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The Quarterly Report – July 2022

The Quarterly Report: A brief synopsis of the news in San Francisco over the last three months.

Politics

Chesa Boudin was recalled and Mayor Breed has appointed a new District Attorney, Brooke Jenkins who was a major figure in the recall. Of course she will be under the microscope as all San Francisco district attorneys are and we shall see how the hot seat feels after a few weeks.  Let us see if homelessness and the opioid epidemic disappears. I will hold not my breath.  These issues have always been much larger than the D.A.. Meanwhile, people with serious mental health issues scream into the streetlights and live on the street in cardboard boxes. At some point the city of San Francisco should simply address issues of public safety and health. Creating more public drinking fountains and bathrooms would be a great start.

Sometime the unhoused simply burn down what is left.

Sidewalk in San Francisco once occupied with an unhoused person.
Sidewalk in San Francisco once occupied with an unhoused person.

Sporting News

Basketball
The Golden State Warriors won the 2022 NBA title. Steph Curry with his three point shooting was in the end unstoppable and the team had too much depth.  Jordon Poole’s end of quarter three point buzzer beater shots must have been a bit much for the opposing teams.

Weather

Not much to report that is out of the ordinary. The typical cold summer weather pattern is upon us with foggy and windy conditions. So far there are some fires out to the west in the foothills of the Sierra but not as bad yet as years past. We have our fingers crossed.

Driving north into San Francisco by the airport. You see the fog often climb over Twin Peaks and into the city.

COVID-19 Pandemic Update

While San Francisco for the last two years been a place were people wear masks out of respect the pandemic does seem to be waning. People are out and about and traffic is almost back to pre-pandemic times.

Parklets, Haircuts and Where the Sun Does Shine

Some parklets seem to be staying and music events are picking up. There are many really good bands in San Francisco. Remember to tip the band!

That is The Quarterly Report – July 2022.

Photo Gallery of SF

The Quarterly Report – July 2022

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Unbearable Words and Strange Paradoxes

In 2022 there are many terms that in certain contexts are taboo and apparently offensive. The words “master” and “slave” are now being eradicated from our language in certain contexts as they are words that are either repressive or make people feel uncomfortable. An example of this is in programming source control.  On GitHub the “master” branch is now by default called “main.”  You can read about this change on various websites.

What is interesting is that there seems to be a lack of critical thinking here. We are talking about the relationship between branches in a repository, not actual human relations. Furthermore, what is ironic is that in the early days of the web, the person who ran websites was called a “webmaster.” Surely this referred to the mastering of skills and at the time the  creation of ridiculous nested HTML tables and “font” tags, but to the underling of said “webmaster,” could they have taken offence and felt trodden upon as the webmaster’s slave? It all seems rather peculiar and some agree.

jaredpatrick • 8 months ago
I am a black man trying to build a product that is now broken because you are worried I am offended by branch names?

Slavery ended over 150 years ago. We don’t need your virtue signaling.

Stop perpetuating this BLM nonsense. If people want recognition and support then they need to earn it. I worked my rear off to get where I am today without a movement behind me. I have been elevated by people of all types because I have skills and a good work ethic.

We are all serving a “master” whether it is a manager or customers. Nobody can make it without serving someone.

– Comment on www.zdnet.com

To further see the absurdity of this renaming, I recently picked up a copy in a Goodwill store for one dollar of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by non other than Mark Twain. On the road, I was keeping my eye out for the book having read it in college. The edition was The Newsouth Edition from 2011. I soon found out that I wanted nothing to do with it. The editor had replaced the word “nigger” with the word “slave” throughout so as to not offend people and make it more palatable to the tender high schoolers. Good grief! Evidently it is alright to use the “n” word in a contemporary pop song but it must be washed clean from a pivotal piece of American literature.

What is additionally strange is that Twain had to fight constantly with his editors not to change his punctuation and he got irate when they took out or added commas. I wonder what he would have thought about changing lots of words. I will give this copy away and search for the real thing.

In 2011 the term “nigger” was made less offensive by replacing it with “slave.” Ironically, in 2020 the apparently offensive term “master” is renamed to “main.” We live in a world were comfort supersedes truth and the shrill seem to dominate the conversation. While we bicker over offensive diction real problems are everywhere.

 

 

 

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Republicans Buying Elections, DINOS and the Politics of Party Affiliation

The June 7th, 2022 California Primaries are over and the results are in. As expected Gavin Newsom is in control of the Governor race. In San Francisco, Chesa Boudin the District Attorney has been recalled. The Republican’s millions of dollars, the paying for signatures, the war chest bloated by billionaires has ousted a qualified, hard-working, corruption-free district attorney who was simply doing the job he was elected to do with the approach that he campaigned on.  In plain sight, our democracy is for sale to the highest bidder.  Let us now see what happens when Mayor Breed appoints a new D.A. and supposedly the homelessness will disappear, the pharmaceutical company instigated opioid epidemic is solved, and all the burglaries and violent crime vanishes into thin air. I will not hold my breath.

Nationally, there is a trend and strategy for wealthy Republicans who want to suddenly dive into politics of changing political party not because of values, ideology or philosophy, but because it is politically convenient. After being registered as Republicans for their entire lives they  register as Democrats. They do this as they know that as a Republicans they  do not have a chance at the ballot box and so at the eleventh hour join the Democratic party . This is the opposite direction that Donald Trump took when he ran for president, but in his case he was always simply a New York style mob leader and fascist – his party affiliation has been simply a matter of convenience . Donald Trump is in every way the RINO in the room and has made it so the Republican party now looks nothing like the party of Eisenhower, Reagan or Bob Dole.

In Los Angeles the mayoral race  between Rick Caruso and Karen Bass is just another example of this pay to play politics. Rick Caruso is a wealthy Republican real estate mogul who registered as a Democrat simply to run for mayor. A good friend came up with a name for such people – DINOS. Rick Caruso and such characters are indeed “Democrats in Name Only.”

In the end, money talks.

 

‘

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Let’s Form a Well Regulated Militia

Second Amendment
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
– The U.S. Bill of Rights

The United States could partially solve the out of control gun issue in this country by playing the “originalist” card and beat the “conservatives” at their own game. Originalism is the the notion that it is best not to interpret The Constitution and that the words must mean what they meant when the document was written. Five years ago I pointed out that the Trump administration did not even post the actual Second Amendment but rewrote it a bit – took out the “well regulated Militia” part and simplified it to basically say  “everyone gets guns.” It is odd that the originalists did not find issue with this rewriting and often they have interpretations like Trump’s on their websites.

https://sfjournal.net/u-s-constitution-original-source/

From my ninth grade history class with William Putman I learned that the whole “well regulated Militia” part had to do with the situation at hand. The newly forming country knew that many of the citizens. especially in rural areas, were armed probably mostly so they could hunt and survive. They did not want the British to take away their weapons and needed these folks to be able to join their cause. Thus you have the antiquated phrase “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.”

So let’s indeed have a well regulated Militia.  Everyone who owns a gun is now a part of the Militia. I would have all these people with all their guns show up on July 4th to the town armory.  Individuals would be assessed for their mental stability, physical fitness and  understanding of the US Constitution. There would also be required safety trainings. They would be given an official “I’m a Member of the Militia” ID card, and then at the end people would turn in their guns as our “well regulated militia” now no longer needs these weapons.  Indeed, the British are NOT coming. The Militia would now consist of a few thousand folk who use their guns to hunt small birds, rabbits and deer to help with deer wasting disease.

Of course, I write this opinion in jest, as it would never happen, but I write to point out the absurdity of “originalism” and how it is used only when convenient. It does cut both ways.

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Judge Kentanji Jackson and Definitions

On March 23, 2022, I submitted the comment below on the NY Times website.

Your comment has been approved!

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with The New York Times community.

Gustav | San Francisco
The Republican’s obsession with child pornography was odd theater. What they did not realize is that Judge Jackson gave them an answer that they should have been pleased with. Saying that the definition of a woman is done by a biologist is the traditional view. More often today it is an “internal sense of self” and then that “sense of self” is affirmed by a psychologist. They are so caught up on, and terrified that a Black woman could be on the Supreme Court, they have stopped listening.

FROM: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/us/politics/ketanji-brown-jackson.html

Judge Kentanji Jackson had to sit and watch and respond while the Senate asked questions mostly to grandstand and score political points. The Lindsey Graham tirade was especially painful. The whole confirmation hearing should have been really dry and boring, to see whether or not she is qualified and understands the law. But politics is now more about division and entertainment. It is like mud wrestling or perhaps a demolition derby.

After reading the New York Times article above I commented on it which you can read above. This was approved for a time but then the next day, wondering if someone had commented on my remarks, I noticed that the comment was taken down. This happens to me with the New York Times – they censor my comments at times and practice a sort of thought police. Good grief! I must be a dangerous thinker.

Issues of gender and identity are the new elephant in the room and both the left and the right are thoroughly confused. Judge Jackson’s response to the definition of a woman should have pleased the Republican senator, but he was unprepared, seemingly dense  and probably wanted the answer to be about gender roles and something like “a woman is someone who does the laundry, takes care of the kids and cooks me dinner each night.” Judge Jackson’s response was actually similar to how Judge Neil Gorsuch has responded to issues of gender. In a recent case about discrimination (Bostock vs. Clayton County) Gorsuch wrote. “That’s because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.” In the same way that Judge Jackson said that a woman can be defined by a biologist, Gorsuch used the word “sex.” In the end, for legal purposes, it is biology evidently that still defines us.

While certain feminists are rejoicing with her response, most on the left are apparently oblivious to the ramifications. People on the left may look at a Black woman and think that she shares all of their progressive beliefs and will do everything to keep them happy. Republicans are so caught up on, and terrified that a Black woman could be on the Supreme Court, they have stopped listening and simply long for the days of the old White boys network. But for now, it doesn’t really matter as Judge Kentanji Jackson is imminently qualified and will be a welcome addition to the court.

NOTE:
On March 23, 2022, I submitted the comment above on the NY Times website. At one point I commented a few times every week. It is so odd that my comment was pulled down. Can someone explain why? The NY Times would not say.

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Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World – 90 Years Later

“Lacks literary value which is relevant to today’s contemporary multicultural society”
– Banned Books Week: Banned BOOKS in the Library

It is remarkable how the novels of the 20th century have often predicted the 21st with amazing accuracy. So many of the novels of Orwell, Bradbury, Vonnegut and Huxley were spot on.  While the exact details may differ the general concepts are so often clairvoyant to the point of being spooky.  I reread Brave New World by Aldous Huxley having maybe read it a long time ago.  So many of the predictions have become reality. The social engineering, the control of people through pharmaceuticals, the engineering of humans, the disdain for truth and history, the censorship, the obsession with consumerism, the obsession with sex –  the list is long.

Of course the novel is not Disney-approved so has been banned at times mostly for the notion of unlimited sex and the concept of a sort of “free-love” with an advocacy of people having many partners. No doubt that would wake up many boys in tenth grade English class but there is absolutely nothing graphic in the novel and that is maybe the one thing that has not become a reality – at least not in my circles. And everyone please remember: this is a novel and not a manual for how to live life.

While sex with many partners is perhaps not common today the pharmaceuticals are everywhere. The line below seems like it could be the marketing material for Prozac.

“And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should happen, there’s always soma to give you a holiday from the facts.”

And then there is this concept of “universal happiness” at the expense of truth and beauty so necessary for our present consumerist society.

“Our Ford did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can’t.”

Of course if your comfort is beginning to wane in Brave New World there was a sort of virtual world called the Feelies. Here people could go just to get back to this sort of duped sense of happiness, perhaps a little bit like the new Metaverse.

“A lot of people think that the metaverse is about a place, but one definition of this is it’s about a time when basically immersive digital worlds become the primary way that we live our lives and spend our time,” Zuckerberg told Fridman. “I think that’s a reasonable construct.” – Mark Zuckerberg from businessinsider.com

The notion that the 1932 Brave New World “lacks literary value which is relevant to today’s contemporary multicultural society” is a pretty odd critique. I have a hard time thinking of themes and topics in the novel that are not relevant.  Perhaps, this is why the brave schools have kids read and discuss  this work. The main problem with having to write a paper on Brave New World is that there are too many relevant contemporary themes.

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Vesuvio Cafe

Vesuvio Cafe
255 Columbus Ave, San Francisco, CA 94133

On Columbus Avenue, at the end of Jack Kerouac Alley, across from City Lights Book Store is a treasure of a bar named the Vesuvio Cafe. Before the pandemic, San Francisco locals from other parts of town would generally not venture to such places as they were on the busy tourist path and you had to deal with nice folks from Kansas taking endless selfies in their shorts and newly purchased sweatshirts to fend off the summer fog and the unexpected chilly weather.

Tourism is still quite slow in San Francisco, but the City still has its charms. Vesuvio Cafe and the Jack Kerouac Alley help you slow down, read a poem or two and take in the laundry drying on the fire escape. It is good to be a tourist in your home town. I love this place.

When the shadow of the grasshopper
Falls across the trail of the field mouse
On green and slimly grass as the red sun rises
Above the Western horizon silhouetting
A gaunt and tautly muscled Indian warrior
Perched with bow and arrow cocked and aimed
Straight at you it’s time for another martini.

A.O.S.

(poem on the wall at the Vesuvio Cafe)

Vesuvio Cafe hours: 11 AM ’till bar time
Admission: Free!
Jack Kerouac Alley is open all day and night

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The Quarterly Report – March 2022

The Quarterly Report: A brief synopsis of the news in San Francisco over the last three months.

Quote of the week:

“Here’s what’s important to know: To get elected, the most any donor could give me was $500. Recalls are allowed to accept unlimited donations. That’s significant, because the single biggest contributor to the recall is a committee that has given about a $1.5 million so far. We’re not dealing with a grass-roots movement. We’re dealing with a small number of wealthy individuals, many of whom are national Republican major donors, who have financial interests in the real estate industry, in the gig economy and in using the police and the criminal-justice system to force aggressive displacement and gentrification so that their real estate investments can go up. ”
(Chesa Boudin from San Francisco’s D.A. Says Angry Elites Want Him Out of Office – NY Times)

San Francisco Politics

A recent recall dumped three people (School Board President Gabriela Lopez, Commissioner Faauuga Moliga and Commissioner Alison M. Collins)  from the School Board. Mayor London Breed will appoint three replacements for a term of about nine months and then there are elections all over again.  While everyone has issues with the people that were ousted, none had broken the law and all were legally elected officials. We live in a time of great impatience. Simply remember to vote next time and do your homework on the candidates. If your candidate loses, that is called democracy. Get over it.

Next on the recall block is the San Francisco D.A. Chesa Boudin, who was elect just a few years back.

Sporting News

Football
The professional football season came and went with the LA Rams winning the Super Bowl. Our own San Francisco 49ers who beat the Rams many times in recent years had an amazing season, even going into a frigid Lambeau Field in Green Bay and winning with some strong defense. In the end the Niners just ran out of gas.  Deebo Samuel tried to carry the entire team on his back but in the end it is always a team sport.

Weather

December saw a very large storm that dumbed ten feet of snow in the Sierra. For the entire months of January and February the skies were clear, the temperatures were above average. It was glorious weather with stunning  sunsets and beach weather but one storm does not a San Francisco winter make.  Fortunately, now in early March we are getting a little rain. Not much, but better than nothing. The surfing for January and February was off the charts with many ten foot plus days and offshore winds.

COVID-19 Pandemic Update

Indoor mask mandates are mostly in effect, however things just keep opening up. In the next few months people are being asked to return to offices.

Parklets, Haircuts and Where the Sun Does Shine

Parklets seem to be staying and music events are picking up. There are many really good bands in San Francisco. Remember to tip the band!

That is The Quarterly Report – March 2022.

Photo Gallery of SF

The Quarterly Report – March 2022

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Book Banning and The Question of Literacy In the First Place

The greatest orator, save one of antiquity, has left it on record that he always studied his adversaries case with as great if not still greater intensity than even his own. What Cicero practices as a means of forensic success requires to be imitated by all who study any subject in order to arrive at the truth. He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.
– From On Liberty – John Stuart Mill

I recently read a guest opinion piece in the New York Times called The Battle for the Soul of the Library by Stanley Kurtz. Doctor Kurtz is a conservative think tank scholar who has written many books, one of which warned us about the terrifying socialist president Barack Obama (guess he sort of missed the mark on that one). In the The Battle for the Soul of the Library, he laments that the current “woke” politics have infiltrated the profession of the librarian and has made it so the library is no longer a place for classical liberal scholarship and neutrality. Librarians are now doing their job with political motivations, recommending books by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky over David Brooks, Stanley Kurtz and Donald Trump. Our current times have revived culture wars over books and libraries but in the end, it is all a bit silly for a variety of reasons.

One, most people and and especially kids do not actually read books that much in the first place. I can safely say that before the internet and smart phones, going to high school and college meant a lot more reading of books. Today, reading takes place primarily on the internet. Rarely do I see the youth actually with their noses in a book – and why would you read an entire book on your phone? Second, librarians have been usurped by Google, Wikipedia and the internets. If someone wants to learn about a topic or find a book, they probably do not go to the library and ask a librarian. More likely they search on the internets and eventual read reviews on Amazon. The battle is really a false battle.  Librarians are not the social movers of our day. Search algorithms and creepy fine-tuned marketing campaigns are far more powerful.

It is the year 2022. What book banning  has to do about is what version of history is sanctioned and approved. Do we teach the same history that was taught in 1950? Do we emphasize and obsess about George Washington surely cutting down a cherry tree or that at the time most wealthy White Americans owned slaves?  Is it about how the Pilgrims and the Indians must have gotten along and shared food or about how the United States government reneged on the treaties with Native Americans? Do we include the Tulsa massacres into history books or airbrush this significant historical event out of the record? Is it about whether presidential records can be flushed down the toilet or are taped back together to get some sort of objectivity.

This sort of dilemma is challenging for both the political right and left.  The mostly White Republican party wants nothing to do with the fact that the country is a complicated place that is built upon racism and slavery.  They want to fly their flags and be proud to be White and American. They want to flush the unsavory parts of our past down the toilet. Perhaps this is one of the reason why they glom onto Donald Trump.

On the left, they want nothing of the writings of Ayn Rand and Adam Smith as they are surely White and racist but prefer the kids read the latest hurried publications or perhaps Marx and Engels. But reading books by dead white guys is just so out of fashion. What could they possibly know?

Libraries are great places and important in society.  A library card is a passport to a whole new world, however because I always forget to return books on time, I more often frequent books stores. The biggest tragedy with the library happened when they digitized everything. No longer do you get to have your book stamped in the back with the return date when you check it out.  You could look at that date and all the other dates stamped and get a sense of time and community. I do sometimes buy books at library sales when they cull and discard books that people are not reading. It is amazing what treasures you can find.

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Our Strange Brave New World

In January, The University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) successfully executed a groundbreaking porcine heart transplant procedure in a human. This was the first successful transplant of a genetically modified pig’s heart into a human patient.
– dicardiology.com (February 16, 2022)

A question of where your heart is
There are so many interesting angles to muse over with this story. Humans using the parts of animals when theirs begin to fail. The ethical dilemmas are many and as usual they are rarely pondered. Is this how we will finally find immortality by harvesting the body parts of pigs? How do vegetarians and vegans feel about this? But the most important question is: what did they do with the rest of the pig? Did the heart transplant patient, a 57-year-old Maryland resident David Bennett, get to take the rest of the pig home, invite his friends over, and have a tasty barbeque on Super Bowl Sunday?

The Dutch city of Rotterdam on Thursday walked back plans to dismantle part of the historic Koningshaven Bridge so that a superyacht built for Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, could pass through the city’s river, saying that a decision had not yet been made.
– Rotterdam May Dismantle Part of Bridge for Jeff Bezos’ Superyacht (February 2, 2022)

Jeff Bezos’ Superyacht
When I read this story I could not help but imagine a cartoon. Jeff Bezos, with his bald head, draped with his super-model girlfriend, is looking at his computer at the website amazon.com trying to find a “bridge mover.” The caption reads: “What? No Prime Free Shipping on bridge movers?”

That someone can buy and actually needs a 500 million dollar yacht simply speaks to our strange gilded age and the extraordinary wealth inequalities. That a superyacht was built without figuring out how it would make it to open water is pretty funny, considering that the owner is the supply chain master of the world. Maybe Mr. Bezos should buy a copy of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel?

Does anyone know what time it is?
– Middle-age man shouting in the returns line at Home Depot

Shouting Lyrics from songs from the 1970s
I recently was at Home Depot returning some tiles. The line was about five deep. People with their boxes of spare parts, odds and ends  that they needed to return. Next to me was a middle-age white fellow. He looked like he did physical work and appeared a bit tired. He had that sort of ruddy uneven tan that you get not from a vacation in the sun but by working outside and coming home to down a six pack of domestic  beer. After about 3 minutes while the line went nowhere he shouted out: “does anyone know what time it is?”. I simply could not help myself as I shouted – “does anyone really care?” As usual, no one got my joke and just did their best to avoid eye contact with me. What has the world come to?

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Law and Order

More Law and Order!
Arrest Steve Bannon and Mark Meadows immediately!
They are a danger to society.

Isn’t it odd that the people and politicians  that promote the concept of “Law and Order” are the very same people who want nothing to do with the law when they are summoned or sentenced though a court of law.  Richard Nixon comes to mind. All the fascist dictators as well. Donald Trump’s house of cards in slowly beginning to crumble. “Law and Order.” Sounds like the way to go.

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Dear Senator, I have a question

The halls of the federal government are mysterious. The levers of power. The committee meetings. The fundraising lunches. The ribbon cutting ceremonies. Voting on bills never truly read.  The photo-ops.  More telephone calls. More fundraising. Most of us surely do not know what goes on in the daily life of a United States senator.  Seeing as there are only fifty US senators, actually meeting a senator in person is a rare opportunity. In less populated states your odds may be better.

On a clear day, about ten years ago, while visiting Albuquerque, New Mexico for Thanksgiving, we went to a museum in Santa Fe and outside were two people who appeared to be greeters. They looked like retired people who perhaps volunteered at the museum – maybe people on the museum board of directors. In an attempt to talk to someone besides my in-laws, I went up to the two greeters and shook their hands. To my great surprise, one was the senator from New Mexico, Thomas Stewart Udall. I was a bit taken back about how I was there asking questions of Senator Udall while people just strolled by into the museum… “oh yeah. that guy again?” At the time I did not know of Senator Tom Udall but did remember well his father Stewart Udall and uncle Mo Udall who was years ago a congressman and in 1976 a presidential candidate. I loved the character of Mo Udall. Mo had this this very slow, pedantic delivery,  large furry eyebrows, a glass eye and self-deprecating humor. He was six feet and five inches tall, handsome and looked a bit like Jimmy Stewart.

The Udall family has been in politics for generations. I learned later that in the southwest, and especially in New Mexico, anyone running for office must fight for the state’s many Indian reservations.  This is probably the sole reason that the state votes Democratic. Tom Udall does not have the same gravitas as his uncle Mo but seemed like someone doing the good work. Money for the res. Protecting the deserts and rivers. We chatted a bit, as I attempted to update the Udall family tree in my head. He has since left the senate and is a United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. Such are the levers of government.

Years earlier, sometime in about 1977, in Wisconsin, in the main auditorium in Madison West High School, William Proxmire, the Democratic United States Senator spoke to the entire school. This was a big deal and the auditorium, complete with a balcony, was packed. Proxmire was famous for looking for waste in government. His Golden Fleece Award would every month point out waste in government.  He would look under the hood of various government agencies – the Defense Department and the National Science Foundation and question expenditures.  Studies he deemed useless and toilet seats far to fancy. He had good intentions but in the end set the stage a few years later for Ronald Reagan to say “government is the problem.” This  general mood and cynicism about the government is still with us today.

The first Golden Fleece Award was awarded in 1975 to the National Science Foundation, for funding an $84,000 study on why people fall in love.[4] Other Golden Fleece awards over the years were awarded to the Justice Department for conducting a study on why prisoners wanted to get out of jail, the National Institute of Mental Health to study a Peruvian brothel (“The researchers said they made repeated visits in the interests of accuracy,” reported The New York Times), and the Federal Aviation Administration, for studying “the physical measurements of 432 airline stewardesses, paying special attention to the ‘length of the buttocks.'”[4]– Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Proxmire#Golden_Fleece_Award

Anyway, I was sitting in that auditorium and and there was the usual stench of sweaty pubescent body odor. Probably a lot of striped polos shirts, mullet haircuts, and girls with curled hair attempting to look like Farah Fawcett.  I do not remember much of what Proxmire said at the beginning as I was surely distracted by the spectacle. Near the end the senator fielded questions from the audience. I rose my hand thinking I would never be called but he pointed right at me. “Dear Senator.” I said, “What do you think about the current situation in Iran?” He looked a bit confused. The person next to him whispered into his ear as he seemed to not understand the question. “Iran,” I said. “Like, the country in the Middle East.”  It was 1977. People still said “I-ran” for the country Iran. My family had lived in Tehran in 1970 and 71 and I had been keeping tabs on the situation probably through the newspapers and maybe even the television news. I had always wondered how it was possible for the two disparate worlds to get along and how the meeting of the West with the Persian world would work out in the end. Stylish woman getting off the plane from shopping sprees in Paris, wearing the latest fashions  in the same streets with Moslem woman in traditional chadors.  How is this possible? The senator was, I think, caught a bit off-guard, and mumbled something and took the next question one of which was about the legalization of marijuana which he ardently opposed. “Why would you want to put that stuff in your perfectly healthy bodies?” he said, with no apparent experience at how it made art class after lunch far more interesting.

By the time I was a senior, 1979, Iran was all over the airways and newspapers. The Iran Hostage Crisis dominated the news and helped forge public opinion that made for the election of Ronald Reagan. Little did most Americans know the history of the region and how Iran, the country was a in many ways the creation of the West and how the Shah was propped up by the US military and military advisers. The Phantom jets provided by the US military would fly over Tehran often, screeching though the sky. After the Iranian revolution those same jets would become useless for lack of spare parts.

William Proxmire would go on to be a senator for many more years. This was a time when it was all about the old boys network, but during a period  when senators actually talked to one another. There is a telling photo on Wikipedia of them sitting arm to arm, Democrats and Republicans talking through something.  A bygone era.

1974, September 5 – East Room – The White House – Washington, DC – Sen. Proxmire; Greenspan, Gerald R. Ford, Reps. Rhodes, Patman – seated at table, listening – Conference on Inflation

In the end, if you have a chance and get to chat with a senator, ask them a few questions and see what they are made of. You may learn a few things. You may even stump them.

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Photos of Sunsets – Ocean Beach, San Francisco – Winter 2022

For the past three weeks the weather has been dry which in the winter time makes for incredible sunsets. Below are a few photos of sunsets at Ocean Beach is San Francisco, California.

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Books I Read in 2021

Books I Read in 2021 is brought to you by Bird and Beckett Books in San Francisco.

Bird and Beckett Books

Remember, before you buy a book from Jeff Bezos consider supporting your local bookstore. There are so many great book stores in San Francisco. I also highly recommend Green Apple Books on Clement Street. They have just about everything and the staff is amazing. When you buy a book from a local bookstore you get that warm fuzzy feeling just thinking that you may have kept a local business alive and you may even make some real friends.

I recommend all of these books however special shout-out to two books: A Sense of the World – How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Travelerby Jason Roberts and All I asking for is my body by Milton Murayama. Below is a list and a short description of each book.

A Sense of the World – How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler
Jason Roberts
Harper Perennial

When my mother passed away a few years back, I had boxes and boxes of books to go through. One that I noticed was A Sense of the World – How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler by Jason Roberts. I am glad I saved this one. What a great read! With most books written about British naval officers and the British navy as a whole, you get a lot of undue pride and hubris, however the story of  James Holman, blind at twenty-five, and his various journeys around the world, finding his way with a cane with a metal tip, is a great read. In a year when travel has been limited due to the pandemic,  A Sense of the World is a great escape.  Excellent and entertaining writing.

Candide
Voltaire
Penguin Classics

In 2021, I reread many books I had read decades earlier. The great thing about getting older is that you can reread books that you read when you were younger and gleam new insights. Voltaire’s Candide is one such book. It is such a wild romp –  violent, perverse, sexy, witty and silly with biting critiques of philosophers Voltaire had issues with. It is a satire and the characters are hilarious  – almost like a comic book or a video game.  Even though Candide is only 140 pages, I find that few people today have actually read Voltaire. It is old fashion and he was a polygenesis racist without a doubt, which makes it so  most of the under-thirty crowd will dismiss it outright.  I doubt it is read in high school much. Too bad. Surely banned at times, it is now beyond being a banned book as it is simply too old.

A Man Without a Country
Kurt Vonnegut
Random House

See my review of  A Man Without a Country in this publication

The Sympathizer
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Grove Press

Viet Thanh Nguyen is simply a great writer. He combines a deep knowledge of Western literature with great storytelling. There is a reason this book won the Pulitzer Prize

All I asking for is my body
Milton Murayama
University of Hawaii Press

I read All I asking for is my body while living the life of luxury in a timeshare in Maui – what contrast.  It is about the life of native Hawaiians and migrant labor in the plantations in Hawaii in the early twentieth century before tourism took over the islands.  Hawaii was in a Jim Crow state of plantations and sharecropping. It is written using the local dialects. The realism is stark and the story telling is excellent. Highly recommended.

Foucault’s Pendulum
Umberto Eco

Naple’s 44
Norman Lewis
Pantheon Books

Another one of those books I reread. This is a timeless read and boy can Norman Lewis can write. In our modern world, people in the United States are sheltered from the timeless realities of war.  The aftermaths of wars are always the same.  People die of starvation. Disease is rampant. Clean water is always in short supply. Women are raped. Corruption and murders everywhere. Norman Lewis paints the picture in vivid detail.

Harmonicas, Harps and Heavy Breathers – The Evolution of the People’s Instrument
Kim Field
Cooper Square Press

Slaughterhouse Five – A Children’s Crusade
Kurt Vonnegut
Random House

One of those books that has been banned because there is perhaps a little sex and nudity, but probably because Vonnegut, a pacifist, takes the whole notion of war to task. His life was defined by his experience of being a prisoner of war in Dresden in World War II and the experience of being in Dresden while the city was being firebombed.  All of of Vonnegut’s work comes back to this pivotal life experience. He was a man of the “Greatest Generation,” chain-smoked Pall Malls, and in the end propose that the most important human quality to nurture is kindness.

God Bless You Mr. Rosewater
Kurt Vonnegut
Random House

Reading God Bless You Mr. Rosewater I found in many ways Vonnegut to be a sort of stealth stoic.  You see this stoicism in God Bless You Mr. Rosewater where the main character, a very wealthy man, ends up thinking little of all his money and in the end gives it all away.  As always with Vonnegut, the humor never ends and the chapters are short.

Punching Out – One Year in a Closing Auto Plant
Paul Clemens
Doubleday

Bought in a second-hand store in Michigan, Punching Out – One Year in a Closing Auto Plant is a biographical account of the disassembly of the Bud auto plant.  We learn that NAFTA not only moved the unionized jobs in the United States to other countries but also made it so entire auto plants where disassembled and sold off and shipped away to Mexico, Brazil, China and other countries. Interesting and depressing all a once.

Tales of Soldiers and Civilians and Other Stories
Ambrose Bierce
Penguin Classics

Cat’s Cradle
Kurt Vonnegut
Delta Fiction

The World in the Curl – An Unconventional History of Surfing
Peter Westwick, Peter Neushul
Crown – Random House

While the COVID-19 pandemic raged on, 2021 was a great year to read. I recommend all the books above. Until the list for 2022!

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2022 – Happy New Year

Serene Lakes at Soda Spring

Much to be thankful for in this New Year and much to be wary about.  Let’s start with the thankful. Snow in the Sierra! Below is an after (Jan 4) and before (Nov 28) satellite photo of snow around Lake Tahoe.

That is a lot of snow! For December, 2021 in California it is officially 210 inches give or take a few feet and plus or minus 80 inches if the plows came by.

Playing in the Snow

I grew up in snow. I love snow. I even enjoy shoveling snow. Thanks to some gracious friends we were able to get up to Donner Pass the last week of December 2021. Below are some photos.

Thus concludes the pleasant part of this post.

Treachery and the Great Downfall of American Democracy

Treachery and greed is the way these days. The slow, methodical deterioration of American democracy. The coup attempts. The regrouping of white nationalists. Henchmen running free, disobeying court summons at the highest level of government. Many people would assert that the whole system was rigged from the beginning – the racist concept of the electoral college, the overwhelming influence of the rich, corporations and big money, the federal reserve. The travails are many, but at least in an earlier time period the notion of decency was a virtue.  The truth mattered.

This trend towards fascism has been written about by many of the major mainstream progressive magazines. The Atlantic started having pieces about this six months ago and recently has devoted an entire issue to it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/toc/2022/01/

The Crystal Ball

I see the 2022 and 2024 elections down the road like a car wreck in slow motion. It is night. A car is parked on a hill without the emergency brake on.  All is well until a storm blows in and a breeze picks up in the middle of the night. The sky turns dark. The carload  of Treachery and Greed slowly begins to move, inch by inch, making it’s way gradually faster and faster, down the hill.  We all look on in disbelief. At the bottom sit the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Monument, the Capital buildings of Wisconsin and Georgia all gazing innocently off into space. With a loud crash the out of control car knocks over every one.  I wake up.  It’s 2022 my friend. Be well and Happy New Year!

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Breaking News! It is Definitely Raining in SF

WEATHER UPDATE December 14, 2021 

December 14, 2021 – 5 PM

At 8000 feet looking like a little snow.  Courtesy of Sugar Bowl Resorts

El agua, muy importante.

WEATHER UPDATE December 12th, 2021

December 12th, 2021 it rained through the night. Nothing too heavy. Today on December 13th the storm lingered and moved west. They call this an atmospheric river.  Nice to get the rain.

Fine parking job by this small electric car.
And it is raining

 

 

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Remembering Pat Martino

Pat Martino (Patrick C. Azzara) (1944 – 2021) passed away November 1, 2021. He was an amazing guitarist and had a life story that is interesting on so many levels. The most unusual aspect is that in 1980 after a brain hemorrhage, Pat lost all his memory and had to literally relearn how to play guitar from the very beginning. He then went on to continue his career as a phenomenal jazz guitarist.

Martino had been performing until a hemorrhaged arteriovenous malformation caused a “near-fatal seizure” in 1980.[5] The resulting surgery which removed part of his brain left him with amnesia and no recollection or knowledge of his career or how to play the very instrument that made him successful. Martino says he came out of surgery with complete forgetfulness, learning to focus on the present instead of the past or what may lie ahead. He was forced to learn how to play the guitar from zero. This circumstance is crucial to understand his career and his particular way of thinking. – Wikipedia

Here on Angel Eyes, Pat Martino has the melody and is featured.

There are a few documentaries that follow Pat Martino’s journey. Martino Unstrung is an excellent look into Pat Martino’s musical and medical life and should be fascinating to anyone in the fields of music, psychology, medicine or brain science. I highly recommend this film.

While I have been an avid jazz fan since listening to my dad’s Duke Ellington and Henry Red Allen records in high school, I had not listened to much Pat Martino. I knew his name but did not own any of his music. This is how it worked before the internet.

In 2010, Pat Martino had some gigs in the San Francisco Bay Area.  He was playing Kimball’s East. My high school-aged guitar-playing son had just fallen in love with jazz and was a big Pat Martino fan. He had purchased tickets to hear Pat and his friend for some reason could not go. I was invited to go to the concert.  We took the ferry over to Jack London Square and arrived a bit early. Knowing where the back stage entrance was my son seemed determined to shake Pat Martino’s hand. The bouncer at the door called up to see if it was alright if a kid and his dad came up for an autograph. “No problem. Send them up.”

We went to the dressing room and there was Pat and his young piano player hanging out. Pat was eating sushi and what we both remember is that he was drinking a quart carton of whole milk.  Sushi and milk. An odd combination. Pat was gracious and we basically just hung out for about fifteen minutes. He had these very clear alert eyes that often seem to be enlarged because of his thick glasses. He probably signed a CD and then I took this photo.

Pat Martino and Kai Lyons backstage at Kimball's East
Pat Martino and Kai Lyons backstage at Kimball’s East

It is 2021 and people born in the 1940s are starting to pass on a regular basis.  Many of these folks are my heroes. Pat Martino. A beautiful cat. RIP.

Epilogue

If you watch the documentaries about Pat Martino, one of the common themes is how guitarists had a lot of respect and admiration for Pat. There is the story of George Benson. then a young cocky musician, going of to hear Pat Martino for the first time thinking how could this skinny Italian kid from Philly be any good. Needless to say George was blown away and left the show a humbler man. The photo below is of these two amazing musicians and speaks to the diversity in this genre of music the industry calls “jazz.”

George Benson and Pat Martino
George Benson and Pat Martino

For further reading, Pat wrote an autobiography.

Here and Now!: The Autobiography of Pat Martino

This is an excellent book and I highly recommend!

 

 

 

 

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The Quarterly Report – November 2021

The Quarterly Report: A brief synopsis of the news in San Francisco over the last three months.

Quote of the week:

“Anti vaccine types are like people who wear shirts of a band who have no idea what that band sounds like.”
Anonymous (from a comment on the San Francisco Chronicle)

Sporting News

Baseball
As the World Series ended with the Atlanta Braves winning over the Houston Astros in six games, the professional baseball season for the San Francisco Giants ended in the playoffs against the Los Angeles Dodgers on a ninth inning check swing. There is just something so wrong, ill-suited and anti-climatic about ended your season on a check swing. The Giant’s bats went to sleep in the end and when it comes to the playoffs you need to have hot bats and catch a few breaks. I don’t write the rules. That’s just the way life works. As of today, Buster Posey announces his retirement. So ends an era for the San Francisco Giants.

Surfing
About a month ago, the seasons changed and the surf season started.  We now go through a sequence of glorious sunny days, with offshore winds and head-high surf to stormy weather to out of control 25 foot days. Winter surfing has arrived. Buy a new leash.

San Francisco Politics

Because of strange election laws San Francisco is in the process of having recall elections for both the District Attorney and the School Board. Talk about a really stupid system that opens up even more ways for big money to enter into politics. Let us simply vote people out of office when their terms ends if we do not like how they are doing their job. The recalls makes for an endless election cycle that is no good for anyone save the people with deep pockets.

Weather

Luckily, in mid-October we got pummeled by a large storm. This was the equivalent of dousing a campfire with a gallon of water. While the “fire-season” did not officially end then it sure did help. After a few more subsequent storms, there is even a little snow in the mountains.

COVID-19 Pandemic Update

In San  Francisco the vaccine rates are above 80%. The streets and roads are returning to their pre-pandemic madness.  We even see the Google Buses are back. What short memories we humans have.

source: https://sf.gov/data/covid-19-vaccinations

Parklets, Haircuts and Where the Sun Does Shine

And the sun does shine now as the summer fog usually has disappeared.  Unfortunately the parklets are slowly disappearing as things return to normal. Speaking with business owners, the common complaint is that the city is difficult to deal with concerning the parklets and the cost is exorbitant. Too bad as the parklets are generally a really cool idea and makes for more spaces for musicians to perform.

And many of the “slow streets” are being opened for cars. OK everyone. Go out there and drive around, cart your kids off to the fancy schools make money and burn up this planet!!!

That is The Quarterly Report – November 2021. Be well. If you have not already got your vaccine time to get the jab. Do it for grandma. Drink plenty of water, get regular exercise and for the love of God stay away from “social media.”

Photo Gallery of SF

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Remembering Robert Altman 1946-2021

Robert Altman, known mostly for his years photographing musicians and counter-culture icons in the late 1960s and early 70s has passed.  He was a staff photographer for Rolling Stone for a bit. I read his obit recently and and was saddened to hear of his passing.

In the late 1990s I took a class that was taught by Robert Altman at San Francisco State College of Extended Learning on Market Street in downtown San Francisco. It was a basic HTML class for this new thing called the World Wide Web and in order to get on board the first thing you had to know was HTML. People made websites mostly one page at a time. Robert Altman was the teacher, and probably the only reason he knew anything about this stuff was that he had built a website to sell prints of his photographs. This was the early days of the internet, when for a brief time the idealism of the 1960s took hold in this new digital era. Perhaps the playing field would level out and artists, writers, photographers and musicians could sell their work directly, cut out the middle-men, control their work and get paid their fair share.

Of course, in many ways this was one big pipe dream as over time the internet became more corporate and the monopolies of our day began to dominate the system, control the politics and narratives and literally write all the rule books. And as Ruth Bader Ginsburg commented about sexism “I ask no favor for my sex; all I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks,” the same can be said of the stranglehold on smaller players by the big tech monopiles today.

Back when I was taking this HTML class with Robert Altman he was in his mid-fifties and always had his reading glasses at the ready, perched on the top of his head. He was passionate and generous. He dove right into the more advanced aspects of HTML at the time. We started learning tables, rowspans and colspans on day one. This is back in the day when all websites were made with tables and single pixel gifs to lock designs into place. If someone would have spoke of responsive design then you would have gotten a blank stare. People still made phone calls with payphones and your answering machine was perhaps the most important tool for any freelancer. Robert was this middle-age guy – vibrant, fearless, creative and giving. He was like – “look, if I can learn this coding stuff, anyone can do it!” So we all looked on at this new markup language, most everyone there because it was the unavoidable future and eventually it would lead to a decent job and some sort of economic stability.

Now when people are choosing a career in programming, there is this idea that if you do not start young it is not worth the effort. The notion of the child genius creating something miraculous in the digital world is a common theme.  The college dropout who creates an app that disrupts entire industries. If you are in your late twenties, it is too late. However this is silly.

Robert Altman, putting borders on all his tables, creating something beautiful out of nothing is evidence that anything is possible.

Read the San Francisco Chronicle Robert Altman Obituary

 

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Recommended Reading: BIG by Matt Stoller

https://mattstoller.substack.com/

On the SF Journal website we have not had a post for a while about intellectual property or copyright. We simply felt it was not worth the ink, and besides it tends to bore people to tears. I find the whole topic fascinating, but then again, I find the maintenance of harmonicas enthralling. To read about how the laws in the late 1990s was a huge gift to the tech industry and a sort of shake-down of the creative class, read my posts in https://sfjournal.net/category/copyright/

Many times when writing and reading about how copyright laws in the late 1990s and the digital age have made it so copyrights have become meaningless, people tell me that the problem is not copyright laws, it is about the concentration of power into a few hands and the monopolies of our time – Facebook, Google and Amazon to name the most easily recognized. Matt Stoller’s BIG is a Substack blog that writes about these monopolies and what Matt calls “the anti-monopoly revolution  happening today.” I am not so sure it should be called a “revolution” but what is true is that the tech monopiles are being challenged by the FTC and they are fighting back.  Perhaps the biggest change was the Biden appointment of Lina Khan as the chair of the Federal Trade Commission.  Lina is just 32 years of age, extremely bright and going to court to take Facebook to task for illegal anti-trust behavior.

Read BIG by Matt Stoller.

Long and in-depth articles that get way into the weeds about anti-trust laws and how people like Lina Khan are attempting to break up these monopolies.  Highly recommended.

What is interesting about the whole concept of monopiles, is that the major players in the tech industry have always been about controlling and dominating a channel.  Amazon,  for years going in the red just to undercut small bookstores and put them out of business. Facebook buying Instagram to take out a competitor. The list is long and the secret sauce is all laid out in Peter Thiel’s Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future. This book discloses the recipe for creating a monopoly and crushing everything along the way. The author, oddly thinks this is all for the better, but then again Peter Thiel is a billionaire and may be a little out of touch with people working in an Amazon warehouse living paycheck to paycheck.

Anti-trust laws are often complex and full of nuance that can often leave Congress people scratching their heads save for Amy Klobuchar, who wrote a serious book on the matter Antitrust – TAKING ON MONOPOLY POWER FROM THE GILDED AGE TO THE DIGITAL AGE.

 

 

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2021 California gubernatorial recall election – Official Endorsement – VOTE NO

San Francisco Journal – Official Endorsement
Election Day: September 14, 2021
VOTE: NO

You are now done. Do not vote for any of the candidates on the back.

Just remember to vote by mail or September 14. This is very IMPORTANT. It is quite possible that we could have a complete moron running the state of California.

DO NOT LET REPLUBLICAN SLIME-BALLS STEAL THE GOVERNERSHIP.
KEEP GAVIN NEWSOME IN OFFICE!!!

The Backstory

ACT I:

A dreadful disease has plagued the empire. It is determined that the best way to curb transmission of this ghastly disease is to wear a mask over the nose and mouth.  If possible, all the people who work on computers, or can convert to working on computers from home, start working from home. School classes are rows and rows of boxes of faces staring into the abyss. Everyone else who has to work goes out into the storm of virus and disease wearing masks to fend off the wolves, farm food, stock groceries, care for the sick and bury the dead.

ACT II:

The orange-headed emperor thinks the entire disease thing is out of control. So bad for the ratings!  “No disease folks. Just a minor cold. Gargle with bleach. Works for me. Look at my beautiful hair!” Said emperor contracts the plague. After a week in the hospital he is saved by all his fancy, expensive doctors. He is not humbled in the least but nevertheless is dethroned by the electorate. He refuses to concede and retreats to his castle by the beach to swing his clubs at small white balls.

ACT III:

One of the regional governors,  goes to a party at a fancy restaurant with a name that sounds like a place you wash your clothes. Little did he know that he would soon get stuck in the rinse cycle. Normally he wears a mask, and promotes notions of accountability, peace and  good sense but the party is downing a few cases of a wonderful 1982 Napa cabernet that is paired elegantly with the grass fed prime rib. “Let’s just use these masks things as napkins to soak up the gravy.” laughs the Governor.

ACT IV:

The unmasked governor’s rivals from the party of treachery and greed find out about all the bare faces and begin to whine and make a fuss about the Governor’s hypocrisy. “Look at this ruler” they tweet. “He breaks his own rules!!!”

ACT V:

After meetings were they eat wild boar matched with a zinfandel with oaky undertones , a hint of apple and a good finish, the party of treachery and greed conjure up a recall plan. Maskless, they also start bashing the poor Latino help and insisting on more wild boar. “Cigars on the patio gentlemen?” The wild boar gravy stains their pants. They have no French laundromats in sight to clean their trousers.

ACT VI:

Dozens of people, mostly from the party of treachery and greed, submit their candidacies. These include talk show hosts, mayors, YouTubers, former Olympic decathlon athletes who instead of sporty sneakers now often don high heels, a hairstylist, a college student and an LA tour guide.

FINALE: Democracy a la carte

That there is even a recall is absurd. Gavin Newsom has simply done his job during difficult times, is not being tried for a felony offense, is dealing with a horrific wildfire season, to name but a few things on his plate. Considering the circumstances he has done a good job, listening to the health experts, standing up for people in need and the working class. He may not be perfect, but Gavin is driving this ship until the next election. It is just the best option folks.

Save for a few mayors in the race, the majority of the candidates are a joke and simply not qualified – they have no idea how to run a state government. If the party of treachery and greed wins this one,  it will put the final nail in the coffin to any notion that the U.S. form of democracy is honest and fair. Shining light on the hill? Yeah, right.

It is like “Calvin ball,” where the rules change not in the name of fairness or equality, but simple as a method to gain power.

It is really easy. Vote NO. You even got your ballot in the MAIL!!!

The SFJournal.net editorial board is an independent board of one that meets twice weekly.  The board does not take donations from any party, business or corporation. To submit letters, comments or criticism of the aforementioned endorsement, please use the form bellow. 

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The Great Highway and the Save the Great Walkway Rally

Save the Great Walkway Rally
Start: Sunday, August 15, 2021 • 10:30 AM
Location: Great Walkway at Judah • 1398 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA 94122

If you are interested, attend the march this Sunday.

https://actionnetwork.org/events/save-the-great-walkway-rally?source=email&

The Great Highway, due to the pandemic, has been pedestrian-only for about a year and a half. It is a great safe place to walk., catch views of Ocean Beach and the Marin Headlands, and even perhaps muse over the absurdity of life. To the south you see all the way to Pedro Point in Pacifica. Out on the ocean you can often see the large container ships lumbering along. When the air is clear you can make out the Farallon Islands and even see all the way up to Point Reyes.  During fire seasons the air at Ocean Beach is often the best around with the ocean breeze far from the burning forests.

Kids have spent the last year with a place to get out and ride bikes. Runners and bikers of all ages use this highway. There is no reason to give it back to the cars commuting from Marin. They can take Sunset Blvd or 19th Ave or simply work from home.  If we have learned one thing from this pandemic is that it is not business as usual, and time to slow down and enjoy and protect the public spaces. No cars on The Great Highway!

Save the Great Highway for the people. It is better for our health, public safety and our kids.

Some random pics from the last year and a half out along the Great Highway.

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The Quarterly Report – July 2021

Quote of the week:

“The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”
Lily Tomlin

The photo above is the cement factory in San Francisco.  I finally figured this out after years of just admiring the cool mural. When there is a road getting repaved the cement trucks line up like ants.

Weather

All you can say about the weather these days is “good grief!”  Most of the American West is burning up (over a 110 degrees in Portland, Oregon) and summer fires building, We recently got out of town for a weekend and headed to the Sierra and Donner Summit. The lakes are a bit warmer than usual and make for great swimming. Driving back we left the mountains at 80 degrees, drove past Sacramento were it got up to 103 then arrived in a foggy San Francisco were it was was but 55. Two hours of driving and a 50 degree change in temperature. San Francisco has been quite cold and windy this summer, with the marine layer bringing in the cold ocean air and fog.  When we get a little sun, we often go outside at the opportune times and soak up the rays.

COVID-19 Pandemic Update

Since June 15th the mask mandate has been lifted in San Francisco, though in my neighborhood most people still don their masks while walking down the street. We are somewhat back to pre-pandemic activities. Unfortunately, the traffic has also picked up so the drive times have increased. What a joy it was to drive from San Francisco to your friend in Oakland and get there in 15 minutes. Now that same drive is often 45 minutes. Even the Google buses are back running their routes. Nothing lasts forever.

Google buses have returned

Parklets, Haircuts and Where the Sun Does Shine

One of the endearing changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic is the rise of the parklet.  I have always enjoyed eating outside as there is something about the fresh air that makes eating more enjoyable. Even if it is bit chilly, just having the sun shining down makes the food taste better.

One of the debates in San Francisco is whether the parklets should stay.  I say “why not?”

Sporting News

It is now after the All-Star break and for some strange reason the San Francisco Giants are in first place in the National League West and Oakland A’s are just a few games back in their division.  The NBA has perhaps a few games left and the Milwaukee Bucks are up 3-2 in the finals. The Summer Olympics in Japan are a strange exercise in how not to put on an international sporting event during the pandemic. It is an exercise on how optimism can be  dangerous.

That is The Quarterly Report – July 2021. Be well. If you have not already got your vaccine time to get the jab. Do it for grandma. Drink plenty of water, get regular exercise and for the love of God stay away from “social media.” Read books.

Photo Gallery of SF

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Bernal Heights Library – Yesterday and Today

Bernal Heights - 1940
Dedication of the WPA built Bernal Heights Library, October 20, 1940
Bernal Heights Library, Cortland Street, May 12, 2021
Bernal Heights Library, Cortland Ave., May 12, 2021

The Story of Two Photos

The photos above are looking west down Cortland Avenue in San Francisco. The top one is from the parade for the opening of the Bernal Heights Library. It is October 20, 1940 and is like traveling in a time machine. Who are these people? What is that band and what did it sound like? Who is the woman in front, seemingly running the show? Why do the cops don’t have guns and look like they actually know people? Why is everyone in the crowd white? So many unanswered questions.

Bernal Heights is one of those neighborhoods that resembles a small village. Many of the homes were built soon after the 1906 earthquake with lumber scraps from down at the shipyards. Cortland Ave is similar to a main street in small town America with all the shopping essentials available in walking distance. It is still quaint in this way however has changed a lot in the last twenty years as it has been gentrified, often beyond recognition.  Needless to day, there are a lot of fine dining options.

However, the Bernal Heights Branch Library is still standing. It has changed over the years, but it does not seem to be going anywhere. The inspiration for this post is from an awesome website that I stumbled upon –  https://livingnewdeal.org/. It is a website or wiki of all the projects that were created from the New Deal. The list is long and the buildings and projects are impressive. Americans, to this day, can appreciate and benefit in many ways from all these projects. It is truly amazing what was accomplished  in such a short period of time considering the circumstances. All these awesome libraries made of stone, with east facing windows to catch the morning light. What a great place to read!

While my grandfather on my mother’s side, the hard driving businessman, admonished the WPA, and called it “we poke along” thinking that the whole project was a waste of taxpayer money, nothing could be further from the truth.  He may have been perturbed that program funded those “lazy artists” and other creative people.  Interesting, that that while the Buicks and Cadillacs that he financed are all in  rusty graves, the WPA projects are probably mostly standing. The incredible murals by Diego Rivera and other artists are sprinkled all over San Francisco.

The Bernal Heights Library has had a history of murals. When we lived there in the 1990s the mural was by Precita Eyes and was explicitly political. There was a homage to the Native People and the great Chilean activist and musician Victor Jara was there singing a protest song with his guitar.  In the last ten years, the mural was redone and like the neighborhood was toned down with a  much more generic and oblique looking approach.  Fortunately, there is a display in front of the former mural for historical purposes I guess. The Bernal Library was built according to the times of what I library should be.  Later, like all buildings, it was made ADA compliant and a ramp was put in. To improve upon it I can see not too many upgrades except for the fact that as with all the libraries they forgot that pigeons love all those little nooks. The usual metal pointy deterrents where installed. But pigeons always get their way until they get hit by a car.

When Joe Biden says “Build Back Better” you have to really wonder how that is going to all work out. Is he imagining the creative projects of the 1930s? Is he talking about putting artists and other creatives on salaries? Or he mostly talking about pouring money into large construction companies and corporations with a lot of overcharges. Time will tell. The concept of building an infrastructure for renewable energy could be the lasting and most profound achievement. Time will tell. It could take a parade down Cortland with a strong woman in front and lots of drums in the rear to get the ball rolling.

 

 

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Photos of San Francisco

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The Quarterly Report – May 2021

This SF Journal Quarterly Report for May 2021 is brought to you by Chile Lindo Empanadas. Located on 16th Street, Chile Lindo is a great place to get a taste of how the Mission District in San Francisco was before the tech invasion. Great empanadas, beer and wine and live music. See the San Francisco Live Music Calendar for times and dates.

News of Plundering

“There are two modes of invading private property; the first by which the poor plunder the rich… sudden and violent; the second, by which the rich plunder the poor, slow and legal.”
JOHN TAYLOR, An inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States (1814)

Weather

The last SF Journal Quarterly Report stated: “In San Francisco there has been a fair amount of rain in the last month. With over 200 inches of snowfall in many parts of the Sierra, for another year we can enjoy all that amazing, clean fresh water.”

We would like to update this weather report. While it is true that there was snow in the mountains, on further analysis it has been determined that we are in a drought. The big storms did not arrive and the snowpack is way down. This does not bode well for the upcoming fire season which evidently has started in May and will then run through to maybe November. All I can say is “good grief!” In a coming year we may see a drought were there is actually no rain at all. It is bound to happen.

It is May 15, 2021 and along the coast the fog is thick and the northwest winds howl. Welcome to summer in San Francisco.

COVID-19 Pandemic Update

Another inaccurate prediction from the last SF Journal Quarterly Report was “I predict once Kaiser starts a vaccination program, things will move quickly. ” If your idea of getting a vaccine means driving for an hour and a half across the state, that was the Kaiser model. Kaiser completely dropped the ball if you ask me. The pandemic has laid bare how a for-profit health care system and the lack of a public heath care system and made it so battling a pandemic virus is problematic. As usual just follow the money and you will see what is really going. I got my Moderna vaccines courtesy of the San Francisco Department of Public Heath in the small parking lot behind the El Chico Produce.  Kaiser Permanente is not about public health. If it was they would have dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic differently.

The National Political Scene

Kudos to Liz Cheney for attempting to call a spade a spade and calling out the “big lie.”  Of course it comes about five years too late. While her dad Dick Cheney was a master of disinformation and treachery it is best to take individuals on their own merit.  You really have to wonder what was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. How for four years Liz Cheney played along with Donald Trumps lies.  Perhaps the cover is that there are plenty of other Republicans, surely some who embraced the Lincoln Project, who are forming perhaps another party.  Time will tell but it is fitting that it was a woman who was taken down for standing up to the wealthy white guys. For some women at least, there is no price tag for a clear conscience.

That is The Quarterly Report – February 2021. Be well. Wear a mask if you have not already got your vaccine. Drink plenty of water, get regular exercise and for the love of God stay away from “social media.” Read books.

Photo Gallery of SF

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Why Going Solar is a Great Idea – A Break Down of the Savings

This post may read like an infomercial but so be it.  It is for people wondering if they should “go solar.”

In 2014 we began a lease with the solar company Sungevity. At the time, installing solar panels came with many financial incentives both from the State of California and the Sierra Club. We have a flat roof that had been replace about 5 years before and was solid. The whole registration process was done by my amazing wife who said that it took a lot of paperwork and phone calls. In a meeting with Sungevity it seemed like a good idea at the time. Installing solar would be good for the environment and would save us money over time. How could anyone be against that?

Sungevity came in and put in the panels and installed a power inverter panel next to our electric service panel that made it so the whole solar thing worked. We would put energy into the grid and take it out when we needed it. In the end, our electric bill came down to the $80 a month which was the monthly payments for the 20 year lease for the panels and the $10 flat rate from PG&E for being hooked up to their grid (it was $5 at first but went to $10 at some point). The logic was that the cost of energy was always going to go up so if you lock in a fixed rate you will always come out ahead. Eventually Sungevity got bought out by SunRun. The lease transferred over without a hitch.

The thing about solar panels on your roof that few consider is that after they are are installed you never think about them. We have a few additional significant items that affect our power use: hot tub and a Fiat 500e electric car. Recently, I got curious about how the whole solar panel deal had worked out. Were we actually saving money?

It was not easy to figure out how much we had saved on our electric bill. After crunching the numbers this is what I figured out.

Monthly Costs

Sunrun Lease
$82.59

PG&E Electrical
$10

Total
$92.59

Without Solar: What We Would be Paying

PG&E kWh costs around 0.25. We use on average 50 kWh a day.

So every month we use 50 * 30 = 1500 kWh

Every month, without the solar panels we would pay: 1500 * 0.25 = $375!

NEM Charges or a view at our output and consumption

Conclusion

As a ballpark figure, it is safe to say we are saving $175 each month, or $2100 per year. One extra charge is that at the end of the year you have a true-up charge. This year it was $51.98 as we have used a little more electrical than we put back into the grid. Not bad considering we are running that hot tub, charging up a car and all working at home running monitors, computers, guitar amps, coffee makers, lights and the like.

This is why it is never too late to go solar. My advice is to look for all the various rebates and incentives and the best time to install solar panels is after you replace your roof.  Getting a lease is a great way to start saving money without any investment or upfront capital.

For more information, contact SunRun.

 

 

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Catching up with Ralph Nader

You do not hear much about Ralph Nadar these days. Once a public figure, and a household name, Ralph Nadar is not a regular guest on FOX News, ABC, CBS or even NPR. So it was with great curiosity that I listened to an interview of Ralph Nadar by Robert Scheer on Scheer Intelligence, Robert’s podcast. It is a great conversation between two brilliant old sages. While listening I kept imagining these two octogenarians as the old guys up in the balcony in the Muppets, spouting off their wise observations. A very candid conversation.

Scheer Intelligence

https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/scheer-intelligence/ralph-nader-democrats-ushered-in-an-era-of-corporate-fascism


Below are some quotes.
“One thing I’ve learned is that Democrats are on an infinite journey towards cowardliness,” responds Nader, “because now they’re getting credit for their $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, 100% financed on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren, without a single effort to [rescind] the Trump tax cuts that are at least $2 trillion over the ten years since they were passed in 2017.”

“What we’re seeing is an entrenched corporate state, where Wall Street controls government and turns it against its own people. And the awareness of the young generation, of what’s going on, in terms of the corporate supremacists’  controlling our political economy, strategically planning every conceivable nook and corner, their commercializing childhood, they’re strategically planning higher education, they’ve planned our tax system, they’re strategically planning our electoral and political system, our public budgets, our military foreign policy. They’re strategically planning the public lands and its disposition… daily… one third of America. They’ve strategically planned the epidemic of obesity that they knew full well was the result of their high fat, high sugar, high salt diet that they have seduced young people with billions of dollars of TV advertising over the last forty years.”
– Ralph Nader: Democrats Ushered in an Era of Corporate Fascism – March 19. 2021

And then Ralph takes the kids to task:

“And this young generation, that calls itself progressive, and “change agent(s)”, they just don’t have a clue! They don’t read! You don’t read, you don’t think. You don’t think, you don’t read. If you don’t do those things, you don’t set the stage for social justice movements. We all know this.”
– Ralph Nader: Democrats Ushered in an Era of Corporate Fascism – March 19. 2021

Nadar goes on to show the way and how to bring about change.

“Here’s the rub,” explains Nader. “It has never taken more than 1% active citizens scattered throughout the country representing [or building] the majority public opinion to change Congress on any number of agendas throughout history.”

Ralph Nadar.  Someone, who in the year 2021 does not own a computer or a cellphone. Probably the reason we all have and wear seat belts in cars, can drink clean drinking water and have safer consumer products. Unfortunately, also why Al Gore lost the presidential election in 2000 and George Bush II came to power and got the United States entrenched in wars in the Middle East.

Ralph Nadar. Someone to listen to.

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The Chicken Lady – Thanksgiving in Guatemala

11/23/2006 6:06:32 AM

I have always been extremely friendly to The Chicken Lady. She runs a very useful store a block away from where we live called Tienda La Selecta. It is like a mini supermarket and sells both fresh and packaged goods. The major reason people shop at The Chicken Lady, though, is to buy the fresh chickens and eggs. They are simply delicious. You walk in the small entrance and make your way to the back where there is always a line.

A few weeks back I inquired whether I could buy a turkey at The Chicken Lady. She said that she did not deal with turkeys and that I would have to go to San Pedro, the next town over, and find a turkey in the market. But I have learned not to take chances with my meat here. It was The Chicken Lady, some good friend’s turkey that had been fattened on his farm on grain and bugs, or we would be eating chickens for Thanksgiving. All in all, not a bad thing.

Then a few days back I was back talking to The Chicken Lady. I asked her if she was going to be open Thanksgiving Day, for I just had to buy some chickens and did not want to be left high and dry, and have to buy a chicken from some stranger. She informed me that it was her daughter’s birthday but that she would be open in the morning. I then explained that Thanksgiving was an important day in the US and that it was about bringing family and friends together and having a big meal and celebrating the harvest and giving thanks to God for all the good things in our lives. She looked at me with her usual know-it-all look and said, “Why must you have one day for giving thanks? In my family we give thanks to God everyday.” The Chicken Lady – chickens with attitude! Maybe I will bring her a slice of pumpkin pie.

From a Collection of Essays

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Aquatic Park Pier – Is Now Closed Due to Safety Concerns

UPDATE: PARK CLOSURES
Municipal Pier at Aquatic Park is closed due to safety concerns.
Date Posted: 12/1/2022

Alert 1, Severity closure, Municipal Pier at Aquatic Park is closed due to safety concerns.
Municipal Pier is closed permanently. After a safety review with the U.S. Public Health Service, it was determined that the deterioration of Municipal Pier in Aquatic Park Cove is unsafe for public use.

https://www.nps.gov/safr/learn/historyculture/aquatic-park-pier.htm

Your San Francisco cheap thrill this week is the Fishing Pier at Aquatic Park. This is a public fishing pier at the end of Van Ness Street. In the winter people fish for crabs. At certain times of year large flounders have been caught.  Surely strippers and salmon but I have not even attempted such sport.  To me The Aquatic Park Pier is simply a really cool place for a short walk to take in views of the bay. Great views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Sauselito, Alcatraz and Angel Island. You also have a good view of the East Bay Hills. Then  by the time you get to the end of the pier,  when you look south, you are treated with stunning views of the city – Aquatic Park. Ghirardelli Square, Coit Tower, Nob Hill and North Beach.

The Aquatic Park Pier is almost a hundred years old and in quite the disrepair; it is basically crumbling into the bay. Just watch your step and avoid the yellow tape and  you will be fine. The pier is a cool place to just chill and get away from world, maybe sing some Otis Redding.

Admission: Free
Hours: Open dawn to dusk, year-round

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The Quarterly Report – February 2021

This SF Journal Quarterly Report once again is brought to you by Gentilly and Taqueria Guadalajara, both excellent options for take out dining in the Excelsior District of San Francisco. Taqueria Guadalajara on Mission Street and Onondaga  (4798 Mission St San Francisco) makes the best burrito in San Francisco with the added benefit that one carnitas super will feed a family of four.

Apologies to the many readers who have written in complaining about the tardiness of this Quarterly Report. There were so many distractions: the pandemic, the unruly mob, incited by Donald Trump, storming the capital,  the inaugurations of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and the amazing run-off election in Georgia. One thing is certain with all the craziness on the national political scene is that it has made for a lot of new words into the public discourse, my favorite of which is  sedition. Sedition is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary  as “incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.”  Evidently, with the acquittal of Donald Trump on February 13, 2021,  forty-three Republican United States Senators seem to not understand the meaning of sedition.

Weather

In San Francisco there has been a fair amount of rain in the last month. With over 200 inches of snowfall in many parts of the Sierra, for another year we can enjoy all that amazing, clean fresh water.

COVID-19 Pandemic Update

In San Francisco they are rolling out COVID-19 vaccines to many front-line workers and people over sixty-five. Places like the City College parking lot and the Moscone Center are being used for the vaccine roll out.  I predict once Kaiser starts a vaccination program, things will move quickly. The pandemic has laid bare how a for-profit health care system and the lack of a public heath care system and made it so battling a pandemic virus is problematic. As usual just follow the money and you will see what is really going.

Willie Brown Retires from the Chronicle

One of the interesting op-ed writers for the last decade in the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle was from the former California Speaker of the House and former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. Love him or hate him, Willie seemed to always have the inside scoop on what was going down in the world of politics. He always seemed to be someone who could figure out a way to either solve a problem of get out of a sticky spot. Willie Brown retired from his post at the Chronicle in January 2021. We will miss his man-on-the-street,  reporting the sage advice of cab drivers and homeless people on his many daily excursions. How will we ever know what is going on?

Sporting News

For the citizens of San Francisco there are many street closures to facilitate places to be outside and exercise. People are out and about, running, biking and skating. I predict that there are more kids that have learned how to ride a bike in the last nine months than in the last five years as you see them out on the Great Highway enjoying the 4 mile stretch of flat, open road with stunning views of the Pacific Ocean.

In January there was an epic run of huge swell that made it so Mavericks in Half Moon Bay was breaking for weeks. To get a sense of what this means you only have to watch a few videos of Peter Mel taking off on these massive waves.

That is The Quarterly Report – February 2021. Be well. Wear a mask. Drink plenty of water, get regular exercise and for the love of God stay away from “social media.” Read books.

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Why Facebook is Not Like the Bulletin Board at the Laundromat

This essay explores different perspectives concerning Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Movies such as The Social Network have finally made obvious to the broader public some of the toxicity of social media and this essay is to point out that Facebook and other social media companies are not like cork message boards at the laundromat but rather a modern, innovative and complicated form of publishing. For some background, read the New York Times article Tech Companies Shift Their Posture on a Legal Shield, Wary of Being Left Behind where in the comments a gentleman from New York commented the following:

– Kenneth, ny
Section 230 is the wrong tool for regulating tech giants; it’s how people can say something on the internet without bringing down the hosting service. Let’s remove it; we’d lose these comment boards because now the Times is liable for its contents. Twitter gets nuked completely (possibly a good outcome in your estimation!) but so too does every place users can place comments. The analogy that impressed me in law school was the idea of a cork message board — if someone comes along and staples a defamatory statement, you go after the person who posted it. You don’t sue the owner of the corkboard. And if the corkboard owner removes the defamatory statement, then the original speaker doesn’t get to sue them in turn. That’s the point and purpose of section 230. If the corkboard owner owns all the corkboards, then okay, that’s why we have antitrust laws. But unless you want to start scrutinizing all online speech via legislation, we should use other means to attack the power of the internet giants.

ACT 1:  The Metaphor Trap

Trying to make sense of the new digital world, people conjure up metaphors from the physical world. For many years it was called the Information Superhighway and the internet was something that you surfed. Lately, servers are called the cloud.  These are convenient ways we, or probably more accurately, marketing departments, try to give people a reference for this fast moving world.  But in actuality you do not surf the internet and it is not a cloud. It seems skepticism is sometimes in short supply these days. The notion that interacting with social media and “posting,” is at its essence, the same voluntary action as  posting a notice about your lost cat on the local laundromat cork message board is simply naive.  Facebook is not a cork board. It is far more complicated.

ACT 2: Horses and cars

Comparing Facebook with cork bulletin  boards is perhaps  like comparing horses with cars.  Both horses and cars are a means of transportation. Indeed, when the automobile became ubiquitous the motor’s strength was horsepower. This must have been a certain horse in a good mood, and it surely was just an average and not very accurate.  Because horses were not cars there were all kinds of regulations about how fast they could go, and how you had to drive with lights on at night and wear seat belts, and eventually it got so bad, you had to have a drivers licence.  Cars, as long as they had gas could go for hours on end. Horses need rest. While horses and cars are tools for humans to get from one place to another, they are apples and oranges. Facebook is not a cork board. It is far more complicated.

ACT 3: Geography

A cork board in the laundromat always stays in one place .  In  reality the only reason the owner of the laundromat put up the freakin’ cork board in the first place was because people kept taping room rentals and lost pet posters on the wall and she was getting tired of cleaning off all the sticky tape.  People who see Facebook stuff have it on their phone, on their computer at home, in an internet cafe (they still have those) – basically everywhere they are they can get news and messages from people they do not really even know. They see the social media stuff everywhere.  The message board at the laundromat hangs out in the laundromat all night in the dark with the florescent lights off waiting for the morning for the door to be unlocked and someone to poke it witha thumbtack in the morning the next day.

Furthermore, your laundromat bulletin board is not a two way mirror where some creepy white guy in a hoody is  behind the glass spying on your every move, changing what you see on the bulletin board by gauging your mood and even where your eyes focus.  It does not track whether you were in the laundromat last week, or how many loads you did, or whether you just came from the grocery store. Facebook is not a cork board. It is far more complicated.

ACT 4: Classified Ads

In reality a cork board in a laundromat is perhaps more like a free classified service like craigslist but the cork board in a laundromat is physical.. However, unlike craigslist and for that matter Facebook, when someone posts a notice on the cork board they do not have to give the owner of the cork board their birth date, email, or any other personal information. On the cork board people post their “stuff”and often write their phone number many times on the  notice so that people can tear off the phone numbers and easily call them .  People are usually pretty anonymous and everyone sees the same stuff. The woman who owns the laundromat (or craigslist for that matter) does not customize the cork board for different laundromat users based on their politics, gender orientation or sport teams affiliation. Facebook is not a cork board. It is far more complicated.

ACT 5: Selling Your Self to the Devil

Unlike Facebook, I would wager that a cork message board in my local laundromat is pretty harmless. It is not a platform associated with radical white extremists that are conspiring to kidnap the governor, or entire governments intent on marginalizing and murdering certain members of society as what happen in  Myanmar.

The cork board is probably not a place where strange inaccurate and totally false conspiracy theories propagate. Perhaps Facebook is more often like a toxic dump site, that is oozing falsehoods and devious schemes all night. but appears benign. Facebook is not a cork board. It is far more complicated.

ACT 6: What if I post stuff that is copyrighted?

A few years after Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 was the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) which ushered in the 21st century that often marginalized tradition creators of music, art and publishing.  The DMCA made it completely legal for hosting companies and most often large monopolies to make money off of the music of the last 100 years and be free of any legal consequences for copyright infringement as the material was posted by users.  Sort of like taping your 100 gig drive of all your CDs as MP3’s on that laundromat cork board and telling everyone to just come and make  free copies while the laundromat got financial kickbacks.

I have been writing about how the DMCA is unconstitutional for years.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act 18 Year Anniversary

Facebook is not a cork board. It is far more complicated.

ACT 7: Facebook is actually a Publisher with Unpaid Content Providers and is Edited by Algorithms

Imagine if your Facebook feed came to you once a day in print delivered to your doorstep.  It is a “book” by the way. Your print version of Facebook would contain the news from some traditional news source, the warm and fuzzy stories and op-eds from your crazy uncle. It even has comics. It is published in billions of editions and every user gets their own custom versions. This siloing of content is  one of the reasons why our democracies are breaking into the tribalism of identity politics. Everyone lives in their custom realities and subjective idealism with their own version of truth. (The customization of various editions is not unlike  the New York Times that has a “west coast” version. ) On Facebook and the New York Times are ads and classifieds and Facebook makes billions off the advertising in their publishing business.  Facebook is not just a platform, it is a modern, complicated form of publishing with vast editorial power.  Indeed, if I posted this essay on Facebook it would soon end up at the bottom of everyone’s feed and eventually the trash. How do I know this? It has happened before when I posted on Facebook such critiques. Facebook is not a cork board. It is far more complicated.

ACT 8: Anti-trust and Toxic Waste Dumps

The quote above that started this ramble speaks of anti-trust and breaking up the likes of Facebook as Teddy Roosevelt helped do with the railroads a hundred years ago.  Anti-trust laws will surely be the legal path, but I still maintain:  Facebook is not a cork board. It is far more complicated. The legal world needs to realize that the internet is not one huge cork message board at the laundromat where no one is accountable.

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Kamala Harris Quotes

“I know predators, and we have a predator living in the White House, and let me tell you, there’s a little secret about predators. Donald Trump has predatory nature and predatory instincts. The things about predators you should know, they prey on the vulnerable. They prey on those who they do not believe are strong. The thing you must importantly know, predators are cowards. I have a background where successfully, I have prosecuted the big banks who preyed on homeowners, prosecuted pharmaceutical companies who preyed on seniors, prosecuted transnational criminal organizations that preyed on women and children, and I will tell you we have a predator living in the White House.”
Kamala Harris, U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate – July 3, 2019

“Women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and liberty and justice for all, including the black women who are often too often overlooked, but so often prove they are the backbone of our democracy.”
Kamala Harris, U.S. Senator and Vice Presidential Elect

“Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?”
Kamala Harris, U.S. Senator Questioning Brett Kavanaugh – September 2018

Brett Kavanaugh had no answer and looked dazed and confused.  And isn’t it peculiar that like Jeff Sessions who said “you scare me” to Senator Harris when she was questioning him on the floor, Kavanaugh seemed a bit terrified. January 20th will be a great day for woman. For little girls it will be a day where being smart, tough and thinking critically is now part of the accepted performance.

For people in the Bay Area there are three camps. People who hold a grudge for Kamala Harris over the simple fact that she was District Attorney of San Francisco and made some mistakes along the way. Those who are simply glad that you have someone who is intelligent, qualified and decent. And, the few Republicans who think she is soft on petty crime and social issues.

There was an op-ed in the New York Times recently that took the point of view that Kamala Harris should be given a more substantial job than Vice President.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/opinion/kamala-harris-rural-america.html

All I can say is: there’s still time.

Kamala Harris – For the People, here we go.

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Late Night at the Pelican Cafe – Candela at El Rio

Late Night at the Pelican Cafe is an experimental web site where I post historic recordings of various bands from the San Francisco Bay Area. You can just go to the post and music will play.  Listen to the sound of a bar or club filled with people, listening and dancing to a live band. Many of these recording are live recordings from a quality analog cassette tape recorder  ( SONY TCS-580-V) positioned on the floor in front of the trombone player. For around fifteen years I was a freelance trombonist and arranger in San Francisco.

Candela Live at El Rio – 1992

CANDELA LIVE AT EL RIO – 1992
In the 1990’s I had the fortune to play many Sundays at El Rio. At one point it felt like I was the house trombone player. On this particular Sunday the band was a phenomenal line-up of San Francisco based musicians – many players, including myself, were filling in for regulars. You can hear solos by Wayne Wallace, Rebeca Mauleón, Ramon Lasso, Paul Lyons, Michael Spiro, Jorge Polmar and others. Rebeca Mauleón’s piano Solo on Bailando Asi is outstanding.

CANDELA – 1992
Edgardo Cambin – Congas and Lead Vocal (Solo on Yembeke)
Jorge Polmar – Bass
Rebeca Mauleón – Piano (Solo on Bailando Asi)
Sandy Cressman – Coros
Ramon Lasso – Piano (Solo on Yembeke)
Wayne Wallace – Trombone (Solo on Yembeke)
Eric Rangel – Timbales
Michael Spiro – Bongo (Solo on El Cuarto)
Paul Lyons – Trombone

Current Candela Website

https://musicandela.com

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Remembering Bahia Cabana – 1600 Market Street, San Francisco

Remembering Bahia Cabana - 1600 Market Street, San Francisco

INTRODUCTION
In 1992 I played in a band lead by Marcus Lopez called Cubanacan. In this band, on this night,  I was taping the band so as to learn the tunes. The tune is Richard Kermode’s Catalina. and you can hear the solos of Peter Cornell,  Paul Lyons and the late great Richard Kermode –  a great musician with a huge spirit who earlier had worked and recorded with Santana and Janis Joplin. Richard could play a wicked montuno.

Fito Reinoso – Voice
Marcus Lopez – Bass
Louis Romero – Timbales
Geraldo from Cuba – Congas
Richard Kermode – Piano
Peter Cornell – Sax
Paul Lyons – Trombone

ACT 1 : AN ELECTRIFYING EXPERIENCE
Besides unemployment, anxiety and pondering your mortality, the Covid-19 pandemic is a time for cleaning out closets. Going through some old stuff I ran into a postcard from a bygone era. In the 1980’s and 90’s Bahia Cabana in San Francisco was a hopping club on Market Street in San Francisco with a tropical vibe and live music many nights of the week.  The bands were mostly Latin bands playing samba or salsa and it catered to a dance crowd.  The place must have been crazy during San Francisco’s Carnaval.

Remembering Bahia Cabana - 1600 Market Street, San Francisco
Postcard from Bahia Cabana – 1992

Long before the pandemic and before the rise of the internet, there were many clubs and bars like Bahia Cabana employing musicians. It is hard to imagine but in the late 1990’s, five nights a week there were at least five clubs up and down Mission Street that had bands with full horn sections and multiple singers.  Most of these bands were cover bands that played the hits of the day and also the many regional Latin tunes – merengue, rancheras and cumbias. San Francisco is home to a lot of people from Central America where cumbias seem to always be popular.

But that is a bygone era.  For years, live music in clubs has been in decline and Latin clubs are few. When you do hear a live salsa band it was often just a quartet with various people sitting in and the entire band playing for a tip jar.

But back to Bahia Cabana – a place were I could have been electrocuted to death.  Bahia Cabana had this third world vibe down to the electrical system.  I remember playing there in the 1990’s with Julio Bravo and looking at the wiring backstage for the sound system and wondering if everything was legal – wires going every which way like spaghetti. Next thing I know after attempting to plug in an amp, I got an electrical shock unlike anything I have ever received. I stepped back and wondered for a second if I should go to the emergency room only to be reassured by the trumpet player that if may hair was not on fire and there were no visible burns that everything was fine.  It was a strange feeling.

Bahia Cabana –  an electrifying and shockingly happening hot spot long gone.

A few years later Bahia Cabana opened another club in the basement – music by a DJ, lots of flashing lights, drum and bass, loud pounding sounds and surely a smoke machine. I wondered how they got that by the San Francisco fire department and being in the basement was a bit concerned for safety reasons. Sure enough, sometime around 2000 the entire building caught fire and Bahia Cabana closed down for good.  Another victim of using unlicensed, non-union electrical  contractors who do not ground service panels. But Bahia Cabana would have closed soon after with the invasion of the tech industry, increased rents and the changing economics of the San Francisco.

I think I will keep the postcard as a keepsake.

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Surfing Ocean Beach in the Winter

Recently some very large swell hit Northern California. December 4, 2020 was probably the biggest day of the year so far with waves peaking at probably around 25 feet. The following day, December 4, 2020 I ventured to the beach to take some photos and surf. These are photos from around 9 am to 11 am at Ocean Beach in San Francisco when the waves were about 7 feet at 14 seconds. Fortunately, even though there is a raging pandemic, surfing appears to be a safe activity. As the saying goes, once you leave the beach, you are in the wild.

Some sequences of rides

Ride 1
Surfing Ocean Beach in the Winter Surfing Ocean Beach in the Winter Surfing Ocean Beach in the Winter Surfing Ocean Beach in the Winter

Ride 2
Surfing Ocean Beach in the Winter
Surfing Ocean Beach in the Winter
Surfing Ocean Beach in the Winter

At the beach (the little black things on the waves are indeed humans)

 

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Books I Read in 2020

Books I Read in 2020 is brought to you by Bird and Beckett Books in San Francisco.

Bird and Beckett Books

Remember, before you buy a book from Jeff Bezos consider supporting your local bookstore. You get that warm fuzzy feeling just thinking that you may have kept a local business alive and you may even make some real friends.

This year I started a book diary and kept track of all the books I read. I recommend all of these books however special shout-out to three books: There There by Tommy Orange, The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand and My Song: A Memoir by Harry Belafonte. Below is a list and a short description of each book.

The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America
Louis Menand
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First edition (April 10, 2002)

Louis Menand is a brilliant thinker and The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America is a great read. It is like a play with four characters as leads.  It is strange to think that the Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes  fought in the Civil War then went on to be on the Supreme Court for around thirty years in the early 20th century. Not brought up in my rudimentary education of the 19th century is the debate between monogenists and polygenists and such characters as Louis Agassiz and how the entire science world was convinced that Africans were a different species. This was the accepted belief until Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Just a warning to the world on how perception is so often not reality and science when overly influenced by money and politics is often wrong.

There There
Tommy Orange Knopf (2018)

I highly recommend this book as the story telling and writing are phenomenal and the characters memorable. Based in Oakland and written by and about Native Americans – something not often found in published literature. Amazing book!

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
Erik Larson
Random House (2020)

I read this at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and it gave me an escape from the lack of leadership of the Trump administration. I was curious about Churchill’s speeches, but instead you get the day to day life of Churchill during the bombing of London. A key source for this book are the diaries of Churchill’s daughter Mary. When politicians seem spineless, unable to lead, corrupt beyond belief, this is a good one to restore your faith. Churchill told the people the truth and would end his speeches with optimism and encouragement. What a concept.

Time Will Tell: Conversations With Paul Bley
Paul Bley & Norman Meehan
Berkeley Hills Books

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Ibram X. Kendi Bold Type Books (2017)

Lot’s of stuff you never got in high school history class.

I Walked With Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath
Jimmie Heath Temple University Press (2010)

Great read from Jimmie Heath who lived a long productive life.

Cash: The Autobiography Johnny Cash
HarperOne; Illustrated edition (October 7, 2003)

If you are a Johnny Cash fan this is a must read. Given to me a few Christmas’s back by my second child, I finally got around to reading this autobiography. It is sort of interesting how in the first few chapters he skims over his first family, but comes around in the end to explaining things.

Little Bee
Chris Cleave
Simon & Schuster (2008)

This is sort of like a Netflix series that you watch because you have run out of options. Still, well written and engaging.

Dialogues and Natural History of Religion
David Hume
Oxford Classics

I read this because I am a big fan of Hume’s Zen-like skepticism. Heavy read where I understood only about ten percent at times.


Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class
Scott Timberg
Yale University Press (January 31, 2015)

I wrote a review of this book on this website.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Thomas Wolfe
Picador (2008)

I had never read this book and was curious. San Francisco in the late 1960s.

My Song: A Memoir
Harry Belafonte and Michael Shnayerson
Knopf; First Edition edition (October 11, 2011)

I wrote a review of this book on this website.

All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes
Maya Angelou
Random House; Reprint edition (May 20, 1997)

Amazing writing.

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The Treason of Donald Trump and the Republican Party

It is now a week after the November 3, 2020 election. Because of Covid-19 and the large amount of mail-in ballots, it took until Saturday for Pennsylvania to be called for Joe Biden.  The United States of America is still counting votes but the outcome is clear. Joe Biden won the Electoral College vote as well as a popular vote margin that when everything is counted will be over 5 million votes. Donald Trump is soon to be evicted from federal housing.

However, Donald Trump is playing the sore loser and claiming election fraud with no evidence that anything fraudulent happened. This is a typical Trump maneuver and this behavior of “deny, deny, deny” is a skill he learned from the notorious scumbag Roy Cohn. The prediction that Trump would never concede was pointed out by Michael Cohen over a year ago.

Michael Cohen Warned Us In February 2019

That just about every Republican supports Trump in his chronic denialism and legal maneuvers is deplorable.; Mitch McConnell has always been deplorable. At this point the Republican party is a party of traitors and treason and the oaths that they took to The Constitution are absurd.

NOTE: The opinion above is only that of the author and does not represent the San Francisco Journal, investors or subsidiaries. Letters to the editors can be sent via the contact link below.

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Crane Cove Park in San Francisco is Awesome!

Crane Cove Park will be a major new open space along the currently inaccessible former industrial shoreline. The park will be a part of the Blue Greenway, a necklace of waterfront public access connecting the City to the shore via pathways, parks and open spaces.
https://sfport.com/crane-cove-park

I found Crane Cove Park in San Francisco on the day it opened purely by accident. It was a clear day and I was doing one of my bike rides around the city. Great job SF Port and all the people who made this happen! You can now update your website. (e.g., will be is)

  • On that old bike Lane I’ll ride it once again, just no longer will I ride with you.
  • I saw you pretending indifferent, from the warmth of your automobile.
  • This road has broken some strong ones, but it’s never gonna take my will.
  • The path beneath us is wicked, and best traveled on two wheels
  • Bike Lane – Lucas French

Where is Crane Cove Park in SF?
It is in the Mission Bay, south and not far from the new Warriors stadium along the bay. It is a stones-throw south of The Ramp and Mission Rock. It has a wading beach and a large open space that once was a shipyard. No swimming but I did see some paddle-boarders out there. Just an interesting space along the water.

The entire Mission Bay has been transformed in recent years from a district of warehouses and open spaces to a place with hospitals, UCSF and a stadium. For better or worse, many of the open spaces are now glass office buildings. However, Crane Cove Park is a welcome addition to all this development. During the summer months, May to September, Crane Cove will usually be fog-free and five degrees warmer than the rest of the city – a great respite from the fog for people living in The Sunset or further west.

COOL ACTIVITIES AT CRANE COVE PARK:

  • Easy short-distance, safe biking.
  • Walking
  • Wading
  • Picnicking
  • Views of Oakland, the bay, the Bay Bridge, old cranes
  • Rollerskating

Just in time for a pandemic is San Francisco’s Crane Cove Park.

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The Quarterly Report – October 2020

This SF Journal Quarterly Report is brought to you by Gentilly and Taqueria Guadalajara, both excellent options for take out dining in the Excelsior District of San Francisco.

I am a little concerned about the concept of a Quarterly Report as the world is moving far to fast.  Since the last Quarterly Report, entire cities in California have been burned to the ground, we discovered Donald Trump paid just $750 in Federal Income Taxes for two years while pretending to be president and while getting exceptional health care on the people’s dime, and the baseball season came and went like a beer fart that thankfully did not even register on the air quality meter.  But a plan is a plan, and here is The Quarterly Report – October 2020.

Weather

Whether or not you “believe” in climate change or not, California during September 2020 was literally on fire, with massive fires up and down the state. There were fires in Boulder Creek close to Santa Cruz, in the Sierra and north in wine country.  After some freakish dry lightening strikes in September, there were so many fires going on at the same time that you simply  lost track. For many days San Francisco was dark with smoke and the air quality was at dangerous levels across the state.  One Tuesday morning we woke up to a day where the sun never rose. The sky was an eerie orange. We were told the sky was similar to what it would be like if you survived a nuclear explosion – a nuclear winter.

11 am in San Francisco - September 2020
11 AM  in San Francisco – September 2020

While the expression that people “believe” in climate change (like it was some sort of religious epiphany)  always has seemed odd, all I know is that this is “the new normal.”  The climate is changing in more ways than we can even measure. The survival of the human species is quite dire.

Early October was fortunately a bit cooler with a lot of marine-layer and fog along the coast, but starting around October 7th we have entered our “Indian Summer” period with warm days and light winds. Many people are heading to the beach to cool off, swim and surf. This is the best time of year in Northern California.

COVID-19 Pandemic Update

In San Francisco we are doing pretty well in terms of containing the virus. People wear masks and practice social distancing in creative ways. Restaurants have adapted and there are many new “parklets” outside of establishments where people can eat.  A few places are hiring bands to play as well. Even though all the public schools are doing online classes, people are getting out and the hum of freeway is about back to normal.

Presidential Politics

Most everyone in San Francisco seems to be holding their breath hoping that the Biden-Harris ticket wins come November. It is shocking that so many people in the United States of America support Donald Trump as he has always seemed a dangerous fraud from the start. Let us hope that this nightmare ends and in the least we can have some civility in the national discourse. Then there is all the actual work to be done – climate change, racial justice,  education equity, the state department. The list is long. Where to start?

Sporting News

The Oakland A’s made it to the playoffs in this shortened season but lost in the second round. Someone mentioned that there are professional football games being played but that is all I know on that front. It sounds like a really bad idea as football tends to be a sport where bodily fluids are exchanged on a regular basis.

 

For the citizens of San Francisco there are many street closures to facilitate places to be outside and exercise. People are out and about, running, biking and skating. I predict that there are more kids that have learned how to ride a bike in the last nine months than in the last five years as you see them out on the Great Highway enjoying the 4 mile stretch of flat, open road with stunning views of the Pacific Ocean.

 

That is The Quarterly Report – October 2020. Be well. Wear a mask. Drink plenty of water, get regular exercise and for the love of God stay away from “social media.” Read books.

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Donald Trump Gets Covid-19 – Why Are People So Concerned?

The latest news on the national level is that Donald Trump has contracted Covid-19 – the Corona Virus. It seems odd that this is a big deal. All along Donald Trump has explained that Covid-19 is little more than a mild flu. Please let us stop with the hyperbole. Donald. Go home and get some rest. It is just a mild illness. Maybe check back in a few weeks after you down a few Dixie Cups of Clorox or perhaps have your “come to Jesus moment” like what happened to Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

“It’s going to disappear one day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
Donald Trump

“A lot of people think that goes away in April, with the heat, as the heat comes in, typically that will go away in April.”
Donald Trump

“Covid-19 affects ‘virtually nobody’”
Donald Trump

“I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning? “Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that.”
Donald Trump

“It’s a little like a regular flu that we have flu shots for, and we’ll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner.”
Donald Trump .

Quotes begin from statements made by Donald Trump starting in February 2020.

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Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2020 Awards Will Take a Break

The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival that takes place in Golden Gate Park every first-weekend in October is still happening this year, however it is going to be all online or what they now call “virtual.” Not my cup of tea folks. I like the real thing and will not be attending. That said, this year’s  SF Journal Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival Awards will take a break.

As it turns out, live music festivals, with thousands of people bumping into each other, spilling beer on you and sharing local herbs is probably the best way to boost your immune system.  As an added bonus there is the perilous activity of attempting to hygienically go to the bathroom in a port-a-potty.  Wash your hands? Yeah right. Let’s all share germs!

For the past eight years I have written up reviews of  HSBG festivals and given out awards. If you are curious or simply getting nostalgic, they are listed below. Until next year hopefully, when the light of health, peace and sanity returns.

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Is Amy Goodman the new Walter Cronkite?

Democracy Now! is a daily television and radio news broadcast probably not known to many in the United States of America. The show is hosted by journalist Amy Goodman, who also acts as the show’s executive producer. Besides having the best theme music for any news show ever, Democracy Now! attempts to deliver the news in a style that is actually similar to the way Walter Cronkite read the news in the 1960s. Unlike Fox News or many current news programs, the emphasis is not on the personalities of the host and there are are no leggy blondes perched up on bar stools complaining about the weather and personal skin care products.

If you compare the delivery of the news between Walter Cronkite and Amy Goodman it is striking how their intonation, style and rhythm are similar, albeit Amy Goodman’s is probably a fifth higher. Close your eyes. The similarities are almost shocking.

Just compare these two videos.

Walter Cronkite

Amy Goodman

I am no scholar of the history of television journalism, but this style and approach surely have something to do with Edward R. Murrow and his journalistic  philosophy,, approach and style – a thing of a bygone era.  They simply read the news deadpan with a consistent rhythm and no chatter.

So if you want to see or hear the headlines like it was Walter Cronkite staring at the camera reading the news, watch Amy Goodman and the DemocracyNow! headlines. It is like a strong cup of black coffee – hold the cream, no sugar.

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Artie Shaw Quote

Reading “I Walked with Giants” the autobiography of Jimmy Heath I ran into a very prescient quote about the United States of America from a speech delivered by Artie Shaw, the great big band clarinetist.

“This is a great country, but there are a lot of idiots in it. That’s why I went to Spain for a while.” – Artie Shaw in 1998 at Jewish Community Center – Washington, DC (“I Walked with Giants” p245)

.

This was in 1998. I fear that the idiots are simply multiplying!

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The Quarterly Report – July 2020

The motto of this fine publication is “Slow News that Doesn’t Break.” While you may be able to learn the latest tidbits and disjointed morsels and turds from places like Twitter and Facebook, at the San Francisco Journal you get “Slow News that Doesn’t Break.” I ventured onto Twitter the other day to promote a piece of writing and was a bit disgusted with the whole ethos of the place.  Grown adults shouting at each other like carnival barkers, writing incoherent phases like some deranged, mentally ill  person outside your window in the middle of the night howling at the streetlight.

The San Francisco Journal Quarterly Report comes out four times a year, and  tries to give an overview of the state of things in San Francisco. No need to be a news junkie around here.

COVID-19 Pandemic Update

The shelter in place order started on March 16th. On July 1, we will have been sheltering in place for 107 days. People are starting to get out and about and as of June 15, we are in Phase 2b which means a few things are open. It is still pretty much shut down mode.

Black Lives Matter Demonstrations

Since the disturbing murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, there have been many demonstrations all around the Bay Area. On June 3rd we went to a large demonstration against police brutality at Mission High. Great speakers. Great group of demonstrators. After the speeches we marched West on 17th Street up to the Castro, took a right on Castro Street then down 15th Street. We left the entourage when we got to Valencia Street. Not reported by the big news outlets is that when the demonstration ended at 650 Bryant, the City Jail and Court House a rather large papermache head of Donald Trump was set on fire in the middle of the street. The police simply stood and watched. What was interesting is that throughout most of the march and especially at Dolores Park there were no signs of police. No one was hurt. No violence erupted. Very calm and peaceful with everyone wearing masks.

With the Vietnam war in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s it took the six-o-clock news and reporters embedded with the troops taking shocking images of innocent villages been napalmed and bombed to rouse the public to protest. War atrocities surely still go on but they have been hidden from our view.  What is not hidden from our view, and what people document by video on their phones on a daily basis is police killing black people. This, at least for now, the government cannot censor.

June 3, 2020 Police Brutality Protest outside of Mission High

Photos of San Francisco During the Pandemic

For the past 100 days I have often ventured out on bicycle and ride 20 miles or so around the city. Sometimes I take “The Wiggle,” other times I explore other parts of the city. I have been taking photos along the way.

With restaurants closed they will often board board up their windows. Many places then go the extra mile and create art. Here are some of my favorites.

Some photos of biking and San Francisco during the last 100 days.

Sporting News

No NBA, MLB and other professional sports at this time. There are some rumblings that the MLB will start up in July but time will tell. People are getting out more it seems – hiking parks, cycling and surfing (even though it is not surf season) are very popular.

Weather

June is the beginning of the foggy season in San Francisco. The temperatures usually are from 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit. We get strong northwest winds with higher pressure over the ocean and lower pressure over land in the central valley. This brings about increasingly persistent west to northwest winds during the spring months that go until the Indian Summer of September. It is always reassuring when this weather pattern returns, even though after months of fog and winds it gets pretty relentless. Of course the quote often used to describe San Francisco in the summer is thought to be one by Mark Twain: “The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.” However, another that seems more in keeping with our times is:

“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
– Mark Twain

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Swimming in Aquatic Park Cove

https://www.nps.gov/safr/planyourvisit/aquaticparkcove.htm

You have probably heard it a hundred times. “Way to cold to swim there in the Bay.” “How can you go in that water?” “It must be filthy!” “You’re a complete nut!!!!”

Actually, now is a great time to go to Aquatic Park and take a dip. Just think. You may be dead next year. We all may be dead next year.  You only go around once as they say.

Cheap Thrills Strategy – The Plan

Wear a mask. Check out the cams online and the best bet is to go when it is sunny. North Beach in San Francisco tends to be sunnier than many other neighborhoods during the summer. Fog does push in at times, but Aquatic Park tends to be protected. There are lovely seats in the bleachers by the cove. Lot’s of space. Bring a picnic. Take in the views. Watch people as they stroll by. Alcatraz. Massive container ships from thousands of miles away coming in and out.  Historic ships like the Balclutha docked close by.  If you do not want to go for a swim you could make a gentleman’s bet with a friend and the person who loses has to swim out to one of the buoys. Pretty soon you will realize that the water is not too cold and the views incredible.  Feel free to float on the salt water. In summer it can get up to 64 degrees Fahrenheit.

But I know you. “There is no way I am going in that water!.” You never know until you try.

Admission: Free!
Parking: Not going to tell

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The New York Times Comments and Censorship

It is a good thing that large newspapers have found a way to keep in business in the digital landscape. For a time, in the world of journalism,  it looked like even the big players were not going to make it.  I subscribe to the local paper and the N.Y. Times. From time to time I will post comments to various N.Y. Times pieces and enjoy reading the contributions and ideas from the many mysterious contributors – Socrates, CynicalObserver, God on wheels, Great Family and Friends Dish. Pretty much all of my comments are approved and people recommend them and life goes on. About a week ago I wrote a comment about how a certain article seemed to just brush the surface of the topic.

What Happens to Some L.G.B.T.Q. Teens When Their Parents Reject Them

My comment was approved and garnered a fair amount of recommendations and then was taken down. When I asked the N.Y. Times about why it was taken down, I got this for an answer: “While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective.” I find it odd that they censored this comment as it is not off-topic and abusive only if you think the truth is intolerable. What I was simply saying is that this topic is complicated  – “a complicated story with many players needing more than 3000 words.”

But in the end the N.Y. Times has every right to not publish my comments. It is a private company and can do what they want, just as Jack Dorsey should have kicked Donald Trump off of Twitter years ago for violating their terms. However, I feel that my comment below is certainly not off-topic, not abusive and perhaps even insightful. For posterity, the comment that was taken down and the N.Y. Times response is below.

What do you think? Did I cross the line?

Paul

 
Wed, Nov 11, 8:33 AM
 
Your comment has been approved!
 
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with The New York Times community.
 
Gustav | San Francisco
I think it is important to look at the rapidly changing landscape of identity among young people with a more nuanced eye. A big change in the last five years is that the medical community has become very aggressive in intervening in the bodies of youth who declare that they are transgender. Hormones and surgery are used as early interventions and “treatments.” A story not told on the NYT is how the rise of social media and the ubiquitous smart phone has stressed out many kids. Today identity is everything and many have gotten lost in transgender echo-chambers. The ignorant medical community just gets out the needles and scalpels – a complicated story with many players needing more than 3000 words.

And the N.Y. Times response to why they removed my comment.

Michelle (The New York Times Customer Care)

Nov 20, 2020, 8:00 PM EST

Hello Paul,

Thank you for contacting us here at the Customer Care Center here at The New York Times. Let me first personally thank you for your ongoing support and readership of The New York Times. I appreciate your loyalty.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Our Community desk will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

If you have any questions or require any other assistance, please feel free to reply to this email. You can also call us at 800-698-4637, or chat with us.

Thank you again for contacting The New York Times. Enjoy your day and be safe!

Michelle G,
Customer Care
The New York Times

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Op-ed: U.S. Supreme Court and Bostock vs. Clayton County

In a 6-3 decision, the court said the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars employers with 15 employees or more from discriminating on the basis of sex, requires them to treat male and female employees equally regardless of their sexuality or biological gender at birth — regardless of whether they are gay or lesbian, straight or transgender.
SF Chronicle – U.S. Supreme Court rules job discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is illegal – June 15, 2020

It is a good thing that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that job discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is illegal ( Bostock vs. Clayton County). To condone discrimination based on who people love and are attracted to  and people who are on hormones to self-authenticate their gender is simply unethical.   Prescribing hormones to people to self-authenticate has its own set of ethical questions, but that is another topic all together. What is lost on many journalists and commentators who think this is simply a big win for people who are homosexual or identify as transgender is that they miss a key aspect of the ruling. What the ruling does is simply reaffirm the 1964 Civil Rights Act which bars employers with 15 employees or more from discriminating on the basis of sex

Gorsuch wrote. “That’s because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.”

What this means, and what the court is saying is that sex is real. In our current world of polarized political rhetoric, identity politics and solipsism this may seem like a minor point, but in reality it is significant. Bostock vs. Clayton County may be framed as a win for LGBT rights but it far more subtle. Gorsuch frames the issue with “it does not matter whether you are gay or identify as transgender you are first, fundamentally a human – female or male.” Surprisingly, he is looking at the issue from a feminist, not really a LGBT, perspective.

Eventually there will be other judgments by the court that will disappoint the LGBT community. They will become shrill and irate and claim that Gorsuch has changed his views and backpedaled but in fact they will not understand the premise of his argument and reasoning.  Indeed, the ERA, that unfortunately never passed, is an amendment that would have deemed equality not based on gender but sex.

It is refreshing to see the Supreme Court function as it was intended. A place where cases are argued and laws are created that take the long view and are not susceptible to the politics and fads of the day,

NOTE: The opinion above is only that of the author and does not represent the San Francisco Journal, investors or subsidiaries. Letters to the editors can be sent via the contact link below.

 

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McLaren Park – It’s Bigger Than You Think

UPDATE: 2/28/2023
McLaren Park just gets better. I brand new playground (McLaren Park Redwood Grove Playground) and bathrooms opened up along John F. Shelly Drive. Also, Shelly Drive is still closed from the parking lot down to Mansell Street and people use it as open space for walks and runs.

Some photos of McLaren Park (not to be confused with MacClaren, or McClaren Park) in San Francisco. A great place to hike, walk a dog, picnic, teach a kid how to ride a bike or just take in views of the Bay Area. With the COVID-19 shelter in place situation. McLaren Park is now being used a lot more than before.  People on the weekends picnic and lie around on the mown lawns like they do at Dolores Park.  Lots of kids getting to know nature. From McLaren Park there are great views of downtown San Francisco, Bernal Heights, Brisbane, Oakland, Twin Peaks, the Pacific Ocean. Mount Davidson, Mount Diablo. There is a three mile hike called the Philosopher’s Way Trail which makes it seem at times that you are not in a city but on a rural trail. John McLaren, who best loved undeveloped urban parks would be happy to see all the people out in nature.

Before McLaren Park became a park, a hundred years ago it was a horse farm with stables. Easy to imagine.

MORE INFO:
http://sfrecpark.org/Facilities/Facility/Details/McLaren-Park-Trails-401