnel actually seems to crave music pouring into and echoing through its abyss — it forms a protective acoustic cocoon around performers that amplifies mellifluous passages and somehow blurs out less felicitous ones. Spontaneous jam sessions are common, so don’t sit on the grass — pick up your brass.

Conservatory Dr. and John F. Kennedy Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF

BEST MOUSETRAP FOR MINOTAURS

Little-known and charmingly miniscule, the Eagle Point Labyrinth is a jumble of twisty turns perched on the lip of a cliff near an offshoot of Lands End Trail. To reach it, you must set out with a compass in hand, hope in your heart, and fingers crossed. The labyrinth, one of three outdoor mazes known to exist in San Francisco, is a mysterious wonder that has so far avoided being marked on any map (although it can be glimpsed via a Google satellite image for those too faint to blindly wander in search of it). The superlative views it affords of the Golden Gate certainly justify hiking, sometimes panicked, through yards of unpruned foliage. The stone-heaped maze is handmade, and while we speculate about its mysterious origins — a mousetrap for Minotaurs, perhaps? — we can’t help but appreciate the karmic offerings of those who have reached the center before us, leaving a small pile of baubles. Mythic etiquette mandates you scoop up one of these and leave something of your own behind.

Lands End, Sutro Heights Park, SF.

BEST COMMUNITY STRETCH

Yearning to try yoga but needing to stretch your dollar? Every Monday through Thursday from 7:45 p.m. to 9:15 p.m., YogaKula packs its San Francisco location with eager newcomers for its affordable community class, available on a sliding scale ($8 to $16). Especially lively are the Monday and Wednesday classes with quirky and entertaining instructor Skeeter Barker, who offers genuine, palatable optimism and inspiration along with some much-needed recentering. Barker is an inspirational teacher who, as her Web profile says, "welcomes you to your mat, however you find yourself there." Along with the community classes, YogaKula offers Anusara, a therapeutic style of yoga, in addition to a variety of other wellness practices. Its two locations — one at 16th Street and Mission, and one in North Berkeley — offer courses in yoga training, yoga philosophy, specialized workshops, Pilates, massage, and one-on-one yoga instruction.

3030A 16th St., SF. (415) 934-0000; 1700 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 486-0264, www.yogakula.com

BEST PLACE TO HIDE A JET

To be precise, the best place to hide a jet is behind Door 14 on the Alameda Naval Air Station. While many of the buildings on the former military base have been converted to civilian uses, such as sports clubs and distilleries, some continue to serve military functions, like storing the jet that used to be on display at the base’s portside entrance (until high winds blew it off its pedestal two winters ago). The naval station is also the perfect place to hide domesticated bunnies. A herd of them live in and around a tumbledown shed opposite the Port of Oakland. Then there are the jackrabbits, which flash across the base’s open spaces at night, hind legs glinting in the moonlight. It’s easy to miss the flock of black-crowned night herons, which pose one-legged every winter on the lawns of "The Great Whites"-<\d>houses where the naval officers once lived. But who could forget the hawk that roosts atop the Hangar One distillery and periodically swoops to grab a tasty, unsuspecting victim off the otherwise empty runways where The Matrix Reloaded was shot?

1190 W. Tower, Alameda

BEST PUTT-PUTT ON THE ‘CIDE

Since 1998, Cyclecide has been enchanting — and sometimes scaring — audiences with its punk rock-<\d>inspired, pedal-powered mayhem. But after 11 years of taking its bicycle-themed carnival rides, rodeo games, and live band to places like Coachella, Tour de Fat, and Multnomah County Bike Fair, the bicycle club is putting down roots, or rather, fake grass. This year the crew famous for tall bikes, bicycle jousting, and denim jackets with a cackling clown on the back is building Funland, an 18-hole mini golf course in the Bayview. Though sure to be fun for the whole family, rest assured that Funland will retain all of Cyclecide’s boundary-pushing humor and lo-fi sensibility. Yes, there will be a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge built by master welder Jay Broemmel, but you can also putt through Closeupofmyass, a landscape of rubber tubes springing from brown Astroturf. What else would you expect from a crew whose interests are "bikes, beer, and building stuff"?

www.cyclecide.com

BEST NO FRILLS FIRST AID

It’s nice for big companies to notice that women buy things other than cleaning supplies and facial cream. But do they have to make everything targeted toward the female demographic so freakin’ floral and pink and cloyingly girlie? Adventure Medical Kits — the Oakland-based company famous in sports circles for outfitting everyone from backcountry skiers to weekend car-campers with durable, complete first-aid packages — says a resounding no. Its women’s edition outdoor medical kit comes jam-packed with all the fixings adventurous boys get — wound care materials, mini tweezers, insect-bite salve, a variety of medications, and a first-aid booklet — plus a couple things only ladies need, like tampons, leak-safe tampon bags, menstrual relief meds, and compact expands-in-water disposable towels. And it’s all packaged in a sporty blue nylon bag that weighs less than a pound. No lipstick? No diet pills? No frilly, lacy case made to look like a purse or a bra or a tiny dog? We’re buying it.

www.adventuremedicalkits.com

BEST PLACE TO GET ROLLIN’

When one thinks of skate shops these days, one’s thoughts travel naturally to wicked Bloodwizard decks, Heartless Creeper wheels, and Venture trucks — everything you’d need to trick out your board before you cruise to Potrero de Sol. All those goodies are available at Cruz Skate Shop, as well as Lowcard tees, recycled skateboard earrings, Protec helmets, and much more. But boarding is boring. You’ve done it since you were 13. Isn’t it time to ditch that deck and take up a real sport like, say, roller skating? Hell, yes. And Cruz has everything you need to get started down that sparkly, disco-bumpy Yellow Brick Road to eight-wheelin’ Oz. From the fiercest derby-ready model to mudflap girl bootie shorts, this store will kit you up in the best way for your Sunday afternoon Golden Gate Park debut. We’re partial to the Sure-Grip Rock Flame set of wheels with, you guessed it, pink flames streaming up the toes. But an enticing array of more professional-looking speed skates is available, as is a knowledgeable staff to get you rollin’.

3165 Mission, SF. (415) 285-8833, www.cruzskateshop.com

BEST OF THE BAY ON THE BAY

If you’re looking to get on the water without getting wet, Ruby Sailing is an affordable option for you and your friends to get a taste of adventure. The Ruby sailboat has been taking guests around the bay for 25 years. For just $40 per person, owner and operator Captain Josh Pryor will lead you on a two and a half hour tour of the bay, passing Alcatraz and looping around Sausalito. Snacks are provided, and the skipper sells wine and beer by the glass for cheap. The Ruby is also available for fishing expeditions, including poles, bait, and tackle; for private parties up to 30 guests; for weddings; and even for funerals at sea. And since the boat boards at the Ramp restaurant on the Dogpatch waterfront, you’re covered for pre- and post-splash food and drink, if you have the stomach. No prior sailing experience is required, but, in the words of the skipper, "no two trips are the same," so be ready to hang on.

855 Terry Francois, SF. (415) 272-0631, www.rubysailing.com

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BEST OF THE BAY 2009:
>>BEST OF THE BAY HOME
>>READERS POLL WINNERS
>>EDITORS PICKS: CLASSICS
>>EDITORS PICKS: CITY LIVING
>>EDITORS PICKS: FOOD AND DRINK
>>EDITORS PICKS: ARTS AND NIGHTLIFE
>>EDITORS PICKS: SHOPPING
>>EDITORS PICKS: SEX AND ROMANCE
>>EDITORS PICKS: OUTDOORS AND SPORTS
>>LOCAL HEROES

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