Bruce Brugmann

Censoring the Censored Project: Will the NY Times, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, and the mainstream media censor this year’s Project Censored story?

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

And so the 31st annual Project Censored story will run once again as the lead story in the Guardian and in many alternative papers around the country.

The highly regarded Project, researched and disseminated by Peter Phillips and Project Censored at Sonoma State University, makes its case about censored and under-reported stories in a most dramatic way:
the mainstream press, including the nearby Press Democrat/NY Times and the NY Times itself, censors the story.

Not only that, but the Post Democrat and the NYTimes refuse to say why they haven’t ever run a story on the project in 30 years. They even refused to answer my blog questions to the papers after we published last year’s Censored story.

So this year, let us all pull together on this critical mission: spotting who is censoring the Project Censored story? Let me note the impertinent questions for the record:
Will the nearby Press Democrat run this important local and national story? Will its parent New York Times do so?
If not, will they answer my questions when I renew my blogs on the issue? Will other mainstream media censor the story? Who will run it? Let us know at the Guardian.

This is serious stuff. I led my blog of Nov. 20th/2006 with this statement: “On Sept. 10, 2003, while the New York Times and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat affiliated papers were running Judith Miller stories making the case for the Iraq War and then seeking to justify it, the Guardian published the annual Project Censored list of censored stories.”

Later, after detailing the number one story on the neocon politics that marched us into war, I wrote, “the neocon story and the other censored stories laying out the dark side of the Bush administration and its drumbeat to war got little or no play–or else were presented piecemeal without any attempt to put the information in context.
The number two story was ‘Homeland security threatens civil liberties.’ Number three: ‘U.S. illegally removes pages from Iraq U.N. report.’ Number four: ‘Rumsfeld’s plan to provoke terrorists.’ Number seven: ‘Treaty busting by the United States.’ Number eight: ‘U.S. and British forces continue use of depleted uranium weapons despite massive evidence of negative health effects.’ Number nine: ‘In Afghanistan poverty, women’s rights, and civil disruption worse than ever.'”

Then I concluded my blog on last year’s censorship of Project Censored by writing, “This year, as Iraq slid into civil war, U.S. war dead rose toward 3,000, and the U.S. public was well ahead of the media in turning against the war, the New York Times should have finally recognized its annual mistake and published the Project Censored story. It didn’t, and never has” ( and neither has the Press Democrat nor hardly any other mainstream media that helped march us into war.)

This year, the theme of the Censored stories is more relevant and timely than ever: the increase of privatization and the decrease of human rights in the U.S. Let us see what happens. B3

Ammiano on Sen. Craig

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Senator Craig says he doesn’t do things like that. And, oh yes, the Bay Bridge isn’t closed.

(On the voicemail of Supervisor Tom Ammiano). B3

Today’s Ammianoliner

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WiFi bad for diet. City needs fiber. Fiber. Fiber. Fiber. (On the voicemail of Sup. Tom Ammiano) B3

Ammiano to gay Republicans…

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Gay Republicans repeat after me. I’m here. I’m queer. I’m sorry.

(Today’s Ammianoliner: on the voicemail of Sup. Tom Ammiano’s home telephone.) B3

Pics of Mel Belli’s friends

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Some pictures of the friends of the famous San Francisco attorney at the Be-In 2007.

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Mel Belli’s friends got together last Friday night (Aug.24) for the Human Be-In 2007.

Belli, the famous San Francisco attorney and King of Torts, as he liked to call himself, has been dead for many years but his spirit lives on, at the Be-In and at Sunday’s Summer of Love spectacular in Speedway Meadows at Golden Gate Park.

The reason is a most tantalizing and unknown San Francisco story, as I mentioned in a previous blog and as a panelist at the Be-In. The two promoters of the first Be-In, Allen Cohen and Michael Bowen, were desperately trying to get a permit from City Hall for their original Be-In event in l967.

Allen got nowhere when he tried City Hall. So Bowen went to his friend Mel Belli, who sent his secretary over to City Hall. She came back later that afternoon with a permit. The permit was for “a birthday party for Mel Belli and his friends.” That was how the Human Be-In of l967, the precursor to the Summer of Love, was held legally on the Polo Field at Golden Gate Park.

And so you can say in an expansive Oraculean way that all the people who come to the Be-Ins and Summer of Love events, and tens of thousands are expected on Sunday, are friends of Mel Belli. He would get a kick out of that. B3

Click on the continue reading link to see some pictures of the Human Be-In 2007, taken by Raymond Van Tassel.
To see more pictures, go to his website at www.RaymondVanTassel.com.

Gonzales goes, but investigation must continue

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

From time to time, I will pass along articles that I think are particularly timely and cogent.
This week’s piece by John Nichols, in the Nation’s “Online Beat,” gets to the heart of the issue of the Gonzalez and Karl Rove resignations.

He writes, “The essential question with regard to Gonzalez remains the same as the question that Leahy ((Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont) laid down when Rove said he would go. What are these people so desperate to hide.

“The answer is that, just as Gonzalez and Rove served Bush rather than the Constitution, they now seek with their resignations to protect Bush–and Vice President Dick Cheney–from investigations that are necessary to any serious effort to restore the primacy of the founding document in the affairs of the nation.” B3

Today’s Ammianoliner

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Gonzalez steps down. His last act is to ban same sex cock fighting.

(On the voicemail of Sup. Tom Ammiano). B3

The Human Be-In permit caper. How Attorney Mel Belli got a Be-In permit by claiming he was holding a birthday party in Golden Gate Park

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Literally, as I was polishing up my blog for tonight’s Human Be-In,
I got a call from Michael Bowen, a key organizer with Allen Cohen of the original Human Be-In on January 14, l967.
He is now living in a house ten minutes out of Stockholm, Sweden.

Bowen had lots to say about the Be-In and the era but he noted there was one key piece of information that has not been published and remains unknown: the issue of how the hippie group got a permit to put on the event in Golden Gate Park. He told me the story, yet another San Francisco classic, and I asked him to write it up for me and send it to me in time for the event tonight. The teaser: the permit read a “Birthday Party for Mel Belli and friends on the Polo Field in Golden Gate Park.”
Here’s Bowen’s account:

Getting the “Human Be-in” permit.

The original “Human Be-in.”

The name.

The poster.

Tonight: The Human Be-In 2007

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The original Human Be-In on Jan. 14, l967, was not just a giant hippy party. It had an important political purpose and political consequences and helped mobilize the youth movement against the war in Vietnam

By Bruce B. Brugmann

As a participant in Friday night’s Human Be-In, the pre-40th Anniversary “Summer of Love” event on Sept. 2,
I plan to provide a bit of revolutionary poetry/journalism (my phrase) from my old friend and journalism colleague, the late Allen Cohen. Allen was the editor of the Oracle during the Summer of Love in l967 and a major organizer of the Human Be-in in Golden Gate Park.

He also published and pioneered what I considered the most colorful newspaper in the world at that time.
And how he did it was a San Francisco classic. The Oracle was printed by the Howard Quinn Co., at 298 Alabama Street, along with the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the Black Panther paper, the Berkeley Barb, and a host of underground papers and alternative papers of the era.

One night the Oracle staff came in with their flats and asked the pressmen, a rough and tumble crew, if they could get some special color in the paper. The hippies, some in bare feet, wanted this and they wanted that and they were rapidly driving the pressmen crazy. Finally, the pressmen just waved them to the press and said in effect, go ahead, do it your way. So the Oracle hippies went to work and put all kinds of colored dyes in all of the ink wells on the press, with no consideration for what color went where. The result was a rainbow of colors, all kinds, splashed across the front page and every page in the paper. The Oracle was an immediate sensation, on the streets and amongst mainstream newspaper people still tied to the old-fashioned letterpress printing.

Allen was creating a revolution in newspaper printing at the same time he was promoting a cultural and anti-Vietnam war revolution with the politics of the Be-in.
His wife, Ann Cohen, wrote me that “the media this year has left out how the Be-In came to happen and it feels as if it will go down in history as just a big party.” So she sent me a piece he did at the time on the politics of the Be-In and a letter, dated Jan. 1, 1967, asking Art Kunkin, editor of the LA Free Press, to publish an announcement
of the Be-In and “help the echoes of this event reverberate throughout the world.”

Allen crystalized a key issue of the time: that there was a “philosophical split that was developing in the youth movement. The anti-war and free speech movement in Berkeley thought the hippies were too disengaged and spaced out. Their influence might draw the young away from resistance to the war. The hippies thought the anti-war movement was doomed to endless confrontations with the establishment which would recoil with violence and fascism.”

The idea was to have a Be-In, a “powwow,” to bring the two poles together and to strengthen the youth movement and bring on the “revolution.”

Click on the continue reading link below to see how Allen described it all:

Today’s Ammianoliner on the classic Halloween scenario

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Halloween scenario: Drag queens vs. swat teams. Is that a baton in your pocket? Or are you just happy to see me?

(On the answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano.) Personal note to Tom: Speak up on your phone recording. We can barely make out what you are saying with your jokes. B3

Today’s Ammianoliner

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City Hall code of conduct brings us the Stepford supervisors. Well, thank you for that veto. I needed that!

(From the home answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano.) B3

The tale of a l3-year-old youth and his adult skipper who beat the Australians in a national championship sailing race in Alameda

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

I confess here and now that I know nothing about sailing or sailing races. In fact, the only thing I know is the joke among sportswriters that the way to cover a sailing race is to station yourself at a bar, overlooking the race, and cover the action from there, because there really isn’t any action that you can see from the shore.

However, I decided to see my first sailing race when my grandson, Nicholas Perez, a lean l3-year old from Santa Barbara, and his skipper, Gordon (Gordo) Bagley, of Boulder City, Nevada, entered the Hobie National Championship Race the week of July 30th on the beaches of Alameda. I watched them head out to the start line, with some of the world’s top sailors from all over the globe, including Australia, Mexico, Fiji, and of course the U.S.
And then I came back to the city because I simply couldn’t spend the day trying to follow the action.

On Friday, Aug. 3, the last day of the five day regatta, the two did the impossible and pulled off one of those once-in-a-lifetime sailing feats that sailors only dream about, as was explained to me later by the sailors.
As you can see from the three photos, Nicky and Gordo port tacked the fleet, which means they threaded the needle between the pin boat and the rest of the fleet of catamarans on port tack, went into the lead, and never gave it up during the race.

Here’s what the sailing experts told me: Sailing afficionadas know what a difficult and gutsy move this is. To pull it off during a national championship is nothing short of miraculous. Here is how the miracle worked. A fundamental rule off sailing is that the boats on starboard tack have the right of way. Typically, 99.9 per cent of the sailors will be positioned on the starting line with their boats situated on the starboard tack. Starboard tack means that the wind is coming over the starboard side of the boat.

As you can see in the photos, 49 Hobie catamaran sailboats are on the starboard tack when the starting guns goes off and only one boat, #5l with Nicky and Gordo is on port tack. They are taking a big gamble that they will be able to sneak through a very narrow opening at the left-most end of the starting line without fouling, impaling themselves on or crashing into the rest of the fleet on starboard tack.

If this doesn’t work then, well, it’s not the good. But if it does work, then it presents one with the advantage of clear, smooth, undisturbed air and good boatspeed right at the start of the race. Good boatspeed is vital for shooting through the starting line into the race course. Conversely, starting with the fleet, all on starboard, where everyone is having to maneuver, being careful not to bump into each other while going relatively slowly, makes for a slower start.

The wind direction and starting line orientation actually favored rthe port tack start, but as you can see, 49 captains and crew thought otherwise for this particular race. After a quick consultation to determine the course of action, they decided to go for it, sailed into the lead, and won the race.

Keep on sailing, NIcky and Gordo. As for me, I am now worn out and will retire to the Connecticut Yankee bar for a Potrero Hill martini. B3

Pictured below are Nicky and Gordo doing the impossible. Click on the continue reading button to see the first person summary that Gordo wrote for the Catamaran Sailing magazine blog.

sailboy.jpg

Nicky and Gordo start the race:

sail1.jpg

Nicky and Gordo take the lead:

sail2.jpg

Click below for Gordo’s summary.

Today’s Ammianoliner

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Michael Savage and Ed Jew got married today. Instead of rice, the crowd threw tapioca.

(On the answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano, Friday, Aug. l7th.)

Today’s Ammianoliner

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Karl Rove can’t come to the phone right now. He’s on a baby seal hunt. (On Sup. Tom Ammiano’s voice mail Tuesday, Aug. l4th). B3

Is Bruce Brugmann alive, or is he spinning in his grave?

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Several folks pointed out to me that the San Francisco Chronicle carried a premature comment on my death, in its Aug. 9th feature “What people say about the designs (of our new towering highrise buildings).”

It quoted Michael S. McGill, the former executive director of the San Francisco Urban Planning & Research Association and former executive director of the Bay Area Forum, 64, now living in Washington, D.C.

Said Gill, “Having left SF at the end of the two-decade war over high-rises, in the early ’90s, I am astonished at the apparent public support for ‘the tallest high-rise on the West Coast.’ How things have changed! Is (San Francisco Bay Guardian publisher) Bruce Brugmann still alive, or is he spinning in his grave?”

Hey, Mike, good to hear from you. Your report of my death is premature and I am happy to report that the Guardian
is still firmly on top of the highrise issue, which I like to call pellmell Manhattanization. We stopped the first highrise boom with Proposition M, the limited growth initiative on commercial highrises and the downtown highrise boom.
But now the issue is highrises with million-dollar condos, ugly, much too high and out of proportion for a compact city and its compact neighborhoods, built not for residents but for people working outside the city and driving out our lower income and middle classes.

You can rest assured, Mike, that we are on the story and fighting them every way we can. And soon you may see the equivalent of a Prop M for highrise condos. Can we count on you to come back and join the battle?

Postscript: “The Devil’s Bargain at the Transbay Terminal,” a blog by Guardian Executive Editor Tim Redmond, eloquently summarizes the key political point behind the new highrise boom. “Nobody in California wants to pay higher taxes for anything. So the folks at City Hall have decided that the only way we can have a new transit terminal is if we hock a piece of our city and our skyline to fund it. So we take some of the land on the terminal site and let a developer build monstrosity of a highrise on it–and that will bring in the money that we can’t get any other way.”

Phil Bronstein, man of action!The San Francisco Chronicle, newspaper of action!

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

And so the headline in the new Editor & Publisher magazine proclaims, “Bronstein Launches New ‘Journalism of Action’ After Big Cuts.” And the lead says that “With its massive newsroom staff cuts essentially complete, the San Francisco Chronicle is embarking on a new approach to coverage that Editor Phil Bronstein likens to that practiced by William Randolph Hearst.”

Read the full story below for the juicy stop-the-presses details about the phrase “being bandied around in the Chronicle newsroom since last Thursday.”

Impertinent questions for Bronstein and Hearst corporate: Does “journalism of action” mean you will you now start covering the PG&E/City Hall/Raker Act scandal stories? If not, why not? And if not, could you explain which Hearst “journalism of action” tradition you are talking about? Are you talking about the anti-PG&E “journalism of action” tradition in which Hearst supported the federal Raker Act that allowed San Francisco to dam the Hetch Hetchy dam in Yosemite National Park for the city’s cheap, public water and power supply? Or are you talking about the pro-PG&E “journalism of action” tradition in which Hearst reversed himself in the late 1920s to support PG&E and oppose public power after getting a handy chunk of capital from a PG&E-controlled bank?

Let me put the question as simply as I can: Does the
new Bronstein policy mean that Hearst will end its longtime “journalism of action” on behalf of PG&E and start some “journalism of action” on behalf of San Francisco residents and businesses? Let us pray.

B3, still annoyed to see from my office window the fumes rising from the Mirant power plant at the bottom of Potrero Hill, courtesy of PG&E and Hearst/Bronstein “journalism of action”

Click here to read full Editor & Publisher article.

Today’s Ammianoliner

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“Ed Jew submits ballot measure for free Wifi and tapioca.” (On the answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano, Aug. 6, 2007) b3

{Empty title}

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Your grandson:

sailboy.jpg

Starting line pull out:

sail1.jpg

Takes the lead:

sail2.jpg

Today’s Ammianoliner

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“City sponsors crafts fair in Golden Gate Park. Wine tasting and needlework.” (From Sup. Tom Ammiano’s voice mail on Thursday, Aug. 2) B3

The saddest headline in the history of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

And so in the end Rupert Murdoch wanted the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones more than did the Bancroft family that owned them for more than 100 years.

Yet another sad day for the newspaper business as these crown jewels of journalism slipped into the Maw of Murdoch and the slime of the New York Post, Fox News, the O.J. Simpson autobiography, and Murdoch’s sellout ventures in China.

For me, the saddest headline in WSJ history was the top head on the front page of the Aug. 1 edition: “Murdoch Wins His Bid for Dow Jones,” with the front page subheads that nailed down the outcome for the world to see: “News Corp.’s Success Follows Delicate Dance Between Suitor, Target” and “Bancroft Family Agrees to $5 Billion Offer After Deal on Fees, A New Owner for Journal.”

The Chronicle’s David Lazarus: the consumer reporter who wasn’t allowed to cover the biggest consumer story in San Francisco history

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

David Lazarus wrote his farewell consumer column for the July 27th Chronicle under the headline, “Where is the media watchdog?”

Indeed. Lazarus answers his question by quoting Ralph Nader as saying that there will never be another Nader because “the media have lost interest in consumer advocacy as both a story and a calling.”

Lazarus says that the “Chron’s editors have stood behind this column” and says that “a tip of the hat is due here to Editor Phil Bronstein, Deputy Managing Editor Steve Proctor and, most of all, Business Editor Ken Howe. They took enough heat on my behalf to boil soup.”

And yet, despite the fact that Lazarus is a damn good reporter and a strong consumer advocate and claims support from his paper, he was still unable to cover the biggest consumer story in San Francisco history.

Which is, as attentive Guardian readers know, the PG&E/City Hall/Raker Act scandal and how PG&E has cheated the city’s businesses and residents for decades out of the city’s own cheap, clean, and green Hetch Hetchy electrical power. (See past Bruce blogs and Guardian stories and editorials going back to 1969).

Today’s Ammianoliner

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Ed Jew runs in San Francisco to Burlingame marathon. (On the answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano on Monday, July 30.) B3

The ugly news we’ve been waiting to hear

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Alas. Alas. As predicted by the Guardian, the Bruce blog, and most everybody in and around the Dean Singleton news operations, the bad news was flashed this morning by my reliable source in Contra Costa County in his note and Singleton story below.

This was a major story on yet more news consolidation in the Bay Area, but it only rated a three paragraph burial story on page 2 of the daily digest page of the business section of Singleton’s only Bay Area daily “competitor,” the San Francisco Chronicle.

Its lively head says, “Chain consolidates newsroom operations,” which means in effect “please don’t read this story, it is damn boring.” Its boiler plate press release coverage says without blushing: “The consolidation of the papers, all owned by MediaNews Group (B3: Singleton) will result in job cuts as part of an effort to eliminate redundant positions, beef up online coverage and save money…The company said that it hopes attribution will cover the staff reductions, but added that layoffs may be necessary…Local news reporting will continue to be supervised by editors at each of the newspapers…” Wow, now that is real enterprise business reporting!

My source wrote by email:

“The following appears today in the business pages of at least the CCTimes and Oakland Trib. Times ran it below fold on pg. 1 of business section; Trib ran on an inside business page.

“I still have the image of Singleton standing in the city room of the Times at the time of the sale, saying staff and editorial direction for the various papers would remain in place. Hah. It won’t be long before there is but one newspaper to serve the East Bay, perhaps with zoned editions that are community specific.” (B3: my source, a veteran newsman who has lived in the county for years, has yet to be wrong on any of his predictions.)

East Bay newspapers plan to consolidate news operations
Owner of Times says move will improve coverage, efficiency
By George Avalos
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Article Launched: 07/27/2007 03:05:35 AM PDT

The company that owns the Times said it will consolidate the news operations of several East Bay newspapers as a way to improve coverage of the region and create a more efficient organization.
Starting Aug. 13, all employees of the East Bay papers affected will work under the umbrella of Bay Area News Group-East Bay, said John Armstrong, vice president of California Newspapers Partnership, which owns the publications.
“We are making this change, which integrates three entities into a single operation, to allow us to maximize our East Bay news-gathering capabilities,” said Armstrong, publisher of the Times.
The daily newspapers affected by the consolidation are the Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, Tri-Valley Herald, Valley Times, San Ramon Valley Times, East County Times, West County Times, Hayward Daily Review, San Joaquin Herald, Fremont Argus and San Mateo County Times. A number of nondaily papers are also included.
The reorganization will “eliminate wasteful redundancies, streamline management and redirect staff and resources to our interactive services and other priorities, such as watchdog journalism,” Armstrong said in a memo he sent to employees of the newspapers.
Job cuts could materialize as a result of the consolidation.
“As we eliminate duplication of effort in our newsrooms, we will reduce the size of the editorial staff,” Armstrong stated. “It is our hope attrition will cover this reduction, but there is no guarantee that layoffs can be avoided.”
The combined newsrooms now have about 360 employees, said Kevin Keane, executive editor of the Times and vice president for news of the regional news group. Keane will become executive editor of Bay Area News Group-East Bay. Pete Wevurski, who had been editor of ANG Newspapers, will become managing editor of the new editorial organization, reporting to Keane.
The changes come as newspapers nationwide must wrestle with defections of advertisers and readers to the Internet.
“We need to start thinking of ourselves as information companies and not just as newspaper companies,” Keane said.
He said he believes the emerging news organization in the East Bay can deploy reporters and other news employees in a way to help the newspapers embrace a fast-changing digital world.
“We can put content online virtually 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Keane said. “We can break news online around the clock.”
Although the restructuring of the news industry has brought about painful changes and may continue to do so, Keane suggested the changes also can bring plenty of upside.
“There are a lot of challenges in the newspaper business with advertising drifting away to the Internet,” Keane said. “There is also a lot of opportunity to do things in new ways. The challenge for us is to find a balance between our reader demands for online content with our core print business.”

Watchdog journalism? C’mon. For starters, the Singleton papers will be covering even fewer night meetings of the local city councils, planning commissions, school and community college boards, and other government agencies in the East Bay and Singletonland. And they sure as hell won’t be covering the news or selling ads in a competitive newspaper environment. Alas. Alas. B3, ever more annoyed to find that newspapers, even as monopolies, continue to do such a lousy job of covering the biggest local story on their turf (themselves)

Extra! Extra! Chronicle runs front page story critical of PG&E!

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Coming back from a special meeting of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) in Santa Domingo,
I was pleasantly surprised to find a solid story on the front page of the Chronicle (Thursday, July 26th) laying out PG&E’s sorry record on blackouts.

The head was good: “The Blackout Blues.” The subhead was apt: “PG&E leaves customers in the dark more often than the other big utilities in California.” The lead was a real lead: “”Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers encore more frequent and longer-lasting blackouts than other Californians, state data show.”
The second graph provided telling detail: “Tuesday’s power outage in San Francisco and the Peninsula was no isolated incident. In 2006, the average PG&E customer lost power for more than 4 1/2 hours, according to statistics compiled by the utility and submitted to state energy regulators.”

It was prominently displayed with a nice graphic and lots of dramatic white type on a black background.

The reporter, David Baker, with help from Marisa Lagos and Cecilia Vega, did a lot of work to get the story in shape so quickly after yet another PG&E service fiasco.

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