Bruce Brugmann

Stiglitz: The Return of John Maynard Keynes

-
0

Here is our monthly installment of Joseph E. Stiglitz’s Unconventional Economic Wisdom column from the Project Syndicate news series. Stiglitz is a professor of economics at Columbia University, and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, is co-author, with Linda Bilmes, of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict.

The Triumphant Return of John Maynard Keynes

By Joseph E. Stiglitz

NEW YORK – We are all Keynesians now. Even the right in the United States has joined the Keynesian camp with unbridled enthusiasm and on a scale that at one time would have been truly unimaginable.

For those of us who claimed some connection to the Keynesian tradition, this is a moment of triumph, after having been left in the wilderness, almost shunned, for more than three decades. At one level, what is happening now is a triumph of reason and evidence over ideology and interests.

Hank Plante busts the mayor!

-
3

Why did Mayor Newsom buy a $51,000 Chevy car in Colma when the only Chevy dealership in San Francisco is going out of business? Scroll down for the KPIX video showing how Hank Plante busts the mayor.

By Bruce B. Brugmann

10.jpg
Photo by Paula Connelly

Newsom’s driver and new Chevy Hybrid Tahoe SUV vehicle, parked in front of the Ark toy store on 24th Street, during a press conference launching the Shop Local–Get More campaign. The city bought the car from a dealership in Colma for $51,000.

It was marvelous. Simply marvelous. Hank Plante busts the mayor.

Let me set the scene: The reporters and small business leaders on Wednesday (Dec. 5) were packed in the Ark, a toyshop on 24th Street, for a press conference to launch formally the “Shop Local–Get More” campaign aimed at getting San Franciscans and everyone else to shop local in San Francisco this holiday season.

Steve Falk, president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, laid out the chamber’s extensive program for its members to give substantial discounts to customers. Gerald Johnson, owner of the Ark, explained how his store would give 10 per cent off your next purchase with a purchase of more than $100. Mayor Newsom, who rolled in late in his city car, gave a zippy little talk about the values of shopping local and helping out the merchants and business community during tough times.

Newsom is at his best at these informal occasions, a little pep talk here, a genial smile and gesture there, lots of jutting jaw, no tough questions please. Then came time for questions and Newsom visibly relaxed for what he hoped would be some Noe Valley soft balls.

Hank Plante, the savvy political editor of KPIX Television (Channel 5), was positioned in the front of the crowd with his television cameraman and his camera was whirring away. He led off with a timely question.

“Mr. Mayor, you want people to shop in San Francisco. You know the car dealerships are in trouble. Can you tell us why you didn’t buy your new official city car here in the city?”

Newsom replied testily, “Uh, I have no idea. Thanks for the Gotcha question and I don’t have a clue. I didn’t have anything to do with the purchase of that car.” He said he would find out what happened and get back with the answer.

Plante reported the exchange in the KPIX newscast that night. He said, “We’re losing our last Chevy dealership” in San Francisco. He said that the new car was a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV that cost $51,000 at a dealership in Colma. He pointed out that the Chevy was one of the “most visible purchases the mayor made this year.” Marie Brooks, from Ellis Brooks Chevy dealership on Van Ness Avenue, told Plante, “I think it’s wrong for one of our city officials to buy anything outside the city.” Ellis Brooks is a family-owned car dealership and one of the oldest and most famous local names in selling cars in Northern California.

Plante reported that Newsom kept ducking the question and later refused to allow the press corps to take a picture of him leaving the press conference in his gleaming black hybrid car parked in front of the toy store (see pic above.) KPIX showed video footage of Newsom not getting into the car and walking down 24th street.

Plante had nailed a point that has been agitating the small (and big) business community for years. Scott Hauge, a prominent small business leader and founder and president of Small Business California, was at the press conference and picked up on the point immediately. In his followup email to small business people in the city, Hauge noted he had attended the press conference “where the mayor was promoting a shop SF campaign.

“I applaud the mayor and others like the SF Chamber, Bay Guardian, Small Business Commission and Hotel Council for their efforts. What I didn’t hear was anything the city will do to require SF City agencies to buy from SF companies located in SF.”

Then Hauge zeroed in. “SF government does not have a very good track record in this area. In fact the mayor was asked why he did not purchase his hybrid vehicle in SF and he said he didn’t know why. Now is the time to push this issue. SF businesses have a higher cost of doing business because of mandates imposed on us. It seems to me that the least the city can do is buy from SF businesses.” I think he’s spot on.

And so Plante, Hauge, the Guardian, and small (and big) business in San Francisco are waiting anxiously for Newsom’s explanation why he bought a $51,000 city Chevy vehicle in Colma and not in San Francisco where our last Chevy dealership is on hard times and going out of business. And we are all waiting even more anxiously to hear what the mayor plans to do to correct this Shop- outside -San Francisco-syndrome and get the city working to spend its tens of millions of dollars of city tax dollars on businesses and services in San Francisco.

P.S. Full disclosure: the Guardian is a sponsor of the Shop Local campaign. And we sent a delegation to the press conference: Sales and Marketing Director Jennifer Lachman, Vice President of Operations Daniel B. Brugmann, Online and Print Advertising Coordinator Rebecca Frank, Assistant to the Publisher Paula Connelly who took the press conference photos, and myself. We are happy to pitch in on this critical and timely endeavor to put as much instant cash as possible into our local businesses and our community.

Our contribution, as a locally owned, independent newsweekly, is our own Shop Local campaign featuring a key marketing line derived from an analysis provided by the Business Alliance of Local Living Economies (BALLE), using a formula created by the consulting firm Civic Economics. This data is dramatic. It shows that if our 600,000 or so Guardian readers would spend $l00 with locally owned, independent businesses in San Francisco during the holiday season, that would inject $99 million into the San Francisco economy. Immediately.

That’s nearly $15 million more dollars than the city would see if that money were spent on chain stores that send their revenues back to headquarters. That’s because money spent at local businesses tends to stay and circulate in the community and create more local jobs and economic activity and of course more tax dollars for the city. The Guardian is also leading a national Shop Local campaign among alternative papers that would put several billion dollars in total into local economies all over the country. As Guardian Executive editor Tim Redmond puts it, “A sustainable community needs a sustainable economy, and that starts with locally owned, independent businesses.”

Unsolicited advice for the mayor and anybody else at City Hall who keeps sending our money outside of town: check the policy of the San Francisco International Airport that mandates locally owned small businesses get most of the juicy airport franchises. That policy works and works well. When I go through the airport, I always stop to get something to eat at Klein’s Deli. Klein’s was named after Deborah Klein, a Guardian circulation manager in the mid- 1970s who became a restaurant entrepreneur in San Francisco. For many years, she ran Klein’s Deli on 20th Street atop Potrero Hill. B3

Click here to watch yesterday’s KPIX newscast.

Click here to see Guardian photo coverage of the press conference.

Shop Local, get more

-
1

By Paula Connelly

Today Mayor Newsom held a press conference to announce the ‘Shop SF. Get More’, an economic promotion campaign for December / January. This promotion is a collaboration between SF Economic & Workforce Development, SF Office of Small Business, SF Convention and Visitor Bureau, SF Chamber of Commerce, Hotel Council, MTA, MUNI, DPT, BART, Chronicle, Examiner, Business Times and Bay Guardian to encourage people throughout the nine county Bay Area to shop in San Francisco. The Bay Guardian has been promoting small business and sustainable economic programs for years and this holiday season is urging its readers to spend $100 of their holiday money at locally owned, independent businesses – a move that would pump nearly $100 million into the city’s recession-plagued economy.

The press conference was held Wednesday, December 3, 11:45am, at the Ark Toy Store, which is located at 3845 24th St (near Sanchez), in Noe Valley San Francisco.

Visit the San Francisco Visitor and Conventions Bureau’s website: www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com to lean about Shop Local offers from participating businesses or visit www.sfbg.com/local to find out how to win $500 in the Guardian’s Shop Local Reader’s Contest.

2.jpg
Ark Toy Storefront in Noe Valley

5.jpg
Gavin Newsom kicks off the Shop Local campaign
http://cbs5.com/video/?id=42754@kpix.dayport.com

Stop PG&E’s corporate welfare!

-
0

Click here to read a recent Bruce blog, PG&E’s new move to screw residential customers.

Stop PG&E’s corporate welfare

The best way to boost the business climate in this recession era is to promote consumer spending

Guardian Editorial

EDITORIAL Just in time for the holiday season — and the colder weather — Pacific Gas and Electric Co. wants to shift millions of dollars in fees off big industrial customers and force residential consumers to pay more for natural gas.

The move would set a terrible precedent, and San Francisco officials should join the consumer groups that are calling on the California Public Utilities Commission to reject the plan.

PG&E’s new move to screw residential customers

-
2

By Bruce B. Brugmann

(Scroll down to see the David Lazarus LA Times column and the CPUC administrative law judge’s draft decision to reject PG&E’s latest move to hammer residential ratepayers in San Francisco)

David Lazarus, the talented San Francisco Chronicle consumer reporter who is now writing for the Los Angeles Times, exposes in a Nov. 24 column the proposal by the state’s three largest private utilities to shift $90 million in fees for natural gas paid each year by business customers onto residential customers.

Lazarus asks quite rightly, “Is it equitable to raise rates for families while allowing them for the likes of Chevron and Bank of America? Is it equitable to offer a helping hand to employers by increasing the financial burden on employees?”

The Lazarus column ran in the Fresno Bee and other California papers. It did not run in the Chronicle/Hearst nor did the Chronicle do its own story. It is, I might add, the kind of story that Lazarus would find it difficult to write while working on the Chronicle because of the long standing sweetheart relationship that Hearst has had with PG&E. The most recent example of this unholy alliance came when PG&E and Hearst ganged up once again this fall to help PG&E defeat a clean energy/public power initiative that would have brought millions of dollars in savings for San Francisco ratepayers.

Ammiano refuses to give pardons

-
0

Today’s Ammianoliner:

Ammiano to leave oval office. Refuses to pardon Ed Jew.

(From the telephone answering machine in the home of Sup. Tom Ammiano on Friday, Nov. 28, 2008. Wednesday Nov 26 was Amminano’s last day as San Francisco Supervisor. He is moving on to the State Assembly.)

What more damage can Bush do?

-
0

By Bruce B. Brugmann

For sometime now, I have been asking the question, how much more damage can Bush do before he heads back to clear brush at his ranch in Crawford.

The damage notices are coming almost daily. For example, today (11/28/08)a story in the Los Angeles Times (on how a $200 billion lending plan hurts students and consumers on predatory, usurious loans) and an editorial in the New York Times (on the stripping of a key provision in the Clean Air Act will harm clean air) makes the point yet again in 96 point tempo bold. Get Bush and his cadre out and start the campaign of damage reversal and control. And get the congressional investigations going allegro furioso.

Click here to read Amit R. Paley’s Friday November 28 article in the L.A. Times, Private student loan rescues opposed: A $200-billion federal consumer-lending plan shouldn’t benefit private providers of student loans, several groups tell Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Click here to read the Friday November 28 editorial in the New York Times, A Clean Air Rule to Keep.

Akbar: India’s Agony

-
0

Here is a column by M. J. Akbar from Project Syndicate’s The World in Words series. Akbar, a former member of India’s parliament and advisor to the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was the founding editor of The Asian Age and is an Asia Society Associate Fellow.

India’s Agony

By M.J. Akbar

MUMBAI – In most cities of South Asia, hidden beneath the grime and neglect of extreme poverty, there exists a little Somalia waiting to burst out and infect the body politic. This netherworld, patrolled and nourished by criminals who operate a vast black-market economy, has bred, in Mumbai, a community that has utter contempt for the state, because it knows that its survival depends on corrupting the police. Like underground magma, that underworld has now burst into the streets of Mumbai.

Veterans against war protest Friday

-
0

Iraq Veterans Against War to Occupy Union Square (SF) on FRIDAY

* THIS PRESS RELEASE IS BEING SENT BY THE WORLD CAN’T WAIT AS A COURTESY TO THE IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR; Please contact IVAW with inquiries

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, From Iraq Veterans Against the War, www.ivaw.org Tuesday, November 25, 2008 Press Contact: Eddie Falcon, Iraq Vets Against the War: (714) 381-9825 eddiefalcon400@hotmail.com

*Iraq Veterans Against the War to Occupy Union Square*
*Street Theater Showing the Brutal and Unjust Consequences of Occupying a Foreign Country*

What: Operation First Casualty (OFC), San Francisco

When: FRIDAY, November 28
11am-2pm

Where: Union Square (Start; “Round-Ups”) – 11am sharp
Moscone Center (Mock Interrogations)
Powell St. Turnaround (Die-In)
U.N. Plaza Fountain *(PRESS CONFERENCE)- 1pm *
*PHOTO OPS

Water board can close the Mirant power plant

-
1

Guardian editorial for Wednesday paper (11/26/2008):

The water board can shut down the Mirant power plant at the bottom of Potrero Hill. The city could then come back with a peaker plan that environmentalists can accept or find a way to accept CAL-ISO’s mandates without new fossil fuel generation. That sounds like an excellent outcome to us.

Stiglitz: What went wrong

-
0

This article by Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prizing winning economist and professor of economics at Columbia University in New York City, is one of the best I’ve seen on what went wrong with the economy and what can be done about it by the Obama team. It appeared in the November Vanity Fair magazine, shortly before the election.
His monthly column will appear in the Bruce blog. B3

Getty.jpg
The past as prologue? Lining up for food and water, Louisville, Kentucky, 1937. By Margaret Bourke-White/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.

Reversal of Fortune

Describing how ideology, special-interest pressure, populist politics, and sheer incompetence have left the U.S. economy on life support, the author puts forth a clear, commonsense plan to reverse the Bush-era follies and regain America’s economic sanity.

by Joseph E. Stiglitz November 2008

When the American economy enters a downturn, you often hear the experts debating whether it is likely to be V-shaped (short and sharp) or U-shaped (longer but milder). Today, the American economy may be entering a downturn that is best described as L-shaped. It is in a very low place indeed, and likely to remain there for some time to come.

Virtually all the indicators look grim. Inflation is running at an annual rate of nearly 6 percent, its highest level in 17 years. Unemployment stands at 6 percent; there has been no net job growth in the private sector for almost a year. Housing prices have fallen faster than at any time in memory—in Florida and California, by 30 percent or more. Banks are reporting record losses, only months after their executives walked off with record bonuses as their reward. President Bush inherited a $128 billion budget surplus from Bill Clinton; this year the federal government announced the second-largest budget deficit ever reported. During the eight years of the Bush administration, the national debt has increased by more than 65 percent, to nearly $10 trillion (to which the debts of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae should now be added, according to the Congressional Budget Office). Meanwhile, we are saddled with the cost of two wars. The price tag for the one in Iraq alone will, by my estimate, ultimately exceed $3 trillion.

Click here to continue reading Joseph E. Stiglitz’s article published in the November 2008 issue of Vanity Fair.

Ammiano plays to the Mormon choir

-
0

Today’s Ammianoliner:

Prop 8 backlash causes Mormon Tabernacle Temple to become Mormon Tabernacle Trio.

(From the telephone answering machine in the home of Sup. Tom Ammiano on Monday, Nov. 24, 2008)

Welcome back,Tom. You need to be on the cutting edge and in fighting trim from now on if you are going to tackle those hard-charging lobbyists up in Sacramento. B3

Obama economics: change we can’t bank on

-
5

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Columnist Robert Scheer, writing in a Nov. l9th Chronicle op ed, pointed out that former Clinton Treasury
Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers “deserve a great deal of the blame for the radical deregulation of the financial industry that has derailed the world economy.” He said that they should be kept at a safe distance from our nation’s leadership.

He also noted that Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, had served under both Rubin and Summers and was a candidate for the Obama Treasury Secretary.

On Friday, Nov. 2l, the Obama camp leaked the word that Summers was expected to be director of the National Economic Council in the White House, the president’s principal economic adviser and policy coordinator, and that Geithner was the likely nomination for Treasury Secretary.
Meanwhile, Heard on the Street column in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal noted that Geithner “in the past espoused many of the views championed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in terms of a hands-off approach to market regulation.” Obama is expected to announce his economic team at a press conference on Monday.

In short, the deregulation virus, and the carriers of the deregulation virus in the Clinton administration, are alive and well and thriving in the emerging Obama presidency. Where are the progressive economists from the Joseph Stiglitz/James Gailbraith/Paul Krugman wing of the Democratic Party? After all, the deregulators have been proven to be disastrously wrong about the economic crisis. And the warnings of the progressive economists have been proven to be on target. And their New Deal-type prescriptions are what are needed. Again, this will require that the progressives put strong and unending pressure on the emerging Obama administration, who will be getting pressure from the financial lobbyists pressuring to keep the bailouts coming without proper regulation or requirements. B3


Click here to read Robert Scheer’s timely and prescient Chronicle column: .

Portfolio

-
0

Click here to read Dan Baum’s December 2008 article, Bailout Out – And Back from Portfolio magazine.

Meister: ‘Homosexuals need not apply’

-
0

By Dick Meister

The media coverage of the anniversary of the Milk/Moscone killings and hoopla over the new movie “Milk” reminded me of a TV news report I did from Milk’s Castro Street camera shop 0n Sept. 17, 1974. It was part of one of the nightly half-hour TV newscasts on “Newsroom of the Streets” that we reporters on “Newsroom” did on a public access channel from various Bay Area locations during our strike against KQED from September ’74 through January ’75. As often was the case with “Newsroom” stories, it was on an issue generally ignored by the commercial media — in this instance, employment discrimination against gays.

Jeffrey Sachs: A Sustainable Recovery

-
1

Here is an installment from Jeffrey D. Sachs’ monthly commentary: Economics and Justice available exclusively on the Project Syndicate news series. Jeffrey D. Sachs is Professor of Economics and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is also a Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals.

A Sustainable Recovery

by Jeffrey D. Sachs

NEW YORK – The global recession now underway is the result not only of a financial panic, but also of more basic uncertainty about the future direction of the world economy. Consumers are pulling back from home and automobile purchases not only because they have suffered a blow to their wealth with declining stock prices and housing values, but also because they don’t know where to turn. Should they risk buying a new car when gasoline prices might soar again? Will they be able to put food on the table after this year’s terrifying rise in food prices?

Decisions about business investment are even starker. Businesses are reluctant to invest at a time when consumer demand is plummeting and they face unprecedented risk penalties on their borrowing costs. They are also facing huge uncertainties. What kinds of power plants will be acceptable in the future? Will they be allowed to emit carbon dioxide as in the past? Can the United States still afford a suburban lifestyle, with sprawling homes in far-flung communities that require long-distance automobile commutes?

Rally to stop PG&E’s late payment deposits!

-
2

By Bruce B. Brugmann

(Scroll down for information on the rally and on a consumer survey on PG&E’s late payment policy

The Pacific Gas & Electric Company really does screw residents and businesses on a systematic basis, as Guardian readers and Clean Energy Act (H) supporters know.
For example, the utility often imposes deposits for late payments on residents. For businesses, it often forces a late paying company to buy a bond. For businesses that late pay, PG&E is quick to notify Dun & Bradstreet, the business credit rating service, making it more difficult for the company to qualify for credit. To make matters worse, there is no realistic way for residents or businesses to get help or complain about PG&E’s late payment policies or any of its other abusive policies. On guard!

So it is good to see the The Utility Reform Network (TURN) call PG&E out on the late payment issue and sponsor a rally against PG&E’s late payment deposit policy at noon Thursday (ll/20/08) at the corner of Fremont and Market Sts. in San Francisco. Here is TURN’s press release on the rally and its survey on late payment deposits.

Why penalize customers who are struggling to pay their bills during an
economic crisis?

STAND UP! SPEAK OUT!
Fight for our rights to affordable utility services!
Rally for a Suspension of Late Payment Deposits!

Thursday, November 20, 2008
12:00pm
Corner of Fremont & Market St
San Francisco, Ca 94105

Directions by public transportation: MUNI Bus Lines-F, 38, 7, 14, 21, 6, 71 Metro Lines- J, K, L, N, M, T exit at Embarcadero station

For more information please contact Lotchana at 415.987.4375 or
lsourivong@turn.org

Sponsored by TURN (The Utility Reform Network)

PG&E Customer Survey: Deposits

Have you ever been asked for a deposit because you have paid your bill
late?
Yes No

Are you doing your best to make regular payments?
Yes No

Is your electric/gas service still on?
Yes No

Have you had the same residential billing address and account name for
the past year?
Yes No

Do you have a copy of your bill that shows the deposit charge? Yes No

If you answered YES to all the questions and want the deposit refunded,
please contact Lotchana at 415-987-4375 or lsourivong@turn.org.

Maybe we contact you, if we have further questions?
(Mailing address: 711 Van Ness Ave. Ste. 350, SF, CA 94102)

Name:_____________________________________

Address:___________________________________

Phone or Email:________________________________

I remember Harvey

-
0

Toward the end of the supervisorial campaign in 1973, I got an intercom call from Nancy Destefanis, our advertising representative handling political ads. Hey, she said, I got a guy here by the name of Harvey Milk who is running for supervisor and I think you ought to talk to him.

Milk? I replied. How can anybody run for supervisor with the name of Milk?

Nancy laughed and said that wasn’t his big problem, it was that he was running as an openly gay candidate, but he had strong progressive positions and potential. Nancy, a former organizer for Cesar Chavez’ farm workers, was tough and savvy, and I always took her advice seriously. "Send him in," I said.

And so Harvey Milk came into my office, at the start of his political career, looking like a well-meaning amateur. He had a ponytail and mustache, wore Levi’s and a T-shirt, and talked breathlessly about his issues without a word about how he intended to win. His arguments were impressive, but he clearly was not ready for prime time. We gave him our "romantic" endorsement. He got 17,000 votes.

I also advised him, as diplomatically as I could, that if he wanted to be a serious candidate, he needed to clean up his act.

Two years later, Milk strode into the Guardian in a suit and tie as a serious candidate ready to win and lead. As our strong endorsement put it, "Now he’s playing politics for real: he’s shaved his mustache, is running hard in the voting areas of the Sunset, and has picked up a flock of seemingly disparate endorsements from SF Tomorrow, the Building and Trades Council, Teamsters (for his work on the Coors beer boycott) and the National Women’s Caucus." On policy, we said he "would put his business acumen to work dissecting the budget" and "would fight for higher parking taxes, no new downtown garages, a graduated real estate transfer tax, an end to tax exemptions for banks and insurance companies, dropping the vice squad from the police budget, and improved mental health care facilities." He couldn’t get enough votes citywide to win, but he came closer.

In 1976, Milk decided to run for a state Assembly seat against Art Agnos. We decided to go with Agnos, largely because he was familiar with Sacramento as an aide to former assemblyman Leo McCarthy and also because our political reporter covering the race, Jerry Roberts, said that Agnos was much better on Sacramento issues during the campaign. We decided that Agnos was right for Sacramento and that we needed Milk in San Francisco. I have often wondered if we had endorsed Milk, and he had won, if he would still be alive.

The next year, when the city shifted to district supervisorial elections, Milk won and became the first openly gay elected official in the country. He would always say, "I am not a gay supervisor, I am a supervisor who happens to be gay."

On the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 24, 1978, Milk dropped by to see me at the Guardian. He was a bit dejected. Things were getting tougher for him on the board. He was getting hassled by his friends and allies who were telling him, as he put it, "if you don’t vote for me on this one, I’m going to stop supporting you." He said he was going to press on, but from then on he was going to work more closely with the Guardian on legislation and on giving us information.

Then he smiled the famous Harvey Milk smile and said as he left my room, "I want to be your Deep Throat at City Hall."

Those were the last words I ever heard from Harvey Milk. He was assassinated three days later.

I remember Harvey

-
1

I remember Harvey

Bruce B. Brugmann

Toward the end of the supervisorial campaign in 1973, I got an intercom call from Nancy Destefanis, our advertising representative handling political ads. Hey, she said, I got a guy here by the name of Harvey Milk who is running for supervisor and I think you ought to talk to him.
Milk? I replied. How can anybody run for supervisor with the name of Milk?
Nancy laughed and said that wasn’t his big problem, it was that he was running as an openly gay candidate, but he had strong progressive positions and potential. Nancy, a former organizer for Cesar Chavez’ farm workers, was tough and savvy, and I always took her advice seriously. “Send him in,” I said.

Guardian: ‘Fighting Newsom’s mid-year cuts’

-
0

By Bruce B. Brugmann

(Scroll down for the Guardian editorial in Wednesday’s edition (ll/19/08), “Fighting Newsom’s mid-year budget cuts”)

Once again, the Guardian is editorializing about the problems of the structural city budget deficit, which of course will be worse because of the economy and because of Mayor Newsom’s moves for mid-year cuts aimed at our lame duck Board of Supervisors.

And once again, the Guardian raises the issue, as we have since our first PG&E/Raker Act scandal story in l969, that the city is losing tens of millions a year by allowing PG&E to control its cheap Hetch Hetchy power and instead forcing the city’s residents and businesses to buy PG&E’s expensive private power. (See Guardian stories and Bruce blogs for details.) And it is most annoying that Newsom and his hired gun, Eric Jaye, worked so hard to defeat the Clean Energy Act (H), when public power would be the biggest potential source of new revenue for the city. Jaye conveniently advises Newsom and runs his campaign for governor at the same time he consults for PG&E and ran PG&E’s campaign against H. Neat.

More: it also annoying that the San Francisco Labor Council allowed PG&E to hold labor hostage in this campaign and in effect allowed PG&E to drum home the charge, without labor counter, that city workers are so dumb, so incompetent, and so lazy that they can’t run an electricity system. This posture puts city workers and their unions at a disadvantage when the budget axe starts falling.

The Guardian editorial: “Fighting Newsom’s mid-year cuts”

SPJ honors ‘The Vanishing Journalist’

-
0

By Bruce B. Brugmann

(Scroll down for the full SPJ awards program, press release on the winners, and Tom Honig on “The Vanishing Journalist”)

The Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists held an inspired and inspiring Excellence in Journalism awards program last Thursday night at the Yank Sing restaurant in San Francisco.

The room was full of reporters and editors who have been laid off or merged out, and many others fearful of being laid off or merged out. This point was made eloquently by Bruce Newman, who won the criticism award for his movie reviews in the San Jose Mercury News, and announced in his acceptance remarks that his position of movie critic had been eliminated five weeks ago.

Yet, despite the problems of the media and the economy, the award winners and their work this year were extraordinarily worthy. The program was excellent. The food was good. And Ricardo Sandoval, the incoming SPJ president, and Linda Jue, the outgoing SPJ president, and many of the award accepters made the crucial point: that the worse the news is, the more SPJ and good journalism are needed.

And so SPJ chose this year to give its premier award, the Journalist of the Year award, to “The Vanishing Journalist.” And they chose Tom Honig, the distinguished former editor of the Santa Cruz Sentinel, to accept the award. Honig was the classic California community journalist:he started on the old Palo Alto Times in sports, then to the Sentinel in l972, to the cops and courts beat to reporter for eight years, to assistant city editor and then to city editor, copy desk chief, managing editor in l99l, and then editor in l992.

He left the Sentinel on the last day of November, 2007. His exit was illustrative: His Singleton/Media News publisher had told him he would have to lay off at least three more editorial staffers from the newsroom, after previous cuts had reduced the newsroom from a high of 43 in 2005 to 30 last year. The Sentinel’s accountant pointedly told Honig that if he left, that would save three positions. So Honig made the ultimate sacrifice and laid himself off. (He is now in a new career, as an account executive in Armanasco Public Relations in Monterey.)

“The people that run newspapers today–describe them how you will–might understand finance and they understand budgets,” Honig said. “They do, after all, understand that news organizations are in trouble. What they don’t understand is that the indiscriminate budget cuts are only hastening their own demise. You know what? You need good reporters and editors. You just do…

“It’s us– the journalists–who carry with us the knowledge and integrity that money simply cannot buy. We carry on because we know the power of questioning authority, questioning those even that we agree with –and giving those we disagree with a fair airing of their views. The talking heads on television and radio can’t do that.”

Here are Honig’s complete remarks:

by Tom Honig

I’m accepting this award on behalf of the hundreds – thousands – of veteran reporters, photographers and editors that have helped and inspired me over the years. We’re honoring the vanishing journalist tonight, and I do want to say a few words on his and her behalf.

I’d have to say that the most noteworthy thing about my career is how unnoteworthy it really has been. Some reporters go to war zones. Others call the White House their beat. But for most of us – it’s the school board. The library board. The fire that leaves a family homeless. We are the people who get it done, day in and day out – giving people the opportunity to understand their own community.

I’m truly honored that I would be asked to accept this award on behalf of all those who have come and gone before me. I once looked at my decision to spend my career in a small town – Santa Cruz, California – as something to be slightly embarrassed about. I now think of it only with pride.

I think of the writing advice I got from editors older than I who taught me strategies to get out of my own way and let the story tell itself.

When you work at a community paper, you don’t need focus groups and readership studies. People talk to you in the super market. Actually, they bitch at you in the super market. Or at the gym. Or when you’re out grabbing a sandwich at the deli. You do an investigation into misspent funds in a small town and you get a good story, but you also get a tearful phone call from a city manager who’ a really nice guy but who knows he fouled up. You do the story anyway, but you feel bad and later you keep running into him and you hope he’s doing OK.

But you do your job, and some days you don’t think much about it. But when it’s all over, you take some time, look back and realize that you’ve been part of something very special. You did good journalism. You did what the best investigative journalism does – reveal the truth to those who may or may not want to hear it.

The public doesn’t often understand the value of their local newspaper – even as they rely upon what’s there. I’m partial to local newspapers. The kind of journalism we achieved over the years in Santa Cruz I would stack up against any of the big boys. And being right there as part of the community … we knew about credibility long before the think tanks started doing their studies.

The people that run newspapers today – describe them how you will — might understand finance and they understand budgets. They do, after all, understand that news organizations are in financial trouble. What they don’t understand is that the indiscriminate budget cuts are only hastening their own demise. You know what? You need good reporters and editors. You just do.

Many of you are embarking on new ventures, on new forms of digital and online journalism as traditional outlets start to disappear. Some of you are launching these ventures on your own. We have Knight News Challenges and we have startups and we have incredible energy from those just embarking on their careers. That’s all to the good. It’s us – the journalists – who carry with us the knowledge and the integrity that money simply cannot buy. We carry on because we know the power of questioning authority, questioning those even that we agree with – and giving those with whom we disagree a fair airing of their views. The talking heads on television and radio don’t and can’t do that.

It’s the story – in whatever form it takes – that’s king. It’s the truth that we seek. As we move forward, we won’t have the old support system around us, the older, wiser editors who have seen ’em come and seen ’em go. We won’t have the structure that has carried us forward all these years. It’s breaking down, and it’s not our fault.

I couldn’t be more encouraged by the energy and the values of young journalists. But I’m also encouraged by others – those, like me, who are certified vanishing journalists who are still around, still available to help, still thinking that there’s good work to be done.

We still know a few things. We know about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. We know the value of explaining a society to itself without fear or favor. Those are values we can’t afford to lose. Dean Singleton can try to take it all away so he can make up for his poor business decisions and cover his huge debt. We can’t let him.

Again. I accept this award on behalf of all the great journalists I’ve known and learned from. It’s truly an honor to be the one accepting on their behalf, and I thank you very much.

Tim Eagan

-
0

“Part of the problem now is that this presidential transition has come at the very worst possible time. We saw it coming. I don’t know if there was any way to avoid it,” Frank says. “You know, Senator Obama has said, ‘We only have one president at a time.’ Well, that overstates the number of presidents we have at this time. We don’t appear to have any.”


Click here to read Timothy Egan’s December 13 op-ed in the New York Times, Final Days Fire Sale.

Women bringing new strength to unions

-
0

By Dick Meister

Women are well on the way to overtaking men in the ranks of organized labor
— and for good reason. As a new study shows, women who’ve joined unions have significantly better pay and benefits than working women who have not joined.

Although only about a fifth of women workers overall currently belong to unions, they already make up about 45 percent of all unionized workers. They’re expected to become a majority within a dozen years, according to the study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Cindy: Revolution will not be reported!

-
12

From Cindy Sheehan

The Revolution Will not be Reported!

Or Funded by Corporate Interests!

Dear Friend/Supporter,

It has been 10 days since the election and Cindy for Congress is still going strong.

I am going to start a radio show on Green 960 AM beginning November 29th at 11:30am. The brilliant part of my show is that I will be on right after Corporate Democrat, Gavin Newsom (mayor of SF). My new show is called: Cindy Sheehan’s Soap Box and we will have an amazing guest to interview each week and I will sound off on different topics: war/peace; politics; human rights; international relations; foreign policy; etc. My show will have a global/local scope to it and will also be a call to action. Also, on every show, I will answer a couple of the hundreds of emails we get every week. We will pod cast the show from our website.

The reason we are undertaking this new show, is that the corporate media (locally and nationally) wrote me off and put a blockade on coverage even before we began our campaign. When there was coverage, the writer would opine that either: a) wouldn’t get on the ballot as an independent; b) not even beat the Republican; c) not even get 10 percent. Well, friend, I a) got on the ballot (which took 10,198 signatures); b) beat the Republican by a lot and c) got almost 17% of the vote. We did far better than anyone who has ever run against Pelosi in the past and that was with very, very little media coverage. Some election night coverage only reported the stats from Nancy Pelosi and the Republican, leaving me out entirely!

So far, (still counting) we have over 45,000 votes! With your help, we were able to mount a very serious campaign that was fueled by our very progressive platform and the support of thousands of people all over the country. Thank you so much for believing in peace, accountability and true progressive values!

We are already organizing for 2010 and have kept a skeletal staff and our office to do this and we are starting a PAC (political action committee) to be able to sustain our campaign until we come out even stronger than before in 2010. We also have some campaign debt to pay off.

I truly believe with the foundation that we have built and the growing disasters that our confronting our country, (facilitated by the “leadership” of Nancy Pelosi), we have an excellent chance of taking her seat in 2010 and finally giving San Francisco a true progressive Congressional Rep. Finally, we will also be working with progressive political activists around the nation to mount challenges to every Congressperson that does not effectively represent the interests of “We the People,” and not the corporate pirates.

Love & Peace

Cindy Sheehan

1...141516...37Page 15 of 37

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