War Archives — Page 108 of 117 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (1/23/07): 88 Iraqi civilians killed

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January 23, 2007

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Compiled by Paula Connelly

Casualties in Iraq

U.S. military:

29: Killed this weekend (1/19/07- 1/21/07):

2: Killed 1/19/07; 25: Killed 1/20/07; 2: Killed 1/21/07

3,280: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

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

The weekend death toll of 27 made Saturday the third-deadliest day for United States forces since the war here began, according to the New York Times.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/world/middleeast/22iraq.html?ref=middleeast

The DOD confirmed the deaths of the following American service members this week, according to the New York Times on January 23, 2007:

BOREA, Russell P., 38, Sgt. First Class, Army; El Paso; First Cavalry Division.
CASTILLO, Luis J., 20, Lance Cpl., Marines; Lawton, Mich.; Fourth Marine Division.
CORBETT, Jason J., 23, Specialist, Army; Casper, Wyo.; 25th Infantry Division.
JAYNES, Allen B., 21, Pfc., Army; Henderson, Tex.; Second Infantry Division.
NEAL, Jacob H., 23, Cpl., Marines; San Marcos, Tex.; Fourth Marine Division.
RECHENMACHER, William J., 24, Specialist, Army; Jacksonville, Fla.; First Cavalry Division.
SCHOCKMEL, Collin R., 19, Specialist, Army; Richwood, Tex.; Second Infantry Division.
VALDIVIA, Jennifer A., 27, Petty Officer First Class; Cambridge, Ill.; Naval Security Force, Naval Support Activity.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/us/23list.html

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

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

Iraqi civilians:

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

At least 88 Iraqi civilians were killed Monday when two car bombs exploded in a crowded downtown marketplace in Baghdad, according to the New York Times on January 23, 2007.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/world/middleeast/23iraq.html?ref=todayspaper

54,432 – 60,098: Killed since 1/03

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

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 21 January 2007: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/27/

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

146: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.rsf.org

Refugees:

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

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

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

U.S. Military Wounded:

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

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

Attention President Bush on the eve of your State of the Union Address: Your war has cost $360 billion. How many more billions will it take? The Guardian cost of war report.

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January 22, 2007

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Compiled by Paula Connelly

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

To bring the cost of the war home, please note that California has already lost $45 billion and San Francisco has lost $1 billion to the Bush war and his mistakes. In San Francisco alone, the funds used for the war in Iraq could have hired 21,095 additional public school teachers for one year, we could have built 10,960 additional housing units or we could have provided 59,011 students four-year scholarships at public universities. For a further breakdown of the cost of the war to your community, see the NPP website aptly titled “turning data into action.”

Cost of the War in Iraq

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To visit the National Priorities Project website, click here.

Attention President Bush on the eve of your State of the Union Address: 29 soldiers were killed over the weekend because of your war and your mistakes. How many more will be killed? The Guardian casualty report.

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January 22, 2007

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Compiled by Paula Connelly

Casualties in Iraq

U.S. Military:

29: Killed this weekend (1/19/07- 1/21/07):

2: Killed 1/19/07; 25: Killed 1/20/07; 2: Killed 1/21/07

3,280: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

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

The weekend death toll of 27 made Saturday the third-deadliest day for United States forces since the war here began, according to the New York Times.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/world/middleeast/22iraq.html?ref=middleeast

The DOD confirmed the deaths of the following American service members this week, according to the New York Times on January 23, 2007:

BOREA, Russell P., 38, Sgt. First Class, Army; El Paso; First Cavalry Division.
CASTILLO, Luis J., 20, Lance Cpl., Marines; Lawton, Mich.; Fourth Marine Division.
CORBETT, Jason J., 23, Specialist, Army; Casper, Wyo.; 25th Infantry Division.
JAYNES, Allen B., 21, Pfc., Army; Henderson, Tex.; Second Infantry Division.
NEAL, Jacob H., 23, Cpl., Marines; San Marcos, Tex.; Fourth Marine Division.
RECHENMACHER, William J., 24, Specialist, Army; Jacksonville, Fla.; First Cavalry Division.
SCHOCKMEL, Collin R., 19, Specialist, Army; Richwood, Tex.; Second Infantry Division.
VALDIVIA, Jennifer A., 27, Petty Officer First Class; Cambridge, Ill.; Naval Security Force, Naval Support Activity.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/us/23list.html

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

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

Iraqi Civilians :

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

54,432 – 60,098 : Killed since 1/03

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

Source : http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 21 January 2007: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/27/

Iraq Military :

30,000 : Killed since 2003

Source : http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists :

146 : Killed since 3/03

Source : www.rsf.org

Refugees :

1.6 million : Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

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

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

U.S. Military Wounded:

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

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

The Guardian Iraq war casualty report: 1/31

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January 21, 2007

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Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi civilians:
50 Iraqi civilains were killed Tuesday (1/30/07) in violent attacks across Iraq. Attacks were directed at yesterday’s Shiite religious celebrations and serve as another example of the deepened syzygetic divide between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, according to the New York Times.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/world/middleeast/31iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

55,305 – 60,991: Killed since 1/03

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

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 28 January 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/28/

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

U.S. military:

3,365: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

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

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

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

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

151: Killed since 3/03

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

Refugees:

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

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6293807.stm

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

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

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

U.S. Military Wounded:

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

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

The Iraq casualty report: How many more will die for Bush’s mistakes?

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January 18, 2007

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

As a former infantryman (hell, advanced infantryman, during the Cold War of l958-60), I can tell you that my heart breaks every time I read the daily statistics of the fallen and the dead in Iraq, military and civilian.

Young men just like the four young men listed as dying yesterday: usually young men, some young women, usually young, privates and sergeants and specialists and second lieutenants, not many older officers, from the little towns and rural communities around the country.

And I know, once Bush’s surge strategy starts putting more young men into the neighborhoods and the crossfire of a bitter sectarian civil war, that the statistics of the dead and wounded is likely to rise dramatically and keep rising dramatically. And so the question remains: how many more will die because of Bush’s mistakes?

We will regularly run a snapshot of the war casualties from the best sources that we can find. This is today’s compilation by Paula Connelly of the Guardian staff. B3

Casualties in Iraq

U.S. Military:
4: Killed 1/17/07

Names:

Anderson, Ian C., 22, Sgt., Army; Prairie Village, Kan.; First Cavalry Division.
Cooper, John E., 29, Sgt., Army; Ewing, Ky.; First Cavalry Division.
Daily, Mark J., 23, Second Lt., Army; Irvine, Calif.; First Cavalry Division.
Grimm, Matthew T., 21, Specialist, Army; Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.; First Cavalry Division.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/world/middleeast/18iraq.html

3,037: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

Source: http://www.sunmt.org/intro.html

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

Iraqi Civilians :
98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

53,954 – 59,571 : Killed since 1/03

Source : http://www.iraqbodycount.net

Iraq Military :
30,000 : Killed since 2003

Source : http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists :
146 : Killed since 3/03

Source : http://www.ifex.org

Refugees :
1.6 million : Iraqis displaced internally
1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

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

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

SATURDAY

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January 17, 2007

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JAN. 20

FILM

Ocean Film Festival

You can keep your March of the Penguins — I’m more a
march-of-the-creepy-crawlies gal, so I’ll be happy as
a clam at the San Francisco Ocean Film Festival when I
check out The World of the Gastropods, by Danny van
Belle, a slow-motion video on the deep-sea environment
of the nudibranch and the sea snail. The second
ocean-related film festival in the world, this series
of seven programs of short films ranges in topic from
life in an Australian whaling village to a slumside
surfing school in Rio de Janeiro. (Nicole Gluckstern)

Also Sun/21; see Web site for times
$10 individual programs; $60 festival pass
Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center
Marina at Laguna, SF
(415) 561-6251
www.oceanfilmfest.org

MUSIC

Rhett Miller

Rhett Miller is probably as well known for his great
contributions to alt-country as he is for being an
indie heartthrob. The singer and principal songwriter
for the rock-laced country quartet the Old 97’s wrote
the melodic title track on his recent solo release,
The Believer (Verve Forecast, 2006), as a reaction to
the tragic suicide of his friend, musician Elliott
Smith. Don’t worry: the album has a lighter side. The
rest of The Believer, according to Miller, was
inspired by “sex, war, love, and death … but mostly
sex.” (Hayley Elisabeth Kaufman)

With Gran Bel Fisher
7:30 p.m., $25
Swedish Music Hall
2170 Market, SF
(415) 861-5016
www.cafedunord.com

The secret spies

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January 17, 2007

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

To view the TALON documents in PDF format (524 pages) click here.

To view the full ACLU report click here.

The Pentagon has released to the Guardian and the American Civil Liberties Union 534 pages of documents reutf8g to domestic surveillance — and we don’t know much of anything new about the notorious Threat and Local Observation Notice (TALON) program.

The vast majority of the documents, released under the Freedom of Information Act, are entirely blacked out or heavily redacted. It’s clear there has been a lot of high-level discussion about policies and procedures related to military spying on civilians — but the government isn’t coming clean about more than a sliver of it.

One thing the records do show is that the Pentagon at one point had between 12,000 and 13,000 files in its TALON database — and 2,821 contained information about "U.S. persons." At least 186 of the reports in the files involved antiwar or antimilitary protests.

The Guardian and the ACLU went to federal court in 2006 to demand access to Pentagon records related to domestic surveillance after Santa Cruz Students Against the War and the Berkeley Anti-War Coalition compiled evidence to suggest that they had been the subject of TALON spying.

TALON was originally designed to monitor threats against military bases, but its mission expanded to encompass, for example, protests against military recruiters on the Santa Cruz campus. Pentagon officials admitted in December 2005 that the Santa Cruz student group was spied on under the TALON program.

In fact, documents we received earlier show that data about the student group were shared with the Department of Homeland Security and the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which works with local police agencies (see "No End to Pentagon Spying," 7/5/06).

Initial documents received last year showed that, as of early 2006, there were no clear rules barring the military from conducting surveillance on peaceful protesters. The new documents indicate that in January and February of that year top Pentagon officials ordered a review of procedures and set some restrictions on retaining files on people who were not considered imminent threats.

One document states that information on protesters "has not been provided by recruited sources of information" — in other words, the military wasn’t sending spies to watch protests — but concludes that "this statement is not intended to state that TALON reporting could not result from recruited sources or tasked personnel."

That only confirms what we had learned already: that there is no formal ban on armed forces personnel spying on protesters or planting sources inside peaceful groups or peaceful protests.

However, the operation seems to be winding down a bit. By June 16, 2006, one of the few uncensored documents shows, TALON reports had dropped by 80 percent.

It wasn’t easy to get even these highly censored records. The Guardian-ACLU request was stymied at first, and only after Federal Judge William Alsup on May 25, 2006, ordered an expedited review did the US Army, Navy, and Air Force begin to grudgingly release a few tidbits of information.

It’s astounding how heavily redacted the documents are. Page after page after page shows that high-level policy discussions around TALON and domestic surveillance were taking place at the Department of Defense in January and February 2006 — but military officials won’t reveal a bit about the nature of those talks or the policies that resulted.

"The amount of information that’s redacted is significant," ACLU police practices lawyer Mark Schlosberg noted. "We understand the need for certain information to be kept confidential, but discussion about policies involving domestic surveillance is something the public has a strong interest in." *

Control of resources

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January 17, 2007

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Among the usual tidings of war and occupation, the recent holiday season brought news that hundreds of people had been burned alive in a pipeline explosion in Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria and its largest city. They were gathered around a section reportedly ruptured by a criminal gang of "bunkerers" siphoning petrol from the state-owned oil company prior to selling it on the black market.

In a cutting irony wasted on few in Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer (the fifth largest importer to the United States — and rising) has struggled for years with a serious fuel shortage. Within the crowded Abule Egba district of Lagos, where December’s horrible scene took place, low-paid workers and their families often forgo caution in the event of a pipeline rupturing to fill pails and cans with the desperately needed liquid, either for use in their own vehicles and home generators or for resale on the black market, where a small amount can equal several weeks’ wages.

To read the news reports on these accidents (if that’s the right term for such acts of desperation) is usually to miss much of the complex picture lying behind the scenes in Africa’s most populous and oil-rich country. The politics of oil in Nigeria reaches deep into an increasingly fractured society and far beyond its national borders.

Needless to say, it’s a lot for a lone actor-playwright to take on, even one playing multiple characters over the course of two hours. But young solo performer Dan Hoyle seems to thrive on such challenges. Developed with and directed by veteran solo performer Charlie Varon, Tings Dey Happen brings the 25-year-old Hoyle’s American theater audience a powerfully etched human-scale impression of the scope of oil politics in Nigeria as he discovered it during a 10-month trip in 2005 as a Fulbright scholar.

Without benefit of costume or scenery and with merely an atmospheric sound design (courtesy of David Hines) and some key lighting shifts (by Patti Meyer), Hoyle soon establishes his setting with a series of quick-change characterizations amid a bustling city street in Lagos. Affecting the pidgin English that is the lingua franca of Nigeria and smoothly transitioning through various postures and demeanors, Hoyle re-creates his reception as a white American sore thumb. From there we travel with him widely, from stops at the US Embassy and local bars frequented by expat oil workers to the network of swamps and streams in the delta known simply as "the creeks," the territory of dozens of militia groups at war with the state and one another for the liberation of the delta and a share of the oil money.

In all, Hoyle plays more than 20 characters based on people he met and interviewed. There’s also a friendly Nigerian stage manager who does not hesitate in taking exception to the character Dan’s sometimes overly downbeat treatment of the subject matter or spurring the crowd to let go of its Bay Area mind-set and try to adopt a more Nigerian one.

Hoyle also gained access to some highly placed people in Lagos. In addition to a somewhat unctuous US ambassador, for instance, Dan memorably meets the antigovernment rebel leader and Ijaw warlord Asari (a.k.a. Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, or Asari Dokubo), the Muslim militant whose forces have declared war on the Nigerian state and the oil companies who they (with justification) say have usurped and wreaked havoc on Ijaw land.

Throughout, Dan is glimpsed only in stories told by those he met. He’s the young white American who’s (remarkably) neither a Christian missionary nor a petrochemical engineer; who wants, crazily, to study oil politics (prompting one wag to advise him to practice ducking, as he’s sure to be shot at); who, to one local’s amazement and consternation, doesn’t know how to fix a computer.

Tings is a history lesson and a political lesson — even a geography lesson (the Niger Delta "is like your Mississippi Delta," the stage manager explains with knowing understatement, "but there are more guns"). But the show is also very much an entertainment and a display of performance prowess. Hoyle — whose first solo endeavor, Circumnavigator, was followed by Florida 2004: The Big Bummer, a report from a front line in the last presidential election — has made this multicharacter reportage-bricolage his forte, backing it with the limber facility of a physically disciplined actor and natural mimic.

There’s a certain admirable audacity in Hoyle’s Nigeria project, not just in his fearless reconnaissance of deeply troubled waters — especially among the battle-hardened rebels of the creeks — but in his willingness to boldly assume the voices and personae of ordinary Nigerians, to step inside their perspectives and encourage his American audiences to follow.

In what’s perhaps an overly eager attempt to please, however, his characters tend to be eccentrics. And in some cases the characterizations feel more put on, along the lines of caricature, than fully embodied. While invariably absorbing, the sum of these parts may also lend a skewed impression of the average Nigerian. There’s no mention, for example, of the nonviolent resistance led by women and student organizations against the exploitation of Nigerian people, land, and resources. (The only female character essayed in Tings is a sympathetically indignant prostitute.)

Moreover, the play’s two hours could stand trimming and focusing (a malaria-fueled fever dream in which Dan is visited by competing advice givers Graham Greene and Richard Pryor, for example, is only weakly funny and hence all the more tangential). These quibbles aside, Hoyle’s work brings a burgeoning talent to a still woefully neglected subject that, as presented here, is both absorbing in its dramatic complexity and urgent in its political import. *

TINGS DEY HAPPEN

Through Feb. 10

Thurs.–Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 5 p.m., $15–$22

Marsh

1062 Valencia, SF

(415) 826-5750

1-800-838-3006

www.themarsh.org

>

Dine Listings

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January 16, 2007

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Welcome to our dining listings, a detailed guide by neighborhood of some great places to grab a bite, hang out with friends, or impress the ones you love with thorough knowledge of this delectable city. Restaurants are reviewed by Paul Reidinger (PR) or staff. All area codes are 415, and all restaurants are wheelchair accessible, except where noted.

B Breakfast

BR Saturday and/or Sunday brunch

L Lunch

D Dinner

AE American Express

DC Diners Club

DISC Discover

MC MasterCard

V Visa

¢ less than $7 per entrée

$ $7–$12

$$ $13–$20

$$$ more than $20

DOWNTOWN/EMBARCADERO

Acme Chophouse brings Traci des Jardins’s high-end meat-and-potatoes menu right into the confines of Pac Bell Park. Good enough to be a destination, though stranguutf8g traffic is an issue on game days. (Staff) 24 Willie Mays Plaza, SF. 644-0240. American, L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.

Café Claude is a hidden treasure of the city center. There is an excellent menu of traditional, discreetly citified French dishes, a youthful energy, and a romantic setting on a narrow, car-free lane reminiscent of the Marais. (PR, 10/06) 7 Claude Lane, SF. 392-3515. French, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Fleur de Lys gives its haute French cuisine a certain California whimsy in a setting that could be the world’s most luxurious tent. There is a vegetarian tasting menu and an extensive, remarkably pricey wine list. (PR, 2/05) 777 Sutter, SF. 673-7779. French, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Mandarin, though a Gen Xer by birth and a longtime resident of touristy Ghirardelli Square, still offers a matchlessly elegant experience in Chinese fine dining: a surprising number of genuinely spicy dishes, superior service, and wine emphasized over beer. (PR, 9/04) 900 North Point (in Ghirardelli Square), SF. Chinese, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

*Mijita shows that Traci des Jardins can go down-market with the best of them. The Mexican street food is convincingly lusty, but in keeping with the Ferry Building setting, it’s also made mostly with organic, high-quality ingredients. (PR, 4/05) 1 Ferry Bldg, Suite 44, SF. 399-0814. Mexican, B/L/D, ¢, AE/MC/V.

Tlaloc rises like a multistory loft on its Financial District lane, the better to accommodate the hordes of suits crowding in for a noontime burrito-and-salsa fix. They serve a mean pipián burrito and decent fish tacos. (Staff) 525 Commercial, SF. 981-7800. Mexican, L/D, ¢, AE/MC/V.

Tommy Toy’s Haute Cuisine Chinois is a cross between a steak house and The Last Emperor. The food is rich and fatty and only occasionally good. (Staff) 655 Montgomery, SF. 397-4888. Chinese, L/D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

NORTH BEACH/CHINATOWN

Gondola captures the varied flavors of Venice and the Veneto in charmingly low-key style. The main theme is the classic one of simplicity, while service strikes just the right balance between efficiency and warmth. (Staff) 15 Columbus, SF. 956-5528. Italian, L/D, $, MC/V.

House of Nanking never fails to garner raves from restaurant reviewers and Guardian readers alike. Chinatown ambience, great food, good prices. (Best Ofs, 1994) 919 Kearny, SF. 421-1429. Chinese, L/D, ¢.

Maykadeh Persian Cuisine is a great date restaurant, classy but not too pricey, and there are lots of veggie options both for appetizers and entrées. Khoresht bademjan was a delectable, deep red stew of tomato and eggplant with a rich, sweet, almost chocolatey undertone. (Staff) 470 Green, SF. 362-8286. Persian, L/D, $, MC/V.

Moose’s is famous for the Mooseburger, but the rest of the menu is comfortably sophisticated. The crowd is moneyed but not showy and definitely not nouveau. (Staff) 1652 Stockton, SF. 989-7800. American, BR/L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.

Rose Pistola cooks it up in the style of Liguria, and that means lots of seafood, olive oil, and lemons — along with a wealth of first-rate flat breads (pizzas, focaccias, farinatas) baked in the wood-burning oven. (PR, 7/05) 532 Columbus, SF. 399-0499. Italian, L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.

Washington Square Bar and Grill offers stylish Cal-Ital food at reasonable prices in a storied setting. (Staff) 1707 Powell, SF. 982-8123. Italian, $$, L/D, MC/V.

SOMA

Hawthorne Lane remains at the top of the city’s restaurant heap after more than a decade. Bridget Batson’s modern California cuisine is first-rate, the ambience a perfection of understated elegance, and the service knowledgeable, friendly, and smooth. It is not possible to ask more from any restaurant. (PR, 9/06) 22 Hawthorne, SF. 777-9779. California, L/D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Julie’s Supper Club and Lounge II preserves the name of a longtime SoMa institution while bringing a new fusion menu to the table. The food at its best is innovative — a sushi-like presentation of somen noodles, an asparagus version of pigs in a blanket — but prices are a little high for what you get. Excellent atmospherics. (PR, 11/06) 1123 Folsom, SF. 864-1222. Fusion/eclectic, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Koh Samui and the Monkey joins a high-value Thai menu with a spare, hip SoMa warehouse look. The sweet-hot food tends more toward the former than the latter but is excellent nonetheless. As for heat, check out the youngish crowd in their crest-of-1999, dot-com finery. (PR, 1/07) 415 Brannan, SF. 369-0007. Thai, L/D, $, MC/V.

Oola gives Ola Fendert his own platform at last, and the result is a modern, golden SoMa restaurant with a menu that mixes playful opulence with local standards. (PR, 10/04) 860 Folsom, SF. 995-2061. California, D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Roy’s Restaurant promises "Hawaiian fusion" cuisine, but while there are island touches (macadamia nuts turn up in various guises), the place seems right at home on Mission Street. The cooking, once noted for a certain overwroughtness, has become elegantly restrained, and a three-course $35 prix fixe dinner is one of the better deals of its kind around town. (PR, 12/06) 575 Mission, SF. 777-0277. Hawaiian/fusion, L/D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Salt House offers a nice Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-tours-a-19th-century-factory look and utterly up-to-date California pub food, an entertaining hodgepodge that ranges from a crock of house-picked vegetables to panko-crusted mackerel to an oozingly moist chocolate Bundt cake, still warm from the oven, plus interesting proprietary-blend wines. (PR, 12/06) 545 Mission, SF. 543-8900. California/pub, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

NOB HILL/RUSSIAN HILL

Ah Lin offers Mandarin-style Chinese cooking in an easy-to-take storefront setting on Cathedral Hill. The dishes are well behaved and tasty, with only an occasional flare-up of chile heat. The roast duck is one of the best deals in town. (PR, 10/06) 1634 Bush, SF. 922-5279. Chinese, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Alborz looks more like a hotel restaurant than a den of Persian cuisine, but there are flavors here — of barberry and dried lime, among others — you won’t easily find elsewhere. (Staff) 1245 Van Ness, SF. 440-4321. Persian, L/D, $, MC/V.

East Coast West Delicatessen doesn’t look like a New York deli (too much space, air, light), but the huge, fattily satisfying Reubens, platters of meat loaf, black-and-white cookies, and all the other standards compare commendably to their East Coast cousins. (Staff) 1725 Polk, SF. 563-3542. Deli, BR/L/D, $, MC/V.

La Folie could be a neighborhood spot or a destination or both, but either way or both ways it is sensational: an exercise in haute cuisine leavened with a West Coast sense of informality and playfulness. There is a full vegetarian menu and an ample selection of wines by the half bottle. (PR, 2/06) 2316 Polk, SF. 776-5577. French, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

O’Reilly’s Holy Grail, a redo of the old Maye’s Oyster House that strikes harmonious notes of chapel and lounge, serves a sophisticated and contemporary Cal-Irish menu. (PR, 10/05) 1233 Polk, SF. 928-1233. California/Irish, BR/L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

CIVIC CENTER/TENDERLOIN

Ananda Fuara serves a distinctly Indian-influenced vegetarian menu in the sort of calm surroundings that are increasingly the exception to the rule. (Staff) 1298 Market, SF. 621-1994. Vegetarian, L/D, ¢, cash only.

*Bodega Bistro has a certain colonial formality — much of the menu is given in French — and it does attract a tony expat crowd. The food is elegant but not fancy (lobster, rack of lamb, both simply presented); if even those are too much, look to the "Hanoi Street Cuisine" items. (PR, 11/05) 607 Larkin, SF. 921-1218. Vietnamese, L/D, $$, DC/DISC/MC/V.

Mangosteen radiates lime green good cheer from its corner perch in the Tenderloin. Inexpensive Vietnamese standards are rendered with thoughtful little touches and an emphasis on the freshest ingredients. (PR, 11/05) 601 Larkin, SF. 776-3999. Vietnamese, L/D, $, cash only.

*Saha serves "Arabic fusion cuisine" — a blend of the Middle East and California — in a cool, spare setting behind the concierge’s desk at the Hotel Carlton. One senses the imminence of young rock stars, drawn perhaps by the lovely chocolate fondue. (PR, 9/04) 1075 Sutter, SF. 345-9547. Arabic/fusion, B/BR/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

HAYES VALLEY

Arlequin offers light Provençal and Mediterranean food for takeout, but the best place to take your stuff is to the sunny, tranquil garden in the rear. (Staff) 384B Hayes, SF. 863-0926. Mediterranean, B/L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Canto do Brasil The draw here is lusty yeoman cooking, Brazilian style, at beguilingly low prices. The tropically cerulean interior design enhances the illusion of sitting at a beach café. (Staff) 41 Franklin, SF. 626-8727. Brazilian, L/D, $, MC/V.

Destino reweaves traditional Peruvian flavors into a tapestry of extraordinary vividness and style, and the storefront interior has been given a golden glow that would have satisfied the most restless conquistador. (Staff) 1815 Market, SF. 552-4451. Peruvian, D, $$, MC/V.

Hayes Street Grill started more than a quarter century ago as an emulation of the city’s old seafood houses, and now it’s an institution itself. The original formula — immaculate seafood simply prepared, with choice of sauce and French fries — still beats vibrantly at the heart of the menu. Service is impeccable, the setting one of relaxed grace. (PR, 7/06) 816 Folsom, SF. 863-5545. Seafood, L/D, $$$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

Sauce enjoys the services of chef Ben Paula, whose uninhibited California cooking is as easy to like as a good pop song. (PR, 5/05) 131 Gough, SF. 252-1369. California, D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

CASTRO/NOE VALLEY/GLEN PARK

Ararat Mediterranean Tapas affords the view-minded a good setting from which to scope the foot traffic at 18th Street and Castro, along with a Turkish-scented Mediterranean menu rich in small plates and some bigger ones too. The menu’s smash hits include coins of lavash-wrapped beef (a kind of Middle Eastern beef Wellington), an enslavingly good shrimp casserole, and a coil of baklava with lavender honey. (PR, 8/06) 4072 18th St, SF. 252-9325. Mediterranean/Turkish, BR/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Eureka Restaurant and Lounge combines, in the old Neon Chicken space, a classic Castro sensibility (mirrors everywhere, fancy sparkling water) with a stylish all-American menu that reflects Boulevard and Chenery Park bloodlines. Prices are high. (PR, 12/06) 4063 18th St. SF. 431-6000. American, D, $$$, AE/MC/V.

*Firefly remains an exemplar of the neighborhood restaurant in San Francisco: it is homey and classy, hip and friendly, serving an American menu — deftly inflected with ethnic and vegetarian touches — that’s the match of any in the city. (PR, 9/04) 4288 24th St, SF. 821-7652. American, D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Toast welcomes families with little children — pancakes from dawn to dusk! — as well as monied young adults, who tend to gather for weekend brunch. The deli-ish menu emphasizes sandwiches, but care is taken in the details, from a bewitching bit of paprika in the lentil soup to generous parmesan shavings and fresh croutons on the Caesar salad. (PR, 1/07) 1748 Church, SF. 282-4328. American, B/BR/L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

2223 could easily be a happening queer bar, what with all that male energy. But the American menu joins familiarity with high style, and the ambience is that of a great party where you’re bound to meet somebody hot. (Staff) 2223 Market, SF. 431-0692. American, BR/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.

HAIGHT/COLE VALLEY/WESTERN ADDITION

*Frankie’s Bohemian Cafe has Pilsner Urquell, a Bohemian beer, on tap for a touch of Czech authenticity, but the crowd is young, exuberant, Pacific Heights, het. Follow the crowd and stick with the burgers. (PR, 2/05) 1682 Divisadero, SF. 921-4725. Czech/American, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Grandeho’s Kamekyo Sushi Bar Always packed, Grandeho serves up excellent sushi along with a full Japanese menu. (Staff) 943 Cole, SF. 759-5693. Japanese, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Hukilau brings a dash of Big Island conviviality — and Big Island (i.e., big) portions — to a wind- and traffic-swept corner of the big city. Spam too, if you want it. (Staff) 5 Masonic, SF. 921-6242. Hawaiian/American, BR/L/D, $, MC/V.

Kate’s Kitchen dishes up the best scallion-cheese biscuits out west. The lines on the weekends can be long. (Staff) 471 Haight, SF. 626-3984. American, B/L, ¢.

Metro Cafe brings the earthy chic of Paris’s 11th arrondissement to the Lower Haight, prix fixe and all. (Staff) 311 Divisadero, SF. 552-0903. French, B/BR/L/D, $, MC/V.

New Ganges Restaurant is short on style — it is as if the upmarket revolution in vegetarian restaurants never happened — but there is a homemade freshness to the food you won’t find at many other places. (Staff) 775 Frederick, SF. 681-4355. Vegetarian/Indian, L/D, $, MC/V.

Tsunami Sushi and Sake Bar brings hip Japanese-style seafood to the already hip Café Abir complex. Skull-capped sushi chefs, hefty and innovative rolls. (Staff) 1306 Fulton, SF. 567-7664. Japanese/sushi, D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Zoya takes some finding — it is in the little turret of the Days Inn Motor Lodge at Grove and Gough — but the view over the street’s treetops is bucolic, and the cooking is simple, seasonal, direct, and ingredient driven. (PR, 12/05) 465 Grove, SF. 626-9692. California, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

MISSION/BERNAL HEIGHTS/POTRERO HILL

Aslam’s Rasoi reinvents a gently fading curry house as a high-powered rival to Dosa, in the next block. The food is fiery and elegant, and the menu strikes a fine balance between fleshly and fleshless choices. Desserts are not bad, particularly kulfi, a house-made cardamom ice cream presented like a frozen sliced banana. (PR, 8/06) 1037 Valencia, SF. 695-0599. Indian/Pakistani, D, $$, MC/V.

Baobab Bar and Grill serves great-tasting West African specialties like couscous, fried plantains, and savory rice dishes for a reasonable price. (Staff) 3388 19th St, SF. 643-3558. African, BR/D, ¢.

Baraka takes the French-Spanish tapas concept, gives it a beguiling Moroccan accent — harissa, preserved lemons, merguez sausage — and the result is astonishingly good food. (Staff) 288 Connecticut, SF. 255-0370. Moroccan/Mediterranean, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Blue Plate has a diner aura — bustle, clatter — but the Mediterranean food is stylishly flavorful. A great value. (Staff) 3218 Mission, SF. 282-6777. Mediterranean, D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Bombay Ice Cream and Chaat Stop in for some Indian chaat — cheap, delicious fast food such as samosas and curries. (Staff) 552 Valencia, SF. 431-1103. Indian takeout, L/D, ¢.

Caffe d’Melanio is the place to go if you want your pound of coffee beans roasted while you enjoy an Argentine-Italian dinner of pasta, milanesa, and chimichurri sauce. During the day the café offers a more typically Cal-American menu of better-than-average quality. First-rate coffee beans. (PR, 10/04) 1314 Ocean, SF. 333-3665. Italian/Argentine, B/L/D, $, MC/V.

Chez Papa Bistro sits like a beret atop Potrero Hill. The food is good, the staff’s French accents authentic, the crowd a lively cross section, but the place needs a few more scuffs and quirks before it can start feeling real. (Staff) 1401 18th St, SF. 824-8210. French, BR/L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

*Delfina has grown from a neighborhood restaurant to an event, but an expanded dining room has brought the noise under control, and as always, the food — intense variations on a theme of Tuscany — could not be better. (PR, 2/04) 3621 18th St, SF. 552-4055. California, D, $$, MC/V.

Dosa serves dosas, the south Indian crepes, along with a wealth of other, and generally quite spicy, dishes from the south of the subcontinent. The cooking tends toward a natural meatlessness; the crowds are intense, like hordes of passengers inquiring about a delayed international flight. (PR, 1/06) 995 Valencia, SF. 642-3672. South Indian, BR/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Front Porch mixes a cheerfully homey setting (with a front porch of sorts), a hipster crowd, and a Caribbean-inflected comfort menu into a distinctive urban cocktail. The best dishes, such as a white polenta porridge with crab, are Range-worthy, and nothing on the menu is much more than $10. (PR, 10/06) 65A 29th St, SF. 695-7800. American/Caribbean, BR/D, $, MC/V.

*Little Nepal assembles a wealth of sensory cues (sauna-style blond wood, brass table services) and an Indian-influenced Himalayan cuisine into a singular experience that appeals to all of Bernal Heights and beyond, including tots in their strollers. (Staff) 925 Cortland, SF. 643-3881. Nepalese, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Lombardo’s Fine Foods is the little café that could, in Mission Terrace. The menu is heavy on pastas and casseroles, many made from owner-chef John Lombardo’s family recipes. The orzo salad is particularly good. (PR, 9/06) 1818 San Jose, SF. 337-9741. Italian/American, BR/L/D, $, MC/V

Maharaja offers romantically half-lit pastels and great spicy food, including a fine chicken tikka masala and a dish of lamb chunks in dal. Lunch forswears the usual steam-table buffet in favor of set specials, as in a Chinese place. (Staff) 525 Valencia, SF. 552-7901. Indian, L/D, $, MC/V.

Maverick holds several winning cards, including a menu of first-rate New American food, a clutch of interesting wines by the glass and half glass, and a handsome, spare Mission District setting discreetly cushioned for sound control. (PR, 9/05) 3316 17th St, SF. 863-3061. American, L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

Medjool doesn’t offer much by way of its namesake date, food of the ancient pharaohs, but the pan-Mediterranean menu (which emphasizes small plates) is mostly tasty, and the setting is appealingly layered, from a sidewalk terrace to a moody dining room behind a set of big carved-wood doors. (PR, 11/04) 2522 Mission, SF. 550-9055. Mediterranean, B/L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

Mi Lindo Yucatán looks a bit tatty inside, but the regional Mexican cooking is cheap and full of pleasant surprises. (PR, 3/04) 401 Valencia, SF. 861-4935. Mexican, L/D, ¢, cash only.

Moki’s Sushi and Pacific Grill serves imaginative specialty makis along with items from a pan-Asian grill in a small, bustling neighborhood spot. (Staff) 615 Cortland, SF. 970-9336. Japanese, D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.

Pakwan has a little secret: a secluded garden out back. It’s the perfect place to enjoy the fiery foods of India and Pakistan. (Staff) 3180 16th St, SF. 255-2440. Indian/Pakistani, L/D, ¢, cash only.

Papalote Mexican Grill relieves our Mexican favorites of much of their fat and calories without sacrificing flavor. Surprisingly excellent soyrizo and aguas frescas; sexily varied crowd. (Staff) 3409 24th St, SF. 970-8815. Mexican, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Regalito Rosticeria offers spanking-fresh versions of Mexico City street-cart food in a warm setting of glossy wood, stainless steel, and glass. The long counter, backed by a busy exhibition kitchen, is epic. (PR, 12/06) 3481 18th St., SF. 503-0650. Mexican, L/D, $, AE/DISC/MC/V.

MARINA/PACIFIC HEIGHTS/LAUREL HEIGHTS

L’Amour dans le Four gives a nice local boho twist to classic French bistro style. Many dishes from the oven. Tiny, noisy, intimate. (Staff) 1602 Lombard, SF. 775-2134. French, D, $, AE/MC/V.

Betelnut Peiju Wu is a pan-Asian version of a tapas bar, drawing a sleek postcollegiate crowd with its wide assortment of dumplings, noodles, soups, and snacks. (Staff) 2030 Union, SF. 929-8855. Asian, L/D, $$, MC/V.

Dragon Well looks like an annex of the cavernous Pottery Barn down the street, but its traditional Chinese menu is radiant with fresh ingredients and careful preparation. Prices are modest, the service swift and professional. (Staff) 2142 Chestnut, SF. 474-6888. Chinese, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Rigolo combines the best of Pascal Rigo’s boulangeries — including the spectacular breads — with some of the simpler elements (such as roast chicken) of his higher-end places. The result is excellent value in a bustling setting. (PR, 1/05) 3465 California, SF. 876-7777. California/Mediterranean, B/L/D, $, MC/V.

Sushi Groove is easily as cool as its name. Behind wasabi green velvet curtains, salads can be inconsistent, but the sushi is impeccable, especially the silky salmon and special white tuna nigiri. (Staff) 1916 Hyde, SF. 440-1905. Japanese, D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Taste of the Himalayas is primarily Nepalese, but the Indian influences on the food are many, and there are a few Tibetan items. Spicing is vivid, value excellent. (PR, 10/04) 2420 Lombard, SF. 674-9898. Nepalese/Tibetan, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Tortilla Heights brings the Pac Heights, blond-het-frat vibe into the Western Addition and nourishes it with surprisingly good Mexican food. The menu is familiar, but the dishes are executed with care and panache, and there are some regional specialties. Open late. (PR, 9/06) 1750 Divisadero, SF. 346-4531. Mexican, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

SUNSET

Bullshead Restaurant offers buffalo burgers in various guises, and they are worth the price of the ticket (about a dollar more). The West Portal location is a slice of Route 66 Americana, while the newer Castro operation has an upstairs-downstairs, creaky-Victorian-staircase aura. The menu boasts good fries and a surprisingly convincing vegetarian burger. (PR, 11/06) 840 Ulloa, SF. 665-4350; 4230 18th St., SF. 431-4201. American/burgers, L/D, $, MC/V.

Le Charm might be in San Francisco, but it has a bistro authenticity even Parisians could love, from a wealth of golden wood trim to an enduring loyalty au prix fixe. The chicken liver salad is matchless, the succinct wine list distinctly Californian. Ponder it in the idyllic, trellised garden. (PR, 9/06) 315 Fifth St, SF. 546-6128. French, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

*Dragonfly serves the best contemporary Vietnamese food in town, in a calmer environment and at a fraction of the cost of better-known places. (PR, 8/05) 420 Judah, SF. 661-7755. Vietnamese, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

KL Restaurant is a Hong Kong-style seafood house that presents its wide array of creatures from the deep in an equally wide array of guises. Particularly good: the sampan-style dishes. If you’re not in an oceanic mood, the land-based stuff is good too. (PR/ 11/06) 4401 Balboa, SF. 666-9928. Chinese/seafood, L/D, $$, MC/V.

Pisces California Cuisine brings a touch of SoMa sophistication to an Outer Sunset neighborhood in need of paint. (You can’t miss the restaurant’s black facade.) The kitchen turns out a variety of seafood preparations — the clam chowder is terrific — and offers an appealing prix fixe option at both lunch and dinner. (PR, 8/06) 3414-3416 Judah, SF. 564-2233. Seafood, L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

So Restaurant brings the heat, in the form of huge soup and noodle — and soupy noodle — dishes, many of them liberally laced with hot peppers and chiles. The pot stickers are homemade and exceptional, the crowd young and noisy. Cheap. (PR, 10/06) 2240 Irving, SF. 731-3143. Chinese/noodles, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

RICHMOND

*Aziza shimmers with Moroccan grace, from the pewter ewer and basin that circulate for the washing of hands to the profusion of preserved Meyer lemons in the splendid cooking. (Staff) 5800 Geary, SF. 752-2222. Moroccan, D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Be My Guest Thai Bistro offers tasty vegetarian-friendly food in a campy-hip setting reminiscent of an old Woody Allen movie. Tofu larb is surprisingly successful. (PR, 9/06) 951 Clement, SF. 386-1942. Thai, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

*Chapeau! serves some of the best food in the city — at shockingly reasonable prices. The French cooking reflects as much style and imagination as any California menu. (Staff) 1408 Clement, SF. 750-9787. French, D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.

Spices! has an exclamation point for a reason: its Chinese food, mainly Szechuan and Taiwanese, with an oasis of Shanghai-style dishes, is fabulously hot. Big young crowds, pulsing house music, a shocking orange and yellow paint scheme. Go prepared, leave happy. (Staff) 294 Eighth Ave, SF. 752-8884. Szechuan/Chinese, L/D, $, MC/V.

Sutro’s at Cliff House has a Miami-to-Malibu feel and offers a "California coastal" menu that appeals to tourists and locals alike. You can get everything from gumbo to seafood red curry to falafel while resting assured that the kitchen is honoring the local-seasonal-sustainable imperative. The setting — a glass house perched at the foamy edge of the Pacific — is timelessly spectacular. (PR, 7/06) 1090 Point Lobos, SF. 386-3330. Eclectic, L/D, $$$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

BAYVIEW/HUNTERS POINT/SOUTH

Cliff’s Bar-B-Q and Seafood Some things Cliff’s got going for him: excellent mustard greens, just drenched in flavorfulness, and barbecued you name it. Brisket. Rib tips. Hot links. Pork ribs. Beef ribs. Baby backs. And then there are fried chickens and, by way of health food, fried fishes. (Staff) 2177 Bayshore, SF. 330-0736. Barbecue, L/D, ¢, AE/DC/MC/V.

Old Clam House really is old — it’s been in the same location since the Civil War — but the seafood preparations are fresh, in an old-fashioned way. Matchless cioppino. Sports types cluster at the bar, under the shadow of a halved, mounted Jaguar E-type. (Staff) 299 Bayshore, SF. 826-4880. Seafood, L/D, $$, MC/V.

Taqueria el Potrillo serves one of the best chicken burritos in town, if not the best. You can get your bird grilled or barbecued or have steak instead or tacos. Excellent salsas and aguas frescas, and warmer weather than practically anywhere else in town. (Staff) 300A Bayshore Blvd, SF. 642-1612. Mexican, B/L/D, ¢, cash only.

BERKELEY/EMERYVILLE/NORTH

Breads of India and Gourmet Curries The menu changes every day, so nothing is refrigerated overnight, and the curries benefit from obvious loving care. (Staff) 2448 Sacramento, Berk. (510) 848-7684. Indian, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Café de la Paz Specialties include African-Brazilian "xim xim" curries, Venezuelan corn pancakes, and heavenly blackened seacakes served with orange-onion yogurt. (Staff) 1600 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 843-0662. Latin American, BR/L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Locanda Olmo Fine versions of risotto, gnocchi, and soft polenta pie, terrific thin-crust pizzas, and good traditional desserts have made Locanda Olmo a reliable anchor in the burgeoning Elmwood neighborhood. (Staff) 2985 College, Berk. (510) 848-5544. Italian, D, $, MC/V.

OAKLAND/ALAMEDA

Le Cheval Shrimp rolls and peanut sauce, the fried Dungeness crab, the marinated "orange flavor" beef, the buttery lemongrass prawns — it’s all fabulous. (Staff) 1007 Clay, Oakl. (510) 763-8495. Vietnamese, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Connie’s Cantina fashions unique variations on standard Mexican fare — enchiladas, tamales, fajitas, rellenos. (Staff) 3340 Grand, Oakl. (510) 839-4986. Mexican, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Rockridge Café offers bountiful breakfasts, a savory meat-loaf special, and hearty cassoulet. But the burgers, wide-cut fries, and straw-clogging milkshakes remain the cornerstones of the menu. (Staff) 5492 College, Oakl. (510) 653-1567. American, B/L/D, $, MC/V. *

Air play

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January 16, 2007

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

REVIEW There is something about "The Sculpture of Ruth Asawa: Contours in the Air," the de Young Museum’s current retrospective of Ruth Asawa’s work, that initially feels a bit like a natural history museum display. The darkened space, punctuated with spotlights, showcases Asawa’s floating woven wire forms, which look like giant representations of diatoms or plankton. The shadows this installation creates are an important factor, illustrating the concepts the artist considered during their making: positive and negative space, organic growth, and continuous line. One of the first pieces greeting visitors at the entrance resembles a hanging column of ballooning onion and bell shapes. It’s made of woven aluminum and brass wire, and Asawa describes it as a test to see how large a sculpture she could create in crocheted metal wire without it collapsing from its own weight.

A nearby glass case displays sketchbook pages from her formative art-school years. On one page a sentence stands out boldly: "DRAW AIR WITH NOTHING." The lacy forms of industrial metal wire are paralleled by the pen-and-ink drawings on the walls, some of which Asawa calls "meanderings." They’re images formed in an intuitive yet mathematically exponential process — not unlike the route her lifelong career of object making and art activism has taken.

Born in Norwalk, Calif., in 1929 and raised on her parents’ vegetable farm, Asawa was one of thousands of Japanese Americans interned during World War II. At the Santa Anita racetrack camp, she had her first formal lessons in art, taught by several Walt Disney studio animators who were also interned. After the war she attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where she studied with legendary artists and thinkers including Josef Albers and Buckminster Fuller. There she met the man who would become her husband and father to her six children, architect Albert Lanier.

After college Asawa studied in Toluca, Mexico, where she learned to crochet baskets. She pushed this traditional craft into the realm of fine art during the 1950s. Her work was chosen to represent the United States in the 1955 São Paolo Biennial, and soon after the Whitney Museum of American Art acquired her work for its collection. However, in the Bay Area, where she has lived since the ’50s, Asawa has remained relatively unknown.

THIS IS THE MODERN WORLD

At the de Young the viewer traipses past Asawa’s complex, bundled copper-wire tumbleweed puffs; wiry snowflake configurations; spongy Möbius strips; plump, electroplated copper, cactilike works; and graphically bold, obsessive-compulsive-esque lithographs and drawings. Some of these date to the late ’90s, but nonetheless, we are really wandering in a realm of late-modernist works. So by today’s postmodernist and post-postmodernist values, Asawa’s pieces don’t readily leap into a contemporary critical arena. They are, for the most part, graceful and avoid the taint of macramé kitsch, although a subtle whiff of hippie-era flavoring does hover over the exhibition. Yet before one judges her art by today’s standards, let’s look at why she merits a retrospective.

This is not Asawa’s first overview: the Oakland Museum of California held one in 2002. One dramatic mandala sculpture on display — Wintermass, from the late ’60s — is similar to the bronze gracing the front entrance to the Oakland Museum. And this isn’t the only Asawa piece available for free viewing in the Bay Area — she is far more ubiquitous than many locals realize. Over the days following my visit to the de Young exhibition, I stumbled upon several of her public works — many of which in no way resemble the art chosen for the show. Rather, they seem to be created by an almost evil twin. Asawa’s public objects generally tend to land in a goofier, now quaint public-art aesthetic. The list includes that tourist mecca mermaid fountain at Ghirardelli Square, the sea lion statue (generally hidden under climbing children) at Pier 39, the whimsical San Francisco landscape fountain outside the Grand Hyatt San Francisco at Union Square, the pair of occasionally functioning giant origami fountains in Japantown — and the steel origami doughnut fountain (titled Aurora) near the Gap’s Embarcadero headquarters. She also helped with the design of Children’s Fairyland in Oakland and more recently a San Jose memorial dedicated to the Japanese American internment.

MAKING LOVE

Asawa was a public sculptor to be reckoned with during city upgrades in the 1970s and ’80s. She was also the force who created the revolutionary Alvarado School summer art workshops in the early ’70s. She spearheaded the creation of San Francisco’s School of the Arts High School and actively served on both state and city art boards. This exhibit includes photo documentation by Asawa’s close chum Imogen Cunningham of her early work and bohemianlike family life. Asawa saw little difference between making art and teaching it to children, which could easily make her one of the godmothers of the social practice genre. The format in which Asawa chose to display her objects early on could also make her something of a forebear of installation artists.

In a period in which homespun crafts and the DIY joys of creation — think ReadyMade magazine — are so prevalent, an appreciation of Ruth Asawa is a timely thing. Captured in the wonderfully dated 1978 documentary by Robert Snyder that’s screening at the exhibition, Asawa declares that "a line can go anywhere" and talks of the importance of being like a bulb planted in soil: she should always be growing while here on earth. Much like that enormous New England mushroom discovered expanding for miles underneath the soil, Asawa planted herself here and flourished quietly, germinating an idealistic sense of the importance of art in the community — something I hope never grows out of style. *

THE SCULPTURE OF RUTH ASAWA: CONTOURS IN THE AIR

Through Jan. 28

Tues.–Thurs. and Sat.–Sun., 9:30 a.m.–5:15 p.m.; Fri., 9:30 a.m.–8:45 p.m., $6–$10

De Young Museum

Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr., SF

(415) 750-3614

www.thinker.org

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Editor’s Notes

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January 16, 2007

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

I remember watching Jimmy Carter make a speech on TV back in early 1980, when he was trying to deal with a wrecked economy, a national "malaise" that was only partially a figment of his imagination, and the Iran hostage crisis, and all I remember telling my college roommates was this:

The guy looks like a goddamn ghost.

Carter had aged at least 20 years since his upbeat 1977 inauguration. His face was creased and haggard. His eyes were empty hollows. He appeared to be having trouble focusing on what he was saying. It was pretty clear that Carter was burned toast.

I never got that feeling about Bill Clinton. Through the health care mess, the Newt Gingrich era, Monica Lewinsky, and impeachment, he always seemed to have a grip.

But like Jimmy Carter 27 years ago, George W. Bush is falling apart.

W. was never terribly bright to begin with, but he always had that confident swagger, that tone in his voice that suggested he believed in what he was saying. On the night of Jan. 10 it was all gone.

Even on TV, with all the makeup and careful background and lighting, the president was a wreck. He looked like hell. If the guy weren’t a sober, reformed alcoholic, I’d have sworn he’d been shit-faced for the past three days. He’s just falling apart. If he weren’t such an evil prick, I’d actually feel sorry for him.

The military escalation in Iraq is such a brainless notion that I can’t figure out how Karl Rove and co. ever let it get out of the Oval Office. This is a no-win deal: even the mainstream news media, including the papers and commentators who supported the invasion and stuck with the war for years, are now pointing out that Iraq has no functioning government, that the place is run by sectarian militias and is in a state of civil war. Twenty thousand new American soldiers won’t help a bit — they’ll just be another group of targets for extremists and opportunists. Too many of them will soon be filling body bags, and too many more will be in military hospitals trying to rebuild their lives with missing limbs, near-fatal injuries, and the kind of scarred psyches that can only come from realizing you might very well be John Kerry’s famous last man to die for a mistake.

As we note in an editorial, this is probably the greatest political gift an incumbent Republican president has given the Democratic Party since Richard Nixon had his pals engage in a third-rate burglary in the Watergate office complex. The worst president in modern history is finally on the defensive, way on the defensive, and unless Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid truly bungle things, there’s no way he’s going to recover.

I’m still for impeachment (and the case looks better every day). But right now what I’m for the most is some congressional pluck. The Constitution is pretty clear on the fact that the legislative branch handles the purse strings and has the right to declare war. There’s an easy way to get the troops out of Iraq: stop writing the checks.

The war isn’t even in the Bush budget. He keeps coming back and asking for more off-line money for it. Pelosi can simply say no — not another damn dime. I wish I thought she had the courage and principles to do it. *

The new Vietnam

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January 16, 2007

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EDITORIAL And now, President George W. Bush wants to commit another 20,000 troops.

Twenty thousand more US kids, going to fight a war that can’t be won. Twenty thousand more lives in potential danger for no imaginable purpose. This isn’t the "surge" Bush has invoked; it’s an escalation, one reminiscent of the worst days of the Vietnam War, when Presidents Lyndon Johnston and then Richard Nixon sent more and more troops into a quagmire from which there was no good exit. If anything, Iraq is worse: when the United States fled Vietnam, there was at least a stable government to take over.

Bush has given the Democrats a huge opportunity here, a chance to create the sort of political sea change that only comes once or twice a decade. Watergate set the Republicans back for much of the 1970s. The energy crisis and the Iran hostage situation knocked the Democrats out of power in the 1980s, and Bill Clinton’s health care fiasco gave the GOP control of Congress in the 1990s. The Iraq War gave the House and Senate back to the Democrats last fall — and the Bush escalation could give them back the White House in 2008.

This is the end of the Bush presidency. Iraq will poison any Republican who sides with the president and supports the escalation. And it will be political gold for Democratic candidates and leaders — if they are willing to seize the opportunity.

That’s not by any means certain. Bush still has an ace in the perception hole: his spin team will insist that opposing funds for the increased military action will amount to a failure to support the troops. Democrats in Congress have refused to confront that line in the past — and with the party’s fear of being seen as soft on national security, it’s entirely possible that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will be outspoken in their criticism of the policy but cautious when it comes to cutting off funds.

That would be a serious mistake on every level.

Remember: the odds are very good that many of those 20,000 soldiers will never make it home and that many, many more will come home mutilated and maimed. The odds that this surge will succeed in controlling violence in Baghdad are next to zero. And since Bush is acting unilaterally, without congressional assent, the only way to stop this madness is to cut off funding.

Pelosi has been devoting most of her energy and political capital to the rather modest advances of the "100 hours" strategy. But frankly, nothing on her agenda is as important as ending the war. The House and Senate leadership need to move immediately to eliminate funding for any troop escalation. *

Barbara and Angela socked it to ’em! Keep it up!

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January 16, 2007

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Last Thursday, Jan.llth, when Sen. Barbara Boxer confronted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the casualties in the Iraq War, the San Francisco Chronicle reported four more soldiers died in the civil war.

On Friday, when the right wing commentators yelled “slime” at Barbara and tried to change the subject by updating the swiftboat routine, the Chronicle reported “At least l9 people were reported killed or dead nationwide Friday, including l0 bullet-riddled bodies found in Baghdad and an Iraqi journalist who was killed in a drive-by shooting in the northern city of Mosul. KhudrYounis al-Obaidi was the second journalist killed this year.”

Meanwhile, even the Chronicle helped change the subject by playing the Boxer/Rice story big on on its Friday Jan. l3th front page. Carla Marinucci lead posed a naive and irrelevant question: Was Boxer’s “heated confrontation” with Rice “a case of ‘vicious feminine politics–as some critics have suggested–or merely the politics of frank talk in tough times?”

Marinucci wrote that Boxer, during her questioning of Rice, said she wanted to focus attention on the human consequences of the decision.

“Who pays the price? I’m not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young” to serve, Boxer told Rice. “You’re not going to pay a price, as I understand it, within immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families.”

Boxer’s statement was right on target, as were those of many other senators (Democrat and
Republican) who attacked the war and Bush when she appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
But the swiftboaters were out in gale force, not to discuss the Bush casualties or the issues of a war gone to hell, but to try to change the subject and attack Boxer, whose major sin it appears is that she happens to have been right about the war almost from the beginning. The New York Post/Murdoch called her comments “a low blow.” Tony Snow, the White House spokesman and former Fox News/Murdoch personality, said the comments were “outrageous” and said that Boxer had made “a great leap backward for feminism.” Fox News/Murdoch commentator Karen Hanretty whacked Boxer for talking about Rice’s “breeding history.”
Fox/Murdoch ran screaming heads all day Friday saying “Will Boxer Apologize?” and “Boxer slimes Rice.”
And Bill O”Reilly, the FoxNews/Murdoch star of slither and slime, took up the issue Friday night with Angela Alioto.

Boxer, to her immense credit, refused to apologize in the Marinucci story. “This is just typical of what they do…
the Bush administration always goes after me, and anyone who has been against the war from the start,” she said. “It’s ‘kill the messenger.'” Boxer said she will continue to be tough on the issue of the war because the “focus (on casualties) is crucial.”

Alioto, to her immense credit, stood up to Reilly on his Fox program, ably defended Boxer, got in some nice punches and kept making the casualties point by saying that “we fight wars with other people’s children” and “if everybody in Congress had a child in Iraq, we wouldn’t be in Iraq.”

The back and forth was delicious: O’Reilly: She (Boxer) denigrated Secretary Rice because Secretary Rice…

Alioto: That is not true.

O’Reilly: …doesn’t have any children.

Alioto: She would have said the same thing to a man. She would have said the same thing to a man. (See the full transcript below.)

Good for Barbara. Good for Angela. Keep it up. Keep the pressure on.

Meanwhile the Ballis report came in this morning with this count:

+U.S. Military killed in action in Iraq today (l/l5/O7): 2

+Current Total: 3,029

+Wounded total to (l/l0/07): 22,834

Wounded (l2/28 to l/l0/07): 120

See the Guardian editorial “Cut off the war money” in our current issue and on our website. We will regularly publish a snapshot of the statistics of military, civilian, and journalist casualties that tell this tragedy that grows grimmer by the day. B3

Boxer comments to Rice draw fire from the right – Senator says she won’t apologize for ‘strong message’

Friday Night Fights: Bill O’Reilly Takes on Liberal Extremists Over Boxer’s Statements | NewsBusters.org

Introducing the Edward R. Murrow of the Bush crisis in 2007: Keith Olbermann of MSNBC

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January 12, 2007

2

By Bruce B. Brugmann

The mainstream media who helped President Bush march us into war in Iraq have a lot to answer for.

One of the most eloquent answers these days comes from Keith Olbermann, who has become a passionate critic of the war and the Bush administration as the host of MSBNC’s “Countdown.”
He has night after night laid out some of the most scalding commentaries ever made on televsion by a major broadcast figure against a wartime president.

On Thursday night, after the President’s Wednesday night address to the nation on Iraq,
Olbermann rose to the occasion with an editorial titled “Bush’s Legacy: The President Who Cried Wolf,” with the subhead “Bush’s strategy fails because it depends on his credibility.”

For those of us who remember the way Edward R. Murrow started his War II radio broadcasts, “This is London,” Olbermann had the chilling ring of Murrow authority and credibility.

He started in on Bush with a lead that caught the essence of one of the most serious crises in American history: “Only this president, only in this time, only with this dangerous, even messianic certitude, could answer a country demanding an exit strategy from Iraq, by offering an entrance to Iran.”

And he ended with a flourish of trumpets, “You have lost the military. You have lost the Congress to the Democrats. You have lost most of the Iraqis. You have lost many of the Republicans. You have lost our allies.

“You are losing the credibility, not just of your presidency, but more importantly of the office itself.

“And most imperatively, you are guaranteeing that more American troops will be losing their lives, and more families their loved ones. You are guaranteeing it!

“This becomes your legacy, sir: How many of those you addressed last night as your ‘fellow citizens’ you just sent to their deaths.

“And for what, Mr. Bush?

“So the next president has to pull the survivors out of Iraq instead of you?”

Perhaps, as the crisis deepens by the day in Washington, Olbermann should start his evening commentaries by saying, “This is Washington.” Last night he ended his commentary with the trademark Murrow phrase, “Good night and good luck.” Let us wish all the good luck in the world to Olbermann and MSNBC in keeping him and his kind of distinguished commentary on the air. (This is the full text of his commentary, carried by truthout.org. Note also his other commentaries.) B3

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011207A.shtml

So Bush, like LBJ in Vietnam, is sending more troops into Iraq. So the Guardian will regularly print the surging casualty reports. How many more will die because of Bush’s mistakes?

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January 11, 2007

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

On April 2, 2003, as Bush started a preventive war and invaded a small country that posed no danger to the U.S., the Guardian publshed a cover story predicting the U.S. would soon be mired down in the “The New Vietnam,” as our front page head put it. As our editorial warned at the time, “Taking Baghdad will afterward be difficult and bloody–and ruling the divided nation will be, to make a phenomenal understatement, something of a trick…All of this will only lead to increased anti-U.S. anger in the Arab world, more fertile ground for groups like Al-Qaeda to recruit new members, and less security for people in the U.S.”

In his television address Wednesday night, Bush virtually admitted that the horrors the Guardian (and many others) had predicted had come to pass and were “unacceptable” to the nation and to Bush.
Bush’s answer: send in more troops. This hasn’t worked in the past, it won’t work now, and it won’t work in the future. The U.S. can never be an occupying army in the middle of a brutal civil war. The electorate knows this and demanded a change in the polls and the November election. No matter.
Bush decided to escalate and war and the killing.

So the Guardian will regularly run the casualty reports and the statistics that demonstrate that we’ve lost the war, our only option is to accept defeat, and our only solution is a phased withdrawal that minimizes the military and diplomatic losses as quickly and as much as possible.

Meanwhile: to date, 3,020 U.S. military have been killed and 22,834 wounded because of Bush’s mistakes. (See the Maia and George Elfie Ballis report below and their web site for more (see http://www.sunmt.org/intro.html> link below). Specifically:

+U.S. Military killed in action in Iraq Wednesday:4

+Current Total: 3,020

+Wounded total (to l/10/07): 22,834

+Wounded (l2/28-l/l0/07): 120

To update John Kerry’s phrase during the Vietnam War, how many more soldiers will be killed and how many more soldiers will be wounded because of Bush’s mistakes? How many more lives and families of National Guardsmen will be disrupted because of Bush’s mistakes? How many more Iraqi civilians will be killed because of Bush’s mistakes? And who will continue to be the aiders and abetters and enablers as this Bush descent into the maelstrom continues? Keep the pressure on. B3

KILLED IN ACTION

Major Michael Lewis Mundell, 47, U.S. Army, Brandenburg, Kentucky
S/Sgt. Charles D. Allen, 22, U.S. Army, Wasilla, Alaska
Spec. Jeremiah Johnson, 23, U.S. Army, Vancouver, Washington
Petty Officer 3rd Class Lee Hamilton Deal, 23, U.S. Navy, West Monroe, Louisiana
S/Sgt. Alessandro Carbonaro, 28, U.S. Marine Corps, Bethesda, Maryland
S/Sgt. Emmanual L. Lagaspi, 38, U.S. Army, Las Vegas, Nevada
Cpl. Ross A. Smith, 21, U.S. Marine Corps, Wyoming, Michigan
PFC. Javier Chavez, Jr., 19, U.S. Marine Corps, Cutler, California
Lance Corporal Steven L. Phillips, 27, U.S. Marine Corps, Chesapeake, Virginia
Spec. Allan D. Kokesh Jr., 21, U.S. Army, Yankton, South Dakota
Spec. Patrick W. Herried, 29, U.S. Army, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Cpl. Brandon S. Schuck, 21, U.S. Marine Corps, Safford, Arizona
PFC. Jacob D. Spann, 21, U.S. Marine Corps, Columbus/Westerville, Ohio
CPL. Orville Gerena, 21, U.S. Marine Corps, Virginia Beach, Virginia
Lance Corporal David S. Parr, 22, U.S. Marine Corps, Benson, North Carolina

Although it may not be immediately apparent, every action that we take brings about change. Every word of protest uttered, every letter written, every phone call made, every peace vigil attended; all have a cumulative effect and contribute to the desired result.

We hold the lives of our troops in Iraq in our hands.
We have the power to end this tragic war.
Stand up and speak out for peace at every opportunity.

Please redistribute these casualty reports to your friends, family, elected representatives, and e-mail list. Additional
e-mail recipients welcome.

From Jim Landis of Mariposa mailto:landis@yosemite.net

Smiling Seriously,
Maia & George Elfie Ballis
SunMt
559.855.3710

Clickhttp://www.sunmt.org/intro.html for latest SunMt dream and adventures.

Click mailto:mail@sunmt.org to send us roses, raspberries and/or questions.

Click mailto:allianceeditor@comcast.net to subscribe to free weekly email newsletter on progressive actions in Fresno.

WEDNESDAY

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January 10, 2007

0

jan. 10

event

Oil awareness meeting

Come to the monthly meeting of San Francisco Bay Area Oil Awareness, an environmental group interested in replacing oil with sustainable energy sources, facilitated by Chuck Payne. At the meeting Raines Cohen, just back from Al Gore’s group training project for global warming activism, gives a report on the course. (Deborah Giattina)

7 p.m.
Citizen Space
425 Second St., suite 300, SF
Free
cwpayne@aol.com, www.sfbayoil.org

LECTURE

Haitian war crimes

Hear Athena Koble and Dr. Royce Hutson, authors of a study published in the UK’s September 2006 Lancet medical journal, speak about violence committed against Haitian women and girls by police and paramilitary troops following the 2004 US-led coup d’état that removed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. (Giattina)

7 p.m.
Women’s Bldg.
3543 18th St., SF
$5-$7, sliding scale
(510) 483-7481

James Broughton’s liberation machine

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January 9, 2007

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AVANT DVD "At an early age I arrived in San Francisco," James Broughton says in his 1974 cinematic self-portrait, Testament. "There I spent the rest of my life growing up." A straight-hearted honesty and smiling irony here lie snug side by side, as they do typically throughout the work of the poet and avant-garde filmmaker. Adults behaving like children are hardly an unusual sight in a Broughton film.

Lou Reed has a line about "growing up in public with your pants down," bemoaning (with his own habitual flair) the inevitable fate of the modern artist. But if becoming one today necessarily means dropping trou, no one ever did it more gleefully, readily, and speedily than Broughton, who died in 1999 at 85. Born in Modesto in 1913, Broughton was what you could call a self-made man — though not the kind his mother had in mind when she pictured him growing beyond the family’s generations of bankers into its first surgeon. Broughton created himself through his art: a playful, deeply erotic, and self-questioning poetry that, in its joyful and childlike (but never naive) reaching out to the world, ended up wedding itself brilliantly to the medium of the century.

Maximum exhibitionism was the idea. As Broughton explains in his lively autobiography, Coming Unbuttoned, he was visited one night as a lad of three by his angel, Hermy, who revealed his destiny and bestowed on him three attributes that would make his job easier: "intuition, articulation, and merriment." And so a liberator of the body and mind was christened a poet in his crib by an angel whose sparkling, throbbing wand made the boy wet his jammies. (Years later that wand was still making magic, as in 1979’s Hermes Bird, an 11-minute film in which Broughton reads a phallic ode over the profile of a slowly wakening penis, bathed in an ethereal light that sets it out shimmeringly against absolute darkness.)

In a film career (and life) that had more than one end and rebirth attached to it, Broughton had originally intended Testament as his epitaph, but he soon followed it with other projects, including an erotically charged close-up tour of bodily surfaces titled Erogeny (1976), after which began what can be considered his third and final period, the films he made with Joel Singer. (It was the prize-winning piece that began his second period of filmmaking, 1968’s The Bed — a multifarious 20-minute romp on a roving outdoor bed involving a large number of naked bodies — that first put full frontal nudity all over the art-film map. With a cameo by the filmmaker meditating naked before a semicoiled snake and another by friend Alan Watts, it’s still a curious, jovial work and leads into Broughton’s explicit mapping of human geography and erotic energy in films such as 1970’s The Golden Positions.)

It’s often pointed out how perennially unfashionable Broughton managed to be through a long career. In an era overshadowed by Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, muscular Beat howling, and virtuously inscrutable language poetry, Broughton clove happily to his Mother Goose rhyme schemes (which he endowed with a sly wisdom and ribald play she would not have completely approved of). Although Broughton took his own good advice to "follow your own weird," he never lacked for influences, including giants on the American experimental film landscape such as his friend Maya Deren. His was a singular voice drawn from a merry mixing of lifelong passions: Mother Goose and Lao-tzu, Carl Jung and Alan Watts, Episcopalian ritual and Greek mythology, Jean Cocteau and Buster Keaton. It made him a representative figure in the San Francisco arts scene from the postwar renaissance through the next four decades, even while seeming to frolic forever outside the trends and categories of his day.

Recently, there have been at least three reasons to think about Broughton’s films. One is the release of The Films of James Broughton ($59.95) on DVD by Facets. While not quite complete, the three-DVD set is a pretty thorough overview of his film work, which was as central to the formation of a West Coast avant-garde as it was inherently and persistently individual.

Another reason is the April 2005 passing of Kermit Sheets. A gifted literary and theater artist in the Bay Area for many years, Sheets was a conscientious objector during World War II who afterward joined fellow COs in forming a San Francisco theater company, the Interplayers. In these years he was Broughton’s companion and collaborator on many early projects, including all the films that make up the first period of the latter’s always poetical filmmaking, four of which (out of a total of six, counting The Potted Psalm) are included in the Facets collection, beginning with Mother’s Day (1948) and culminating with The Pleasure Garden (1953).

There’s no end to the pleasure in watching Sheets play a crooning cowboy hero combing the grounds for a gal as sweet as Ma or, for that matter, his Charlie Chaplin–like tramp, Looney Tom, the eponymous hero of an 11-minute film made in 1951. His boyish grin and carefree capering through Golden Gate Park in search of one love after another might have made his career in comedy (or so you can’t help thinking). Over Looney Tom’s gleeful abandon, to the tinkling of a piano, Broughton’s gently raunchy storybook rhyming is merry and fey:

Give me a tune and I’ll slap the bull fife,

I’ll spring the hornblower out of his wife.

Any old flutist you care to uncover,

give me his name and I’ll be her lover.

La diddle la, the hydrant chatted

Um titty um, the milkpail said.

The best reason to revisit Broughton’s work, however, remains the cheering buoyancy and brightness of his vision — a serious tonic to the mordant hostility and hopelessness of the culture’s Apocalypto moment and one that comes close to justifying his definition of cinema as a "liberation machine." (Robert Avila)

Dark days indeed

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January 9, 2007

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French noir rarely darkened, deepened, or explored more nuanced shades of gray and shadow than in the films of Jean-Pierre Melville. From his breakthrough gangster ode, Bob le Flambeur (1955), through 1962’s underrated Le Doulos to the trio that put Alain Delon’s icy beauty to proper use, Le Samouraï (1967), Le Cercle Rouge (1970), and Un Flic (1972), Melville infused the genre with a rigorous, formal power while simultaneously shooting quickly, stylishly, and on location. In the process he inspired new wavers–to–come with his resourceful quasi-vérité derring-do.

Yet not all of the director’s films were caper exercises: Melville started his career with a 1950 collaboration with Jean Cocteau, Les Enfants Terribles — World War II loomed large over the onetime Resistance fighter’s imagination. Joseph Kessel’s Army of Shadows was the book he waited to shoot for 25 years after discovering it in 1943, and in 1969 the filmmaker applied his eminently masculinized brand of hard-boiled cool as well as his compelling yet oppressive sense of landscape and character — and their interplay — to the text. The stunningly beautiful and shockingly poignant product finally saw its release in the States last year, and it says as much about Melville, his cold dreamscapes, and his idealistic though traumatized response to war (and resistance) as perhaps The Big Red One, Battle Royale, and even Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! might say about the works of kindred battle-scarred directors Sam Fuller, Kinji Fukasaku, and Russ Meyer, respectively. Here Melville, who later told an interviewer he never intended to make a film about the Resistance, and Kessel — also the author of that psychosexual romp into the subconscious of an immaculate bourgeois, Belle du Jour — use wartime experiences the director later described as "awful, horrible … and marvelous" to illustrate a piercingly conflicted existential love letter to the past that fellow Resistant Albert Camus could have signed off on.

The past, as it turns out, was both enthralling and dreadful. Melville’s camera almost vibrates with the morose shock value of Army of Shadows‘s opening long shot: German troops filing through — or defiling — the Champs-Élysées. From there Melville jumps to a van carrying a gendarme and a dark figure in spectacles, and the cop personably remarks on the convenience of their concentration camp destination and how it can now be used to house prisoners of France’s Nazi occupiers — until he spies the handcuffs on his traveling companion and catches himself. The viewer is pulled into the deceptively friendly scene, lulled by the bland banality of evil — and French complicity — while Melville continues swinging between points of view, from the soft gray matter of the forgetful cop to the blunt-object reverie of a French concentration camp commander dealing with the other man in the vehicle: Resistance leader and civil engineer Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura).

The director finally settles mainly in the mind of Gerbier, who, as played by onetime wrestler Ventura, can’t shake an antihero veneer despite his upper-crusty suits. The watchful Gerbier bides his time in the camp, gauges the prisoner demographic makeup, and begins to hatch an escape plan with a young Communist, until he’s suddenly summoned to the area’s Nazi headquarters. His act of daring there — based on a story told to Melville by a Gaullist deputy — almost leaps off the screen. The director calibrates the tension, engineers its release, then does it once again in an exquisitely loaded scene between a Vichy barber and a customer, each playing at normalcy during insanity.

Army of Shadows reveals the rest of Gerbier’s shadowy group with the offhand vibe of a chat with the local gendarme, and they’re more a gang than an army, including the stalwart Felix (Paul Crauchet); former Legionnaire Le Bison (Christian Barbier); the quivering Le Masque (Claude Mann); the boldly heroic, Marianne-like Mathilde (Simone Signoret, portraying a loosely sketched Lucie Aubrac); playboy Jean François Jardie (Jean-Pierre Cassel); and network chief, Jardie’s seemingly ivory-tower intellectual, deep-undercover brother, Luc (Paul Meurisse as a Jean Moulin figure). We find ourselves less in a traditional war film than embroiled in a tangle of arduous trips to England to visit a sequestered Charles de Gaulle, sudden arrests, subsequent betrayals, and then methodical hits, executed by the underground fighters, who operate under a code as rigid as any other gangster’s in Melville’s Guyville.

In an interview for the book Melville on Melville, the director bristled when he was reminded that some French critics equated the Resistants with thugs. Still, anyone familiar with Melville’s films will recognize the fighters’ toughened miens, accustomed to operating outside the law — and the feeling of dread at having to strangle a onetime compatriot quietly with one’s bare hands (when a previously arranged killing floor is now a few audible steps away from crying babes and frolicking schoolchildren). The dread here emerges from the fact that these ordinary citizens are compelled to commit both heroic and horrific acts: much like the jitterbuggers at the USO canteen that Gerbier crashes during a brief trip to England, these underground fighters — otherwise known as "terrorists" to the Nazis — are caught in an exhilarating and ultimately tragic tango with their occupiers.

Melville’s underground fighters resemble thugs because they’re operating in a similar mise-en-scène at the fringes of their occupied country’s laws. "A lot of people would have to be dead before one could make a true film about the Resistance and about Jean Moulin," the director told writer Rui Nogueira. "Don’t forget that there are more people who didn’t work for the Resistance than people who did." Nonetheless, Melville never shies away from his truth, gazing at the foes and fighters with equanimity, as when Gerbier confesses that his only love is for the chief, is forced to run from a Nazi machine-gun firing squad, and orders the death of a deputy who succumbed to weakness.

Though Melville’s cinematographer Pierre Lhomme, who supervised the 2004 digital restoration of the film, did a remarkable job recreating the film’s steely blue, brown, and gray palette, it’s the sound design that stands out today — for example, the rush of the ocean as Gerbier and Felix march a traitor down a small seaside town’s cobbled streets to his death. Wheels, motors, and heels clank like that dread old mechanism, the march toward denouement, a.k.a. death, found in any noirish plot. "You — in a car of killers," Gerbier sighs, regarding his beloved boss at Army of Shadows‘s close, one that reduced Kessler to tears when he read the biting coda added by the filmmaker. "Is nothing sacred anymore?" Melville achieved a sense of closure in making Army, certainly — and it rings true to his sense of manly fatalism like the clang of a cell door. (Kimberly Chun)

ARMY OF SHADOWS Thurs/11, 7:30 p.m., and Sat/13, 8:20 p.m. PFA, 2575 Bancroft, Berk. $4–$8. (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

>

Editor’s Notes

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January 9, 2007

0

› tredmond@sfbg.com

The biggest challenge facing Democrats in Congress this year is probably also the most boring. They’re going to have to deal with taxes.

I’m not the only one obsessed with this. Really, I’m not. Edmund L. Andrews got into it in the New York Times on Jan. 4, noting that the new Democratic leadership is utterly ducking the question of how to handle some of the major fiscal headaches that are going to rear their ugly heads.

Bear with me while we run some numbers.

The Iraq War is going to cost $100 billion in 2007, maybe more if Bush gets his troop "surge." Fixing the problem that causes more and more middle-class people to shoulder an extra tax burden under the alternative minimum tax will cost $50 billion. The Bush tax cuts — which the president wants to make permanent — are another huge-ticket item, maybe $170 billion a year (based on estimates from the Brookings Institution).

So that’s $320 billion to deal with — even before the Democrats spend a penny on any new initiatives or so much as talk about making Social Security solvent.

And, of course, there’s a $340 billion budget deficit, which keeps adding to the federal debt, which is a number so big that nobody can really comprehend it, so I won’t bother here except to say that the interest payments alone are $400 billion a year.

The Democrats have already announced they want to see any new spending come with a revenue source and any new tax cut proposals identify reductions in existing spending that would pay for them. All well and good — except that the Iraq War isn’t part of the federal budget. Bush just keeps coming back for money every few months, and Democrats who don’t want to be accused of refusing to support the troops in the field wind up voting to give him all of it.

Now let’s go to the political calculus, which is even uglier.

The only major politician I know of in the last electoral cycle who talked honestly about taxes and government spending was Phil Angelides, who (as some of you may remember) ran for governor of California. He was slaughtered.

That’s why the Times reports the following:

"Even as Democratic leaders continue to accuse Mr. Bush of having a reckless fiscal policy, they have refused to discuss dismantling his tax cuts or even to engage in a debate with him about the best way to stimulate economic growth.

" ‘It’s always the same old tired line with them — "Tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend," ‘ said Senator Kent Conrad, the North Dakota Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. ‘We’re not going there.’ "

No, so far they’re not. They’re just moving ahead, making promises and proposing policy, without saying either that spending on Iraq has to be cut dramatically or that somebody has to pay more taxes to fund it.

Even by Bush’s most optimistic projections, the national budget will be in the red until 2012. By then he and his crew will all be safe on the golf course, their retirements secure.

And apparently, the Democratic leaders are willing to continue to duck, continue to go into debt, continue to screw up the economy, and continue to burden our kids with the results of our greed, fear, and stupidity.

Nancy? *

A reporter stands up to the army

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January 9, 2007

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› sarah@sfbg.com

Oakland freelance writer and radio journalist Sarah Olson has a tall, willowy frame; long silky hair; and a clearly articulated understanding of the reasons she believes that testifying against a source, First Lt. Ehren Watada, would turn her into an investigative tool of the federal government and chill dissenting voices across the United States.

Watada faces a court-martial in February; he’s charged with one count of missing troop movement and four counts of conduct unbecoming an officer — charges that stem from interviews he gave Olson along with other reporters in 2006 in which he openly criticized the Bush administration and the war on Iraq.

Olson faces her own legal nightmare: if she doesn’t testify against Watada, the government can charge her with a felony. That’s potentially more serious than the contempt of court charges against freelance videographer Josh Wolf and San Francisco Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada.

"My argument for being against having to comply with the subpoena is strictly journalistic, " says Olson, who has been covering the antiwar movement and the conscientious objector movement since 2003. "When the government uses a journalist as its eyes and ears, no one is going to talk to that journalist any more."

Beyond the fear that her own professional credibility will be eviscerated, the 31-year-old Olson objects to journalists, including herself, being asked to participate in the prosecution of free speech.

Although all the Army wants her to do is assert her stories quoting Watada are true, she’s not going along. "The problem I have with verifying the accuracy of my reporting is that in this case the Army has made speech a crime. Watada’s case raises incredibly important speech issues as to what is and isn’t legal for an officer to say. Can Watada’s defense put the war on trial? Can you bring the question of the legality of this war into the discussion? Normally, that wouldn’t be allowed into discussion in a military court, but since he’s been charged with speech issues, shouldn’t he be allowed to have the opportunity to put those statements in context?"

And while her stories and radio broadcasts are readily and publicly available to Army prosecutors, Olson points out, "Once they get you up on the stand, they can ask you anything."

What binds the Olson, Wolf, and Williams–Fainaru-Wada cases are the broader issues of press and speech freedom and the absence of a strong reporter’s shield at the federal level.

"The proposed federal shield laws offers poor protection to journalists, but they probably wouldn’t even cover me, and they probably wouldn’t cover bloggers ever," observes Olson, referring to the legislation currently under congressional consideration.

As for entering into a conversation about who is or isn’t a journalist (as the San Francisco Police Department and the District Attorney’s Office have sought to do in Wolf’s case), Olson says, "[That] is degrading for the whole profession. And what it doesn’t do is stand up for the civil liberties that are constitutionally afforded to everyone, nor does it protect a meaningful and independent press."

"My duty," Olson says, "is the public and its right to know and not to the government. I’m concerned that the Army is asking a journalist to participate in the suppression of free speech." *

Kennedy: “Is there any American in this country who thinks the United States Senate would vote to support sending American troops into a civil war in Iraq today?

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January 9, 2007

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

This is a quote that makes the critical political point:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), in an interview published in the New York
Times on Tuesday, continued, “Is there any American that believes this? I don’t think so, but that is what’s happening, and we have to do everything we can to to insist on accountability.”

Kennedy said he will introduce legislation on Tuesday to require the president to get new Congressional authority before sending more troops to Iraq, according to a story by Jeff Zeleny. Kennedy is proposing the first bill in the Senate that would prohibit paying for an increase in American troops over their level on Jan. l. The Kennedy plan is intended to provide Democrats with a road map on how to proceed in Iraq.

Kennedy said that Congress interceded during conflicts in Vietnam and Lebanon, and Democrats should not hesitate to do so in Iraq.

“By law,” the article said, “Congress can limit the nature of troop deployment, cap the size of military deployments and cut financing for existing or prospective deployments.” To those who claim Congress ought not to cut off funds or intercede, the article pointed out that “since l970, there have been dozens of occasions in which Congress has tried to step into military action, from Haiti to Bosnia to Kosovo,” and it pointed its source as a memorandum being circulated Tuesday to Congress by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

The memorandum, linked below, cites specific examples of congressional intervention from the l970 Church-Cooper amendment that prohibited the use of any funds for the introduction of U.S. troops into Cambodia to the June l998 Congressional prohibition of funding for Bosnia after June 30, l998. It also included additional examples where congressional efforts to influence policy were not enacted into law, from a l994 move by then Senator Jesse Helms to prohibit funding for any U.S. military operations on Haiti to the prescient 2002 move by Rep. Spratt to require the president to seek congressional authority before using military force against Iraq without a UN resolution.

As the memo sums up, the “defeated provisions reflect attempts by Congress to shape the president’s policy on military deployments. Taken alongside the several examples listed above that were enacted into law, they demonstrate that the president should expect that Congress can and will shape U.S.
policy as it relates to military deployments.”

So: there is plenty of precedent and no excuse for Congress not to fight back fast and effectively to the president’s upcoming surge speech. Nancy? Nancy Pelosi to her credit is speaking up and rightlyi calling the surge “escalation” and proposing that Democrats consider blocking funds for any increase in troops. Keep it up. Support the Kennedy proposal or anything stronger. Keep the pressure on Nancy and the Congress. If these moves don’t work, as they probably won’t, then the question is: impeachment or continuing to waste the blood and treasure of the U.S. in a civil war without end. Alas, there is no other choice. B3

Center for American Progress: Congressional Limitations and Requirements for Military Deployments and Funding

SUNDAY

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January 4, 2007

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Jan. 7

STAGE

Chinese New Year Spectacular

This touring New Tang Dynasty TV (NTDTV) production arrives in San Francisco just in time to usher in the Western new year with a Far East twist. Combining classical Chinese dance, Western ballet, orchestral accompaniment, and a cast of hundreds, the full-blown pageantry of “Myths and Legends” kicks off the year in a grand manner. You’ll watch cherry blossoms dance below the branches, serpentine dragons writhe across the stage, and teams of synchronized sword fighters prepare for the fray. (Nicole Gluckstern)

2:30 p.m., $28-$168
War Memorial Opera House
301 Van Ness, SF
(415) 392-4400
www.cityboxoffice.com

FILM

Notes on a Scandal

An educated woman in need of some distraction from her same-old domestic lot, Sheba (Cate Blanchett) decides to try teaching art at the local secondary school. There she makes two friends: Steven (Andrew Simpson), a working-class boy with some drawing talent; and spinsterish Barbara (Judi Dench), an imperious history teacher not liked much by students or staff but taken into confidence by the breezily trusting Sheba. Imagine prissy Barbara’s shock when she discovers that Sheba hasn’t really been so frank with her after all – she is, in fact, having a reckless affair with Steven. This juicy psychological near-horror story is adapted from Zoë Heller’s excellent novel What Was She Thinking? The movie’s minor flaws are more than compensated for by a gold-plated cast. (Dennis Harvey)

Now playing in Bay Area theaters

FRIDAY

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January 4, 2007

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jan. 5

MUSIC

Indian Jewelry

Rat-king and knife-play imagery, the nagging buzz of badly handled electronics, and LA primitivo beats circa early ’80s Gun Club – such are the signs of Indian Jewelry. Recent sounds from last year’s Monitor album, Invasive Exotics, show a group in expansion mode, branching out into a fine, mind-faltering drone that Brightblack Morning Light doubtless can get with. Hey, any band that uses “instruments” such as pandemonium, war rattles, and pizzazz can play in our jewelry box anytime. (Kimberly Chun)

With Clipd Beaks and USA Crypt
9:30 p.m., $7
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
(415) 923-0923
www.hemlocktavern.com

MUSIC

Tribute to Townes van Zandt

If it weren’t for Townes van Zandt, there wouldn’t be alt-country. Van Zandt, who has affectionately been called the Texas Bob Dylan, perfected the art of storytelling through song, crafted frequently covered tunes such as “Pancho and Lefty,” and inspired multiple generations of songwriters to follow in his impossible-to-fill footsteps. This show will see local musicians celebrate his legacy and commemorate the 10-year anniversary of his death. (Hayley Elisabeth Kaufman)

With Court and Spark, Etienne de Rocher, Four Year Bender, Alela Diane, Jeffery Luck Lucas, Tom Heyman, Mike Therieau, Bob Frank, and John Murry
9 p.m., $8
12 Galaxies
2565 Mission, SF
(415) 970-9777
www.12galaxies.com

Another (huge) test for Pelosi

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January 4, 2007

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By Tim Redmond

The NY Times today has it about right on tax policy: The Democrats are ducking for cover while Bush continues to demand that his insane tax cuts be made permanent. Lyndon Johnson was forced to recognize in the 1960s that he couldn’t have both a Great Society and the Vietnam War at the same time without figuring out how to pay for it all, but back then, it wasn’t considered political suicide to raise taxes on the rich. (Let’s remember: Even under RIchard Nixon, the top tax rate for the very very rich reached 80 percent. Today it’s 34 percent.)

At some point, Nancy Pelosi, as the speaker, is going to have to make a choice: Start to cut spending on the war — by a lot — or talk about at the very least repealing the Bush tax cuts.

Of course, the third choice (and perhaps the most likely) is to continue to duck, continue to go into debt, continue to screw up the economy and continue to burden our kids with the results of our greed, fear and stupidity. Nancy?