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Adam Granduciel-led band keeps nostalgia and guitars at the forefront
By Will Reisman • February 17, 2022 1:30 pm - Updated February 17, 2022 4:23 pm
(Photo by Shawn Brackbill)
For years, the War on Drugs have specialized in making albums that feel like the half-remembered moments of a reverie. From the blurry, eroding images on the cover of “Slave Ambient” to the billowing passages of hazy ambient rock of “A Deeper Understanding” to even naming a record “Lost in the Dream,” the recordings of Adam Granduciel and company grapple with the unreliable nature of memory and its associated feelings.
On their latest endeavor, “I Don’t Live Here Anymore,” those themes arise once again, with Granduciel exploring the significance of his recollections and how music can effortlessly transport him back to a time long past.
“I think it’s something about making music and getting kind of lost in your craft — I’m just naturally put into the place of memory,” said Granduciel, whose band will play at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Feb. 25. “It comes from this lifelong love and obsession I’ve had for music. It brings me back to this kind of creativity that comes from the past, from my childhood.”
Whether he is pondering that “maybe I’ve been gone too long/I can’t go back” on “Living Proof” or making the devastating revelation that he “can’t escape this memory” on “Harmonia’s Dream,” Granduciel returns times and again to the intoxicating — and equally dangerous — allure of the past on “I Don’t Live Here Anymore.” Nostalgia can fill you with an unmatched sense of euphoria, but stay there too long and you lose your grip on the present. When Granduciel looks back, it is neither with fondness nor horror, but with the ambiguity that makes up genuine human existence.
While Granduciel may be primarily concerned with examining the blurry moments of his personal history, he can be excused for taking a moment to celebrate the victories of his current life.
“I Don’t Live Here Anymore” continues an unprecedented run of success for the War on Drugs, a band that started in Philadelphia with a vaguely Springsteen-ian vibe and has since evolved into a West Coast group with a deeply ambitious and vast musical outlook. Perhaps no guitar-based indie rock band has successfully navigated the past decade as deftly as War on Drugs, who managed to stay deeply relevant while the cultural zeitgeist shifted to omnivorous pop, hip-hop and R&B icons like Frank Ocean, Grimes and Kendrick Lamar.
Of course, labelling the War on Drugs strictly as a guitar-based band misses the entire point, as the band has increasingly explored the murky realms of electronic-based sounds for years, no more so than on “I Don’t Live Here Anymore.”
Strangely labeled as “Americana” or “Heartland Rock,” the War on Drugs have never been fearful of venturing into the synth-laden lands explored by ‘80s rock groups. But the band has always been just weird enough to push away any comparisons to yacht-rockers like Genesis or Bruce Hornsby.
On “I Don’t Live Here Anymore,” the band pushes that strangeness (eerie synth flourishes, white noise, negative space) to exciting new avenues. On “Victim,” Granduciel crafts an icy synth ballad, full of jagged keyboard riffs and ambient dissonance. “I Don’t Want to Wait” starts off as a tense, nighttime anthem of odd mechanical beeps and wheezes before giving way to a triumphant, galloping second half spurred on by raining keys and distorted guitars.
The sonic lines are blurred throughout the album, with guitar riffs bleeding into an ocean of digital noise, creating a dizzying atmosphere that Granduciel describes as “one big sound.”
“We try to play around in the studio where you almost bend reality to turn it into something that is more of an illusion — this bed of noise, where you don’t know where the sounds are coming from,” said Granduciel.
Ultimately, creating illusions is what War on Drugs does best. Memories, dreams, faded recollections — those are all malleable and pliable concepts. It is impossible to capture and record the past accurately, but that’s not the point. Just trying to recall it makes the journey compelling, and the War on Drugs are always on the search.
Where: Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove St., S.F.
When: 8 p.m., Friday, Feb. 25
Contact: https://billgrahamcivic.com/ | 2022-02-18T05:03:06Z | www.sfexaminer.com | War on Drugs headlines Bill Graham Auditorium with rock songs that capture life’s fleeting memories - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/war-on-drugs-headlines-bill-graham-civic-auditorium-with-rock-songs-that-capture-lifes-fleeting-memories/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/war-on-drugs-headlines-bill-graham-civic-auditorium-with-rock-songs-that-capture-lifes-fleeting-memories/ |
Mayor London Breed speaks at a news conference alongside Faauuga Moliga before appointing him to the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education to fill Hydra Mendoza’s seat at June Jordan School for Equity on Monday, Oct. 15, 2018. Moliga announced his resignation Thursday in the wake of a landslide recall election earlier this week. (Kevin N. Hume/S.F. Examiner)
San Francisco Board of Education Vice President Faauuga Moliga announced late Wednesday he’s stepping down from his position — just one day after voters approved recalling him along with two other board members.
According to Moliga, his resignation will take effect immediately.
“I am really grateful for this opportunity. To be able to serve from this place has been one of the best experiences I have ever had in my life. I didn’t take any day for granted,” he said in a statement.
“Resigning immediately creates an opportunity for a new board member to step in at this important moment. I want to make sure that whoever is going to be appointed can be brought in as soon as possible as we have some important issues coming up with balancing the budget and selecting a new superintendent,” he said. “I look forward to refocusing on my family and continuing to serve my community.”
Preliminary results from Tuesday’s election show voters overwhelmingly agreed to recall all three Board of Education commissioners on the ballot. Seventy two percent of voters approved recalling Moliga, while 75 precent approved recalling board president Gabriela Lopez, and 79 percent approved recalling commissioner Alison Collins.
Moliga was initially appointed to the board by Mayor London Breed in 2018. That same year, voters elected him to his current term, which began in 2019 and finishes at the end of this year. Moliga, who is Samoan, is the considered the first Pacific Islander elected official in the city’s history.
Breed is set to appoint three new board members, who will fill in through the end of each respective commissioner’s term, at which point a general election will be held.
Breed said on Wednesday after all votes from this week’s election are counted, the city’s Board of Supervisors will certify the results. Once the results are certified in three to four weeks, the recalled commissioners must vacate their seat within 10 days.
During this time, Breed will interview potential candidates.
Despite opposing the recall, the labor union United Educators of San Francisco has said it will work with Breed to choose qualified candidates to replace the outgoing commissioners. | 2022-02-18T05:03:13Z | www.sfexaminer.com | School Board Vice President Faauuga Moliga resigns in wake of recall - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/school-board-vice-president-faauuga-moliga-resigns-in-wake-of-recall/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/school-board-vice-president-faauuga-moliga-resigns-in-wake-of-recall/ |
(Photo by Ben Wood/Western Neighborhood Project)
The Cliff House moving picture gallery
After the 157-year-old Cliff House closed down in 2020, the historic restaurant’s gift shop was turned into a pop-up museum featuring vintage photographs, souvenirs and artifacts telling the story of the building and the surrounding area. Now, the history continues after the museum closes for the day. Every sundown, the exterior windows of the Cliff House turn into a canvas showcasing a montage of historic photos (including amateur snapshots), home movies and commercial B-roll of the Cliff House, Sutro Baths and Playland at the Beach. Projections change monthly with the next set of images and films set to debut on March 12. Museum open Thursdays to Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. through mid-April. Free. savethecliffhousecollection.com. Projections nightly through April 8, 5-10 p.m., The Cliff House, 1090 Point Lobos Ave., S.F. Free. eventbrite.com
(Courtesy Portsmouth Square Garage)
2 Hours Free Parking in Chinatown
When the pandemic hit, Chinatown businessed were hit hard, with many tourists and locals staying away. Two years later, the City of San Francisco is aiming to bring more people back and is using free parking as the lure. To that end, the Portsmouth Square Garage, a short walking distance to tons of shops, bars and restaurants, is offering two hours free parking through the rest of February with virtually no restrictions other than that the garage opens at 5 a.m. and closes at midnight. Through Feb. 28, 2022, Portsmouth Square Garage, 733 Kearny St., S.F. First two hours parking free (regular rates apply after two hours). sfmta.com
(Courtesy Noise Pop Music and Arts Festival)
Noise Pop free happy hour concerts
The curators of San Francisco’s annual Noise Pop Music & Arts Festival have quite a track record for picking bands that are just about to become stars. In the past, San Franciscans saw The White Stripes, Death Cab for Cutie and The Shins on small Noise Pop stages before they broke big. This year, you can check out some of the latest hopeful crop of “I saw them before they were huge” bands at a series of free happy hour concerts at Bender’s in the Mission every night from Tuesday to Saturday this week, plus a special SF Beer Week/Noise Pop mashup kickoff Sunday beer garden concert on Feb. 20 at 2 p.m. at Zeitgeist. Sunday, Feb. 20, 2 p.m., Zeitgeist, 199 Valencia St., S.F., Free with RSVP. dothebay.com Tuesday to Saturday, Feb. 22-26, 5:00 p.m., Bender’s Bar and Grill, 806 S. Van Ness Ave., S.F., Free with RSVP. dothebay.com
(Courtesy Union Square Alliance)
Ding! Ding! A cable Car appreciation event
According to the San Francisco Travel Association, tourism spending might not get back to pre-pandemic levels until 2025. So while the visitors are away, locals are being asked to “play tourist for the day” and pitch in to support the bars and restaurants along the cable car route that typically rely heavily on out-of-towners for their survival. On Feb. 26, start at legacy Union Square restaurant John’s Grill for music, drinks and bites. Then flash your RSVP to skip-the-line and hop on the next available cable car over the hill to end up at the Buena Vista for a group “cheers” with an Irish coffee. Just note there are no freebies here. The whole point is to spend money! — food, drinks and cable car rides. Saturday, Feb. 26, 3-5 p.m., Meet at John’s Grill, 63 Ellis, S.F., food, drinks and cable car tickets ($8) for purchase but RSVP for priority access to cable car and drink food/drink specials. eventbrite.com
(Courtesy of MoAD)
SFJAZZ Black History Month celebration concert with Martin Luther McCoy
Celebrating both Black History Month and the closing of two exhibitions, the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) hosts a special SFJAZZ multimedia presentation and performance with Martin Luther McCoy, who rose to international acclaim for his extensive work with The Roots. At this contemporary art museum that celebrates Black cultures, it’s your final weekend to see art exhibits “Amoako Boafo: Soul of Black Folks” and “Billie Zangewa: Thread for a Web Begun.” The soundtrack for the evening is provided by McCoy, who will pair his blues-drenched R&B and storytelling with repurposed found film footage as the backdrop. Saturday, Feb. 26, 4-5 p.m., MoAD, 685 Mission St., S.F., Free with museum admission ($12 general, $6 student/senior, Free entry for up to four people with EBT card), moadsf.org | 2022-02-18T23:57:25Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Fun, free, cheap: What to do in San Francisco this week - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/fun-free-cheap-what-to-do-in-san-francisco-this-week-9/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/fun-free-cheap-what-to-do-in-san-francisco-this-week-9/ |
Lady Camden, a former resident artist at San Francisco’s Smuin Contemporary Ballet, is now competing on “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” (Courtesy photo)
By J.L. Odom
“I mean, it’s pretty much the Gay Olympics, right? It’s the Olympics of Drag,” says RuPaul’s Drag Race season 14 contestant Lady Camden.
Originally from Camden Town, a district in northwest London, Lady Camden is this season’s Bay Area queen, with ties to San Francisco and, to a greater extent, Sacramento. She is one of 14 contestants competing for the crown and money prize (as well as other prizes) in a show chalked full of challenges that require “charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent,” as RuPaul often says on “Drag Race.”
Explains Lady Camden, “It’s all of your favorite reality shows from the 2000s combined. It’s ‘America’s Next Top Model’; it’s ‘Project Runway’; it’s ‘Survivor.’ It’s ‘Wife Swap’ (no, just kidding). And it means that the expectations of the queens are higher than any other reality show. Because we have to do what every reality show is doing — altogether — in drag.”
During each episode, the queens rigorously vie for the challenge win, with the hope of hearing praises rather than criticisms from the judges’ panel — RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Carson Kressley, Ross Mathews and guests — and “Shantay, you stay” rather than “Sashay away” directly from RuPaul. The challenges themselves vary, requiring the queens to memorize choreography, lyrics and lines — to dance, act, model, sing and be laugh-out-loud funny.
Lady Camden, a former resident artist at San Francisco’s Smuin Contemporary Ballet who recently performed in Smuin’s “The Christmas Ballet LGBTQ+ Night”, was initially excited to participate in the dance challenges. But with the COVID-19 pandemic, she had to resort to weekly Zoom meetings with a personal trainer to prepare for the show.
Says Lady Camden, “I remember I wasn’t really dancing very much and having to take ballet classes in my kitchen. [My personal trainer] would give me exercise routines to work on flexibility, and I did squats and a little bit of ballet here and there, because it was like, ‘Hey, if you’re gonna go into the competition and be a so-called dancer, then you’ve got to have it together.’”
And having it together on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” is key, as the show has a long history of memorable performances and offers contestants a literal runway on which to showcase their talents and personal identities.
The first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race premiered in 2009, with renowned drag queen RuPaul as the show’s producer, host and main judge. RuPaul’s 1992 single “Supermodel (You Better Work)” significantly contributed to the mainstream presence of drag queens and queer culture. Her show has done, and continues to do, the same.
As Lady Camden shares, “I think it’s important for queer people to see, each season, 14 very different people, with very different stories, backgrounds and journeys to become a drag queen, which is someone who has the utmost confidence and believes in themselves.”
On “Drag Race,” LGBTQIA+ representation and various gender identities unapologetically take center stage in the context of a well-crafted reality show — and fans throughout the U.S. and beyond gravitate toward these aspects.
Says Lady Camden,”I can’t generalize every single person, but I don’t think a lot of [LGBTQIA+] people still embrace the sports world; I don’t think that that necessarily tells us our stories as much. And so ‘Drag Race’ has kind of become a placeholder for that. You see people that you identify with, or you root for, and it’s kind of fun to see them either succeed or get knocked out of the game. It’s something for us to kind of hold on to, and it brings people together.”
Season 14 features two transgender women and a cisgender heterosexual man among the cast. Previous seasons have included transgender men. For Lady Camden, the gender diversity on the show speaks to drag culture’s inclusiveness and to the focus on personal and artistic expression. “It’s becoming more and more about the drag … the love, the comedy, the humor, the color, the glitz, the glam,” she says.
Throughout the season, the show’s many viewers are witness to each of the drag elements she mentions, and the drag queens themselves proudly represent the locations and backgrounds from which they hail. For Lady Camden, though most of her years in California have been in the state’s capital, she sees herself as representing another Bay Area city as well.
“People that frequent the nightclubs and bars here in San Francisco, they know full well that I’m also a San Francisco queen,” she says. “They know that I’m also doing it for them, too.”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race, Season 14” is currently airing on VH1 at 8 p.m. PT Fridays. The current season of the show, as well as past seasons, can also be streamed via Hulu and Amazon Prime. For more information, visit vh1.com/shows/rupauls-drag-race. | 2022-02-18T23:57:31Z | www.sfexaminer.com | ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ star Lady Camden on representing the Bay Area on a global stage - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/rupauls-drag-race-star-lady-camden-on-representing-the-bay-area-on-a-global-stage/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/rupauls-drag-race-star-lady-camden-on-representing-the-bay-area-on-a-global-stage/ |
By Jeff Elder Examiner staff writer • February 18, 2022 9:30 am - Updated February 18, 2022 1:51 pm
As workers are poised to return to downtown offices, a new hybrid model for tech companies is emerging that will help shape The City’s recovery as well as the global economy. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
San Francisco and Silicon Valley tech companies such as Zoom, Slack and Google led the global economy into remote work quickly and effectively. The road back hasn’t been as smooth.
COVID-19 variants complicated plans to bring employees back into the office part time, making the “new normal” and “future of work” seem as elusive as ever.
But hybrid work is taking shape right now in the Bay Area in ways that may influence how the world works from now on, experts say. Tech companies are converging around a model that will have impact on both The City and the global economy.
Here’s what it looks like: Tech workers are beginning to go into the office midweek while working from home on Monday and Friday. The midweek, in-person work is devoted to collaboration with teammates, but also with co-workers across the company who are outside the worker’s immediate team. On Mondays and Fridays, workers often are staying home and cranking out solo projects as they have during the remote period.
Get ready for the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday workweek. Experts say it is coming to roust you out of your comfort zone and get you face-to-face with co-workers outside your inner circle. It won’t happen for everyone, and certainly not for everyone yet. But it is gelling as the much-discussed “new normal” we have heard so much about.
“We’re living this all right now,” said Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. “There’s going to have to be some experimentation. We’re going to end up somewhere around three days a week in the office. As we talk to companies, they increasingly say around three days in the office is what they want from employees.”
And tech companies tend to adopt workplace changes together because any extra perk could help in hiring the best engineers. “The one thing we know about tech is that it’s largely a copycat industry,” he said.
This is beginning to happen in San Francisco. Transit data shows more riders are now coming into downtown San Francisco midweek than in the past. Fifteen percent more riders are getting off at the Montgomery Street BART station on Wednesday than on Monday. Historically, that number was 3%.
“We’re starting to see slightly more BART traffic midweek,” said Ted Egan, the head economist for The City. “I do expect to see that going forward.”
A limited in-office work week for employees will still mean fewer people in downtown San Francisco, Egan said: “Reduced is reduced.” But some structure to the work week could be “great for employers,” because “reliability of schedules is a plus. You need to know whether people are going to be in the office. I do think that kind of pattern could be part of the recovery.”
And that recovery, Egan said, is under way. “Everything’s been ticking up,” he said. “In the past month, we’re seeing a bounceback as far as people on transit, in the office, out and about.” That upswing is likely to continue midweek.
“In 2022, employees will increasingly be required to come in on set days, with the payoff of working from home on the other days,” said Nick Bloom, a Stanford University economist who has tracked COVID-19 remote work through surveys and interviews with workers.
Bloom’s team of Stanford and University of Chicago researchers found workers are more than twice as likely to want to work from home on Monday and Friday than on Wednesday. The researchers also found employees want to work in the office with their colleagues enough that they would coordinate schedules to do so.
That is the when of the new workforce: Several days a week, probably midweek, in the office.
Here is the why: A certain kind of interaction has been missing from the COVID-19 era. “Weak ties,” the occasional connections to other parts of the company that break employees out of their inner circle and can bring unforeseen rewards, just don’t happen on Zoom calls. Bringing people back together could renew the synchronicity that brings new solutions, apps, sales and other breakthroughs, experts say.
A sprawling study of thousands of Microsoft workers found weak ties withered in remote work, and companies and employees need them back.
“Compared to prepandemic, however, employees now collaborate significantly less with peripheral colleagues,” Microsoft data scientists wrote in an article in Nature Human Behaviour. Research shows these types of interaction “are vital to organizational health and effectiveness, as they can directly impact innovation, job satisfaction and knowledge-sharing.”
Some San Francisco tech companies are going to great lengths to resume those connections. Salesforce, The City’s biggest employer, is opening a 140-room retreat center near Santa Cruz to recapture “the spontaneity of water cooler conversations,” said Joseph Poch, a Salesforce senior vice president. “People want to get together, but they don’t want to come into an office and be sitting there alone.” Salesforce says three-quarters of its employees want to work in person with colleagues.
Salesforce Tower, the tallest office building west of Chicago, and the companies’ other San Francisco offices brought thousands of workers into downtown. Poch said those employees are now working one to three days a week on-site, and the company urges support for The City’s recovery. “We want people to go out when they are working in the office and visit the local restaurants around the towers,” Poch said. “We definitely support that.”
Ben Waber, president and co-founder at Humanyze, a Boston-area company that uses workplace data to help companies with productivity and processes, believes weak ties are so important that they should be the guiding metric in how companies come back together in office.
“Bringing people back in an organized way is important,” Waber said. “If people just pick whatever they feel like, we might be wasting a lot of time. The idea of this is to genuinely come back in a way that’s helpful.”
Studies show connecting with other parts of the company is “extremely predictive of productivity,” Waber said. Companies should be bringing employees back to focus on that, he said. “Weak ties, how much do different teams collaborate, has dropped precipitously in remote work.”
Bringing employees back midweek may indeed be the best way to reignite those weak ties, Haber said, but the return to office should be data-based. That data is being crunched, and workers are returning right now in ways that could be hugely influential on other tech hubs and companies that connect with San Francisco’s tech sector. It is an important time for the workforce, experts say.
“We do have a moment here,” said Bellisario, the head of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. “We can think through strategies for the future of the economy.”
In the present, some San Francisco workers like the idea of a midweek schedule in the office for face-to-face meetings.
“I’d go back into work a couple of days a week,” said Daniel Schiller, who works in user experience for a big San Francisco company he preferred not to name. “It’s just good to be around people.” | 2022-02-18T23:57:50Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Tech industry’s ‘three-day work week’ may change the future of the office forever - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/tech-industrys-three-day-work-week-may-change-the-future-of-the-office-forever/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/tech-industrys-three-day-work-week-may-change-the-future-of-the-office-forever/ |
Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Middle School embraces elements of a community school model. That means assessing students’ needs and bringing in outside services, including health care assistance, as well as arts and music programming, all while building deeper connections to students and families. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Middle School has all the physical markers of a traditional campus. Lockers line the hallways, colorful signs with words of encouragement dot the walls and squirrelly preteens hang about.
But once class starts, and after it ends, there are some notable differences. In settings like Jennifer Founds 8th grade English and history classes, worksheets and rote memorization is replaced with project-based assignments that require students to go out into the real world and apply lessons to problems in their own community.
The secret sauce at MLK isn’t only in the projects, but in relationships the school brokers between students and community groups, government entities and social services that tie back to teaching and learning.
Schools across San Francisco embody elements of community schools, which aim to assess students’ needs and bring in outside services ranging from dental care to Medi-Cal assistance to arts and music programming while building deeper connections to students and families. The strategy has been around for many years and builds off of ideas behind the federally funded 21st Century Learning Centers. In San Francisco, other programs such as the anti-poverty education initiative Mission Promise and the extended learning-focused Beacon Initiative share similar goals.
“As a teacher, it’s really easy for me to identify needs. Maybe I know a family that doesn’t have enough food right now or is struggling with homelessness. Or a kid needs glasses. But it is not always my area of expertise to connect them with services,” Founds said. “In becoming a community school, all of a sudden we have resources coming into the school and more connections.”
Jennifer Founds, an 8th-grade teacher in English language arts and social studies, says she has found success with the community school approach. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
While project-based pedagogy has been growing popular around the state and country, the idea is often hindered if students lack the resources necessary for learning and basic needs at home. To change that at MLK, where more than 70% of students are low-income and nearly a third are English learners, the school began employing what’s called a community school strategy in the 2015-16 school year.
Through a pandemic that continues to disrupt life and learning, advocates in the school say it’s been critical alongside other efforts to keep students and their parents engaged with learning by bringing community services into the school itself.
It’s led to lessons like ones led by Health Initiatives for Youth, a San Francisco organization that provides health-focused workshops and enrichment programs spanning topics such as sexual health and harm reduction. The program offered virtual lessons during the pandemic when overdose deaths were skyrocketing in particular among low-income neighborhoods around The City.
This year, the group comes to the school once a week to teach a health curriculum to students and discuss touchy health topics.
“There are lots of families that don’t have enough resources, there’s trauma in the community, and that’s all coming into the school building,” said Founds. “Our social safety net is frayed and that shows.”
One of Founds’ assignments asked students to research social movements and controversial monuments, and propose a new monument that would inspire positive change.
Working with local artists and the school’s community partner MindCatcher, an organization that helps educators design student-led learning environments, a group of about 20 students proposed and painted a mural illustrating parts of their heritage, dreams and futures.
“The students came up with their concept and they picked out things that matter to them for the mural. I did a spray paint tutorial, but my job was mainly just to help them with their ideas,” said artist Christopher Williams.
When Founds began teaching at MLK eight years ago, she said fights regularly broke out in class. Getting students to write a single paragraph was often a battle. “The overall level of learning was pretty low,” she said.
School leaders say more frequently assessing and addressing basic needs with the help of outside experts has been a key fixture of the school and has helped improve school climate and student outcomes. The school has also been using de-escalation and “push-in” strategies rather than pulling students out of class if they are disruptive.
Between the 2014-15 and 2019-20 school years, the most recent year data is available, suspensions at MLK dropped by nearly 85%, going from nearly 120 to 18. Teacher turnover also has dropped dramatically at the school.
“Those community-based organizations help students engage in academics but also provide social-emotional resources. It starts to become a more manageable situation when you have more people coming together,” Founds said.
Grant opportunity
Now, California is pumping $3 billion to thousands of schools in low-income neighborhoods to expand the community school model that MLK and a handful of other SFUSD schools employ.
The effort was funded in the current state budget. Grants of up to $500,000 to be spent over five years will be distributed to districts for new and existing community schools.
The funding opportunity has city and school district leaders’ ears perked as SFUSD faces a massive $125 budget deficit and declining enrollment.
“Something we have been thinking is how to get more resources in schools and build on the success of community school models. This grant would be a phenomenal opportunity when we are facing massive budget deficits and teacher layoffs,” said Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, who recently convened a hearing about expanding the model in San Francisco. “One indicator of a successful school is an organized parent base and their level of engagement and integrating priorities from a surrounding community. That’s what a community school does.”
Specific offerings vary by school site. Buena Vista Horace Mann, another community school in San Francisco, works with Dolores Street Community Services to offer an overnight program for students and families experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity.
Key to the approach is having a robust method of assessing students’ and families’ needs, whether that is in the form of surveys, home visits or frequent phone check-ins. At MLK, that work is done by a community school coordinator.
“A lot of schools have elements of community schools,” said Leslie Hu, community school coordinator at MLK. “The missing piece is the alignment across the school community and having someone to do that work.”
Leslie Hu, a community school coordinator and social worker at Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Middle School, works to identify and fill student needs. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
Hu’s role involves surveying students and parents throughout the school year and bringing in community groups to the school that can help fill those needs. Such surveys have led to dentists being brought on campus for check-ups and talks with students about oral hygiene. Prior to the pandemic, surveys showed students were struggling to access healthy food at home. So the school brought in a nutritional expert to lead a cooking class tied to the findings.
Currently, three campuses in SFUSD have community school coordinators: Buena Vista Horace Mann, Mission Education Center Elementary School and MLK. One goal with the statewide funding opportunity would be to grow that number across the district.
Meanwhile, 27 schools have Beacon programs, which similarly work with community-based organizations to provide after-school, weekend and summer learning for kids in San Francisco public schools.
MLK has a Beacon program, which is funded through The City, and often the work of connecting with community partners overlaps. But funding from the state would go directly toward SFUSD, not the Beacon program.
“People think community schools is something you can hang on the hat of one person and you really can’t. It’s a group effort and trust has to be built,” said Carol Hill, executive director of the San Francisco Beacon Initiative.
“The money coming down preferences one model,” she said. “We have been here doing this work for a long time, you don’t need a Beacon director. It might be a school with a parent who is doing this work or a vice principal. It’s not a title; it’s actually building the relationships that are inclusive of all of the voices.”
Many of those who have been part of the community school movement from the get-go in San Francisco agreed.
“Community schools should not be a cottage industry or boutique way of thinking about schools, but the way we believe schools should operate. All schools should be community schools,” said Hayin Kimner, project director for the statewide Community Schools Learning Exchange, with works with schools and districts to implement the model.
Kimner, who served as the director of community schools in SFUSD from 2012-15, emphasizes that running a community school is not the same thing as simply offering a resource hub. Successful implementation requires connecting services and outcomes from needs assessments to the classroom as well.
“It’s not just a handoff or providing services in under-resourced communities,” she said. “It needs an explicit tie to teaching and learning, and tie to mental health well-being for students and teachers.” | 2022-02-18T23:57:56Z | www.sfexaminer.com | A reason for hope within S.F.’s lowest-income schools - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/s-f-s-community-schools-blend-education-and-social-services/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/s-f-s-community-schools-blend-education-and-social-services/ |
By Al Saracevic • February 18, 2022 10:30 am - Updated February 18, 2022 2:19 pm
Lily Ho speaks at the Recall S.F. School Board campaign’s election night party at Manny’s in the Mission on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
Lilly Ho was working with homeless kids at a San Francisco shelter. Ann Hsu had quit her job to care for her father and husband, both of whom were struggling with medical issues. Siva Raj was working on a tech startup with his partner, Autumn Looijen.
None of these people had ever been involved with politics. It just wasn’t part of their lives. Now, they’re at the core of an emerging group of political leaders in San Francisco, largely Asian-American, who were galvanized by the ineptitude of The City’ school board.
The result? Three school board members were recalled in Tuesday’s election, a result clearly influenced by Asian-American voters. And a newly engaged voter bloc has formed in San Francisco that’s looking to make change in a city that’s in desperate need.
“I hadn’t lived here long enough to really engage in the political process,” said Raj, who emigrated from Chennai, India in 2010 and played a key role in organizing the recall movement. “But speaking to people in the community, it does feel like there’s a lot of people, just parents like us, who got involved through this campaign.”
Ho, who also played a key role in organizing support for the recall, concurred: “We woke up a sleeping dragon, with the Chinese-American community. People are realizing the importance of being engaged, staying engaged and voting.”
“We kind of created a garden where we’re growing new leaders,” said Looijen, who worked closely with Raj on the campaign.
Before we continue, let’s take a reality check. A lot has been written on the emergence of Asian-American voters in San Francisco this week. Which is kind of ridiculous.
Did everyone forget Rose Pak, Chinatown’s long-time political power broker? Specifically, Chinese Americans have held huge sway at the ballot box for decades. They also make up 100,000 of The City’s 500,000 registered voters, according to the Chinese American Democratic Club. Asian Americans, overall, represent approximately 35% of the population here.
But there was something different afoot in this week’s election, and it could have a major impact on San Francisco’s political landscape going forward. Recent immigrants to The City got involved, largely because their children’s education was at stake. That’s significant. Most everyone I talked to for this column pointed to schooling as the driving factor behind the increased engagement, and a key to ongoing engagement.
“Every parent has a natural instinct to watch out for the kids,” said Wilson Chu, board member and past president of the Chinese American Democratic Club. “The Chinese are a little bit unique. We have a lot of new immigrants in our community. A lot of them came here to provide a better life for their kids. Education is one of the most efficient means of climbing up the social ladder.”
Many in the Chinese-American community felt targeted by the school board’s decision to change the admissions policies at Lowell High School, moving from a merit-based system to a lottery.
“The Lowell admissions criteria was squarely aimed at the Asian community,” said Hsu, who focused her recall efforts on registering Asian-American voters. “They thought there were too many Asians at Lowell. So blatant! Didn’t even try to hide it. How do you stop the Asians from getting in because they get good grades?”
“They didn’t give enough public notice. Then they completely ignored the protests and comments from Asian parents. They didn’t want to hear it, and passed it through,” added Hsu.
That anger drove her to get involved at Galileo Academy of Science and Technology, the high school attended by her two children, and ascend to PTA president in short order.
Now the question turns to sustainability. Will these newly minted politicos stick with it? The recall victory was heady stuff, for sure. But will they stay around for the public utilities debate? And the district voting discussion? And all the other painfully dull issues that make up municipal governance?
“We hope so,” said Hsu. “I am very new to San Francisco politics and civic engagement overall. I got into the PTA, having never done it before. And I got into (the recall), having never done it before.”
So there’s hope for continuity, with caveats.
“The Chinese typically do not concern ourselves with politics,” said Hsu, who was born in China, immigrated to the U.S. at age 11 and has lived both here and there as an adult. “As I said, I went all of my life before getting into this. It’s really not in our culture. It does not encourage civic engagement and … we really have a disdain for politicians. We’re very practical people. You do your own job well. Take care of your family. And mind your own business. Unless it really touches you, on a day-to-day basis. Otherwise, you don’t care. You’re too busy.”
Sounds like just about everyone I know. The key to keeping this newly energized group involved will likely hinge on the issues on the ballot. Public safety and racism loom large in that conversation.
A rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans in San Francisco will be the next rallying point, which will likely boost turnout for the June 7 recall election of District Attorney Chesa Boudin. A devout progressive, Boudin has denounced the wave of race-based crime but his lenient prosecution policies will work against him.
“The crimes against our community are outrageous,” said Ho. “You have homes in the Richmond with strong-armed robberies. In so many ways, you’d be crazy to live here. You have a 1,500-square foot house for $2 million and you’re scared of getting robbed in the middle of the day?”
Does that mean the newly energized Asian-American voters are more moderate? That’s been another theme beat to death by the national media all week, while local scribes fell on their pens defending San Francisco’s progressive bona fides. The whole thing was embarrassing, frankly.
The “truth” lies somewhere in between, like most everything. The Asian-American voting bloc in San Francisco is just like every other group. It’s not a monolith.
Asked if she thought this was a more centrist group, Ho didn’t mince: “That’s crazy. I don’t think anyone in this city is moderate, unless you pulled us all out and dumped us in the middle of Tennessee. I’m very much a progressive. I would say this is common sense.”
“When politicians have these very idealistic pitches, that’s great. But to implement things based on that, that makes a town ungovernable.”
Which brings us to the core issue: San Francisco’s governance dumpster fire.
Michael Semler, a retired political science professor and former political consultant, has followed San Francisco politics for decades. He thinks The City’s political incumbents better sit up and take notice of what happened on Tuesday.
“When people are angry, they come out to vote,” said Semler. “There was larger turnout in areas where the Assembly race wasn’t even on the ballot. The incumbents, who are progressives in the Richmond District and the Sunset District and the southern half of The City, should be concerned in terms of the Board of Supervisors. Those voters could be reminded that their supervisors did not support the recall of these school board members.”
In fact, the Board of Supervisors voted in the majority on an upcoming ballot measure that would make recalls more difficult to organize, the very day of Tuesday’s election. This enraged many of the newly engaged. They had just rallied around the recall, while their elected officials rained on the victory parade.
“The first lesson for a political leaders is to listen, not to speak. If they listen, it will be interesting,” said Semler. “If you want to break up the coalition that’s worked for a long time, it’s telling the Chinese, ‘Your votes don’t matter.’ That’s what they’re saying. Your anger should be discounted.
“Aaron Peskin and his allies on the Board of Supervisors are trying to limit the ability to recall people. Are they listening? Is it arrogance or not being able to listen?” | 2022-02-18T23:58:08Z | www.sfexaminer.com | San Francisco’s energized Asian voting bloc: ‘We woke up a sleeping dragon’ - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/san-franciscos-energized-asian-voting-bloc-we-woke-up-a-sleeping-dragon/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/san-franciscos-energized-asian-voting-bloc-we-woke-up-a-sleeping-dragon/ |
By Lincoln Mitchell • February 18, 2022 11:30 am - Updated February 18, 2022 1:05 pm
Since the 2000s, the financial resources of tech companies have grown immense and the electorate increasingly has been made up of people who came to S.F. because of those companies. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)
In recent decades, San Francisco has become a major international center of wealth and business in a way that has not been true since the Gold Rush. Global firms like Twitter, Uber and Yelp are headquartered in San Francisco while others, like Facebook and Apple, are just a few miles down the road in Silicon Valley.
This change has led to a rightward shift in local politics for two reasons.
The first is obvious. Wealthy tech people moving in and low-income people of color moving out has given The City a more conservative bent. This is different than the three decades beginning in roughly 1966, when San Francisco drew people from around the U.S. who wanted a more tolerant environment or did not feel comfortable in their conservative hometowns or otherwise wanted to express themselves in unconventional ways.
But since the dawn of the 21st century, people who moved to The City generally came to make money. Naturally, that changes the cultural vibe and politics of San Francisco.
The second reason is less obvious, but also very important. The business community is much stronger now than it was for much of the 20th century.
For most of the 1960s to 1990s, the politics of San Francisco could be understood as a battle between neighborhoods and downtown business interests. That division frequently reinforced left-right political divisions, but there were also liberal business leaders and conservative neighborhood activists. As contentious as those battles were, it was a relatively fair fight, with neighborhoods squaring off primarily against San Francisco-based businesses, firms and developers.
During this century, the balance of that battle has shifted. Now, the business community has financial resources that are all but infinite and the electorate increasingly is made up of people who came to San Francisco precisely because of those powerful businesses.
These factors help explain why 21st-century San Francisco has moved rightward in so many ways. Conservative interests in the 1960, 1970s and 1980s could always outspend progressives, but the scale was different. There were very few people with the money that today’s tech entrepreneurs use to influence outcomes of extremely local races. Nor were there global businesses who could use the constant and implicit threat of leaving town to get what they wanted from city government.
True, there is also a lot of liberal money in San Francisco and The City has emerged as an important source of funding for national progressive causes. But that money has less frequently been used to push for meaningful progressive governance in San Francisco.
The moneyed interests in San Francisco are not always conservative or right-wing, but they have a vision that is distinctly not progressive. The moderate-to-conservative vision of San Francisco is one where businesses and developers are empowered and given incentives to operate more or less however they like, where fear of crime is fetishized, and where homelessness is understood as a problem not of human suffering but as a quality of life issue for the housed. Regardless of whether you support this vision, it is very apparent there is a constituency for it.
In recent years, we have also seen a new generation of political infrastructure develop around this more moderate vision for San Francisco. Organizations like Grow SF, while not right-wing, have taken the more conservative position, in a San Francisco context, on everything from the local recalls to making The City more business friendly. This constituency also supports things like a car-free JFK Drive and closing the Great Highway to traffic. These positions do not fit easily on the left-right spectrum, but they represent the views of the new tech ascendancy. Not surprisingly, Grow SF’s board consists primarily of people who work in tech.
Other organizations like Together SF are also part of this new infrastructure. Together SF does good work mobilizing volunteers throughout The City, but its description of San Francisco as having experienced “(y)ears of politics without progress, of posturing and infighting among elected officials while inequalities festered” is code for progressives have failed.
San Francisco’s place as a radical or uniquely progressive city has never been simple. For much of the middle and early 20th century, it was a strong labor town. Yet other than a few events, like the General Strike of 1934 or the demonstrations at the HUAC traveling road show in 1960, it was not to the left of many other American cities.
The quarter century that began around 1970 could be called the Golden Era of progressive San Francisco, but other than the too brief interregna of the Moscone and Agnos administrations, business leadership always had a firm ally in City Hall. The advances San Francisco made in civil rights, particularly LGBTQ rights, and other social issues during those years were indeed significant, but since that period many cities have caught up with San Francisco.
Here’s some shorthand: The cultural vibe and governance of San Francisco today is much more Obama-Pelosi-Biden than it is Bernie and AOC. And that’s because of tech money.
Part III. Other cities have become more progressive than ‘radical’ S.F. | 2022-02-18T23:58:14Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Opinion: Why San Francisco is more conservative than you think, part 4 - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/why-san-francisco-is-more-conservative-than-you-think-part-4/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/why-san-francisco-is-more-conservative-than-you-think-part-4/ |
The late Wayne Thiebaud, who passed away on Christmas Day last year at age 101, was a formidable force in the mid-century Bay Area Figurative Movement, alongside David Park and Richard Diebenkorn, and made a place for himself in the New York and L.A. dominated Pop Art of the 1960s. Thiebaud didn’t consider himself an artist, though: simply a painter. The difference being, he said that art is something indefinable, while painting is easy to classify. The visceral experience of looking at his paintings, however, is complex — and fun.
Around 30 of Thiebaud’s works are on view in a memorial exhibition at Berggruen Gallery, titled “♡ Wayne Thiebaud” after the painter’s signature, which usually includes a heart before his scrawled name. The show is as much a celebration of Thiebaud’s legacy as it is of his relationship with the gallery, which has shown his work regularly since 1973, and features many pieces from the Berggruen’s family collection.
“Three Half Cakes,” 1966, and “Cherry Tarts,” 1965-1976, are examples of Thiebaud at his best, using oil paint to produce an experience of pure aesthetic pleasure in his representations of the titular confections. These aren’t realistic renderings, but they do reveal a certain deliciousness in both the subject and the medium of painting itself. Up close, Thiebaud’s whorls of color and sculptural impasto verge on abstraction. Funny, since the Bay Area Figurative Movement defined itself in opposition to Abstract Expressionism.
But note the 11-year span in which “Cherry Tarts” were painted. It’s impossible the tarts stayed fresh all that time, and Thiebaud’s renderings are too visceral to be rendered from a photograph. Instead, it seems like he worked from feeling: There’s a spontaneity to his brushwork, which reminds me of the emotion-driven Abstract Expressionists dancing around their canvases — except Thiebaud is dancing around, what, a cakewalk? Compared to the dour Jackson Pollock, who didn’t like to be disturbed, Thiebaud is having a blast and wants you to get in on it.
Wayne Thiebaud’s “Palm Ridge,” 1977-78. (Courtesy Berggruen Gallery)
“Palm Ridge,” 1977-1978, the largest piece on view at four-by-five feet, is one of the best Thiebaud landscapes or cityscapes I’ve ever seen, showing a candy cane striped high-rise towering between three hill-cresting streets, smaller houses, cars and palm trees dotting the landscape, all rendered in two dimensions. The Cubist approach induces vertigo in a quasi-Expressionist move: That’s what San Francisco streets feel like. Close up, though, the painting is anything but flat, revealing carefully constructed layers and delicately carved trenches emphasizing the pictured road lines.
Etchings, charcoal drawings and even one pen-and-ink drawing on a paper napkin, “Salt and Pepper Shakers,” 1965, constitute a selection of smaller works on view, illuminating Thiebaud’s illustrative skill. During the Second World War, he served in the Air Force — as an artist in the First Motion Picture Unit — and worked as a commercial illustrator before and afterward. These pieces emphasize his style as one born of an acute graphic sensibility developed in the design field.
The last time I got to see Thiebaud’s work in person was in a 2019 show at SFMOMA, which included the artist’s personal selections from the museum’s collection of paintings and drawings alongside his own. Stumbling across that show was a pleasant surprise; attending this one came with a sense of somber duty. But here, Thiebaud surprised me again: I couldn’t help feeling a transference of the delight painting clearly brought Thiebaud throughout his life. I can’t remember the last time I left a memorial smiling.
“♡ Wayne Thiebaud”
Where: Berggruen Gallery, 10 Hawthorne St., S.F.
When: Monday-Friday 10 a.m.—3 p.m. and first Saturdays 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
Contact: (415) 781-4629, berggruen.com
By E.S. Burkett Special to The Examiner | 2022-02-19T06:29:07Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Wayne Thiebaud exhibition is a memorial that will leave you smiling - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/wayne-thiebaud-exhibition-is-a-memorial-that-will-leave-you-smiling/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/wayne-thiebaud-exhibition-is-a-memorial-that-will-leave-you-smiling/ |
By Rachel Becker • February 21, 2022 1:30 am - Updated February 21, 2022 11:40 am
Christina Toms, an Ecological Engineer and Senior Scientist with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, (center in light blue jacket) checks up on a new wetland restoration project she has been overseeing for the last year in partnership with the Army Corp of Engineers, and the National Park Service at Drake’s Beach in Point Reyes on Oct. 21, 2021. (Nina Riggio for CalMatters)
“You do what you gotta do to take care of your kids,” said the father of four, who is a California tribal citizen.“Having overcome the traditional barriers in education, in housing, to come into state service and be so woefully undercompensated because of a different form of discrimination — it’s just a bit of a morale killer.” | 2022-02-22T06:14:47Z | www.sfexaminer.com | ‘Morale killer’: California scientists battle over pay disparities - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/morale-killer-california-scientists-battle-over-pay-disparities/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/morale-killer-california-scientists-battle-over-pay-disparities/ |
By Benjamin Schneider • February 21, 2022 1:30 am
A housing project under construction at 65 Ocean Ave. in the Excelsior district on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. The 193-unit project is the largest development to break ground so far under HOME SF, a density bonus program which allowed the project to achieve an extra story in height and nearly double the allowed unit count by dedicating a quarter of units to affordable housing. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
For decades, elected officials, city planners and neighborhood activists have worked hard to ensure new development in San Francisco fits into the “neighborhood context.” As a result of these efforts, new buildings are typically similar in size and shape to their neighbors.
But all that’s starting to change: In the near future, San Francisco’s neighborhoods could look a lot spikier.
Across The City, housing developments are being proposed using “density bonuses” that allow projects to grow much larger than zoning technically allows in exchange for providing on-site affordable housing. These programs, which have recently been strengthened and expanded, now represent a majority of large residential projects in San Francisco’s planning pipeline.
In and around downtown, the state density bonus program has yielded plans for several supersized towers, including one that would be virtually as tall as Salesforce Tower. Meanwhile, projects using the local density bonus program, known as HOME SF, could reshape the low-slung character of neighborhoods like the Outer Sunset, where a 12 -story development has been proposed. Excelsior residents can already see the policy’s impact at 65 Ocean, where an unusually bulky 5-story building is currently under construction.
These policies herald a new era in San Francisco urban planning. Density bonuses, in concert with the state-mandated Housing Element process that will increase the zoned capacity of much The City, will lead to a lot more — and a lot larger — residential construction in a wider diversity of neighborhoods.
The laws and equations governing zoning and density are obtuse and difficult to understand, but they’re increasingly becoming visible in the form of new buildings. One way or another, ordinary people will witness their impact in a transformed cityscape.
State Density Bonus
How could land zoned for a building no higher than 400 feet yield plans for a tower 1,066 feet tall, just four feet shorter than Salesforce Tower? The proposed tower at 50 Main plans to accomplish this mathematical (not to mention engineering) feat using the state density bonus, which allows projects to exceed zoned constraints on buildable area by up to 50%. The law also allows for waivers on design requirements, enabling the project to pack 50% more floor area into a taller, skinnier structure.
The state density bonus program has existed in some form since 1979, but it’s been beefed up considerably in recent years. To unlock the maximum bonus, developments must provide at least 15% of units as very low-income housing, 24% of units as low income housing, or 44% of units as moderate-income housing, as defined by the area median income. Developers can receive more modest bonuses in exchange for lower proportions of affordable housing.
The program has become more appealing to developers in San Francisco as The City’s affordable housing requirements have increased. Under the current inclusionary zoning program — which governs the amount of affordable housing market rate developments must provide — large rental projects are required to provide 21.5% of units as affordable housing, with higher rates in some neighborhoods and for condo projects. Simply by following these local rules, many San Francisco developments can automatically qualify for the state density bonus and build a much larger project than allowed by zoning.
And plenty are opting to do so. Over the past year or so, a majority of large housing developments (greater than 25 units) have invoked the state density bonus, Dan Sider, chief of staff for the Planning Department, estimates.
A handful of these projects are conspicuously big.
The thousand-foot tower at 50 Main is slated to contain 808 units, including 164 affordable ones. Other density bonus projects on the boards include 469 Stevenson, the 284-foot, 495-unit building that was delayed by the Board of Supervisors over gentrification fears. Nearby in SoMa, a 600-foot tall, 623-unit project has been proposed at 620 Folsom, which is itself abutted by 95 Hawthorne, a 444-foot, 392 unit project. All of these developments are more than 100 feet taller and more than 100 units larger than base zoning allows.
However, just because these projects are getting proposed and approved doesn’t mean they’re getting built. Of the 14 state density bonus projects currently approved to begin construction, more than half are in 100% affordable buildings, according to the Planning Department, including 1064 Mission in SoMa, 78 Haight in Hayes Valley, and 4840 Mission in the Excelsior. The market rate projects tend to be smaller — none contain more than 100 units — and most are yet to push dirt, despite securing all approvals.
Market rate state density bonus projects are hamstrung by San Francisco’s interpretation of the law, says Todd David, executive director of the Housing Action Coalition, a pro-housing development advocacy group. The City requires developers to apply its inclusionary zoning policy to the bonus units made possible by the state law. In other words, The City’s 21.5% affordable housing requirement applies to both the “base” and “bonus” parts of a project — a policy interpretation unique to San Francisco that could be illegal based on a 2019 decision by the California Attorney General, David says. The net result, according to David, is that state density bonus projects in San Francisco don’t get as much of a bonus as the law intends, leaving thousands of approved affordable and market rate homes to languish on paper.
A HOME SF housing project under construction at 4840 Mission St. in the Excelsior district. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
To address this, HAC is co-sponsoring a bill from Peninsula Assemblymember Marc Berman, aimed squarely at San Francisco, that would expressly prohibit cities from imposing inclusionary zoning and other impact fees on bonus units. Sider of the Planning Department declined to comment on AB 2063.
“If you ask any serious policy person in the housing world if this… is stopping affordable housing from being built, 100% will say yes,” David says, adding that he’s not worried about the thorny politics of asking for less from developers. “We are not concerned about optics, we’re concerned about getting housing built for people who need it.”
HOME SF Bonus
If 50 Main is to be the bonus-sized behemoth of downtown, 2700 Sloat could play the equivalent role for the west side. The 12-story, 400-unit structure across the street from the zoo would be the largest ever HOME SF project, and the tallest building for miles in the Sunset District.
Still, 2700 Sloat is a bit of a rare bird. While the HOME SF bonus promises streamlined project approvals — providing relief for a very real development roadblock in San Francisco — it remains far less popular than the state density bonus. HOME SF requires more affordable housing, and is not permitted in many neighborhoods and circumstances.
To receive the maximum bonus, projects must dedicate 30% of units to below market-rate housing, with more modest benefits in exchange for less affordability. Under the maximum bonus, developers can build two more stories than zoning allows, and get exempt from other rules governing building bulk and shape. Developers can then pack as many units as possible into that building envelope — although at least 40% of units must be two-bedrooms or larger, to promote family-sized housing.
The program, finalized in 2018, is more likely to be used in lower-density outlying neighborhoods. (Two stories, after all, doesn’t go very far for a downtown high rise.) Small proposed projects in the Richmond, Sunset, Bayview and Excelsior have all invoked the policy.
For these projects, the extra height typically isn’t the main incentive, so much as the unlimited density allowed within the building envelope. For example, one skinny Polk Street HOME SF proposal will only grow by only one additional story, but it will double its unit count — from 24 to 50 units — compared to what’s allowed by base zoning. The largest HOME SF development to break ground so far is a 193 unit project at 65 Ocean Avenue in the Excelsior, which was able to achieve an extra story in height and nearly double the allowed unit count by dedicating a quarter of units as affordable housing.
For a 13-unit project at 4512 23rd Street on Twin Peaks, developer Anders Fung went with the HOME SF program because of the prospect of quick permitting, and providing more affordable housing to the community — even though he could have built a larger, more profitable project using the state program.
But permitting hasn’t proceeded as fast as he’d like. While HOME SF projects are required to be heard for approval within 180 days of a completed application, Fung says his application wasn’t deemed complete for over a year due to reviews under the California Environmental Quality Act. After the project was approved, it faced two unsuccessful challenges to the Board of Appeals, slowing things down even more.
“If they promise to expedite their HOME SF applications they should put their money where their mouth is,” says Fung, who is also a city council member in Millbrae.
David of the HAC says The City should look at local density bonus programs like Los Angeles’ Transit Oriented Communities. Since it was established in 2016, TOC has yielded more units in LA than the state density bonus program, including more affordable units, despite the fact that it has lower affordability thresholds than the state program, according to the Los Angeles Planning Department.
San Francisco planners are aware of the disincentives for using HOME SF.
“In order to get builders to participate in our local density bonus programs we need to make them more attractive than their counterpart state programs,” Sider wrote in an email. “We’ve informally explored potential ways of doing so, but there hasn’t yet been any action from our policymakers.” | 2022-02-22T06:14:59Z | www.sfexaminer.com | One solution to the housing crisis? Build taller - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/one-solution-to-the-housing-crisis-build-taller/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/one-solution-to-the-housing-crisis-build-taller/ |
Docuseries contrasts star’s dual careers: comic genius and serial sexual predator
By Teresa Moore • February 21, 2022 5:00 pm - Updated February 21, 2022 7:23 pm
Bill Cosby as Cliff Huxtable, the patriarch of “The Cosby Show,” which ran for eight seasons and was the first American TV show to depict and celebrate an upper middle class Black family. (Courtesy NBC/Universal)
The couple’s presence gives me the nerve to crash the room. I stand behind Cosby’s chair, grinning and occasionally responding to a comment from the couple. I say hello to Cosby, but he barely registers my presence and I’m okay with that — that’s how thrilled I am to be so close to someone who has been such a big figure in my family for as long as I can remember.
It doesn’t occur to me to seek an autograph, but a Black professor, who will be introducing Cosby at the commencement ceremony, snaps at least a dozen photos of me standing over the star, beaming like the six-year-old I regressed to as soon as I walked into the room. I don’t need all of those photos, but the man with the camera is nearly as giddy as I am and he keeps seeking different angles.
About a month later, I pass the Blackberry around at a surprise birthday party for my mother. The photos — of one of our family so close to Bill Cosby she could have touched him — are a hit.
That was before October 2014, when a viral video of comedian Hannibal Burress telling a bitter joke accusing Cosby of being a hypocrite and rapist, ignited a mountain of vile, criminal secrets that had been smoldering for decades.
Much has been made of the fact that some of Cosby’s victims had been trying to be heard and believed for a long time before Burress ripped the veil that night in Philadelphia.
I don’t know why it took a joke to make people take the rumors seriously. But I think it is important that Burress linked Cosby’s sanctimonious victim-blaming of poor Black people with a sharp uppercut at Cosby’s own behavior. Burress demanded: Who was Cosby, an alleged serial rapist, to tell young Black men to pull up their pants? Burress is a Black comedian, too, and this time the call was coming from inside the house.
When I heard about Bay Area comedian W. Kamau Bell’s recent Showtime documentary series “We Need to Talk About Cosby,” I started pulling these memories out of the mental mothballs. For a long time, I couldn’t think about Cosby without feeling disgusted and foolish about ever admiring him. Cosby (and Michael Jackson) are stitched into my pop culture DNA.
My siblings and I were among the first-run audiences to see “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,” “The Cosby Show” and “A Different World.” The teachers in our family commented approvingly on Cosby’s advanced degree and his work with Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Alvin Poussaint. His books, records and videos held pride of place in our home.
But I did not pay a lot of attention to Bill Cosby after the late 1990s. I’d heard he was out there saying ugly things about how poor and incarcerated Black people had themselves to blame, but I hadn’t processed it.
In “We Need to Talk About Cosby,” Bell, 49, refers to Cosby as “a North Star for my generation.” He says that he was moved to make the four-part series when he heard that filmmaker Nonie Robinson had decided to leave out Cosby’s role in getting Black stunt people hired. In Bell’s documentary, Robinson, whose grandfather Ernie Robinson was one of the first Black stuntmen, describes having recorded a great interview with Cosby about how he insisted the network hire a Black stunt double for him on “I Spy” after he saw a white stuntman literally being painted black (not brown). But when dozens of women started coming forward with credible allegations of sexual assault against Cosby, Robinson decided to shelve the footage.
Bell isn’t trying to burnish Cosby’s legacy — far from it. He is trying to connect the parts of who Cosby was on and off camera and wrestle with the contradictions. “America’s dad” preying on teenage girls. Giving a record $20 million to Spelman, an HBCU for Black women, while drugging and raping young Black women. Putting Black people into all kinds of production jobs on his shows, while singling out some aspiring actresses for assault. Telling jokes about slipping aphrodisiacs into women’s food and drink — even in a barbecue scene on “The Cosby Show.”
Bell has said he did not interview Cosby out of respect for the women he victimized, several of whom are interviewed in the series. If, like me, you thought he started assaulting women when he got rich and famous, you may be stunned to learn that the earliest recorded accusations predate his stardom. My gut says the early victims were probably Black women, who would be even less likely to come forward with complaints. Those women would be in their 70s by now.
The contrasting documentation of Cosby’s enormous influence on American popular culture, with the first-person accounts of a fraction of the women who have come forward, make Cosby’s achievements seem like the shield and engine that made the serial assaults possible.
In November 2014, after the Washington Post published Barbara Bowman’s piece about how Cosby drugged and raped her when she 17, I started paying attention again. Bowman’s article was a beacon for dozens of women who had suffered Cosby’s predations alone. So far, more than 60 women have come forward.
I wondered why he wasn’t filing defamation suits against his accusers. I knew why: because these women were telling the truth. I believed them and stopped thinking about all the times and all the ways Cosby had made me laugh. I talked about the victims and the meager vindication of his conviction, but I seldom talked about Cosby.
“There are a million reasons we don’t want what we know to be true about Bill Cosby to be true,” says Danielle Morgan, a Santa Clara University professor and scholar of Black comedy, who appears in the documentary. She’s speaking about one of the most beloved scenes in “The Cosby Show,” when the whole Huxtable family entertains Cliff’s parents by lip synching and dancing to Ray Charles singing “Night Time Is the Right Time.”
Morgan says, “It’s such a bright and warm scene. I think many of us don’t want to lose the way that those scenes make us feel… and what they meant for us watching at the time. But the reality is the reality.”
I couldn’t help smiling through that scene when I saw it again in Bell’s documentary. It took me back to another time Bill Cosby delighted old folks and little kids in a Black family’s living room.
Cosby is at the center of one of my earliest and happiest childhood memories. It’s a Sunday evening and my mother, grandmother, aunts and uncles are sitting in the living room listening to Bill Cosby records. My younger brothers are sitting cross-legged on the floor, there’s a baby sister on someone’s lap and I am perched on the arm of the sofa, closest to the hi-fi where I can see the record spinning. Daddy won’t get in from work until everyone has gone home.
Some of the grownups have little plates of Mama’s cake and Aunt Cora and Granny are smoking. People are laughing so hard the room seems to shake. My favorite stories are on Cosby’s albums “I Started Out as a Child” and “To Russell, My Brother, With Whom I Slept.” Those of us kids old enough to follow the stories love the parts about “The Belt” and jumping on the bed and the fights that can break out between siblings over whose arm touched whose first.
This was the stuff of our young lives and hearing it reflected in Cosby’s stories made us feel connected to something bigger and real, at a time when there were so few relatable images of Black children in popular culture. But Bell’s documentary offers other powerful examples of people being seen and heard in the authenticity of their experiences: the testimonies of the women who’d been caught on this star’s dark side.
We shouldn’t feel bad about the pleasure we’ve had from Cosby because our joy was authentic, even if the artist who inspired it wasn’t who we thought he was. Bill Cosby is an unrepentant criminal. USF rescinded that honorary degree. I don’t care if I ever see those photos again. My feelings about Cosby these days are similar to how I feel about Thomas Jefferson, another celebrated, influential American and rapist: We need to get — and keep — all of the parts of the stories on the record. And we need to talk about them. | 2022-02-22T06:15:05Z | www.sfexaminer.com | ‘We Have to Talk About Cosby’ brings a hard reckoning - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/we-have-to-talk-about-cosby-brings-a-hard-reckoning/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/we-have-to-talk-about-cosby-brings-a-hard-reckoning/ |
By Janos Gereben • February 22, 2022 11:30 am - Updated February 22, 2022 5:16 pm
S.F. Symphony Music Director Esa Pekka Salonen, pictured here, scheduled a two-week “Prometheus” program for 2021. COVID interrupted that plan, but Beethoven’s “The Creatures of Prometheus” premieres Thursday through Sunday. (Photo by Minna Hatinen/San Francisco Symphony)
Greek mythology, Beethoven, symphonic music — all heavy stuff — so what’s all the fun about?
Leave it to San Francisco Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen and animator Hillary Leben to create what the British newspaper The Guardian called “a fun and witty take on Beethoven’s ballet.” It’s coming to Davies Symphony Hall Thursday through Sunday.
Beethoven’s 1801 “The Creatures of Prometheus” — to be performed in its entirety for the first time by S.F. Symphony — tells the story of the Titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity, symbolizing the gift of knowledge and technology. In some versions, including Beethoven’s, the Titan is also credited with creating humanity from clay.
Beethoven was commissioned to write the score and given only two weeks (“like a Hollywood film deal,” says Salonen). It was early in his career, just after he completed his “Symphony No. 1.” The music will be new to most concertgoers, at least until the finale, which the composer used again in his “Eroica” symphony. Beethoven’s intention was to provide an Enlightenment-age parable of the humanitarian power of art, unfolding on Parnassus, the mountain sacred to Apollo, the god of the arts.
Salonen has long been involved with such stories. Two of his major works, “Nyx” and “Pollux,” are titled after Greek and Roman mythological characters, respectively.
“Greek mythology has shaped culture,” he said. “It is absolutely central in our experience of ourselves, our relationships and our emotional lives.”
In the traditional version of the story, Zeus, king of Olympian gods, takes a dim view of the Titan for being a champion of humankind, sentencing Prometheus to eternal torment, bound to a rock. An eagle — the emblem of Zeus — is sent to eat his liver, which then grows back overnight, only to be torn again.
Instead of the struggle between Titans and gods, Beethoven’s work focuses on Prometheus’ creation and molding of humans. Salonen supplements the story with a multimedia performance, enhanced by Gerard McBurney’s libretto and Leben’s hilarious animated projections.
Salonen’s upbeat approach is no surprise to anyone who knows of his “COVID fan tutte” operatic romp in Finland during the worst days of the pandemic. Of the ballet, Salonen said, “This is more about the trickster, somebody similar to Loge in the Wagner ‘Ring,’ than the tragic figure as he is also known.”
Illustrator Leben told The Examiner: “It was a joy creating the animations for Beethoven’s ‘Prometheus.’ I laughed the entire time I was drawing it!”
Leben is a projection designer as well as a comic artist and animator, who has published autobiographical comics. She said “Prometheus” was the first time she’s been “able to utilize both skills at the same time. Sometimes I still can’t believe they put my silly drawings up there with the San Francisco Symphony! … I love taking part in making this kind of music more accessible.”
The Beethoven concerts have a COVID-thwarted history. Originally, Salonen set them as part of his first season as S.F. Symphony’s music director in 2021, part of a two-week “Prometheus” program, with Franz Liszt’s eponymous symphonic poem to follow. The pandemic wiped out the whole season, including Salonen’s plans for concert versions of Richard Strauss’ “Elektra” and Bela Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle.”
The operas are gone, at least for now, as is Part 2 of the Prometheus celebration. But “The Creatures of Prometheus” has another chance, and in a live concert, rather than through Salonen’s streamed version in London. There, with Salonen as its conductor laureate, the Philharmonia performed the work in 2020 in the same narrated-illustrated production that’s coming to San Francisco.
The narrator is actor Keith David, who said, “I played Prometheus in Aeschylus’ play ‘Prometheus Bound’ many years ago, but only heard of Beethoven’s composition. Having an opportunity to perform this great work with such a prolific conductor as Esa-Pekka is like living a dream.”
Tags: Classical Music | 2022-02-23T04:33:51Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Beethoven’s ‘Prometheus’ at S.F. Symphony is not about the heavy stuff - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/beethovens-prometheus-at-s-f-symphony-is-not-about-the-heavy-stuff/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/beethovens-prometheus-at-s-f-symphony-is-not-about-the-heavy-stuff/ |
Participants with the Huaxing Healing Arts Group wave at the parade watchers during Chinese New Year celebrations in San Francisco, Calif., on Feb. 19, 2022. (Harika Maddala/ Bay City News)
By Harika Maddala
Tigers, lions, dragons, little kids, Star Wars, cable-car floats and firecrackers took over Kearny Street in San Francisco’s Chinatown on Saturday. Chinatown welcomed the Year of the Tiger with a parade of dancers, live music and fireworks, hosting the in-person Lunar New Year celebration for the first time since the pandemic hit.
The last celebration had been held in Chinatown for the Year of the Rat on Feb. 8, 2020, a few weeks before California became the first state to order its residents to stay at home amidst rising COVID-19 cases.
After having lived through two years of a pandemic and a sudden rise in anti-Asian hate crimes, thousands of people looked to welcome the new year with the parade — a marking of a fresh start and a sense of normalcy.
The role of grand marshal was delegated to prominent actor and activist Daniel Wu, who was responsible for leading the parade, a role which he executed honorably. As the celebrations commenced, San Francisco police motorcycles preceded the two-and-a-half-hour long parade.
Among the parade participants were the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Mayor London Breed, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, the “We Are One” organization, the API Coalition, Bay Area Rapid Transit, marching bands from University of California, Davis and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo to name a few.
The Golden Dragon, also known as the “grand finale” of the parade, was 268 feet long and was carried by 100 men and women of Leung’s White Crane Dragon and Lion Dance Association.
Commonly believed to be the “largest celebration of its kind in the world,” the parade has been hosted by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco since 1958. The celebrations, however, predate the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, as the Chinese community has shared the festivities with San Francisco since the 1860s. | 2022-02-23T04:33:57Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Chinese New Year parade makes a triumphant return to San Francisco - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/chinese-new-year-parade-makes-a-triumphant-return-to-san-francisco/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/chinese-new-year-parade-makes-a-triumphant-return-to-san-francisco/ |
By Anita Katz • February 22, 2022 3:30 pm
The 36-minute film, which deals with brutality, fear and complicity, is part of the Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary program and opens in the Bay Area Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. (Courtesy of Jay Rosenblatt Films)
It’s not the most glamorous Oscar category, but the nominees for Best Documentary Short Subject often make for informative, stirring and, sometimes, surprisingly entertaining viewing. Delivering all of those goods is “When We Were Bullies,” a doc in which San Francisco filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt examines his participation in a 1960s childhood incident involving a brutal attack on a classmate.
The 36-minute film, which also deals with fear and complicity, is part of this year’s Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary program and opens in the Bay Area Friday.
Rosenblatt, who has been making films for decades, is known for skillfully constructed, emotionally relatable cinematic collages, some of them only a few minutes long and more than a few gem-caliber. Combining found footage, archival footage, voice-over, photographs, music and animation, his films reflect both personal journeys and universal truths. Topics include mundane aspects of the lives of the 20th century’s most notorious dictators; the workings of grief; the effects of singer Anita Bryant’s 1970s anti-gay-rights crusade; the filmmaker’s childhood fear of Jesus Christ; and what an everyday house cat might be dreaming.
In his acclaimed “The Smell of Burning Ants” (1994), Rosenblatt looks at “cruelties that boys perpetuate and endure.” A clip from that still relevant film, along with an uncanny coincidence, prompted Rosenblatt to make “When We Were Bullies,” which documents a recent visit to his childhood school in Brooklyn and his investigation into why his 10-year-old self behaved so cruelly.
“The response has been amazing,” says Rosenblatt, describing how audiences and industry folk alike have praised the film, which has screened at major film festivals and at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater. The accolades include an Academy Award nomination.
“I’m so thrilled,” Rosenblatt adds. “It came from peers,” he says, referring to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ documentary branch. “Whatever happens from here is gravy.”
The film follows Rosenblatt from the Bay Area to Brooklyn and presents conversations he has with former fifth-grade classmates — we see them in a group photo, their young faces sometimes playfully brought to life by animator Jeremy Rourke — about the bullying incident. We learn the details: On a Friday in 1965, students, Rosenblatt included, ganged up on an awkward boy named Dick, accusing him of a petty misdeed and punched and spat on him. The kids got caught, and their teacher, Mrs. Bromberg, scolded them. She called them “animals.”
Questioned by Rosenblatt more than 50 years later, some don’t remember the incident at all, while others recall it vividly and regretfully.
Rosenblatt, in his voice-over, asks self-examining questions and ponders human nature. Is he making this film to atone for his fifth-grade actions? “Are we hard-wired to detect vulnerability?”
He also addresses the childhood death of his brother — which former classmates, to his surprise, remember — and the emotional pain it caused him.
He visits Mrs. Bromberg, who is 92 when he interviews her. She offers thoughts on how children operate. “Children have a sixth sense,” she says, about who is vulnerable, and vulnerable kids get picked on.
A story she shares about a bullying-related personal tragedy quietly enriches the film.
Rosenblatt additionally shares his evolving plan for how he will present Dick to viewers. The film is “not about Dick, it is about us,” concludes Rosenblatt — a sentiment that shapes the film’s thoughtful ending.
Rosenblatt says the film has resonated with viewers, noting that people seem to relate to its story of bullying and complicity. He also mentions the film’s relevance in these days following four years of a political administration that was run by a bully. What happened is still affecting us.
A downer this film isn’t, however.
“People might be surprised to know how easy the film is to watch,” Rosenblatt says. “The tone has a levity. It’s a delicate balance.”
He achieves that balance skillfully. An effective storyteller, he keeps the serious material appropriately disturbing while, at other points, prompts smiles. The latter moments include a klutzy attempt by Rosenblatt and friend Richard Silberg to climb over the gate of their old public school. Later, 92-year-old Mrs. Bromberg candidly comments on the film Rosenblatt is shooting. “It could be tedious to watch,” she suggests (not true).
The film took several years to come together, says Rosenblatt, who disputes the notion that short films are small potatoes cinema compared to feature films. Shorts shouldn’t be seen as “stepping stones” for up-and-coming filmmakers seeking grander pastures, he says.
Has he ever seriously considered making a feature-length movie?
“I’ve had that ambition,” he says, “and for this film, I thought I had enough material to make a feature. But somehow, my films always get shorter and end up their organic length.”
As for filmmakers he admires, Rosenblatt cites documentarians Alan Berliner (“First Cousin Once Removed”) and Viktor Kossakovsky (“Gunda”) and, in the narrative arena, Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Bresson.
His own interest in filmmaking began during his college years, when Rosenblatt earned a master’s degree in counseling psychology — he worked as a psychotherapist for a spell — but also took a class in Super 8. “I was putting more time into the film class than into my counseling work,” says Rosenblatt. Since then, his day jobs have included teaching cinema at local institutions, including San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Art Institute, and serving as the program director for the past 12 years of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
As for living in San Francisco when most people in his industry reside in Los Angeles or New York, Rosenblatt acknowledges that it’s uncommon. But “while the Bay Area has its problems,” he says, it’s not a bad place to be. At the same time, he shares the sadness that so many local film lovers are feeling in regard to the demise of arthouses like the Embarcadero Center Cinema and the future of the Castro Theatre.
“When We Were Bullies” — part of the “Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary” lineup — will be showing, along with the four other nominated short docs, on local screens beginning Friday, Feb. 25. Venues include the Opera Plaza Cinema, Roxie Theater, and Rafael Theater.
“When We Were Bullies”(part of Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary program)
Where: Opera Plaza Cinema, 601 Van Ness Ave., S.F.
Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., S.F.
Rafael Theater, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael
Tickets: $9 to $13
(415) 771-0183, www.landmarktheatres.com
(415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com
(415) 454-1222, www.rafaelfilm.cafilm.org | 2022-02-23T04:34:04Z | www.sfexaminer.com | ‘When We Were Bullies’ lands S.F. filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt an Oscar nomination - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/when-we-were-bullies-lands-s-f-filmmaker-jay-rosenblatt-an-oscar-nomination/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/when-we-were-bullies-lands-s-f-filmmaker-jay-rosenblatt-an-oscar-nomination/ |
By James Salazar Examiner staff writer • February 22, 2022 9:00 am - Updated February 22, 2022 3:45 pm
Maddy Ruvolo, a transportation planner for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, says she was shocked to learn she was appointed by President Joe Biden to the U.S. Access Board. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
For able-bodied people, a poorly paved sidewalk or an out-of-order escalator might elicit inaudible muttering or mild cursing, but they can be serious hindrances to a disabled person’s life.
Maddy Ruvolo, a disabled urban planner for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), has spent her career ensuring that disabled people can seamlessly navigate their neighborhood and surrounding areas. Now her work has caught the attention of President Joe Biden, who recently appointed her to serve on the board of an agency that promotes accessibility, especially in transportation, for disabled people.
Ruvolo, 29, is younger than the Americans with Disabilities Act and says that fact illustrates “how long so many people in the disability community have been waiting for accessibility. Obviously, we’ve made huge strides, but there’s so much work yet to do.”
She believes The City has excelled at making micromobility — transportation that uses lightweight vehicles, especially electric ones that are borrowed through self-service rental programs — inclusive for disabled people. Now Ruvolo wants to take that concept and apply it on a greater scale across the country.
Ruvolo’s life came to a pause on the cusp of her 15th birthday as she dealt with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, a condition that for her causes lightheadedness and fatigue.
“I more or less didn’t get out of bed for the next three years,” she said. “Then my symptoms improved somewhat and I was able to go to college,” she said.
While earning a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Scripps College, Ruvolo began ruminating on a career geared toward addressing issues facing her community.
“That experience of connecting with this disability community first on my college campus and then starting to get connected to a national disability community, that was really the first step towards sending me on this professional path,” said Ruvolo.
Eager to satiate her curiosity on a metropolitan city’s inner workings, Ruvolo applied to the San Francisco Fellows program, which was designed by the Department of Human Resources to give college students and recent graduates hands-on experience in public service.
She was placed at The City’s transportation agency and worked in the Livable Streets group, which creates streets that accommodate users in a safe way regardless of their mode of transportation, age and abilities. The group’s work involved projects such as constructing protected bike lanes, creating safer streets through traffic calming devices and deploying nearly 190 school crossing guards.
“I realized that transportation was at the nexus of so many things that I cared about and so many questions about how our communities are organized and how people are able to move through their daily lives,” said Ruvolo.
After wrapping up her fellowship, Ruvolo obtained a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA and returned to the SFMTA to work with the accessibility services team. Among other projects, Ruvolo’s group provided ADA-mandated transportation through SF Paratransit, a van and taxi program for people unable to use or access public transit because of a disability or disabling health conditions.
With a year under her belt, Ruvolo views the Golden Gate Park Access and Safety Program and the implementation of an adaptive bike share program as proud achievements. The safety program was a collaboration between the SFMTA and the Recreation and Park Department that prioritized people walking and biking in the park over cars, especially ones that used the park’s roads as shortcuts to other destinations.
This fall and winter, the bike program allowed riders to reserve adaptive bicycles, vehicles designed for people with physical and developmental disabilities, through Bay Wheels. Additionally, Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program staff were on site to teach riders how to maneuver handcycles, tandem bicycles and leg trikes.
“I think we knew from the start that it was really important to engage deeply with the disability community on Golden Gate Park and to reach the broad cross section of people with disabilities because, of course, the disability community is not a monolith,” said Ruvolo. “We hear, sometimes, from the disability community that people feel like they aren’t engaged early enough in the process or that their perspectives aren’t always taken into account.”
If a metric scale had to be devised, Ruvolo’s work would earn a presidential stamp of approval. On Feb. 8, Biden appointed her to serve on the U.S. Access Board, an independent government agency devoted to accessibility for people with disabilities. Officially, she will be an Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Access Board member. Ruvolo’s tasks will include enforcing federal laws that require accessibility for disabled people in federally funded buildings and facilities as well as setting guidelines and requirements for accessibility standards.
The announcement came to Ruvolo as a shock.
“I was contacted by somebody working at the White House, letting me know that I was under consideration for an appointment,” said Ruvolo. “I was surprised because I hadn’t applied for anything and I didn’t really realize that that was a possibility.”
Ruvolo learned she had been recommended by Maria Town, a friend, mentor, president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities. Town based the recommendation on Ruvolo’s experience of having a disability, being connected to the community and having professional experience with implementing accessibility standards.
Half of the board members are representatives from federal departments; the other half are members of the public appointed by the president, a majority of whom must have a disability. Ruvolo will represent San Francisco and advocate for persons with disabilities in the transportation sector.
“The City has really stepped in to ensure that whatever sort of new options are coming, that they are also available to the disability community and that the future does include more access and more options,” said Ruvolo. “I think that’s really important because sometimes folks expect that if changes are happening, they’re not necessarily going to be to the benefit of the disability community.” | 2022-02-23T04:34:10Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Biden administration taps S.F. transit leader to help improve access for disabled people - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/biden-administration-taps-s-f-transit-leader-to-help-improve-access-for-disabled-people/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/biden-administration-taps-s-f-transit-leader-to-help-improve-access-for-disabled-people/ |
In wake of recall, SFUSD to extend search for new superintendent
The district seeks to replace outgoing Superintendent Vincent Matthews
The San Francisco school district is working with a headhunting firm to find its next superintendent. (Shutterstock)
San Francisco Unified School District leaders said they will extend their search for a new superintendent through the summer as the district seeks to replace outgoing Superintendent Vincent Matthews.
Nearly a year ago, Matthews announced plans to retire on July 30, 2021, but then decided to stay for another year to assist with the district’s transition from distance learning back to in-person classes.
The search for a new superintendent comes after San Francisco voters last week overwhelmingly approved recalling Board of Education President Gabriela López, Vice President Faauuga Moliga and Commissioner Alison Collins. Mayor London Breed is set to appoint their replacements in the coming weeks.
Because the school board is tasked with hiring a new superintendent, the hiring process has been extended in light of the recall, district officials said Friday.
“Selecting a superintendent for our schools is one of the most important jobs of the S.F. Board of Education,” López said in a statement. “In recognition of the leadership changes that will be taking place in the coming weeks, the board has decided to extend the application timeline in order to give candidates more time.”
The school board is working with the firm Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates on the search.
The firm will continue taking applications through the end of March. The board will then start conducting interviews for potential candidates in early April, with a second round of interviews anticipated for late April, according to district officials.
The board plans on making an offer to a candidate no later than May, with the goal bringing onboard a new superintendent by July 1.
The three recently ousted board members are expected to vacate their seats in the coming weeks as the election results are being certified. Moliga, however, resigned from the position just one day after the Feb. 15 election.
“Resigning immediately creates an opportunity for a new board member to step in at this important moment. I want to make sure that whoever is going to be appointed can be brought in as soon as possible as we have some important issues coming up with balancing the budget and selecting a new superintendent,” Moliga said.
Breed said last week she is in the process of interviewing potential school board commissioners to appoint. | 2022-02-23T04:34:22Z | www.sfexaminer.com | In wake of recall, SFUSD to extend search for new superintendent - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/in-wake-of-recall-sfusd-to-extend-search-for-new-superintendent/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/in-wake-of-recall-sfusd-to-extend-search-for-new-superintendent/ |
By Al Saracevic Examiner staff writer • February 22, 2022 10:30 am - Updated February 22, 2022 4:47 pm
Stephen Curry, left, and Chesa Boudin both were booed over the weekend. Things turned out great for Curry. Boudin’s future remains to be seen. (Christopher Victorio/Special to The Examiner, left, and Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner)
Big weekend for the boo birds among us. Out in Cleveland, Steph Curry was showered with abuse throughout the NBA’s All-Star weekend, even when he was promoting his new show, “About Last Night,” with his lovely wife Ayesha. Back here in San Francisco, District Attorney Chesa Boudin rode bravely down Market Street in the Lunar New Year Parade much to the dislike of the masses. The assembled crowd gave him a steady chorus of the ol’ Bronx cheer.
Why? Well, Curry won three championships at Cleveland’s expense, earning the ever-lasting ire of the fan base there, even though he was born in nearby Akron. Right or wrong, Cavs fans will never forget. In Boudin’s case, recall fever seems to have reached a boiling point in San Francisco, where an energized electorate came out in force last week to oust three progressive members of the school board. Given The City’s current state, with drug use rampant in the streets and public safety a growing concern, it sure looks like Boudin is heading for the same fate. Perhaps he can join the law firm of Collins, López & Moliga.
The difference between the two situations? Curry went out and dropped 50 points in the All-Star Game, setting a record with 16 three-pointers and walked out the door with the MVP trophy and a suitcase full of neener-neener. Boudin, on the other hand, took his lumps Saturday night, then walked right into a sliding glass door on Sunday. In the wake of the possible overdose death of a 16-year-old girl in SoMa, our DA tweeted, “We will work together to hold dealers accountable.” The feedback made Saturday night seem like a birthday party.
As a new parent, I can only guess at the pain this death must have created for her family. No words can make up for their loss.
I am committed to action.
We must make it easier to get help than it is to get high.
We will work together to hold dealers accountable. pic.twitter.com/wVzsZeYHu4
The two responses were a lesson for success. Curry didn’t clap back on Twitter. He went out and did his job better than anyone ever has. Boudin, on the other hand, tried to curry favor on social media rather than in the courtroom. Show, don’t tell. …
The noise surrounding last week’s election remains loud, with plenty of commentary on the national level. Former Assistant DA Brooke Jenkins appeared on Bill Maher’s “Real Time” show over the weekend to discuss the school board recall. Keep in mind Jenkins used to work for Boudin, quit in anger and is actively supporting the recall of her former boss.
When asked what the school board recall means for Boudin, she unloaded with both barrels.
“I think it’s shown the prevailing (of) common sense and core values over radicalism,” said Jenkins of the school board recall. “I think parents and residents of San Francisco have said, ‘Look, these radical, extreme ideas are not going to work for us anymore.’”
After Sunday’s tweet from Boudin, on the teen’s tragic death, Jenkins reloaded: “Rhetoric and falsehoods. Ask him to prove one drug dealer he’s actually held accountable, including those selling fentanyl. Misdemeanors, diversions and dismissals are what they are getting.” …
Rhetoric and falsehoods. Ask him to prove one drug dealer he’s actually held accountable, including those selling fentanyl. Misdemeanors, diversions and dismissals are what they are getting. https://t.co/wJjg8fdcTN
Meanwhile, Mayor London Breed made her own national television appearance, showing up on “Meet the Press.”
By most all accounts, she acquitted herself with aplomb, applauding the school board recall and giving a clear signal on her thoughts about Boudin. (But she didn’t go as far as supporting his recall.)
On the school board: “My take is that it was really about the frustration of the Board of Education doing their fundamental job,” said Breed. “And that is to make sure that our children are getting educated, that they get back in the classroom, and that did not occur. They were focusing on other things that were clearly a distraction.”
On their upcoming replacements: “I’m going to be looking for people that are going to focus on the priorities of the school district. And not on politics. And not on what it means to run for office, and stepping stones and so on and so forth. We need people who want to be on the school board.”
On Boudin’s recall: “I haven’t made a decision, one way or another, about the (Boudin) recall. I’m still debating on whether or not I will. When we look at what’s happening in San Francisco, and the concerns about crime, people are definitely frustrated about accountability. Because, again, the police are making the arrests in many of these cases. What we want are people be held accountable. … We can have police reform and also ensure safety. … The DA’s responsibility is to make sure that when the evidence is presented that those people are held accountable.”
You don’t need a magnifying glass to read between those lines. Looks like you’re on your own there, Chesa. …
Speaking of election follow-ups, turns out the turnout was better than expected. Just a shade under 36% of San Francisco voters cast a ballot, according to the latest Department of Elections data, much higher than the estimated 25% we heard from City Hall last Tuesday night.
Digging deeper into the numbers, my election guru and longtime S.F. politico Michael Semler pointed to a few key takeaways. 1. More votes were cast in support of the school board recall than any of the members received on Election Day in 2018. 2. The turnout was greater in areas that didn’t have the Assembly race on the ballot, which ended in a run-off between Matt Haney and David Campos. 3. There was a late surge in drop-off ballots on Election Day, but it was heavily opposed to the recall. Semler believes that was due to the late flood of news and views on the donors, the spectre of Republican influence and the fear of charter schools. …
Let’s give the last word to the esteemed Jeff Brown, who served as San Francisco’s public defender for 22 years, getting reelected five times. Nephew of Gov. Pat Brown, cousin to Gov. Jerry Brown, Jeff Brown knows a thing or two about politics and justice.
Asked where he stands on Boudin, Brown spoke directly.
“A prosecutor in San Francisco has to be a prosecutor with a human heart,” said Jeff Brown. “In other words, you don’t take just a hard-nosed attitude, because there might be a criminal offense and look at the circumstances of the case, circumstances of the individual. But there is a bottom line … serious crime has to be prosecuted, and it has to be prosecuted successfully.”
Brown, lunching with a regular group of politicos at the University Club Tuesday, told me a funny story about two-term District Attorney Terence Hallinan, a legendary San Francisco progressive.
“I told this to Chesa. I sat down with him. I told him that Terence Hallinan, and I’m not red-baiting, was a Marxist Leninist. He said so in print. OK? His father (Vincent Hallinan) was the progressive candidate for president of the United States in 1952. When (Terence) was district attorney, we were having a conference on prostitution. Somebody asked him, ‘You’ve told us what your program is for prostitutes. What’s your program for pimps?’ And Terence says, ‘I got a program. It’s called state prison.’”
“In other words, ‘I’m going to be a compassionate prosecutor. At the same time, I’m not going to be naive.’…. You can’t have a city where anything goes. And that’s what we’re approaching now, ” said Jeff Brown.
Yay for that.
Editor’s note: Welcome to The Arena, a column from The Examiner’s Al Saracevic in which he explores San Francisco’s playing field, from politics and technology to sports and culture. Send your tips, quips and quotes to asaracevic@sfexaminer.com. | 2022-02-23T04:34:40Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Boos and ahhhs: Steph Curry and Chesa Boudin showered with disdain - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/boos-and-ahhhs-steph-curry-and-chesa-boudin-showered-with-disdain/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/boos-and-ahhhs-steph-curry-and-chesa-boudin-showered-with-disdain/ |
Stephen Curry of Team LeBron reacts during the 2022 NBA All-Star Game last weekend in Cleveland. Curry won the All-Star MVP trophy by scoring 50 points and making 16 three-pointers. (Photo by Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)
With All-Star Weekend behind us, let’s check in on what’s going on with the Warriors and around the league.
•What an All-Star Game for Steph Curry. As is usually the case, this was not a defensive showcase. But making 16 threes on 27 attempts is impressive in an empty gym. The result was 50 points and an MVP trophy for one of the two Team LeBron members born in the same Akron hospital. (The other Akron native finished just 2-11 from beyond the arc, but did hit the game-winner on a fadeaway with an extreme degree of difficulty.)
•It was more of a mixed All-Star Weekend for Juan Toscano-Anderson, who participated in one of the more disappointing dunk contests in recent memory. People want players to try dunks with the highest degree of difficulty possible. Then they get mad if players miss a lot of attempts. Can’t have it both ways, folks.
As for Toscano-Anderson, he started things off with a nice windmill. Then he went for the reverse 360 windmill, which nobody should ever try in the dunk contest, given Vince Carter’s epic 2000 slam in Oakland. It’s impossible to do that dunk any better. Toscano-Anderson also tried to take a page out of the 2000 Vince Carter playbook by trying a windmill and leaving his arm in the rim. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to get the required altitude for the finish he wanted.
Finally, he tried a Jason Richardson tribute, jersey and all, with a between-the-legs reverse slam, but simply wasn’t able to get it through. Definitely not a legendary performance, but it’s always fun to get invited to All-Star Weekend.
•That All-Star MVP trophy looks like the only hardware Steph Curry will receive this season. Curry’s numbers are just a bit below their typically excellent marks, and it looks unlikely the Warriors will finish with the league’s best record. That makes it tough to see a path to a third MVP trophy for Steph.
It looks like the race will come down to a battle of big men, as Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid lead almost every straw poll at this stage in the season. Embiid has been without a second star all year, as Ben Simmons successfully sat out the entire season before getting moved to Brooklyn at the trade deadline. If he can make things work with new acquisition James Harden, he’ll probably win the award. If he can’t, it’ll probably go to Jokic for the second consecutive year.
•As for that Simmons trade, it was about as well as either team could have hoped to do. Simmons had made it fairly clear he had no intention of playing for the 76ers. Harden was clearly mailing it in for the Nets. Now each team has traded their resident malcontent for an All-Star level player. Harden can shoot and has shown a knack for throwing lob passes, which theoretically makes him a better fit for Joel Embiid’s game than Ben Simmons. Meanwhile, the Nets have plenty of shooting but are thin and struggle defensively. That means Simmons’ combination of defense, passing and versatility should be welcome in Brooklyn.
The Nets were also able to get two first-round picks and get Seth Curry out of Philadelphia. Steph’s little brother has quickly given Brooklyn some scoring punch and depth. He scored 20 points in both of his first two games in Brooklyn, which the Nets won. It looks like he’ll be a valuable piece for them, especially with Joe Harris still on the sidelines.
The good news for the Warriors is that since both the 76ers and Nets play in the East, there’s no scenario in which they’d have to face both teams this postseason. The “bad” news (if you can call it that) is that one of them could put it all together and become a juggernaut. That team will likely be waiting for the Warriors if they make it to the NBA Finals, and could be for years to come.
•It almost goes without saying that the medical status of Draymond Green, James Wiseman and Klay Thompson becomes more and more important by the day. It would be a major disadvantage if Steve Kerr has to go into the playoffs with limited information on those three players and how they fit with each other and the rest of the team when they’re at 100%.
Finally, if the Warriors don’t catch the Suns for the best record in the West, it shouldn’t matter as much as it did in years past. For the second consecutive year, the teams the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds play in the opening round will be decided in a highly volatile play-in tournament. That means the difference between the first and second seed won’t be be apparent until the Conference Finals.
The All-Star Break is over, and the Warriors have exceeded every pre-season expectation. Now, with the stretch run and the playoffs ahead, the real work begins. | 2022-02-23T04:34:47Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Warriors world: What we learned over the All-Star break - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/warriors-world-what-we-learned-over-the-all-star-break/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/warriors-world-what-we-learned-over-the-all-star-break/ |
By Jeff Elder • February 23, 2022 10:30 am - Updated February 23, 2022 11:47 am
People watch the different visuals in the main exhibit at the Imagine Picasso immersive experience at The Armory in the Mission District. The show, one of several different immersive art exhibitions taking place in The City, is part of a trend that has art aficionados questioning whether the shows are valuable or exploitative. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner)
“Immersive” art exhibitions have bubbled up a divisive question in San Francisco: Can the shows, which surround viewers with projected images and amplified music, be fine art? Or are they just entertainment — or even exploitation?
Even casual art aficionados may have been dunked under the rising waters of the immersive trend, which has brought at least six current major shows to The City. Here’s why San Francisco is a uniquely appropriate place to hash out this feud.
Projected art imagery was born here nearly 150 years ago, when English photographer Eadweard Muybridge projected animated images of a galloping horse in San Francisco to astonished viewers in what may have been the first of such displays. Later, truly immersive art became a staple of modern music here, when the swirling colors of psychedelic light shows rocked out in 1967’s Summer of Love.
And while the de Young Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Asian Art Museum (home of a critically acclaimed immersive show), have long established The City as a fine arts capital, it is also true that The City’s 1960s rock ‘n’ roll posters and many murals of the Mission have crashed through art tradition to meet viewers where they are.
So let the debate begin.
“I think these exhibits are a travesty,” Professor Alexander Nemerov, chair of the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University, told The Examiner. “A way of not seeing the art, not even caring about it, really.”
Nemerov believes that “contemplating one of the actual paintings can be an imaginative journey of untold power” that far transcends immersive art shows.
Nemerov’s objections may be particularly applicable to Lighthouse Immersive, producers of a drive-through Van Gogh exhibition in Toronto, and the San Francisco exhibition, which they dubbed “Fran Gogh,” and which holds $55 yoga classes inside the swirling animations of the exhibit. Lighthouse has also brought a new Frida Kahlo exhibition to SVN West at Van Ness and Market streets, the site of the Immersive Van Gogh show.
Lighthouse Immersive did not immediately respond to multiple requests by The Examiner for comment. One of the producers said on a company website that Lighthouse has gone to great expense to present the art well. Producer Corey Ross said in an interview that “Artistically and in terms of execution, each exhibit is an individual project. Most of what we’re rolling out is permanent. We’re not doing pop-ups, so it’s very expensive for us but it also delivers a higher quality experience for the customers because we are investing in the venues.”
Ross also noted the company’s significant marketing efforts, one criticism of the shows. “I chose all the cities that I thought were good bets, and we moved quickly to put the shows on sale. It was a high level of ‘blitz-scaling,’ as I call it.” Ross also said, “We’ve gone from being a group that maybe spends $5,000 a month on Facebook to a group that spends a million on Facebook!”
Is there a middle ground between ‘blitz-scaling’ marketing and fine art? The producers of a new show in The City believe so.
Imagine Picasso has filled the rocky old Armory in the Mission with more than 200 of Pablo Picasso’s images projected across soaring walls and massive origamilike sculptures. Imagine Picasso purports to be truer to the art than other shows, and does indeed boast significant bona fides.
Attendees view some of Pablo Picasso’s paintings on a large wall at the Imagine Picasso experience. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner)
The artworks have been licensed to the show’s producers by the Picasso Estate, and the artist’s grandson, Olivier Picasso, said via video conference at the opening that, “I’m sure if he was alive today, he would be very happy” with the exhibition. Information about Picasso’s career and paintings, created with help from a renowned Picasso historian, are projected in soaring tableaus throughout the show, providing an educational aspect lacking in other shows.
“When you do it you have to respect the painters and the paintings,” Annabelle Mauger, one of the creators of the Imagine Picasso exhibition at the Armory told The Examiner. “Some of the directors of the exhibitions don’t know art history. They are just technicians. I’ve been doing this job for more than 20 years. This kind of show was invented by my grandfather in 1977.”
Mauger credits her grandfather, Albert Plécy, with creating the projected art experience in 1977 at a show called the Cathedrale d’Images in an old abandoned stone quarry in Provence, France. She and the others who are putting on the Picasso show believe it’s different from The Lighthouse immersive shows.
“It’s a deeper dive,” Mindi Levine, general manager of the Imagine Picasso show, told The Examiner.
Is that enough to redeem immersive art in this duel of San Francisco exhibitions? San Francisco is still deciding.
The Picasso exhibit, which opened Feb. 9, has drawn around 1,000 people on busy days, Levine said, with many noting the tableaus of art history information that make up about half of the exhibition. “We’re being told that a lot. There’s more to it.” Some critics agree.
“Imagine Picasso proves there’s an alternative to the funhouse model of immersive displays,” wrote KQED’s Sarah Hotchkiss on Feb. 11.
Nemerov, the Stanford professor, says a better immersive show is not enough. “Some of these immersive shows may be more educational than others, but education is not the point. Being alive and alone with the art is the point,” he said, adding, “Then we are all on our own, and we come out better, worse, or the same, depending on what we give, what we ask, what we feel.”
And, as always, there are techies who just want to disrupt the whole thing. Futurists say the answer is to hurdle brushstrokes on canvas entirely and go right to the digital and interactive. “There will be masterpieces in augmented reality art,” predicted Ray Kallmeyer, a hologram artist and producer of the Verse immersive exhibit at the Old Mint.
The San Francisco debate over whether education and entertainment can coexist in projected art is unlikely to end quickly. The first animated art debate in The City didn’t.
In 1929, The Examiner ran a front-page story about the need to connect motion pictures, derided by some as vapid, with a more educational approach at Stanford. Noting Muybridge’s films that were projected 50 years earlier in The City, legendary producer Louis B. Mayer said at a speech at Stanford that projected images could be rescued from the realm of empty entertainment to become culturally important.
“Motion pictures have been neglected as a medium of education,” Mayer was quoted in The Examiner. Stanford could bring new scholarship to the nascent art form, he said, which was “fitting because the industry got its start on the Stanford campus.”
Mayer’s words may have been influential: Projected imagery did evolve, amid many feuds and debates. In the Stanford audience that day in May of 1929 were members of a fledgling and culturally ambitious group of filmmakers who were already organizing efforts to elevate moving pictures in the art world. One week later, the group put on the first Academy Awards.
The Imagine Picasso immersive experience features an educational component about the artist. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner) | 2022-02-23T22:38:30Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Van Gogh vs. Picasso: S.F.’s battle over immersive art - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/san-franciscos-battle-over-immersive-art/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/san-franciscos-battle-over-immersive-art/ |
By Al Saracevic • February 23, 2022 1:30 am
Kalin Freeman, 27, from Richmond, plays his saxophone for people at the Montgomery BART station. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
BART stations can be unforgiving spaces. Windy. Crowded. Dominated by screechy, loud trains. I’ve seen happier people at the DMV.
So imagine my surprise the other day when I descended the escalator onto the Montgomery Street platform, only to hear the soothing and soaring tones of an alto saxophone. On one of the circular benches, splitting the difference between the in-bound and outbound trains, Kalin Freeman sat alone, blowing his horn over a track playing Gnarls Barkley’s hit song, “Crazy.”
I’d encountered hundreds of buskers over the years — in New York, Europe and all over San Francisco — but there was something different about this kid. He could really play. And the crowd was into it.
Maybe it’s the pandemic. Our collective loneliness and lack of community over the past couple of years. I know I haven’t been out to see much, if any, live music over that time, so it felt great to stop and listen. Maybe it’s just that Freeman is talented, fingers flying over the keys in smooth syncopation. Maybe we’re all just tired of worrying, choosing to live in the moment for a change, staying present
Regardless of reason, you could see Freeman making a connection with a group of people that usually does all it can to isolate, staring at phones, ear buds firmly in place, creating a barrier to interaction.
He’s cutting through this digital divide with music. I dropped my card in his saxophone case and hoped he’d give me a call. He did. We made plans to meet up the other day.
Turns out he had a helluva story to tell.
Smooth sounds deep below the streets of Sam Francisco pic.twitter.com/PYCeaLRoln
— Al Saracevic (@AlSaracevic) February 23, 2022
Freeman is a product of the East Bay, growing up in Oakland and Richmond, attending Richmond High School, where he played basketball and got into music … by mistake.
“They put me in the wrong class!” said Freeman, now 27. “So I went to the class and he put me on the trumpet. I was like, ‘I don’t really like the trumpet. What’s that curvy thing?’ He was like, ‘The sax?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah… that’s the one. He put me on the tenor and it went from there.”
The kid was a natural. He eventually moved over to the alto sax, picked up guitar later on and also works on some digital music, promoting his work on Instagram under the handle @kjfocus.
After high school, Freeman studied at the famed Berklee School of Music, in Boston, but he missed home.
“It was like a six-week program. I did it for two years in the summer,” he said. “And I was like, ‘I want to go back to the Bay! I mean, Boston was cool and all, but ain’t nothing like the Bay. I don’t think anywhere’s really like the Bay, to be honest with you.”
The young man started working various jobs — at Costco, a hotel — but realized he could make a living underground. He started playing at BART stations about six years ago.
“I make a living. … Every time I had a job I always quit because I could just be doing this. I just like making people feel good, just playing, you know?” said Freeman, who commutes in via BART from his home in Richmond. “I see that people like it, so I like it. It makes me want to play better. So that’s nice.”
He’s seen a lot down there. About a month ago, he says he intervened when a disturbed individual pushed an elderly lady down onto the platform. Freeman said he held the guy until the police came and made the arrest. “It’s crazy down here. People feel like they can do whatever they want,” he said.
I think we can all relate to that sentiment. Sometimes, modern-day San Francisco can be overwhelming.
Sometimes, you just need a little hope.
Kalin Freeman smiles between songs at Montgomery BART station. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
About a year ago, Freeman says he was playing at the station when something remarkable happened.
“I was just playing. I was about to leave and I was tired. But something told me to stay 30 more minutes. So I stayed,” said Freeman. “And I’m playing, have my eyes closed, and I open my eyes and there was this letter on this strange type of fiber paper.”
Dear Saxophone Player,
I just lost my parents today and I’m so depressed about it.
I’m homeless and I have NOTHING to look forward to.
I was going to throw myself in front of a BART train … until I heard you playing your sax. It sounds so good and your music so inspirational, that I changed my mind. It made me feel like it was going to be okay. Please… Please… Please keep doing what you’re doing. Cuz you saved a life today. I’m sure my kids appreciate you. Thank you for the change of heart. Seriously, Thank You!
Your #1 Fan, CJ541
That’s some heavy stuff. From what I can tell, it changed two lives.
“It was just a note. I didn’t even get to see the guy,” said Freeman. “I really could have just left.”
“So, at that time, I was like, ‘You know what? This is gonna be my main thing. And that’s really what I’m really doing out here. I know this is my purpose.”
That’s why you can find KJFocus blowing his horn far below Market Street, bringing light to a dark place, in a dark time.
“Music is everything. Music is vibration, and everything is vibration,” the young man told me. “You know, when you listen to good music, it’s human. It actually heals your soul, heals your body. By me coming down here and just playing, you never know who may be really feeling bad and feeling down. It may just make their day better. Just like that guy that sent me that note. So that’s what I think about when I come down here. Even if I make money, or I don’t make money. I know I’m at least helping one person. So that’s helping me.”
And that’s helping us all.
A passing stranger dropped this letter into Kalin Freeman’s donations box at San Francisco’s Montgomery Street BART station, where he often plays saxophone for the gathered commuters. The letter spelled out a life-changing moment for the anonymous author. He had almost jumped in front of a train, but stopped himself after hearing Freeman play. (Courtesy of Kalin Freeman)
Tags: BART, music, San Francisco | 2022-02-23T22:38:36Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Light in the dark: Meet San Francisco’s life-saving saxophone player - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/light-in-the-dark-meet-san-franciscos-life-saving-saxophone-player/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/light-in-the-dark-meet-san-franciscos-life-saving-saxophone-player/ |
San Francisco Police Chief William Scott is taking steps to address the misuse of DNA collected from victims of crime such as sexual assault. (Shutterstock)
San Francisco Chief of Police William Scott said Tuesday he has taken steps to halt his department’s possible misuse of DNA evidence collected from victims of crime, such as rape and sexual assault, to link them as suspects to unrelated crimes. | 2022-02-23T22:38:49Z | www.sfexaminer.com | S.F. police chief says steps have been taken to address misuse of crime victims’ data - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/s-f-police-chief-says-steps-have-been-taken-to-address-misuse-of-crime-victims-data/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/s-f-police-chief-says-steps-have-been-taken-to-address-misuse-of-crime-victims-data/ |
By Lincoln Mitchell • February 23, 2022 8:30 am - Updated February 23, 2022 9:34 am
New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks at a press conference about his “subway safety plan” on Feb. 18, 2022. (Desiree Rios/The New York Times)
Last Friday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that his government will no longer allow homeless people to loiter or engage in misconduct in the subways and subway stations. Adams spelled this out plainly and, unlike Mayor London Breed, was able to talk tough without using profanity.
“No more smoking, no more doing drugs, no more sleeping, no more doing barbecues on the subway system … The system was not made to be housing,” said Adams. “It’s made to be transportation.”
At its best, the New York City subway system is a fast, efficient and affordable way to get around the country’s largest city. At its worst, the subway is like the Tenderloin on rails. The conduct Adams described has been common for decades. The mayor also could have added to the list drug use and using the subway as a toilet.
Adams’s plan should sound familiar to San Franciscans, because it is not unlike what Mayor Breed is trying to do in the Tenderloin, though faster and more ambitious. Police will force people to leave the subway trains when they reach the end of their route. Homeless individuals will then be offered various forms of help, and the city has pledged to make more shelter beds available.
There are two immediate questions that arise from Adams’ plan. The first is why New York City can move at this pace and San Francisco cannot. The second is whether it’s a good idea.
The first question — how a mayor in his second month in office can make such a decisive move — reveals something about how the two cities are governed. First, although San Francisco’s mayor is powerful compared to most West Coast mayors, she does not control city government the way New York’s mayor does.
Breed must contend with a Board of Supervisors, who are politically to her left and can thwart her initiatives, and an executive structure that dissipates power. New York’s mayor has unified control of the executive branch of government and a relatively weak city council. Some have called the New York City Council a rubber stamp, but as former City Councilman and later Parks Commissioner Henry Stern pointed out, “You can’t really call the New York City Council a rubber stamp because a rubber stamp leaves an impression.” Stern made that remark decades ago and it still applies.
Another reason Adams can move to clean up the subway with a short announcement is that, even per capita, New York City has a much bigger police force than San Francisco. Adams can easily deploy the estimated 1,000 police officers needed for his plan.
New York City has roughly 36,000 police, while San Francisco has just over 2,000. That is a ratio of 18-1, which is much greater than the population difference between the two cities, which is closer to 7.5-1. For San Francisco to have as many police per capita as New York, The City would have to add another 2,800 police officers.
This is more than just an issue of numbers. It goes to the core question of how The City is governed and how problems are addressed. If you have a 36,000-person police force and the mayor, like Adams, is a former police officer — it is easy to see all problems, including homelessness, as public safety problems requiring police fixes.
So New York can sweep homeless people out of the subways in a way that San Francisco cannot remove people from the Tenderloin. But whether this is a good idea is a totally different question.
On the one hand, getting homeless people out of the subway will improve conditions for commuters. On the other hand, pushing homeless people out of the subway doesn’t address the problem of homelessness or help the unhoused.
If Adams’ plan is implemented, it will contribute to criminalizing homelessness and poverty at a time when wealth inequality is defining life in NYC just as it is in San Francisco. The policy will also almost certainly mean more overtime for police in New York, so the NYPD’s share of the budget, which is approximately $10.4 billion, will probably go up.
Adams intends to start the program soon, presumably while it is still winter in New York, so there is an element of cruelty here that should not be overlooked. Homeless people don’t go to the subways because they like trains. In the winter, they go there to keep warm.
Like Mayor Breed, Adams has spoken of the need for more support, treatment, shelter and other services for homeless people, but until those services are in place toughness could translate into cruelty.
For the moment, all Adams has is a plan. We don’t know if it will be implemented effectively or at all. But if it is enacted, the contrast between the two cities will be stark.
Tags: homelessness | 2022-02-23T22:39:07Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Opinion: Why San Francisco can’t and shouldn’t follow New York City’s stance on homelessness - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/opinion-why-san-francisco-cant-and-shouldnt-follow-new-york-citys-stance-on-homelessness/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/opinion-why-san-francisco-cant-and-shouldnt-follow-new-york-citys-stance-on-homelessness/ |
Witnessing a loved one suffer severe injuries
Those in the zone of danger may be able to recover damages
The Bystander theory requires that the plaintiff contemporaneously observe the injury-causing event. (Shutterstock)
By Christopher B. Dolan
My wife of 43 years and I were crossing the street in San Francisco. She was just a few steps ahead of me when a car ran the red light and hit my wife! The vehicle struck her with such force that she became airborne before collapsing on the ground. I was stunned and horrified. She was lying there, and for a minute, I thought she might have died. She had lost consciousness and was not moving. Fortunately, she lived, but she sustained two fractured legs and a significant head injury. She had to stay in the hospital for a few weeks. I thought I had lost her. She is the love of my life, and the thought of losing her was terrifying. Watching her get hit like that was incredibly scary —I think I stopped breathing. Since then, I have become increasingly anxious and unable to sleep as the image of her getting hit is on constant replay in my mind. I’ve had to seek therapy. I know she can file a lawsuit for her injuries, but what about me?
— Travis, East Bay
I am so sorry this happened and that you had to witness it. It appears that you are suffering from emotional distress as a result of this incident. You certainly do have a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress.
In California, the law of Negligent Infliction of Emotional distress can flow from two different theories: Bystander Theory and Direct Victim Theory. The Bystander theory requires that the plaintiff contemporaneously observe the injury-causing event. Thing vs. Chusa (1989) 48 Cal.3d 644. The difference between the bystander and the direct victim cases is that the direct victim cases seek emotional distress damages based on the breach of the duty owed to the plaintiff that is “assumed by the Defendant or imposed on the defendant or imposed on the defendant as a matter of law that arises out of a relationship between the two.” Marlene F. v. Affiliated Psychiatric Medical Clinic, (1989) 48 Cal. 3d 583, 588, 257.
You could recover under the bystander theory. To prove negligent infliction of emotional distress as a bystander, you must show: 1) that you are closely related to the victim, 2) the defendant’s conduct negligently caused injury or death to the victim, 3) that you were present at the scene of the injury (“zone of danger”) when it occurred and were aware that the victim was being injured, and 4) as a result of the injury, you reasonably suffered severe emotional distress beyond that which would be anticipated in a disinterested witness. Dillon v. Legg (1968) 68 Cal.2d 728.
In your case, you witnessed your wife suffer life-threatening injuries as a result of the negligent driver who ran the red light. You were in the zone of danger as you were present when the collision occurred and are experiencing severe emotional distress as a result. Thus, you can recover any medical bills, bills for psychological counseling, lost wages, and pain and suffering because of the accident.
We hope you and your spouse continue to get better. | 2022-02-24T13:32:26Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Witnessing a loved one suffer severe injuries - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/witnessing-a-loved-one-suffer-severe-injuries/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/witnessing-a-loved-one-suffer-severe-injuries/ |
New Bay Area troupe moves LGBTQ+ stories to the forefront
By James Salazar Examiner staff writer • February 24, 2022 1:30 am - Updated February 24, 2022 12:33 pm
Dancers with Ballet22 aim to amplify queer voices by reimagining classical ballets, and will host a gala this weekend in San Francisco. (Isaac Hall)
The pointe shoe is instrumental and symbolic to ballet.
As a tool, pointe shoes extend a dancer’s line and create a sense of physical lightness. As an emblem, the pointe shoe is associated with ballet’s strict gender roles: The shoe is worn by women, not men.
Similarly, female ballet dancers are expected to execute delicate and precise movements and male dancers are expected to display strength by effortlessly lifting and supporting their partners. George Balanchine, one of ballet’s most influential choreographers, likened female dancers to “a garden of beautiful flowers” and described male dancers as “the gardener.”
Since its founding in December 2020, Ballet22 has been questioning these gender normative traditions.
Ballet22, which performs Friday through Sunday at San Francisco’s Great Star Theater, choreographs male-identifying dancers on pointe and amplifies queer voices by reimagining classical ballets such as “Swan Lake” and “The Nutcracker.”
Usually males on pointe elicit laughter. Productions such as “Cinderella” and the all-male Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo ham up choreographic jokes by putting their male dances in pointe shoes. Roberto Vega Ortiz toured with Les Ballets Trockadero in 2017, and got to dance on pointe, but said he felt “there was still something missing because it was comedy, you’re in drag and you have a wig on.”
During California’s stay-at-home order in early 2020, Ortiz, 25, posted videos to social media of himself dancing on pointe with the hashtag #maleballerinas. Reactions were so overwhelmingly supportive that Ortiz and a close friend, Carlos Hopuy, decided to offer Zoom classes teaching men how to dance in pointe shoes. With a substantial social media following and a push from Theresa Knudson, Ortiz’s close friend and roommate, Ballet22, a troupe of male ballerinas dancing on pointe but not in drag, was founded in December 2020.
For Knudson, the company’s executive director, Ballet22’s work separates the history and culture of ballet. “Ballet is really old and it’s held on a platform and pedestal of tradition, which is beautiful. Many times that sternness to uphold tradition means that certain things like racism, ageism, ableism, sexism … get stuck in the web,” she said.
The company uses a “dancers first” approach that gives performers the freedom to express themselves on stage. While the classical ballet world enforces a uniform look of clean-shaven faces and tight buns, Ballet22 has no interest, allowing dancers to wear beards, braids and mustaches. “We don’t want to see you change how you’re presenting for a show. In fact, double down on it,” said Knudson of Ballet22’s performers.
Dancers with Ballet22 rehearse for an upcoming performance. (Isaac Hall)
Trevor Williams, who trained with the Louisville Ballet, was drawn to Ballet22’s subversion of the art. “There is a fine line and blurred energy between masculine and feminine in this company that I love. It’s something that you can’t find anywhere else,” said Williams, who joined Ballet22 specifically to dance professionally on pointe.
Philip Rocamora, a dancer recruited for the company’s 2022 gala performances, was first introduced to pointe dancing in 2012 through a friend in Les Trockadero and immediately fell in love with the style. Male dancers typically wear ballet slippers, so there was a learning curve for Rocamora. “Dancing on flats and dancing on pointe are like up and down. It’s so different,” he said. “Even if you’re good, when you put the shoes on, it’s like you’re learning from the start because pointe is a different technique.”
Ballet22’s dancers have spent the last few weeks tapping their pointe shoes against Marley floor mats in an Oakland studio. This weekend, they migrate to Chinatown’s Great Star Theater for their first live performance of the year. The program will feature scores from classics like “Swan Lake,” a world premiere by Durante Verzola and the duet “Symbiotic Twins” choreographed by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa.
Knudson believes Ballet22’s future is bright and a means for LGBTQ+ dancers to unleash their creativity. “I think all of us are wanting to see a more independent woman or want to see more queer stories. We want to see our real lives and not just fairy tales,” said Knudson. She says that while “the fairy tales and the traditions should be preserved,” those in ballet must also ask themselves: “How do we make this field move forward?”
Ortiz views the modernization of ballet in increments of 10, comparing the field’s progress from a decade ago to where it is headed in the coming years. “I can’t wait to see what has changed and what has happened and what will happen with other companies because I hope we’re not the only one,” said Ortiz. “We are the first one, just kind of setting the example.”
“Ballet22 Gala”
When: 7 p.m., Feb. 25 & 26, 3 p.m., Feb. 27
Where: Great Star Theater, S.F.
Tickets: $20 to $600
Contact: (415) 735-4159, https://www.greatstartheater.org/ballet22-gala | 2022-02-25T01:39:54Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Ballet22 puts men on pointe - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/ballet22-puts-men-on-pointe/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/ballet22-puts-men-on-pointe/ |
How The Jewish Museum’s latest exhibition perfectly captures this moment in time
Bay Area artists explore concept of repairing in “Tikkun: For the Cosmos, the Community and Ourselves”
By Jonathan Curiel Special to The Examiner • February 23, 2022 10:30 am - Updated February 24, 2022 12:12 pm
Beth Grossman’s “All the rest is commentary” at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. (Photo by Impart Photography)
By Jonathan Curiel
As you enter the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s exhibition “Tikkun: For the Cosmos, the Community, and Ourselves,” you walk past signage for an upcoming show on Muppets creator Jim Henson, which a ticket-taker told me is full of fun, mirth and inspiration — perfect, she suggested, for a time when the pandemic is entering its third year and challenging everyone to find the joy in things.
By contrast, “joy” isn’t the word to describe “Tikkun,” but there are levels of joyousness in it. This is to be expected from an exhibition that addresses a complex topic: How tikkun, a Hebrew word for “to repair” that goes back two millennia, can be interpreted in a modern era when the need for repair — at the societal and individual level — is more relevant than ever. The Contemporary Jewish Museum gave 30 Bay Area artists — some of whom are Jewish, many of whom are not — carte blanche to internalize the concept of tikkun and then externalize it in at least one artwork.
The exhibition’s contemplative mood is set from the get-go by Leah King’s “All You Know,” an a capella audio piece that becomes elliptical as it splays across six speakers that line the exhibition’s entrance. “All You Know” has elements of a guiding spiritual that floats in the air to give congregants the strength and, yes, the spirit to move forward. People familiar with King’s work will know that her art practice, as she puts it, is “deeply rooted in Afrofuturist aesthetics, joyful noises and unabashed reclamations.” But even CJM visitors whose first encounter with King is “All You Know” will be able to sense those attributes.
Walking from “All You Know” through the exhibition’s glass doors brings visitors to a crossroads: Which artwork should come next? With art to the left, center and right and no clear signage, the choice becomes instinctual — which is ideal, since a piece that instantly stands out is Connie Zheng’s “Land of Opportunity,” a stunning mixed-media print that maps out the Bay Area’s toxic environmental sites and the efforts to repair them. Using arrows, handwriting, graffiti-like verbiage and a semi-abstracted aesthetic that combines the elements of cartographic traditions and modernist interpretation, Zheng gives “Tikkun” a de facto centerpiece.
From a color and shape perspective, “Land of Opportunity” is an arresting map of tendrils, tentacles and colliding patterns of greens, browns, yellows, oranges, whites and blues. From an activist perspective, “Land of Opportunity” is a map of outrage — a guide to scores of environmental degradation sites, places either stuck in environmental limbo or with a recent history of expensive environmental clean-up.
Zheng’s map notes, for example, that the Farallon Islands is home to more than 40,000 barrels of radioactive waste, which date to the end of World War II, and that the Environmental Protection Agency “argues that moving the barrels could potentially be more dangerous than leaving them where they are.” Wow.
Zheng spares no part of the Bay Area from her analysis, but in the map’s fine print, Zheng cautions viewers that her “interests, biases, sources of ignorance and archival access” influenced the creation of “Land of Opportunity.” Zheng’s caveat gives her unique map even more credibility — and an upfront honesty that is an essence of tikkun.
Jose Arias’ photograms also give “Tikkun” a striking visual and emotional edge. Made by placing objects on photographic paper and exposing them to light, photograms can produce images that are ghost-like and seem straight from film noir. And that’s what Arias’ “America (1)” and “American Tools (1)” become: eerie, almost shadowy reflections of iconic symbols.
In “America (1),” Arias has patched together a U.S. flag but has left it noticeably imperfect, with more than a dozen fewer stars than normal, and stripes that are crookedly aligned and of different lengths. For generations, Jasper Johns and other American artists have incorporated the U.S. flag into works that question American ideals, and Arias adds his name to that roll call. The context: Arias is a U.S. Army veteran who did 27 months of combat in Iraq, but is now a San Francisco artist who identifies as queer and has previously told CJM that his Mexican-American identity was formed in the shadows of parents who immigrated from Mexico.
“My dad used to say that he and my mom were Mexican, but we, the children, were American,” Arias said. “That was very complicated for us. Why would we be something different from our parents?” But “America (1)” can be thought of as the opposite of an identity crisis. In the context of “Tikkun,” it’s a repairing of identity, and a statement that says American-ness has always incorporated a patchwork of disparate, seemingly uneven and often contradictory elements.
The range of art on display — along with the quality of art — is typical of a large art exhibition, with everything from sculpture to video, and (depending on one’s perspective) everything from the sublime to the subpar. But the show’s artistic gems are many, including Beth Grossman’s “All the rest is commentary” and Yétúndé Olagbaju’s “Hands (big) like Dad, fingertips (deep) like Mom / stretching to the sun.” Grossman’s contribution is a wall of printed linen sayings from 12 different religious traditions — including Islam, Unitarianism and Native American Spirituality — that show how they all convey a “golden rule” of treating people with respect and dignity.
Olagbaju’s contribution is an archival pigment print of plant life set against a black background, with parts that seem blurred or enveloped by rippling water — like a snapshot of a synthesis that’s evolving the foliage toward a new formation. What exactly is being reclaimed here? The ambiguity of “Hands (big) like Dad, fingertips (deep) like Mom / stretching to the sun” is one of its strengths, since the artwork asks people to interpret it or to simply appreciate Olagbaju’s painterly touches.
The mandate of “Tikkun” is to re-explore the definition of tikkun and universalize it. Entire books have been written on the subject. A magazine by that name has been published since 1986. And as the exhibition points out, the Talmud incorporated the idea of tikkun around the year 200, as a description for improving legal contracts.
So what more is there to say about tikkun? Plenty. There always will be. Like any religious or philosophical idea, new generations of people will interpret tikkun in a way that makes sense to them. The “them” at the CJM are Zheng, Arias, Grossman, Olagbaju and 26 other artists, including some who may not have heard of tikkun before the museum called. What’s on display, then, are fresh ideas, some of which can be rightfully called tikkun-ish, and some of which can be called tikkun! with, yes, an exclamation point.
“Tikkun: For the Cosmos, the Community, and Ourselves”
Where: Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission St., S.F.
When: Through Jan. 8, 2023
Tickets: $7-$8
Contact: (415) 655-7800, thecjm.org | 2022-02-25T01:40:00Z | www.sfexaminer.com | How The Jewish Museum’s latest exhibition perfectly captures this moment in time - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/tikkun-for-the-cosmos-the-community-and-ourselves-is-an-exhibition-for-our-times/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/tikkun-for-the-cosmos-the-community-and-ourselves-is-an-exhibition-for-our-times/ |
Plaintiffs allege their posts were being hidden or deleted on social media apps
A group of adult entertainers have filed a class action lawsuit against Meta, Facebook’s parent company. (Shutterstock)
A 39-page complaint filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California uses the phrase “on information and belief,” a total of 34 times in asserting far-reaching claims by a class of adult entertainers against Meta Platforms Inc. and its subsidiaries, Instagram and Facebook.
The phrase “on information and belief” is a legal phrase that lawyers use in federal court when they want to allege something in a complaint that they believe to be true, but do not yet have all the facts to prove it.
The colorful class action suit was brought by three adult entertainers on behalf of themselves “and all others similarly situated.”
The complaint says that OnlyFans competed with the adult websites where plaintiffs’ videos were available.
The complaint alleges that even though the websites with plaintiffs’ videos experienced steadily decreasing traffic, visits to the OnlyFans platform grew dramatically. Charts included in the complaint show OnlyFans total monthly web traffic growing from less than 3 million to nearly 12 million from June 2019 to June 2021.
This was allegedly done to harm the businesses of the adult sites that competed with OnlyFans, “in order to improve the market position, revenue, power, and otherwise benefit OnlyFans and its owner, Radvinsky.”
The complaint alleges that the scheme “required and involved” unidentified “employees or agents” of Meta, Instagram and Facebook to manipulate the database information, but the complaint only identifies the people involved as “John Does” at this time. | 2022-02-25T01:40:06Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Adult entertainers file class-action lawsuit against Instagram and Facebook - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/adult-entertainers-file-class-action-lawsuit-against-instagram-and-facebook/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/adult-entertainers-file-class-action-lawsuit-against-instagram-and-facebook/ |
The memorandum of understanding that allows District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s office to conduct independent criminal investigations during SFPD use-of-force incidents will remain in effect for 60 days. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner)
An investigative agreement between the San Francisco Police Department and the city’s District Attorney’s Office will remain in effect for the next 60 days as talks between the two departments continue, city officials said on Wednesday.
In the ongoing criminal case at the center of it all, Officer Terrance Stangel is facing battery, assault with a deadly weapon, assault likely to cause great bodily injury, and assault under color of authority charges for an October 2019 encounter with Dacari Spiers. The encounter left Spiers — a Black man who was unarmed — with a broken leg and wrist, as well as lacerations to his leg. | 2022-02-25T01:40:13Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Agreement between SFPD and district attorney’s office to remain in effect - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/agreement-between-sfpd-and-district-attorneys-office-to-remain-in-effect/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/agreement-between-sfpd-and-district-attorneys-office-to-remain-in-effect/ |
By Jessica Wolfrom Examiner staff writer • February 24, 2022 1:30 am - Updated February 24, 2022 11:59 am
An excavator moves dirt at a site at Gilman Avenue and Arelious Walker Drive in the Bayview district. Nearby residents allege concrete crushing and other activity at the site are causing large amounts of dust to be flung into the air, making it difficult to breathe and creating a dirty environment. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
The wind has always whipped up the earth at Candlestick Point, a waterfront expanse at the southeastern tip of San Francisco.
But last summer, Gayle Hart noticed a new kind of dust in the air. A brown film had settled over her neighborhood. It coated her car, crept into the corners of her patio and clogged her lungs.
Some days, the flurries were so bad that her 13-year-old son was unable to play basketball at the nearby playground. “He was only out there for about five minutes,” she said. “The dirt kept coming in his eyes.”
Bayview resident Gayle Hart stands near the site across from her townhome. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)(Craig Lee/The Examiner)
Residents of Bayview’s Candlestick Heights neighborhood say the dust has been kicked up by concrete crushing and other industrial activity that recently has moved into the open parcels across the street from Hart’s townhouse on Arelious Walker Drive.
“Sometimes it looks like the Wild West out here,” said Tsin Fung, whose family owns an RV Park that backs up onto the sites. Large trucks hauling materials in and out of the area are making matters worse, residents say, leaving a trail of dust as they groan past homes on Gilman Avenue.
But for longtime resident Shirley Moore, who purchased her hillside home when Candlestick Park stadium still loomed in the background, the dust is the latest example of how decades of city policies have resulted in environmental and physical harm to Bayview residents, who are predominately people of color.
“We’ve lived through the 49ers. We’ve lived through the Giants. But we’ve never had it this bad until these people came out and started doing this excavation,” said Moore.
Shirley Moore looks over Candlestick Heights near her hillside home in the Bayview. (Jessica Wolfrom/The Examiner)
Murphy Properties Inc., the real estate management and development firm that owns the parcels, asserts that its temporary tenants, including Bauman Landscape and Construction, Inc., are not excavating the sites and are in compliance with what the land has historically been zoned for: industrial use. The company maintains that by renting these parcels to tenants in the construction industry, it is keeping the businesses building San Francisco, in San Francisco.
In many ways, Candlestick is San Francisco’s final frontier. Now that the stadium lights have dimmed and the ballpark demolished in 2015, it’s one of the last remaining places where large swaths of land lay fallow, waiting for promises of redevelopment that have been years in the making but yet to come.
In the meantime, this land — a patchwork of parcels divided between the state, The City, the port and private owners like Murphy Properties — has become a catchall for things other neighborhoods don’t want in their backyards, Moore said.
A pile of forgotten refrigerators. Heavy construction equipment. Concrete recycling operations. It’s also home to the new Bayview Vehicle Triage Center, a cordoned-off parking lot designed to house The City’s growing homeless population.
Abandoned refrigerators and other refuse can be seen near a construction site at Candlestick Heights in the Bayview. (Jessica Wolfrom/The Examiner)
“We are not against people having a place to stay,” said Moore, the chair of the Candlestick Point Neighborhood Committee. “That’s not it. The ‘it’ is, if we have a problem and we don’t know what to do with it, we just dump it in the Bayview.”
Fung has seen heavy machinery, open diesel containers and people cutting I-beams with blinding sparks in the parcels and paper streets behind his business. As for the recent construction, Fung said, “they take that bulldozer and grab a pile of debris, and they’ll shake it … we don’t know where they’re getting the debris; we don’t know what they’re processing.”
Mike told NBC Bay Area that his family-run operation crushes and recycles old concrete, producing 40,000 tons of fresh material annually. A spokesperson for Murphy Properties added that Bauman is using The City’s old concrete to improve streets, parks and other infrastructure, including the Van Ness Avenue Improvement Project.
Many residents have complained about the dust and debris to District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), and the Department of Health. So far, the air district has issued two violations to one of the tenants for operating without a permit and another for administrative violations.
A layer of dust covers a car near an open-air industrial site at Gilman Avenue and Arelious Walker Drive in the Bayview district. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
“The operator uses water on their concrete crusher, conveyors and trucks in order to mitigate dust. We are also working to control dust from roadways as well,” said Ralph Borrmann, a spokesperson for the air district.
Walton’s office did not respond to The Examiner’s request for comment.
Murphy Properties shares residents’ concern about the large trucks moving through the neighborhood, a problem, it said, that was created when The City shut down freeway access from Gilman Drive.
But disturbing the soil in Candlestick comes with other risks. The Candlestick Point State Recreation Area and the surrounding shoreline have been built over an old garbage dump initially intended to be a U.S. Navy shipyard. Before the stadium was erected, the Bayview’s marshy shoreline, isolated from downtown, was designated for brick paving, tanneries and shipbuilding.
“Chemicals don’t disappear,” said Ray Tompkins, a retired chemistry teacher and environmental activist. “When they were building that (landfill) there was no EPA, so they threw everything in there.”
More recently, the Bayview also has been home to auto wrecking facilities, steel manufacturing, junkyards and other heavy industry. Many reports show the Candlestick area has naturally occurring asbestos in the soil. Taken in total, these realities have made residents leery of the bulldozers moving into the neighborhood.
Tompkins recently measured air quality near the new construction sites and found it was thousands of times worse than even the baseline standard for poor air near the dusty parcels.
“The stuff you can see gets caught up in your mucus, your snot,” said Tompkins. “But it is the invisible stuff that I’m measuring, those finite particles 2.5 (micrometers) or smaller that gets into the bloodstream. Literally, it penetrates.”
Particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) is not a single pollutant but a mixture of many chemical species emitted from different sources, including construction sites, unpaved roads, fields, smokestacks or fires. Long-term exposure to PM2.5 has been linked to premature death, particularly in people with chronic heart or lung diseases, and reduced lung function growth in children.
Research has conclusively shown that residents of Bayview-Hunters Point suffer higher rates of premature death and are hospitalized more than residents of other neighborhoods for almost every disease, including asthma, congestive heart failure, diabetes and urinary tract infections. The Department of Public Health has linked some of these health outcomes to greater concentrations of hazardous environmental conditions, including contaminated soil and water, industrial emissions and exhaust from motor vehicles.
Dust is also a trigger for asthma attacks, said Tompkins, who noted children at the nearby elementary school, Bret Harte, have higher asthma rates than those in other neighborhoods. “You don’t see this in the Saint Francis Wood,” he said. “You don’t see this in the Marina Green.”
Residents want the tenants crushing concrete to cease and desist. Some want to see these temporary uses replaced by what has long been proposed and planned for but has yet to materialize.
The City’s Candlestick Point and Hunters Point Shipyard Project, introduced in 2010, reimagined transportation, housing, retail and office space in the area. It was this vision for the future of Candlestick that inspired Hart to invest in the area.
“I want to see what was promised to us,” she said. “I want this to be a nice tourist area. I want to see the million-dollar homes that were talked about, the retail center, the movie theater. The nice waterfront. I want all that. I want Bayview to look like the Presidio, the Marina.”
While The City has delivered on the first phase with the construction of the Alice Griffith Apartments, residents and landowners say the next steps remain somewhat hazy. First, plans for a proposed shopping mall fizzled out with the emergence of e-commerce. And now, the office space slated to replace the shopping center has come into question as the pandemic has reshaped the future of work.
As a result, The City and the developer, Five Point Holdings, are reconsidering the best use case for the area, and The City maintains its commitments to the Candlestick community have not changed. Five Point Holdings declined The Examiner’s request for comment.
In the meantime, residents are left breathing the dusty air.
“I want this to not be the history of the dumping site,” said Hart. “I want San Francisco to turn it around.”
Tags: air pollution, air quality, construction, Ecojustice legal challenge, environment, Environmental assessment, Racial injustice | 2022-02-25T01:40:19Z | www.sfexaminer.com | ‘It looks like the Wild West’: Industrial dust is taking a toll on the Bayview - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/it-looks-like-the-wild-west/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/it-looks-like-the-wild-west/ |
The San Francisco school board will consider laying off hundreds of SFUSD teachers. (Courtesy of BCN)
San Francisco’s Board of Education will consider laying off hundreds of San Francisco Unified School District teachers and other staff on Thursday after an error forced the board to cancel Tuesday’s meeting.
During the public comment portion of Tuesday’s meeting, several teachers, parents, and students called in to urge the board to vote against the layoff measures.
One caller, however, pointed out that an agenda for the meeting hadn’t been properly posted on the district’s website prior to the meeting, which is a violation of the state’s Ralph M. Brown Act. The law requires transparency for government meetings, including that agendas be posted 72 hours prior for regular meetings.
Board President Gabriella Lopez acknowledged the discussion around layoffs “is a really important topic,” but in light of the error, Lopez moved to adjourn the meeting and postpone the discussion to a Thursday special meeting. The Thursday meeting is set for 3 p.m.
“These positions should not be on the cutting block to balance the school district’s budget on the backs of what is essentially the students. The students are the central purpose for which we come to work every single day,” UESF president Cassondra Curiel said at the rally.
In addition to the current budget crisis, Tuesday’s meeting was the first since voters overwhelmingly approved last week’s recall election, ousting Lopez, vice president Faauuga Moliga, and commissioner Alison Collins. Moliga has already resigned from his position, while both Collins and Lopez are expected to vacate their seats in the coming weeks and will be replaced with new commissioners appointed by Mayor London Breed.
In a separate matter back in December, a San Francisco Judge ruled the board violated the Brown Act by failing to properly notify the public about a measure to change the admissions process for Lowell High School from a merit-based system to a choice-based one during a February 2021 meeting. As a result, the judge deemed the board’s original decision null and void. | 2022-02-25T01:40:25Z | www.sfexaminer.com | S.F. school board to consider teacher layoffs after tumultuous meeting - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/s-f-school-board-to-consider-teacher-layoffs-after-tumultuous-meeting/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/s-f-school-board-to-consider-teacher-layoffs-after-tumultuous-meeting/ |
By Al Saracevic Examiner staff writer • February 24, 2022 12:30 pm - Updated February 24, 2022 4:30 pm
Oksana Zymunova, second from left, waits outside the central train station in Kyiv on Thursday as Russian troops launched an attack on the nation. (Emile Ducke/The New York Times)
I think of the stories my father told me.
When war came to our native Balkans, families scrambled to prepare. The women and children headed to the villages and mountains, with provisions to wait out the inevitable famine and strife. The men armed themselves and traveled to the front, most often conscripted to fight. This happened over and over, for centuries.
I think of my father’s stories today, as Ukraine defends itself against a Russian invasion. The pictures coming out of Kyiv and the nation’s other major cities are heartbreaking. Early shelling has claimed civilian lives. Citizens are lining up for food and petrol. The roads out of town are packed with cars, as families head toward the Polish border, hopeful that nearby NATO troops might protect them from Vladimir Putin’s vast military.
Americans often think of war in geopolitical terms. But people and families stand in the center of the storm.
Let us pray for those families in the Ukraine. They will try to survive the war. Like my ancestors, they know the drill. Do we?
Sadly, the answer is yes for many San Franciscans. They’ve come from China and Honduras. Russia and Nicaragua. The Philippines and Mexico. Let’s not forget our own Ukrainian diaspora, as well, which gathered at City Hall Thursday to protest the war and call for peace. Many of us have come from war-torn nations around the globe to seek asylum in the city of St. Francis, named for the Italian friar who found God as a prisoner of war.
St. Francis achieved sainthood, in the 13th century, preaching a doctrine of peace and redemption of human sin. I’m not a religious man, but we’d all do well to listen to our patron saint in these days of fear and uncertainty.
Perhaps our leaders will do the same. As a democracy with a massive military, does the United States intervene on behalf of Ukraine? And to what extent? Can we afford to stand by and allow aggressors to reshape the world order?
Such questions have confronted the United States since the days of Chamberlain and Roosevelt, Nixon and Johnson, Bush and Clinton. The present sentiment in America spans the political spectrum, creating strange allies along the way. The far left and far right both seem to be taking an isolationist stance, arguing that every battle cannot be our battle. The centrist position, championed by President Joe Biden, backs economic intervention, with tough talk about subsequent NATO engagement if sanctions do not work.
Putin appears to be listening to no one, reportedly isolated in his autocratic throne and charging forward with Russian history on his tongue and economic windfalls in his heart.
I don’t see a path forward for the United States and NATO that does not include intervention. We can squeeze and appease, hoping for a decrease in tensions. Europe has seen this movie before, and it didn’t have a happy ending. Allowing Russia to run roughshod over Ukraine could further Putin’s ambitions to reunite the Soviet Union. The Baltics come to mind first. Globally, a soft response could embolden China’s designs on Taiwan. On the domestic political front, an appearance of weakness could further activate right-wing radicals, fueled by our real or perceived loss of global status.
I know it’s easy to preach intervention if your own child is not going to the front lines. These are horrible decisions, no question. But, as I watch the talking heads and retired generals offer their analysis on the 24-hour news channels, my mind wanders back to my father, my family, his stories and the harsh realities of war.
During the 1990s, my aunt and her small family endured the lengthy siege of Sarajevo during the Balkan Wars, huddling in basements and venturing out for water while Serb artillery and sniper fire rained down on the streets of Bosnia. A mortar landed on the roof of their apartment, forcing them out. The United States did not intervene in that conflict until it was much too late. It was the wrong choice. The souls buried in mass graves lay in testament.
During World War II, my father lived through the Nazi invasion of the former Yugoslavia as a young teenager. He went without regular food and shelter for a period of time. He witnessed neighbors and friends hauled off to the camps, never to return. After the Allies liberated Europe, a communist regime led by Josip Broz Tito took power, and things grew worse. Both my father and grandfather were imprisoned as perceived dissidents, even sharing a jail cell for a brief time. Somehow, they both survived and found a way to rebuild our family.
My father escaped Yugoslavia with just a backpack, mountaineering over the Alps into Austria before eventually emigrating to the United States, a land where he found freedom and opportunity. He is still here, at the age of 91. His son found his way to San Francisco 30 years ago, completing the last leg of a journey that began with war and ended in a city of refugees of every stripe, be it political or cultural.
I’m happy to have found my place here, and raised my own family. But I still travel back to the old country on a regular basis to revisit my relatives and roots. It always feels like home, and I often wish my father and mother never had to leave.
I’d like to think we can help this generation of Ukrainians stay home and stay safe. The world doesn’t need more refugees. It needs more sovereignty.
Editor’s note: The Arena, a column from The Examiner’s Al Saracevic, explores San Francisco’s playing field, from politics and technology to sports and culture. Send your tips, quips and quotes to asaracevic@sfexaminer.com. | 2022-02-25T01:40:31Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Opinion: Ukraine intervention is a matter of people, not politics - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/opinion-ukraine-intervention-is-a-matter-of-people-not-politics/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/opinion-ukraine-intervention-is-a-matter-of-people-not-politics/ |
Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green (23) defends against Miami Heat guard Victor Oladipo (4) as he rebounds the ball during a game at Chase Center Jan. 3. (Christopher Victorio/Special to The Examiner)
Steve Kerr nailed it. The Warriors’ coach absolutely nailed what it means to be missing a player who isn’t your biggest star, or even your second-biggest, and yet makes every difference between a good season and a legit shot at a ring. That may sound like weird territory, but it’s very real. And Kerr never even had to say Draymond Green’s name out loud for the message to be received.
“I know we are No. 1 in defense,” Kerr said, throwing up air quotes to reinforce his point. “But we’re not, right now. Those numbers are inflated by what we did earlier in the season… The main thing is that our defense has been bad.”
This was on Valentine’s Day down in Los Angeles. The Warriors had just finished getting squished like a bug by the Clippers, allowing 119 points. It was part of a pure stagger to the All-Star break, the club losing four of its last five games and giving up 578 points in the process, which is, let’s see here, carry the one, way too many points to win most of them. (They’re no longer No. 1 in defense, for the record.)
Kerr didn’t name Green in his post-game summation that night, and I suppose that’s because it would feel to him like a cop-out. The coach, after all, needs for the rest of the non-Draymond roster to defend with some integrity or at the very least stick a few fingers in the holes of the dam. The Ws are so good offensively (usually) that even moderate D can keep them in games long enough for somebody to win it, so Kerr can’t very well step up and say, “We don’t have Draymond, so we’re losing.”
But that’s what is happening, at least in miniature. Before Green’s injury took him out of the lineup on Jan. 6, the Warriors were 29-8. Since then, without him, they’ve gone a more tepid 13-9, and that was with Klay Thompson returning to the lineup for all but one of those 22 games.
You can argue this a thousand ways, of course. Bring back Draymond but lose, say, Steph Curry (heaven forbid), and the resulting record would probably look far worse than 13-9. Thompson’s return is so welcome but also unquestionably complicated; it’s a team adjusting and accommodating on the fly to make room for another great shooter to shoot. It takes time.
There’s no short-term panic that is of any use. But this much feels utterly true: The Warriors don’t look like a title contender without Green. That’s hardly the first time someone has said it. Doesn’t make it any less real.
I mention all this now for two reasons: 1.) Green just gave his own medical update while working as a court-side reporter at the All-Star Game in Cleveland, and it’s not good; and 2.) There is an opening in the Western Conference standings here, also injury-related, but the Ws may not be able to take advantage.
Prodded by the TNT crew about his playing status, Green responded, “Hopefully three to four weeks. That’s what I’m shooting for. I’m hoping three to four weeks.”
This perhaps did not comfort Warriors fans who remember the beginning of February when Green also said he hoped to be back in three or four weeks. It’s a floating month away at this point.
Green’s is an L5-S1 disc injury — the lumbosacral joint, for those keeping score at home — and back injuries are just impossible to predict. They’re as flaky as calf injuries, which is what the Warriors thought Green was experiencing before the disc connection was discovered. It’s tough.
Assuming Green’s latest update holds, he could be back for the last 10 or so games of the regular season. Those are critical games, in part because they’d probably give Kerr just enough time to tune up his Curry-Thompson-Green lineup for the playoffs. But like everything else connected with Green’s injury, any date on the calendar has to be considered a moving target.
The other factor at play is bad news, too, assuming you like the NBA and not just the one team. When Chris Paul fractured his right thumb in the last game before the All-Star break, the Phoenix Suns suddenly looked as vulnerable as a first-place team with a 6½-game lead in the standings could look.
That opens a door for the Warriors to pass through, but they’ll have to win consistently without Green to do it. One way to get there is to stop getting mauled in the paint, and a bunch of folks are guessing that James Wiseman’s projected return from injury will stanch the bleeding. That seems like a lot to ask of a guy who has suited up 39 times in his NBA career, but so flows hope.
It’s fashionable to suggest that getting the top seed doesn’t really matter, but going into Thursday’s game, the Ws were an .813 winning team at home this season and a less scary .694 on the road. It makes some difference to get as many home playoff scenarios as possible. Wins matter.
Still, we’re talking here about the regular season, and seedings. The bigger picture is a championship run. In the Warriors’ ring-bearing years, they received contributions from all over the place, but there’s a reason they gave a max contract extension to a defense-first player.
The reason is that Green is no ordinary defense-first guy. Kerr knows it. He knows it so well that he doesn’t even have to use the words.
Mark Kreidler is a freelance contributor to The Examiner. Read more of his columns at markkreidler.substack.com. | 2022-02-25T01:40:37Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Can the Warriors spell defense without Green? - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/can-the-warriors-spell-defense-without-green/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/can-the-warriors-spell-defense-without-green/ |
‘I am here today because the despicable has happened and the unthinkable has happened.’
By Melanie Velasquez • February 24, 2022 6:00 pm - Updated February 24, 2022 7:22 pm
A crowd of some 300 to 400 people gathered at City Hall to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Thursday (Michaela Kwoka-Coleman/The Examiner)
As Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, 300-400 San Franciscans gathered at City Hall Thursday afternoon to protest Vladimir Putin’s invasion, shouting “Russian people against the war,” “Stand with Ukraine” and “Ukrainians will resists.”
“We are here today because…Russia started the attack on Ukraine,” said Dmytro Kushneruk, the Consul General of Ukraine in San Francisco. “Everyone should care, regardless of the fact that Ukraine is quite far from San Francisco, from California…It’s a fight for freedom of Ukraine against the fire of evil, which is Russian.”
In the Bay Area alone, there are more than 20,000 Ukrainian-Americans and about 800,000 Russian-Americans. San Francisco has a rich Ukrainian presence with the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council, a cultural center and several Ukrainian churches.
State Senator Scott Wiener stood before the crowd and offered his solidarity.
Protest organizers said they had three demands: Enact what they called “hellish sanctions” on Russia immediately, including cutting the country off from SWIFT, the international payment system. Quickly increase military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. And isolate Russia in all possible formats on the world stage.
“I’m Russian, I don’t want his war. Many people feel this way… it’s just one man in power,” said Dara, who did not give her last name, referring to Putin.
For the past eight years, Russia has inched towards invading Ukraine. Now, Putin’s supposed goal is to demilitarize and “de-Nazify” Ukraine despite having a Jewish President, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Since declaring independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has been wary of Ukraine’s move to join NATO and the European Union. Back in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, the southern peninsula of the country, when pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was thrown out of office by protesters who wanted to align themselves with Western European countries.
Dara and Jyotsna, (left and middle) who did not disclose their last names, joined Foidor Otero, a Ukrainian at the protest. (Michaela Kwoka-Coleman/The Examiner)
“We’ve always supported our brothers and sisters in Ukraine,” said Asia from Belarus, who did not give her last name. “It’s painful to see there’s no strong backup from Western countries. Ukraine fought for their freedom … to stand up to bullies… if Russia will take over Ukraine, then all NATO Allies are not safe, too.”
Earlier this morning, Biden spoke from the White House and announced that he would be imposing more sanctions on Russia to impact their economy long-term. 7,000 U.S. troops are being sent to NATO countries as reassurance for European allies, but no troops are being deployed to Ukraine.
“I am here today, because the despicable has happened and the unthinkable has happened,” said Nataliya Anon, co-founder of the Ukrainian nonprofit Anhelyk (which means “angel”). “Russia has waged the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It’s really a dark day, not just for Ukraine, I think, but for the entire free world.” | 2022-02-25T11:42:11Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Hundreds gather in San Francisco to protest Russian invasion of Ukraine - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/hundreds-gather-in-san-francisco-to-protest-russian-invasion-of-ukraine/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/hundreds-gather-in-san-francisco-to-protest-russian-invasion-of-ukraine/ |
It’s been a great season on the Hilltop, where USF has returned to top form
USF great Bill Cartwright looks on as the Dons basketball team takes on No. 1 ranked Gonzaga on the Hilltop. (Craig Lee/SF Examiner)
Bill Cartwright knows a thing or two about big nights on the Hilltop.
The USF legend led that last truly great Dons teams, over 40 years ago, when he dominated in the paint for a team that was ranked No. 1 in the nation for parts of the 1976-77 season. Big games and raucous crowds were the norm.
So it was no surprise to see the big fella at Thursday night’s big tilt at the War Memorial Gym, where a packed house came out to see the best Dons team since Cartwright graced the hardwood in a matchup with No. 1 ranked Gonzaga.
“When I was here, as you know, we were Gonzaga,” said Cartwright. “Back then, we just wanted to play well. We wanted to win. We had really good players. My sophomore year, we were undefeated, 29-0, at one point of the year. So, we understand this. It’s just a great time.”
Indeed, USF has a tremendous basketball legacy, winning two national championships with the great Bill Russell in 1955 and 1956. Cartwright’s Dons were clearly the second best squad in school history. And this year’s team is hoping to break into that conversation with a strong late-season run.
Enter Gonzaga, and a golden opportunity.
The crowd was hype. The players were ready. But the ‘Zags ultimately proved too much for USF, prevailing 89-73 in the Dons’ last home game of what’s been a resurgent season. Even with the loss to their conference rivals, USF still has a chance to make the NCAA tournament, on the strength of their record and opponents. And who knows? Maybe they’ll see Gonzaga again in the Big Dance?
The team from Spokane has emerged over the past decade as one of the top programs in the country, consistently at the top of the rankings and a perennial contender for the national title. They are the ultimate “mid-major” success story, leading fellow West Coast Conference programs like Moraga’s St. Mary’s into the big time. For the first time in a long time, USF is also in that conversation.
“(Head coach) Todd Golden and his staff have done a great job,” said Cartwright. “Our kids have stayed healthy all year. We’ve had the emergence of a couple of our players. It’s been a fun season.”
You could sure feel it in the crowd Thursday night. There’s nothing quite like a high-level college basketball game in a mid-sized gym. The various field houses of the WCC are simply fantastic venues, with the War Memorial and St. Mary’s McKeon Pavilion ranking as two of the best.
The student section stood for every second, egged on by the pep band. After a tough couple years of pandemic restrictions, it was just fantastic to see these kids get to live the true college experience.
“This was probably the most excitement on the Hilltop, probably since they brought the program back,” said Golden, referring to the program’s suspension in the early 1980s. “The atmosphere was vibrant. You could tell. I was walking around campus and people were buzzing about it.”
“We never used to get students at the games … we probably had 800 kids up there tonight,” said Golden.
To top things off, it was senior night. The Dons honored their truly talented backcourt mates, Khalil Shabazz and Jamaree Bouyea, along with Yauhen Massalski, a transfer player who originally hails from Belarus.
There was much love in the stands for one and all. And you could hear it after the game, too. The Dons may have fallen short on the court, but they stood tall for their supporters, waving to the crowd as they walked off the court to the locker room for the last time this season.
“I’ve been here all year,” said Cartwright, who works as an ambassador at the school. “These guys are great guys. They work hard. They’ve earned everything they have. We’re excited for the future.”
They should be. That might future might come as soon as March.
“If you judge teams by their body of work, we’re comfortably in,” said Golden. “We have 22 wins. All our metrics are good. I feel very good about our prospects right now.”
Tags: basketball, college athletics, University of San Francisco | 2022-02-25T11:42:17Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Dons lose to the ‘Zags, but win their fans’ hearts - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/dons-lose-to-the-zags-but-win-their-fans-hearts/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/dons-lose-to-the-zags-but-win-their-fans-hearts/ |
By Sydney Johnson Examiner staff writer • February 25, 2022 1:30 am
People join an anonymous 12-step meeting at the Castro Country Club, a sober gathering place and home for the queer recovery community. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
On a sunny morning in San Francisco, Billy Lemon makes the rounds through a cafe at the Castro Country Club. A barista serves up drinks and light conversation, two people chat over a coffee and someone else types away on a laptop.
It boasts all the charm of a neighborhood coffee shop, but there’s much more going on behind every cup served. To place an order, guests walk through the cafe’s pristine Victorian building, past a living room where meetings are held daily for people in recovery from methamphetamine addiction. And Lemon is among them.
“That first experience (of doing meth) is fantastic and you could try to replicate that for years, usually to no avail,” said Lemon. “So you wind up doing more, more frequently. What used to be fun becomes fun with consequences, and it’s then just consequences, and before you know it you’re in jail. That was my case.”
Overdose rates in San Francisco have ballooned in recent years with the arrival of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin. But the majority of fentanyl-related overdoses in The City involve a mixture of substances.
Call it what you want: ice, Tina, crystal, speed, crank. In San Francisco, methamphetamine is often part of a deadly concoction. Yet it’s rarely part of the public conversation as The City reckons with a spiraling overdose crisis. Advocates say that must change if we want to have a chance of successfully addressing the problem.
“Meth is the most used substance available,” said Laura Guzman, senior director at the Harm Reduction Coalition, a national overdose prevention organization that works with the San Francisco Department of Public Health. “We aren’t talking about it, and that’s probably because it requires a much more complex solution. We haven’t developed good spaces and treatment for people who use meth.”
Over half of the 645 overdose deaths in San Francisco in 2021 involved methamphetamine, according to data from the Office of the Medical Examiner. In January 2022 alone, 26 out of 46 overdose deaths were meth-related while 28 involved fentanyl, often in combination.
While overdoses on meth alone are rare, deaths in San Francisco linked to the substance increased by more than 700% since 2008, according to a city report. Nearly half of psychiatric emergency room admissions at San Francisco General Hospital from 2017-2018 involved meth, the report found, and 90% of individuals with at least eight psychiatric holds had used only were only using methamphetamine.
“There is a large number of people who use meth where treatment is scarce, if available at all,” said Guzman, adding that many people are also are co-using meth and fentanyl.
‘A full assault’
Lemon can remember clearly the first time he tried meth. It was around 1998, during his senior year at San Francisco State University after he had recently come out as gay.
“I was trying to balance being freshly out and what that means, and school and work. Someone said ‘Let’s go to the EndUp and dance all night,’” Lemon said. “It was amazing.”
A few years later, Lemon lost his bartending gig and went on unemployment, and from there, he said, “it snowballed.” On meth, Lemon could stay up for hours on end exploring his new community and identity with the help of a powerful social lubricant. It allowed him to silence the shame he had carried while feeling like his bubbly, energetic self again.
“It is really complementary to a lot of gay men’s sexual prowess,” said Lemon. “It lowers your inhibitions, and for a lot of gay men that grew up in a generation where we weren’t comfortable in our sexuality, like myself in particular, it allows us to experiment and feel less inhibited.”
But the fun eventually faded. Lemon began dealing large amounts of methamphetamine and other drugs. He went from having his own apartment to living with friends who used drugs also to completely relying on others for housing.
“It got to a point where I was couch surfing and as long as I had dope I was housed,” said Lemon. “There are a lot of folks who are homeless and are addicts just trying to stay warm.”
Lemon was arrested multiple times, and in 2009, faced serious time in prison. He had hit an all-time low. That’s when a bizarre miracle of sorts happened. At the time, San Francisco was dealing with illicit drug sales within The City’s own ranks. An investigation found a former lab technician at the police department stole and used some of the cocaine she was supposed to analyze. Then-District Attorney Kamala Harris subsequently dismissed hundreds of cases that relied on evidence that came through the lab.
One of the cases to get tossed was Lemon’s. At that point, he decided he was ready to make a change.
“I went to residential and inpatient rehab and a ton of 12-step meetings,” he said. “For me, it had to be a full assault. I had to use every opportunity.”
Now eight years sober, Lemon sees lives like his change every day as executive director of the Castro Country Club, a sober gathering place for the LGBTQ+ community. In addition to 12-step meetings, the facility runs a Peet’s cafe where people in recovery, some of whom have been out of work for years, can learn barista skills. For many of the patrons, meth had been a huge part of their lives.
“It’s easily produced. It doesn’t cost a lot,” said Lemon. “It allows you to stay up longer and do more.”
The Castro Country Club offers a glimpse of what the flip side of an otherwise horrific spike in drug overdoses across San Francisco could look like. But safe spaces for meth users are scarce here. Even more rare are treatment options to lead someone through recovery.
“It is absolutely possible to recover and get long-term sobriety. I see it every day,” said Lemon. “The missing component for a lot of folks when they decide to get sober is the opportunity to build a community of support.”
A crisis in the shadows
Compared with fentanyl, which began taking over drug markets in San Francisco around 2018, meth has a longer history in The City. It first became popular in the 1990s in New York City and eventually seeped into San Francisco. Partygoers flocked to the stimulant for its ability to produce feelings of euphoria, confidence and increased sex drive.
“Meth historically has been a significant challenge in the LGBTQ community,” said San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who is gay and called for The City’s methamphetamine task force in 2019.
But meth’s reach intersects myriad communities across San Francisco.
Meth use is most common among white men, the 2019 report found, but negative downstream impacts such as arrests and jail time are more concentrated among Black San Franciscans. The most acutely impacted is the unhoused population, which has increased alongside San Francisco’s overdose crisis.
“In some ways, the meth crisis, which is a huge crisis, gets overshadowed by the opioid crisis,” said Mandelman. “Everyone knows there is a fentanyl crisis, and I’m not sure as many people know that meth is killing hundreds of people in San Francisco each year.”
Unlike fentanyl, a depressant painkiller that makes users feel euphoric and sleepy, meth is more likely to contribute to insomnia, psychotic episodes, and in some cases, violent behavior. For people sharing the sidewalk with someone experiencing a meth-induced episode, it can be a scary and disturbing scene.
“This is playing a role in the crisis on our streets,” said Mandelman. “And that remains issue number one for my constituents.”
Lemon said he began experiencing psychosis towards the end of his years on meth, when he started shooting it intravenously. But that was just one of the threats he faced.
“I was robbed at gunpoint several times. There are also times I can remember waking up in the ER and not knowing how I got there,” he said. “That’s certainly not part of what folks think their adult life will be like.”
Chances for change
Medication-assisted treatment options such as methadone and buprenorphine can treat opioid addiction. But similar therapeutics don’t exist for methamphetamine dependence. And few programs are available to refer people who want help with their meth use.
This winter, San Francisco rapidly erected a new health and social services center at United Nations Plaza where struggling San Franciscans can get a hot meal, take a shower and connect to services and treatment. But compared with opioids, treatment options for methamphetamine users are scant.
“There is no treatment available and accessible and appropriate to treat folks with meth,” said Guzman. “People who use meth want solutions.”
In 2019, San Francisco convened a task force to study its meth challenge and present solutions. One recommendation was to create what later became known as SOMA RISE, a sobering center in the South of Market neighborhood that is slated to open this spring. Unlike the Tenderloin Linkage Center at U.N. Plaza, which serves as a catch-all services site for the unhoused, SOMA RISE will specifically aim to provide a safe space for drug and alcohol users.
At SOMA RISE, intoxicated people on the street will be able to come indoors, rest and access other basic needs such as showers, bathrooms and meals. It’s a key component of Mental Health SF, The City’s landmark mental health program for people who lack insurance or who are experiencing homelessness.
It remains to be seen how the center will handle the scale of San Francisco’s crisis. Skeptics point to Portland, Ore., where a sobering center ran from 1985 to 2020. The city shut it down after health care workers said the site wasn’t equipped to handle the agitated and erratic behavior from a growing number of meth and opioid users.
Yet supporters say sobering and supervised consumption sites, which San Francisco is also preparing to open, are even more necessary as fentanyl has shortened the window of time required to respond to and reverse overdoses.
“Fentanyl is a game-changer. It can kill you instantly and it’s being cut in other illicit drugs, including meth,” said Gary McCoy, who has been sober from meth for 11 years and serves as director of policy and public affairs at HealthRIGHT 360, a medical clinic that will staff SOMA RISE. “Someone who uses meth may not realize there is fentanyl in the drugs they are using.”
One recovery model that has shown evidence of success for some meth users is known as contingency management. The idea is to offer financial rewards in exchange for entering treatment programs, getting sober and finding a recovery community.
The San Francisco AIDS Foundation has advocated for more of this type of intervention after finding success with its own program, the Positive Reinforcement Opportunity Project, or PROP. At the program, LGBTQ+ people who used meth are given gift cards for staying sober. The center says 63% of participants stopped using meth after one year and another 19% reduced their use.
Lemon has also seen contingency management work.
“Part of the meth issue is people become so entrenched in shame. For me, as an ex-dealer who went to rehab with nothing more than the clothes on his back, PROP gave me an opportunity and a gentle nudge,” said Lemon. “For someone who had nothing positive happen to them for quite some time, that win was enough to put some wind behind my sails.”
The strategy has been employed by the Veterans Affairs Administration, and a statewide pilot program is slated to launch in summer to explore contingency management across California, where overdose deaths from stimulants nearly quadrupled over the last decade.
“The foundation of recovery for any substance is having a connection and community around you to be supportive. The bonus of contingency management is it brings folks in,” said McCoy of HealthRIGHT 360. “They can participate in that program and it also allows for other wrap-around services that can be provided including group therapy sessions.”
Still, contingency management is extremely difficult to access if homelessness is a factor. And in San Francisco, it often is.
Moreover, legal hurdles and public opinion have stifled efforts to expand access. In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) that would have legalized contingency management and authorized Medi-Cal to cover it.
Appetite for the model is growing, though. President Joe Biden’s drug policy platform calls for increasing access to evidence-based treatment, including contingency management.
In the meantime, programs like the Castro Country Club will continue to fill a gap.
“I may have gotten sober quicker had I had this opportunity. It’s the reason community spaces are important and the reason brick and mortar spaces are important,” said Lemon. “People need to be able to walk in and be met with compassion and kindness.”
Despite recent loss, USF basketball emerges as a star this season | 2022-02-25T20:00:35Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Meth: San Francisco’s drug crisis within a drug crisis - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/meth-san-franciscos-drug-crisis-within-a-drug-crisis/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/meth-san-franciscos-drug-crisis-within-a-drug-crisis/ |
San Francisco hospitals repeatedly dump disabled homeless woman at bus stop
By Gil Duran • February 25, 2022 1:30 am - Updated February 25, 2022 10:46 am
Mary Gilbert sits with her belongings at a Muni bus stop at California and Sansome streets in the Financial District on Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner)
Mary Gilbert says she once worked for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, doing part-time clerical work at a bus yard near Fisherman’s Wharf. Today, she lives on a bench at an abandoned MUNI bus stop in the Financial District.
Unable to walk due to a severe infection in her legs and feet, the 56-year-old befriends passing office workers who bring her food and water. When the infection becomes critical, ambulances transport her to local hospitals. She’s a frequent visitor in need of ongoing care but, after a few days or weeks as a patient, she gets dumped back at the bus stop. Last year, she said, Saint Francis Memorial Hospital discharged her on Thanksgiving Day.
Homeless with no access to wound care, Gilbert’s legs swell and her infected wounds seep through dirty bandages. She remains at the bus stop until the cycle repeats: ambulance, hospital and a return to the streets until the putrefaction of her wounds necessitates another 911 call. The state’s Medi-Cal program pays the bill.
Gilbert’s story illustrates the challenge of providing care for the most vulnerable among California’s estimated 161,000 homeless people. Despite unprecedented efforts and billions of dollars in new spending, including over $1 billion earmarked for San Francisco, people like her fall through the cracks in a system that often seems designed to fail.
Without housing and sustained medical care, Gilbert has few options besides death on the street. She’s distrustful, stubborn and fiercely independent after a decade of homelessness, but her strong personality does not absolve The City’s public health system for enabling this horrifying predicament.
“I’m a million-dollar baby,” said Gilbert, estimating how much her serial hospitalizations cost taxpayers. “We’re not just talking about a room and food. They itemize pain pills and bandages. It takes an hour to do my wound care, and we’re not even talking about CAT scans … MRIs … X-rays.”
I met Gilbert in September. While walking to catch a bus, I heard a voice say, “Excuse me.” I kept going, but she grew more insistent. When I stopped, Gilbert handed me $40 and asked me to bring her the fried chicken from Wayfare Tavern.
Fried chicken at Wayfare Tavern – #8 on Food & Wine magazine’s “best fried chicken in the U.S.” list – costs $40 with tip. So, I walked back to make sure Gilbert didn’t mean chicken strips from Irish Times, which cost closer to $15.
“No!” she said, annoyed. “I want the chicken from Wayfare Tavern!”
I fetched the bird and learned her story.
Mahalia “Mary” Gilbert grew up in the East Bay. She once worked selling antique jewelry on the peninsula and she moved to San Francisco in 2002. For years, she lived in a single-room occupancy hotel on Nob Hill and worked various jobs. During the Great Recession of 2009, she said, MUNI laid her off and she lost her housing.
“I hung on for a little over a year,” she said. “There’s no handbook for this. I didn’t know where to go.”
After bouncing around shelters, she ended up on the streets, where she survives with the help of strangers and a monthly Supplemental Security Income check.
In 2013, Gilbert suffered a pulmonary embolism and developed cellulitis in her legs and feet. The bacterial infection has progressed to the point where she can no longer walk. She stays in the Financial District because the daytime office crowd means there are more people around to ask for help.
From her perch at the decommissioned MUNI stop, against a stately backdrop of Corinthian pillars, Gilbert has built a network of supporters. Regular visitors include a barber, a police officer, a lawyer, a marketing consultant and a tech support specialist – as well as a pair of pigeons she calls “Lady Bird” and “LBJ.” Unfortunately, Gilbert’s plight remains unchanged despite the best efforts of these people, who know her as a cogent and well-informed conversationalist.
After Saint Francis discharged her on Thanksgiving, Gilbert’s outraged supporters launched a determined effort to help her. On Dec. 3, a group of them gathered at the bus stop, joined by members of San Francisco’s Homeless Outreach Team and a crew of firefighters. Hopeful that things might change, Gilbert’s friends watched as paramedics loaded her into a hospital-bound ambulance.
I visited her at St. Mary’s before COVID rules shut down visitation. The sight of her safe and warm in a hospital bed, with Sutro Tower looming in the distance outside her window, provided a jarring contrast to her life at the bus stop. She kept everyone informed of her progress via text messages, sending pictures of her wounds and signing off as “Mary from the Bus Stop.”
This hospital stay lasted two months.
“[Hospital] wants 2 discharge me, blisters & all,” wrote Gilbert on Feb. 7. “H.O.T. TEAM came 2-day. Nothing 2 offer except a [room] they r not sure they can get.”
By Feb. 9, she was at the bus stop again. Hospital staff had accused her of resisting treatment, she said, and had also threatened to place her under a conservatorship if she stayed. The incident reinforced Gilbert’s view that the system is rigged to deny medical care to seriously ill homeless people – and she’s not totally wrong.
“I think the system is resistant to providing services,” said Kelley Cutler of the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness.
Despite increased discussion over whether California should expand the use of conservatorships to take control of homeless people’s lives, Cutler said we don’t currently have the resources and staffing to adequately care for homeless people with serious needs.
“There’s such a huge need for different levels of care, but there often isn’t in-between stuff, so there isn’t really a good fit for folks,” said Cutler.
“While we have many committed city staff working to address this public health crisis, the homeless revolving door will continue without a clear coordinated plan for long-term placements,” said Sunny Angulo, chief of staff to Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who is trying to help Gilbert. “We have a lot of short-term solutions, but not a lot of options for homeless residents with multiple health issues or specific behavioral health needs.”
Gilbert wants a room in an SRO hotel and access to regular wound care. This seems reasonable. Some homeless people got hotel rooms during the pandemic as part of Project Roomkey, but she spent the entire time shuttling between hospitals and the street.
“I realized the system will let me die out here before I even get an offer of one decent place,” she said.
A 2018 state law forbids hospitals from dumping homeless patients with no place to go, but it clearly isn’t working. Saint Francis and St. Mary’s, both run by Dignity Health, did not respond to requests for comment. The University of California-San Francisco Medical Center, which has also discharged Gilbert repeatedly, said in a statement that it follows the law.
“Given privacy protections, we cannot comment on any specific patient, but we have a number of protocols in place to provide appropriate discharge planning and services to all patients, including resources and, where clinically indicated, placements in skilled nursing facilities or adult residential facilities,” read the statement. “For example, for patients without homes, we provide resources upon discharge that include weather-appropriate clothing, food, medications, and transportation, as needed, as well as follow-up care and community resources.”
“Moving right along,” replied Gilbert sarcastically when told of the hospital’s response.
Callous hospitals and inept government deserve much of the blame, but Gilbert’s choices also complicate things. Like many homeless people, she stores her belongings in an assortment of bags and boxes that she insists on keeping close. This bars her from facilities that don’t allow people to bring their stuff.
Gilbert avoids shelters due to bad experiences in the past. She told me she has also turned down the idea of going to skilled nursing facilities in Los Angeles and Petaluma because she doesn’t want to get stranded in a strange city (and because she doubts the offers were real). In addition, she remains unvaccinated, though she said she would consider vaccination if it means getting into housing.
Lisa Gruzas, who works downtown and has advocated for Gilbert, expressed frustration with a bureaucracy that provides no option beyond endless ambulance rides.
“I don’t know exactly how this is designed to work, but I can tell you none of it makes any sense to me,” said Gruzas. “The city has plenty of money and needs to figure this out. I’m not interested in criticizing anyone when I don’t have the full story, but I am disappointed by the lack of commitment to Mary.”
For now, Gilbert remains at the bus stop, enduring the cold weather as her wounds fester under filthy bandages that haven’t been changed in over two weeks. But she’s wary of hospitals now that St. Mary’s has raised the possibility of imposing a conservatorship.
“I’m not sure, with the way that they threatened me with a medical conservatorship to take away my rights to make medical decisions for myself,” she said. “I’m not comfortable going back to the hospital because there’s that threat.”
Gil Duran is Editorial Page Editor of The San Francisco Examiner. gduran@sfexaminer.com
Tags: homelessness, public health, San Francisco | 2022-02-25T20:00:41Z | www.sfexaminer.com | ‘Million-dollar baby’: Homeless woman’s horrific plight exposes S.F.’s broken system - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/million-dollar-baby-homeless-womans-horrific-plight-exposes-s-f-s-broken-system/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/million-dollar-baby-homeless-womans-horrific-plight-exposes-s-f-s-broken-system/ |
Bill Fontana’s “Acoustic Time Travel,” 2013. (Courtesy bitforms gallery SF)
Bill Fontana’s sound sculptures are a mechanism for transporting listeners across time and space. The six audio pieces and accompanying videos in the artist’s solo exhibition “Sonic Visions,” at bitforms gallery SF, feature field recordings from the Golden Gate Bridge to the inside of a particle accelerator.
Fontana, who began making sound sculptures in 1976, studied with experimental composer John Cage at the New School for Social Research in New York. His compositions, like Cage’s, are not exactly musical but inspire a similar response, tuning listeners into the natural frequency of the world around them by appreciating its amplification. The harmony happens inside you.
The eight-channel audio installation, “Sequoia Trees River Echoes,” 2019, permeates throughout the atrium of Minnesota Street Project, where bitforms is housed, creating an expansive sonic experience even before visitors enter the gallery. It reminded me of Cage’s seminal 1952 composition “4’33,”” which consists of four minutes and 33 seconds of rests, focusing the audience’s attention on whatever ambient sound bubbles up. Here, Fontana’s forest noises loop infinitely over footsteps, voices and street sounds.
In a 2018 interview for SFMOMA, Fontana quoted Cage as saying, “Music is continuous and listening is intermittent.” Fontana’s work does indeed make a case for music as continuous, as opposed to sound that never ceases, and he makes us question what we choose to hear.
The main gallery features four pieces presented on video monitors and headphones. In some of these, the audio portion predates the video by decades, offering Fontana’s own visual response to a previously acoustic-only work. One example is “Landscape Sculpture with Foghorns,” 2021, which features video of the Golden Gate Bridge set to a 1981 recording of the foghorns. This is the piece that most resembles traditional instrumentation; the horns sound like a soloist repeating a single note.
But, for me, the most affecting piece was the least euphonious. “Vertical Wavescape,” 2022,” combines abstracted video of waves, at times colliding in a way reminiscent of a mushroom cloud, and a sonic assault of the waves crashing together. This comes to sound like an endless detonation, a rattling bombardment of white noise. It’s sublime in the truest sense: Fontana intensifies our experience of a natural phenomenon to the point of overwhelm.
Similarly mind boggling is “Acoustic Time Travel,” 2013, made while Fontana was an artist in residence at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland. The piece, presented in a black box room, consists of an eight-channel score featuring the sound of particle beams passing through copper plates at the speed of light, set to a wall-sized projection of a black-and-white video of cars passing across the visual plane, abstracted by soft-focus and slow-motion. By making audible that which is invisible, and likewise complicating the visual, Fontana invites us into a dimension that uses sound to transcend perception.
To be transported via technology has become a novel concept, perhaps most recently realized with advancements in virtual reality, like the metaverse. But Fontana offers this experience earnestly. The trick, in his case, is to keep one foot (ear? eye? all three?) in the real world that he’s replicating. He isn’t degrading reality but serenading it, encouraging listeners to pay more attention, not less. Ultimately, it’s a listening experience that recalibrates your ear to the natural rhythm of the world around you.
“Sonic Visions”
Where: bitforms gallery SF, 1275 Minnesota St., S.F.
When: 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday, through April 9
Contact: (212)366-6939, bitforms.art | 2022-02-26T02:52:43Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Sound sculptor Bill Fontana will rewire your reality - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/sound-sculptor-bill-fontana-will-rewire-your-reality/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/sound-sculptor-bill-fontana-will-rewire-your-reality/ |
By Jeff Elder Examiner staff writer • February 25, 2022 2:30 pm - Updated February 25, 2022 3:24 pm
CEO Jack O’Holleran, left, and Chief Technical Officer Konstantin Kladko are the co-founders of the cryptocurrency company SKALE Labs, which has offices in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and San Francisco. (SKALE Labs)
It would be hard to find a company more evenly split between San Francisco and Ukraine than the cryptocurrency startup SKALE Labs.
One cofounder is based in San Francisco’s Ferry Building, a hub of The City’s crypto community. The other is based in Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine, the nation’s second-largest city (after the capital of Kyiv), and a tech center.
The company has evacuated its team from Kharkiv, with good reason. On Thursday, Russian shelling hit Kharkiv. Tech workers for other companies were in the streets. Katya, a computer programmer who declined to give her last name, told the blog Foreign Policy, “Today we really feel that the whole world is with us.”
SKALE is the story of one company, and also a tale of two cities. On Zoom calls, its team discusses evacuations from a war zone, and how to build the next internet. The company is at a crossroads of great instability and great potential, of a war zone and a booming industry.
SKALE’s position as a company with a foot in two worlds is important. When Ukraine’s president wanted to discuss the nation officially adopting cryptocurrency, he came to San Francisco. Now cryptocurrency’s role is being tested in the first war of web 3.0, as other cryptocurrency companies and NFT artists also connect The City to Ukraine.
That’s not always an easy role to play. Konstantin Kladko, one of the co-founders and SKALE’s chief technical officer, moved back to Ukraine several years ago after studying at Stanford University and working in Silicon Valley. Now he is in Turkey having left his home in advance of the Russian invasion. Separated from both his company’s headquarters, he clearly has affection for both.
“In many ways Kharkiv is a sister city to San Francisco,” Kladko said. “There is a deep connection between Kharkiv and San Francisco.”
Oracle, Amazon, Samsung, GitLab and many other tech companies have employees in Kharkiv, which Kladko believes has helped his nation’s economy, overall. “The country has been thriving thanks to the growing tech field and close relationship to Silicon Valley,” he says.
That has also built relationships between people. “In this age of remote working, tech teams form close bonds despite distance and time zone changes. Many San Francisco citizens have close friends that are impacted by the war.”
One of those San Franciscans worriedly watching from afar is Jack O’Holleran, the CEO and the other co-founder of SKALE. Over the past three years, he has traveled to Ukraine some 20 times, but now he must follow the war from the company’s offices in the Ferry Building. The comfortable offices don’t do much to reassure a chief executive with employees and friends in harm’s way.
“Our people have friends and family in the impact zone. It’s a scary thing,” O’Holleran said in an email. “The employees and the team made the decision that it was safer to get them abroad over the last two weeks.”
SKALE has paid to relocate its Ukrainian employees and their families to Turkey, where Kladko is, and Portugal. “Everyone was bracing for impact,” O’Holleran said. But escape from the danger has not been easy. “A few have elderly relatives, and have had to go back” to check on them.
The SKALE employees’ struggles have played out as cryptocurrency has navigated a difficult global role — with a path through San Francisco. Other companies and artists in the crypto world have connected Silicon Valley and Ukraine in important ways at a difficult time.
Today we welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Silicon Valley and discussed SDF's ongoing support for Ukraine's digital economy. We commend Ukraine's forward-looking leadership and commitment to delivering digital transformation by leveraging blockchain. Onward! pic.twitter.com/cXSEInbUxP
— Stellar (@StellarOrg) September 2, 2021
In September, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to Silicon Valley and met with San Francisco’s Stellar Development Foundation, a nonprofit that supports open-source cryptocurrency developers and projects. That junket was part of a major push by the country. In November, The New York Times declared in a headline that “Ukraine Wants to Be the Crypto Capital of the World,” citing Zelenskyy’s trip to Silicon Valley.
The war has made that push for crypto leadership much harder for Ukraine. In the past week, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused cryptocurrency coin prices, including SKALE’s, to see-saw mightily. Prices initially plunged, but have battled back.
O’Holleran says that turbulence is understandable. “Right now there’s a lot of fear, anxiety, and doubt. Yet it’s important to remember that one of the most powerful things about cryptocurrency is that it belongs to no country.”
Crypto is also being used to support Ukraine. Some artists, like the protest band Pussy Riot, are raising money for Ukraine via cryptocurrency. Kyiv artist Sasha Grebenyuk, who goes by the artist name graph0man, is selling nonfungible tokens of his artwork to benefit Ukraine.
But not all NFT artists can pursue their art now, including one with Bay Area ties. An NFT of artwork by Ukraine artist Roman Chizz was part of a first-of-its-kind real estate sale in May of a Kyiv apartment by Palo Alto real estate tech company Propy.
Today, Chizz, whose artwork previously was commissioned by Pepsi and Lays, is living with his girlfriend in a Kyiv subway station, sleeping on the concrete platform. “I can’t do art here,” Chizz told The Examiner on Instagram. “I don’t know what happens tomorrow.”
No one knows what will happen tomorrow in Ukraine. But Kladko, the SKALE co-founder who calls both Kharkiv and San Francisco home, is optimistic.
“We are hopeful and have confidence it will come to a positive end, and that we can return to our homes.”
The artist Roman Chizz found great success in the NFT world in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Today he is sleeping in a Kyiv subway station, and unable to pursue his art. (Roman Chizz photo) | 2022-02-26T02:52:49Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Coping in a war zone: S.F. crypto startup navigates its close ties to Ukraine - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/coping-in-a-war-zone-s-f-crypto-startup-navigates-its-close-ties-to-ukraine/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/coping-in-a-war-zone-s-f-crypto-startup-navigates-its-close-ties-to-ukraine/ |
Two church members have sued San Francisco seeking exemption from a permit
Members of the Christ’s Forgiveness Ministries filed suit against San Francisco asserting their right to worship in The City’s public parks, like the Palace of Fine Arts (seen above), without securing a permit. (Shutterstock)
Two members of a Christian evangelical church known as Christ’s Forgiveness Ministries have filed a federal civil rights action against the city and county of San Francisco asserting a right to worship in the city’s public parks without securing a permit.
The controversy began on Jan. 24, 2021, when members of the church attempted to hold a Sunday service in the city park outside of the Palace of Fine Arts in the city’s Marina District.
The complaint alleges that in the middle of the outdoor service, a city park ranger approached the group and said they needed a permit because they were using sound amplification equipment. The ranger issued a citation that bore a $192 fine.
Church leaders did not agree they needed a permit, but they decided to pay the fine and find another park that wasn’t as “iconic and touristy” the Palace of Fine Arts.
According to its website, CFM is a “non-denominational Christian Ministry founded by David Lynn who is a planting, pastoral and evangelistic figure within Toronto, Canada.”
CFM’s stated mission is to “impact the world through radical evangelism, church planting, and discipleship.”
“Church planting” is the practice of starting up a church in a new location.
CFM has churches in more than a dozen cities in the U.S., including San Francisco.
According to the complaint, the CFM San Francisco church does not own property and holds its services outdoors where worshippers may “display the love and transformative power of Jesus Christ to non-Christians.”
CFM wants to have regular Sunday services in San Francisco parks “which are freely accessible and well-suited for worship activities.”
CFM’s outdoor services typically last more than two hours and include musical instruments, singing, testimonies, communion and a sermon. The number of worshippers varies between 40 and 70.
The plaintiffs say that they need to use amplification equipment so attendees can hear and understand. They also use a folding table in the communion ceremony.
On Feb. 7, 2021, the group assembled for worship at Potrero del Sol Park near the labyrinth and stage area. They chose the location because the park is “remote” but still a good venue for worship.
Half an hour into the service, another city park ranger arrived and allegedly said they could not use amplification and he gave them another citation, this one for $384. The park ranger was joined by two San Francisco Police Department members and they required the worshippers to end the service.
Two weeks later, the group met again for worship, this time near the basketball courts at McLaren Park, and without amplification. They selected the spot because it had good acoustics.
An hour into the service, a city park ranger approached and allegedly informed them that they needed a permit in order to worship in the park. When they protested that they were not using amplification, the ranger said the issue was the number of people attending, though he did not know what the maximum allowable number would be. He wrote another citation for $384, this one for using the folding table.
On March 21, 2021, the group tried to worship at United Nations Plaza, but were cited again.
Thereafter, plaintiffs inquired about getting a permit. Section 7.03 of the San Francisco Park Code lists 20 park activities that require permits, including weddings, exhibitions, parades, and selling printed material. Subsection (h) requires a permit for conducting or sponsoring “a religious event involving 50 or more persons.”
Other subsections require a permit for any event which “utilizes sound amplification equipment,” or involves erecting any “table, scaffold, stage, platform, rostrum, tower, stand, bandstand, building, fence, wall, monument, dome or other structure.”
When they applied, they were advised that in order to get a permit they would need “a health and safety plan, a certificate of insurance for coverage of two million dollars, payment of a permit fee, and a bond.”
They thought the requirements were burdensome and proposed a workaround by capping attendance at 49, but allegedly they were advised that the amplification and their folding table also triggered the permit requirement.
Concluding that they could not meet the requirements, and believing they were chilled and deterred from engaging in worship and religious speech in San Francisco parks for fear of criminal sanction,” they filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of San Francisco.
One of their lawyers is associated with the Center for Religious Expression, a Tennessee organization that provides lawyers to “Christians seeking relief on their behalf.”
CRE’s website says that it has experienced litigators and when it pursues litigation, “we do it to win.” The organization claims to have won 97 percent of cases filed.
The suit comes at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court has considered a number of cases involving claims by churches and religious groups that their freedom to worship has been infringed by COVID-19 regulation.
In a 5-4 decision in April 2021, the high court enjoined a California directive that prohibited indoor home prayer meetings where more than three households gathered, though indoor visitors to retail stores, restaurants and movie theaters were not so limited.
The majority opinion said that state regulation of religious activity is subject to “strict scrutiny” if it treats “any comparable secular activity more favorably than religious exercise.” When strict scrutiny applies, the state has to show the law is “narrowly tailored” so there are no less restrictive ways to achieve the government’s goal.
The complaint alleges that at one point, the church members asked one of the park rangers if they would need to obtain a permit if the event was a protest rather than a gathering for worship. The ranger allegedly said, “no permit is required for a protest as long as the event is unplanned.”
San Francisco’s Recreation and Park Department currently manages more than 200 city parks, playgrounds and open spaces within the city. The department’s website says that “In 2017, San Francisco became the first city in the nation where all residents have access to a park within a 10-minute walk.”
Email and phone requests for comment by the San Francisco city attorney were not returned immediately. | 2022-02-26T02:52:55Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Evangelical Christian group fights for the right to worship in public parks - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/evangelical-christian-group-fights-for-the-right-to-worship-in-public-parks/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/evangelical-christian-group-fights-for-the-right-to-worship-in-public-parks/ |
Opinion: Why we must protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
A San Franciscan reflects on the crushing of the 1968 Prague Spring
By Lutzka Zivny Special to The Examiner • February 27, 2022 9:30 am - Updated February 27, 2022 10:31 am
During the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, a Czech man carries the national flag past a burning tank in Prague. (Courtesy CIA Historical Collections)
By Lutzka Zivny
I don’t remember the tanks rolling into Prague, my home city, in 1968. The Russian invasion was a quick affair, but the following occupation was not.
It took my family years to decide to leave the country, and a few more to manage to get out. I arrived in this country, at San Francisco International Airport, in 1985 as a political refugee, gliding in on Reagan’s generous immigration policy open to anyone fleeing communism.
I was amazed to hear from a number of Americans what a big impact the Prague Spring and the Russian invasion had made on them. I had no idea anyone paid attention to our small country. Yet many Americans wanted to talk about it, even though it happened almost 20 years prior.
“We were all thinking of you,” they tended to say. “The footage from Prague with Russian tanks on Wenceslas Square was all over the news.”
This was surprising information to a teenager who grew up behind the Iron Curtain. I had never seen any photos from 1968. There was no mention at school of the Prague Spring, the eight-month period of democratic liberalization and mass protests that ended on August 20-21 when 200,000 Russian troops and 2,000 tanks entered the country. And while Czechs and Slovaks did talk about the invasion, they were generally pretty careful.
The first time I saw the photos was right before we left the country and in secrecy. My parents had some newspapers from the invasion hidden away under the floorboards, and I was shocked when I saw them. Russian tanks in the vicinity of my high school seemed unimaginable. There were some Russian soldiers around when I was growing up, but never did I see a real show of military power in downtown Prague. The tanks and troops were kept at the bases outside the capital and in the smaller cities.
Why didn’t my parents show me the photos in the newspapers earlier? After their Eastern European century of war and economic mayhem, they were not keen to prompt their kids to get involved in any kind of activism. Doing so would be incredibly dangerous.
Of course I knew about the invasion from my parent’s stories, but they skipped plenty of details. Nothing brought it home like the photos. As Marc Riboud wrote about his 1967 image of an American teenager standing nose-to-nose with armed soldiers in protest of the Vietnam War, “Photography cannot change the world, but it can show the world, especially when it changes.”
On Thursday and Saturday, I attended the protests in front of San Francisco City Hall and Justin Herman Plaza. It was to a large extent a Ukrainian crowd, and it was clear to me when I arrived that it was a good thing to show up and support my neighbors, many of whom were in a desperate state of worry about relatives and friends at home.
While I know that showing up for marches is a small thing, I also know that it does matter to be remembered and thought of. I hope Ukrainians know there are protests like this all over the United States and the world, everywhere the Ukrainian diaspora has gone.
I’ve been watching Czech news coverage during these days of invasion. CNN reports 80,000 people protested on Sunday in Prague’s Wenceslas Square, the same square where Russian tanks stood in August 1968, a scene captured in the photos that the world saw and that my parents showed me before emigrating.
Many ask: Do protests work? Yes, but not in an immediately obvious way. Protests show support to people who are directly affected. And imagine how history would judge us if an invasion of another country took place and no one showed up in the streets. I also must admit, I go because it makes me feel better. Doing something small feels better than doing nothing at all. So do whatever small thing works for you: protest, donate, speak out.
Lutzka Zivny is a longtime San Francisco resident who works as a graphic artist at the Exploratorium. You can follow her on Twitter @lutzkalutzka | 2022-02-28T01:03:06Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Opinion: Why we must protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/why-we-must-protest-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/why-we-must-protest-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/ |
By James Ambroff-Tahan • February 28, 2022 1:30 pm - Updated February 28, 2022 4:13 pm
Tenor Pene Pati will be among the performing arts star singing at the Community Music Center’s Centennial Gala on March 2. (Photo by Mark Leedom)
For 100 years now, San Francisco’s Community Music Center has stood out for its mission of making music accessible for all people, regardless of financial means. It has offered classes tuition-free or on a sliding scale taught by local talents in Latin, jazz, blues, Middle Eastern and string orchestra, serving 3,000 student annually.
On Wednesday evening, CMC will celebrate its centennial with a benefit gala and concert of star performing artists at the Julia Morgan Ballroom. Performers include mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, tenor Pene Pati, soprano Amina Edris, contralto Paula West, pianist Jake Heggie, guitarist Jason Vieaux, trumpeter Sean Jones, the Marcus Shelby Trio, the Alexander String Quartet and percussionist John Santos.
“Everybody who is performing has been a part of our mission, whether they have worked with our students, done concerts here for free or done master classes,” said CMC Executive Director Julie Rulyak Steinberg of the gala. “We thought, ‘What if we had a CMC recital on steroids?’”
CMC is growing in physical size and number of students served. In February, the nonprofit broke ground on an expansion of its main Mission District Branch at 552 Capp St. — there’s also a campus in the Richmond District at 741 30th Ave. — which will allow CMC to teach music to 1,000 more students.
“There is a struggle between wanting to grow profitably and reaching more folks,” Steinberg said. “We are lucky to have a huge resource of really talented teachers and people working with us; but for us, it’s about capacity and space. CMC has been so constrained by how much space and financial resources we have available.”
Making music education available to marginalized and underserved communities has been a longtime objective.
“We have developed a transgender choir for transgender, intersex and queer people called New Voices Bay Area,” Steinberg said. “It’s really difficult for folks who identify as trans to find a safe space to sing, and to explore their voice, so we wanted to meet that need. Similarly, we realize there is a huge need to educate and inspire folks to learn more about Black music, from its diasporic origins all the way through modern music, rock and roll, modern American music, rap and hip-hop, so we created a tuition-free program to meet that need.”
Jones, who was a member of SFJAZZ Collective, a visiting artist with San Francisco Performances and a visiting teacher at CMC, said he is impressed by CMC’s focus on American music.
“It’s time for the juilliards, peabodys, curtises and S.F. conservatories of the world to pivot and say, ‘This is our American culture through sound and we will conserve its past,’” said Jones. “And this beautiful organization is doing that with young people — they’re playing jazz music and they are teaching various types of theory through the American lens.”
Heggie, who is the composer of operas that include “Dead Man Walking,” as well as hundreds of songs and chamber, choral and orchestral works, has done concerts at CMC and for its students as far back as the mid-1990s.
“I’ve been a longtime champion of what CMC offers and the variety of classes that are available for people who can’t afford things and spaces to rehearse,” Heggie said. “It’s exactly what a community center is supposed to be. I’ve told other performers that the Opera House or Symphony Hall or recital halls — they are all community centers. The community needs to be welcome; that CMC has done this for a 100 years is remarkable.”
CMC’s gala fundraisers, which include a benefit auction, have played a major role in defraying the costs of the institution’s programming and expansion. With CMC’s Centennial Gala, the institution is banking on continued community support to make its mission possible over the next 100 years.
“The arts are not a nice thing to have — they are essential, they are the fabric of being human,” said Steinberg.
Livestream ticket availability and auction registration for the 6 p.m. Wednesday Centennial Gala can be accessed at sfcmc.org | 2022-03-01T11:12:45Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Community Music Center celebrates 100 years with a concert on steroids - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/community-music-center-celebrates-100-years-with-a-concert-on-steriods/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/community-music-center-celebrates-100-years-with-a-concert-on-steriods/ |
By Bay City News • February 28, 2022 1:30 am - Updated February 28, 2022 10:00 am
Richard Blum speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Blum Center of Developing Economies at UC Berkeley in 2009. Blum, a UC Regent and the husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, died Sunday at 86. (WikiCommons)
For decades, he focused much of his time on the people of the Himalayas, and founded the American Himalayan Foundation. His work centered on ending human trafficking, improving health care, providing elder and child care and promoting the region’s vibrant culture, according to a release from Feinstein.
He also founded the Blum Center for Developing Economies at the University of California, Berkeley, that supports students in learning how to combat global poverty. That center was a model for Blum Centers at other UC campuses.
Blum served for nearly two decades on the University of California Board of Regents and was chairman emeritus of the board.
He also served as co-chairman of the World Conference on Religion and Peace; was a founding member of National Geographic’s International Council of Advisors; was a trustee of the executive committee of The Carter Center; and sat on several boards including the World Wildlife Fund, the Wilderness Society, the Brookings Institution, the California Academy of Sciences and the Glide Foundation.
Blum was “incredibly devoted” to his family, Feinstein said.
“He was the type of man who really replaced his divot in life, who left things better than he found them. His enormous generosity is an inspiration for so many of us.”
In addition to Feinstein, Richard Blum is survived by his brother Robert; daughters Annette, Heidi and Eileen; stepdaughter Katherine and her husband Rick Mariano; and grandchildren Mitchell and Spencer Riley, Lea, Tristan, Julien and Benjamin Bourgade, and Eileen Mariano.
Biden administration taps S.F. transit leader to help improve access for disabled people
‘I realized that transportation was at the nexus of so many things that I cared about’ | 2022-03-01T11:12:52Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Richard Blum, U.C. Regent and husband of Dianne Feinstein, dies at 86 - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/richard-blum-u-c-regent-and-husband-of-dianne-feinstein-dies-at-86/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/richard-blum-u-c-regent-and-husband-of-dianne-feinstein-dies-at-86/ |
By Benjamin Schneider • February 28, 2022 8:30 am - Updated February 28, 2022 9:22 am
Residential high-rises along Folsom Street in the South of Market area. In order to prevent thousands of luxury condos and other potential homes from sitting empty, Supervisor Dean Preston has proposed an “empty homes tax” for the November ballot that would charge property owners who leave their units vacant for more than six months. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner)
There’s no more vivid image of San Francisco’s inequality: thousands sleep on the streets each night, while thousands of luxury condos sit empty above them.
Now, this progressive rallying cry has led to a concrete policy proposal, as a signature-gathering effort gets underway to put an “empty homes tax” on the November ballot. The measure, put forward by Supervisor Dean Preston, would tax property owners who leave their units vacant for more than six months. At a time when housing is in short supply, the levy would generate tens of millions annually for affordable housing and encourage some owners to rent out their empty units.
“The idea of an empty homes tax is to provide a disincentive for investors holding property vacant for prolonged periods of time,” Preston said. “This is a problem that’s been growing.”
San Francisco had over 40,000 vacant homes in 2019, representing about 10% of the housing stock, according to a Budget and Legislative Analyst (BLA) report that formed the basis of Preston’s ballot measure.
But since it was announced earlier this month, the proposed tax has garnered criticism for excluding single family homes and duplexes, and sparked a broader conversation about the meaning of San Francisco’s vacant home data.
The top-line 40,000-home figure belies a more complex picture. Some empty homes serve as investment properties and pieds à terre, others are currently on the market for sale, while many await renovation or are vacant for other reasons. Some homes that were vacant in 2019, when the BLA data was taken, are likely occupied now, while other units have since become vacant.
The ballot measure is inspired by existing vacancy taxes in Vancouver and Oakland, Preston said, as well as The City’s commercial storefront vacancy tax, which voters passed in 2020. Supporters will have until July 11 to gather nearly 9,000 valid voter signatures.
Preston and co-sponsors Democratic Socialists of America San Francisco and Faith in Action Bay Area opted for an excise tax based on unit size and the duration of vacancy. The smallest units would see a $2,500 bill for the first year of vacancy, while the largest units would see a $5,000 bill. Those figures would rise to $10,000 and $20,000, respectively, by the third year of a unit being vacant.
As for enforcement, each year, subject property owners would have to send a declaration to the Assessor Recorder demonstrating that their unit is not vacant.
The tax is expected to generate approximately $38 million per year for affordable housing, and bring about 4,500 units, or 12 percent of vacant units, back on to the market.
Housing policy experts typically support vacancy taxes as a way to increase housing supply and reduce prices overall.
“A good vacancy tax can help move some units onto the market that might not otherwise have been, or at least generate funding for affordable housing,” said Sarah Karlinsky, a housing policy analyst for SPUR who wrote a 2014 report on residential vacancy in San Francisco. While SPUR has not yet taken a position on the ballot measure, the urban planning think tank has supported similar policies in the past.
Andy Yan, a professor of urban studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, also supports the concept.
“It has been a net good for the city,” he says of Vancouver’s vacancy tax, adding that the policy has resulted in approximately 2,500 fewer vacant homes, representing a 10% decline since 2016.
However, Yan cautions, “This type of vacant homes tax by itself will not solve the issue of affordable housing in San Francisco, just as much as it didn’t solve the problem of affordable housing in Vancouver. But it is part of that toolkit.”
Unlike the vacancy taxes in Vancouver and Oakland, San Francisco’s proposal would exempt single family homes and duplexes — a provision that caught some observers by surprise.
“I don’t really understand that from a policy perspective,” Karlinksy said. While there are higher concentrations of vacant units in and around downtown, Karlinsky added, vacant homes are spread “throughout the city, and also in places that are characterized by single family homes. Why would you exempt Pacific Heights from a vacancy tax?”
“It goes into principles of fairness,” Yan said. “I guess it’s probably adaptive to what the local political conditions are.”
Preston said that the tax is targeted at the housing types where vacancy is highest. “We look at the problem and see it overwhelmingly in larger condo buildings and smaller apartment buildings,” Preston said. “One only needs to walk around some of the new construction South of Market and downtown and you just see so many vacant units.”
Commentators like California YIMBY policy analyst Darrell Owens have speculated that the tax omits single family homes in order to improve the odds of the ballot measure’s passage. When asked about this, Preston replied, “It’s certainly no secret that the real estate industry will use single family homeowners… to try to beat back taxes they oppose.”
Single family homes and duplexes are less likely to be vacant than multifamily condo buildings, accounting for nearly a quarter of all vacant homes in The City, according to the latest census data. However, there are indications that single family homes could be driving growth in residential vacancy, which increased by 20% between 2015 and 2019, according to the BLA report.
The report found that nearly all of the growth in vacant homes in recent years came in the “sold but not occupied” category, and that these units were themselves concentrated in neighborhoods with large numbers of single family homes and duplexes.
“The most common neighborhoods with vacant units sold but not yet occupied included the Mission (621 units), Sunset/Parkside (565 units), Noe Valley (434 units), Castro/Upper Market (348 units), West of Twin Peaks (307 units), and Inner Sunset (294 units) neighborhoods,” the report reads.
Preston said that these neighborhoods — which are are a mix of multi-family and single family homes — are among the places where his office is “hearing reports of speculators holding multi-unit buildings off the market.” While granular geographic data is not available, 2019 Census data shows that of the sold but not occupied homes, 45% of are single family houses or duplexes.
Karlinsky called the sold but not occupied category the “weirdest” part of the BLA report, noting that vacancies in that category grew ten-fold between 2012 and 2019. “You would think a foreign princess is just buying them and storing her international capital there, but then you look at where they are… If there are hundreds of units that are in those neighborhoods that are used as investment properties, it just doesn’t seem right to me.”
One possible explanation for this geography is that people are buying homes and leaving them empty while they wait for a contractor to be available for a renovation — yet another symptom of the construction labor shortage.
When it comes to vacancy, Yan said, “We may know the what, but we may not know the why.”
A sales banner hangs from one of the buildings in the Mira SF condo complex at Folsom and Spear streets in the South of Market area. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner) | 2022-03-01T11:13:04Z | www.sfexaminer.com | S.F.’s plan to tax 40,000 empty homes under scrutiny - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/critics-question-s-f-plan-to-tax-s-f-s-40000-empty-homes/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/critics-question-s-f-plan-to-tax-s-f-s-40000-empty-homes/ |
By Jessica Wolfrom • February 28, 2022 8:30 am - Updated February 28, 2022 9:42 am
Cole Burchiel flies his drone at Point Molate Beach in Richmond, Calif. Burchiel, a field investigator at Baykeeper, uses the drone as part of efforts at the environmental non-profit organization to monitor the growing number of potential threats from heavy industry along the shoreline of the Bay. (Photo by Robb Most)
On a brisk February morning, Cole Burchiel hopped onto a small boat near Oracle Park and greeted skipper Tracy Rogers as the sun burned off the morning cloud cover.
As the vessel pulled away from the harbor and chugged eastward down the shoreline, Burchiel pointed at the mammoth cargo ships docked in Anchorage Nine, a stretch of water off Hunters Point where ocean freighters wait to unload at the Port of Oakland.
“This is a big parking lot,” said Burchiel. “We’ve got full cargo ships out here. We’ve got two oil tankers right there that are sitting low in the water.” It’s a fact, he said, “that’s a little anxiety-provoking” because it means these idling ships are full of oil and pose a risk of leaking into the Bay.
This morning’s boat ride is part of a routine patrol that Burchiel, a field Investigator at the environmental non-profit Baykeeper conducts to track pollution violations around the Bay – everything from industrial activity in Bayview Hunters Point to chemical spills seeping from Richmond refineries.
But as climate change continues to warm the planet, causing sea levels to rise and more extreme storms to flush trash and pollutants into the Bay, it’s forced Baykeeper to find new ways to monitor the growing number of potential threats along the shoreline where much of the Bay Area’s heavy industry is located.
“Frankly, Baykeeper is being challenged to pivot to meet this moment,” said executive director Sejal Choksi-Chugh. “What we’re seeing now are these climate threats to the Bay. They’re a lot bigger than just a single polluter, and they’re a lot bigger than just a single agency action.”
One way Baykeeper is responding to this changing reality is through the use of drones. Burchiel has recently taken his patrols skyward with a drone named Osprey to survey hard-to-reach inlets or peer over visual barriers that companies build along the shoreline to conceal their activity from the water.
“Pretty much every time I put the drone into the air, it has a quantifiable impact on our ability to do our job,” said Burchiel. “It’s dramatically changed the way that we do our work.”
The foremost example is Baykeeper’s ongoing legal action against the fuel and petrochemical manufacturer, Valero, and a warehousing company named Amports at the Port of Benicia. The lawsuit alleges that the companies have been allowing petroleum pollutants to drain into the Carquinez Strait in violation of federal and state environmental laws.
A whistleblower first alerted Baykeeper of frequent discharges and large aerial plumes spewing from the boats during loading in 2016. But when Burchiel patrolled the area by boat, he was unable to detect any plumes or signs of violation. Then, he launched a drone.
“The majority of the plumes, at least the ones that were visible, were coming out of the far side of the boat that was facing away from land,” said Burchiel. “Once we were over the boat with our drone, we saw the scope of the problem. Without that perspective, we would have had no idea and would continue speculating, guessing, and coming up empty-handed.”
The Valero case is just one of many legal actions Baykeeper, which bills itself as a watchdog on the water, has taken in its 30-year history. To date, the organization has won over 300 lawsuits against polluters and has helped stop sewage spills by seventy-five percent in a dozen cities across the region.
While Choksi-Chugh knows that lawsuits and drone patrols alone will not solve the climate crisis, she has seen the impact Baykeeper can have during her twenty-year tenure. “We can see change happening,” she said. “The bay is vastly improved.”
But those improvements could be undone with the threat of rising sea levels.
The whirr of the boat engine slows to a low hum as the boat idles in front of a defunct pier near Bayview Hunters Point. There are stately brick buildings here, interspersed with derelict warehouses – forgotten remnants of this area’s industrial past. Burchiel points out the old shipyard, former home to a Navy repair facility, and the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory which conducted research on radiological decontamination and the effect of radiation on living organisms.
“Most of this area is covered in a temporary concrete cap to decrease the permeability and decrease contamination of the soil and groundwater,” said Burchiel of the radioactive and toxic chemicals in the soil. “The concern is obviously with sea-level rise, the cap doesn’t work from the bottom.”
A recent report found that seas will be 10 to 12 inches higher across U.S. coastlines in the coming decades and will create a profound shift in coastal flooding over the next 30 years.
In the Bay Area, that means that the industries along the Bay shoreline, could be inundated by rising waters in the very near future, and the buried pollutants and materials will threaten groundwater and expose nearby residents to dangerous chemicals and polluted water.
“Make no mistake: Sea level rise is upon us,” Nicole LeBoeuf, director of NOAA’s National Ocean Service told the Associated Press.
In a partnership with Google Maps, Baykeeper has also deployed Artificial Intelligence to trace nearly 300 miles of coastline, documenting 1100 industrial sites that are contaminating the Bay area or are in the ‘flood zone’ for rising seas, which means they pose risks of leaking pollutants into the Bay.
“The Bay stands to be a really potent metaphor or even a case study for how the rest of the world is going to deal with sea-level rise,” said Burchiel. “Whether you’re in Stockton or San Jose, we are in a connected water body in a really, really intimate way. So the impacts to one side of the bay have dramatic impacts to another.”
As Burchiel motioned to the skipper to turn the boat towards the Port of Oakland, a seal perked its head up from the surf and bobbed in the morning sun.
“Regardless of whether or not we’re cleaning the Bay up for human health standards, the environment is going to be used however it pleases,” said Burchiel. “It’s a really thriving ecosystem that is pretty fragile considering all the industrial activity – you really don’t have anything like the San Francisco Bay anywhere else on Earth.”
Tags: Bay Area News, climate change, Ecojustice legal challenge, Pollution and Air Quality | 2022-03-01T11:13:10Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Watchdog on the water: Group uses drones to monitor the ‘fragile ecosystem’ of the Bay - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/watchdog-on-the-water-group-uses-drones-to-monitor-the-fragile-ecosystem-of-the-bay/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/watchdog-on-the-water-group-uses-drones-to-monitor-the-fragile-ecosystem-of-the-bay/ |
This month justifies the Bay Area’s reputation for showcasing the previously unseen
By Jean Schiffman • March 1, 2022 8:30 am - Updated March 1, 2022 4:40 pm
Sharon Rietkerk and Antoinette Comer star as sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood in the regional premiere musical “Sense and Sensibility,” performing March 9-April 3, 2022 at the Lucie Stern Theatre. (Photo by Kevin Berne)
This month — which, hooray, packs in more openings than we’ve seen for a while — justifies our reputation for showcasing the previously unseen. Here are a few of them, plus others.
Red Winged Blackbird
March 4 brings a new play, independently produced by a first-time playwright, Alyosha Zim. A Berkeley psychiatrist, Zim based “Red Winged Blackbird” on personal experience. It follows the fraught journey of a Jewish family during the 1960s and 1980s, dealing with an incurable hereditary illness, Huntington’s disease. Zim’s family story centers on two brothers as each faces the possibility of future illness — one moves from Westchester County, NY, to Boulder, Colo., to follow Buddhist guru Rinpoche.
Acclaimed local actor/director Nancy Carlin was drawn to the play when she attended several readings. Early on, she imagined specific actors in the roles, including Danielle Levin as the mother, Julian López-Morillas as the immigrant father, Adam Magill as the brother on a spiritual quest. “For me, the project grew from the actors,” she says.
Carlin notes that as serious as the topic is, there’s plenty of humor in the 95-minute drama: “There’s playful banter, it doesn’t take itself too seriously.” It’s about, she says, “Surviving, survivors, transcendence.”
Sparkle Plenty Productions, Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. March 4-20. Tickets: $20. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/red-winged-blackbird-tickets-243788496957
Later in the month, another world premiere opens at Central Works, which is dedicated entirely to new work. In fact, “Escape from the Asylum,” by resident playwright Patricia Milton, is the company’s 67th world premiere. It’s a follow up to Milton’s 2019 “The Victorian Ladies Detective Collective” and features the same intrepid female sleuths, played by several of the same actors. This time around, the trio attempts to rescue a famous woman explorer who’s been committed to an asylum by her dastardly husband. She’s entirely compos mentis, of course.
Such things happened quite a bit back then, says Milton, who researched the topic for her first “Victorian Ladies” mystery, in which a husband tried to have his sane wife locked up. If you had hysteria, which could manifest as anything, such as being disobedient, explains Milton, your husband could convince a doctor to certify you as barking mad.
“I wanted to write a comedy even though it is a fairly serious subject,” adds Milton. “The way [the detectives] go about doing everything is theatrical and comedic. … The comedy comes from their flaws, the choices they make as they go about doing their business.”
Company co-director Gary Graves directs; the cast includes Central Works’ co-director/founder Jan Zvaifler.
Central Works, Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berkeley. March 19-April 17. Tickets: $22-$40. centralworks.org/boxoffice
Among the premieres is actor/playwright Colman Domingo’s comedy-drama about a matriarch slowly succumbing to Alzheimer’s, and the ways in which her close-knit family struggle to cope. Having lived through my own mother’s 12-year battle with that soul-sucking disease, I know too well of its painfully funny, heart-breaking aspects.
Domingo, a former Bay Area theatre artist, is nationally known, nominated for just about every possible award (he won a Tony for his supporting role in “The Scottsboro Boys” in 2011), and was terrific in the 2020 Netflix adaptation of August Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” A version of “Dot,” called “West Philly, Baby,” is now being adapted for TV.
ShawnJ West directs for New Conservatory one of San Francisco’s two dedicated LGBTQ theaters. New Conservatory Theatre Center, March 4-April 3. Tickets: $25-$65. 25 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. ntcsf.org
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley specializes in new musicals, and this one, based on Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility,” is a regional premiere. It opened in Chicago, where retired TheatreWorks founder/artistic director Robert Kelley saw it. Kelley is a longtime director for musicals by Paul Gordon, who wrote the music, book and lyrics for the musical as well as for “Pride and Prejudice,” which Kelley world-premiered in 2019.
“Sense and Sensibility” focuses on a pair of sisters, the wildly impulsive Marianne and the more sedate Elinor, both searching for love.
“It’s quite an amazing opportunity and a challenge to condense a novel into a couple hours of stage time,” muses Kelley, “and a huge opportunity to explore what the characters are actually thinking, because you can musicalize their process, their emotions.”
He adds: “We see ourselves in these characters even though it was 200 years ago. … And there’s the common ground of romance and love in the novels we’ve brought to life. What do you do with love, how does it work, what are the dangers and also the rewards?”
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Lucie Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefield Rd., Palo Alto. March 9-April 3. Tickets: $30-$100. theatreworks.org
I’ve been waiting forever to see this 1977 award-winning play by the late Cuban-American avant-gardist and quintessential feminist María Irene Fornés, last performed in the Bay Area in 1981 at the fabled Eureka Theatre. Now A.C.T. is producing it, dividing its multi-storied Strand Theatre into rooms that we wander in groups to observe Fefu and her seven guests in her country home in New England, 1935.
In the living room, a shotgun is propped up against a wall. Fornés once said she was inspired to write the play by an old Mexican joke: At a bullfight, one man points out an attractive woman; the other man asks which one he’s talking about; and the first points his gun, shoots and says, “That one.” (In the play, all the men are offstage.) There’s also a bedroom, a kitchen, a study, a garden … So we’ll all have different experiences until we wind up together at play’s end in the living room.
What a terrific choice for the grand re-opening of a flagship theater after its abrupt closing of “Gloria” in March 2020. With artistic director Pam MacKinnon at the helm, and a sublime cast — Catherine Castellanos, Cindy Goldfield, Marga Gomez, Jennifer Ikeda, Leontyne Mbele-Mbong, Sarita Ocón, Lisa Anne Porter and Stacy Ross — this is not to be missed.
American Conservatory Theater, Strand Theater, 1127 Market St., S.F. March 24-May 1. Tickets: $25-$110. act-sf.org/fefu | 2022-03-02T03:52:55Z | www.sfexaminer.com | March theater: world premieres, regional premieres - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/march-theater-world-premieres-regional-premieres-and-new-plays/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/march-theater-world-premieres-regional-premieres-and-new-plays/ |
Patricia Giatis takes part in a tournament at Gino & Carlo in North Beach on Monday. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
I’m standing in the doorway at Gino & Carlo, chatting with Patricia Giatis, the queen of San Francisco’s billiards scene.
A pretty good crowd had gathered for the bar’s annual pool tournament, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The two tables in back will be busy for the next three weeks as the top sticks in town converge on North Beach to crown a champion.
And Giatis is a perennial contender. As we chatted, a fellow player was making his way into the place and said, “So, whose butt did you kick tonight?”
Giatis didn’t miss a beat. “I don’t play until tomorrow.”
So it goes for San Francisco’s 8-ball royalty. Giatis has been playing at Gino & Carlo since she was a teenager, rising to the top ranks of San Francisco’s insular and competitive pool community and even flirting with a pro career for a brief period. But the travel and practice didn’t suit her lifestyle.
Instead, her heart and soul carried her back to The City. Which makes sense. She’s as San Francisco as sourdough.
Giatis grew up in the Western Addition. Her father was a San Francisco cop and her mother was a pastor. When you talk to someone who grew up here in the 1970s, you can see the twinkle in their eyes. It was a time when kids could be kids, riding buses around town and having a blast.
One of her running partners in those days was Marco Rossi, the son of Gino & Carlo co-owner Donato Rossi. (Marco now runs the place, alongside his cousin Frank Rossi Jr. and Ron Minolli, Jr., all of whom are the sons of the former owners.)
“We used to come here when we were 14 and have just a blast of a time, playing pool and having a good time,” said Giatis. “I actually started playing in the pool tournaments at a young age, when I was 16.”
“I had my sister’s ID,” she said with a giggle.
Now, women playing pool at Gino & Carlo back then wasn’t too common. Young black women playing was unheard of.
“I’ve been coming in since turning 14. And they have always protected me,” said Giatis. “If anyone would say anything bad or anything judgmental or anything regarding my race, Frank Sr. would say, ‘You’re out of here.’ Even if they were Italian, they would make sure that I was protected. And I always had this experience in my life. I’m 61 years old. And it’s like, the best thing ever.”
Perhaps that’s what makes San Francisco a great city for shooting pool. For decades, there have been bar and restaurant teams and leagues from different neighborhoods that compete against each other, crossing racial and social lines. The games are usually played on weeknights, when the crowds are thinner and the regulars are still around. El Farolito, in the Mission, had a dominant team in the 1970s and 1980s, Giatis says. Gino & Carlo was no slouch, either. She would know. She’s played on the bar’s “A-team” for years.
When it comes to home turf, the tables are well-kept, with the owners putting down new felt and rails before the tournaments. In the crowded back room of the bar, top players can rent lockers for their pool cues. The winner of the tournament gets free rent for a year.
The field consists of 128 players, and they battle every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night for three weeks until a champion is crowned. If you’re wondering, Hector Ortega is San Francisco’s king. He hasn’t paid rent on his locker for three straight years.
“This is a great place to play, because you have all of the best players in The City,” said Giatis. “When people come to town, the first thing they say is, ‘Where’s the best place to play pool?’ And, of course, I’m gonna say, ‘Gino & Carlo.’ This is the place where you’re going to find the most top-notch pool players.”
And you can’t talk about pool in this town without mentioning Giatis. She’s beat the best San Francisco has to offer, making it to the finals back in 2013, earning her a place on the bar’s vaunted “big board,” where the tournament’s top finishers are lionized.
To watch her play is a study in concentration. She stalks the table with a calculated stare, considering angles, weighing options and moving forward with precision. There’s no chitchat or gamesmanship. Straight business.
Sadly, she won’t make it back up there this year, after suffering a surprising loss to a man she taught to play pool, Mark Rezente.
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “She’s my hero.”
Giatis took it in stride, foiled by a scratch on the 8-ball after the cue skidded a bit on slick, new felt.
“It’s fine,” she said, with her signature smile. “League play starts next week!”
Indeed, there’s more to Giatis than winning and losing. She sees her sport as a calling of sorts. A social lubricant that everyone should enjoy.
“Pool is supposed to be fun for everyone,” she said. “Not for one person. Not for just men, but for women, as well. It’s something that should be shared with everyone. After going through COVID, we’re all trying to get back into the world, trying to have fun and some sense of normality again.”
Standing there in the neon lights of Green Street, it sure felt like the before times. Rack ‘em and crack ‘em, Queen Patricia.
Frank Rossi, Jr., a partner at Gino & Carlo, helps rack balls during the bar’s annual pool tournament. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
Patricia Giatis, right, talks with Mark Rezente after the two faced each other in the annual pool tournament at Gino & Carlo. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
Patricia Giatis joins the names of tournament winners at Gino & Carlo. (Craig Lee/The Examiner) | 2022-03-02T03:53:01Z | www.sfexaminer.com | San Francisco’s first lady of billiards - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/san-franciscos-queen-of-billiards/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/san-franciscos-queen-of-billiards/ |
‘We cannot predict the future of the virus, but we are better prepared for it’
By Bay City News • March 1, 2022 1:30 am - Updated March 1, 2022 12:49 pm
A decline in COVID-19 case rates and hospitalizations led the state to lift indoor mask requirements for unvaccinated people in California starting Tuesday. (Shutterstock)
California lifted its indoor mask requirements Tuesday for unvaccinated people and will do the same on March 12 for schools and child care facilities.
California public health officials made the decision to pull back on masking requirements after the state’s COVID cases, hospitalizations and other metrics fell between 47% and 66% over the last two weeks, state Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said.
Ghaly noted mask requirements could eventually be reinstated if the virus surges again, as the state includes the use of masks in its long-term plan for combating the virus’ worst outcomes.
For the immediate future, however, Ghaly said masking decisions will be left to individual residents. The state will also still encourage local governments to enforce indoor masking as they see fit.
“There’s plenty of individuals who believe that masking is a way to stay safe … and today’s announcement should be one where we are saying loud and clear that those individuals are empowered to continue to make a choice to keep themselves safe, to wear a mask if that’s the right decision for them,” Ghaly said.
“Simply put, while some students are ready to immediately remove their masks, others remain very afraid,” Boyd said. “We urge local school districts to continue to work with educators and families and to act cautiously while prioritizing the safety of students, educators and their families.”
Education officials in the Bay Area also signaled support for lifting the mask requirements in schools, as did officials in San Francisco.
Ghaly said the state did not make its decision in consultation with the state’s teachers unions, focusing its attention on “the data and information.”
“Today is an important day for California, one that is driven by the data and the science … but one that we know will be received with some trepidation,” he said. | 2022-03-02T03:53:25Z | www.sfexaminer.com | State lifts indoor mask requirements for unvaccinated people - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/state-lifts-indoor-mask-requirements-for-unvaccinated-people/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/state-lifts-indoor-mask-requirements-for-unvaccinated-people/ |
By Livia Albeck-Ripka • March 1, 2022 1:30 am - Updated March 1, 2022 12:00 pm
The Caldor Fire burns in the Eldorado National Forest near Pollock Pines, Calif., on Aug. 17, 2021. What does recent weather mean for fire season? The answer is complicated. (Max Whittaker/The New York Times)
NYTimes News Service
When rain pummeled California in October, many breathed a sigh of relief: At least in some parts of the state, the worst of the fire season, experts said, was most likely over.
The following month, however, precipitation was scarce. In December, it rained again, smashing records. Now, some parts of the state have barely seen another drop of water since early January.
“It has been both an unusually dry and an unusually wet winter,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Nature Conservancy.
But what do these ups and downs mean for California’s next fire season? The answer is complicated.
Before October, a vast majority of California was considered to be in “exceptional” or “extreme” drought (the highest rankings, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor). So when meteorological conditions known as “atmospheric rivers” drenched parts of the state in October and December, much of that water was sucked up by the parched landscape.
The hot and windy conditions that followed also led the rain to evaporate quickly, drying out the vegetation that fuels fires. California’s rising snowpack, which provides moisture to the ecosystem as it melts in the spring, has since plummeted.
Historically, California’s fire season lasted a few months during the hottest part of the year. But recently it has become more year-round.
In January, typically one of California’s wettest months, a wildfire swept through Big Sur, a mountainous coastal region south of San Francisco, forcing hundreds of residents to evacuate. The scene was “pretty surreal” given California’s wet October and December, the National Weather Service said on Twitter at the time.
Although the extreme rainfall and dryness might average out to near-normal levels of precipitation, that is no insurance policy against fire, scientists say. As global temperatures warm, even in wet years, hot weather can ultimately dry out vegetation to produce droughtlike conditions.
“We still get dry years and wet years but we don’t really get cold years anymore,” Swain said. He added, “No matter what, everything still dries out.”
For now, the dry spell has a small silver lining.
The lack of rain gives fire authorities more opportunity to conduct prescribed burns that help to reduce the worst impacts of fires during the summer. And fires that ignite spontaneously during these colder months are also likely to be less intense and can help to avert worse fires in hot, dry conditions.
But without rain in the coming days or weeks, the state could begin relapsing further into drought. Last year, historically low rainfall and ongoing drought helped cause a brutal fire season that lasted several months and burned 2.6 million acres.
“I don’t think March is going to somehow bail us out,” Swain said of the likelihood that generous rain in the coming weeks would help stave off intense fires this year. “We’re seeing bad fire years almost every year.” | 2022-03-02T03:53:32Z | www.sfexaminer.com | What winter’s dry spell means for California’s wildfire season - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/what-winters-dry-spell-means-for-californias-wildfire-season/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/what-winters-dry-spell-means-for-californias-wildfire-season/ |
By Al Saracevic • March 1, 2022 11:30 am
Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred in October, 2019. MLB and the Players’ Union have failed to reach an agreement so far and have canceled the first two series of the 2022 season. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. (Ben Solomon/The New York Times)
Congratulations Major League Baseball! You’ve cancelled Opening Day!
It’s quite an accomplishment for a sport that generates billions in profits every year, entertains millions and confounds civilians.
In a quote taken straight from the pages of The Onion, Commissioner Rob Manfred stupefied the nation Tuesday, after marathon talks collapsed between short-sighted owners and hard-headed players. Woody Allen couldn’t write this any better.
“I had hoped against hope I wouldn’t have to have this press conference where I am going to cancel some regular season games,” Manfred said. “We worked hard to avoid an outcome that’s bad for our fans, bad for our players and bad for our clubs. Our failure to reach an agreement was not due to a lack of effort by either party.”
So let me get this straight. Your outcome is bad for every possible constituency involved, but you soldiered on and got that done. He’s right. That must’ve taken an unbelievable effort.
So congratulations once more baseball. Let me borrow a line from the Hollywood classic “Billy Madison”: “At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Where does this leave the rest of us? It’s great news. Here’s why…
…We can finally focus on Cricket. Sticky wickets with less ding-bats.
…Manfred Mann will have more hits than Manny Machado in spring training.
…Two words: Steph Curry.
…No baseball should ease the Sheboygan supply chain crisis.
…Perhaps we can send Manfred over to negotiate with the Russians and clear up this Ukrainian situation.
…Minor Leaguers barely get paid anyway.
…No baseball should ease the Human Growth Hormone supply chain crisis.
…Barry Bonds finally looks like the good guy.
…We won’t miss Buster Posey as much. (Timing is everything, sir. Well played.)
…Gabe Kapler will finally have some free time to work on his physique.
…Two more words: Steph Curry.
…If baseball ever does get its act together, we won’t have anyone to laugh at.
…Clown cars will finally get some respect.
…The Houston Astro’s can’t cheat… as much.
…Bryce Harper will finally have the time to grow a beard.
…You’ll have more time to watch the USFL.
…It’s about time grown-ass millionaires who swing bats at balls for a living finally stood up for themselves.
…It’s about time dumb-ass billionaires take their damn hands out of our pockets.
…You don’t have to see a runner start an inning at second base.
…In a close corollary, baseball owners who were born on third base can’t say they hit a triple.
…Brandon Belt can’t get injured… as much.
…Brandon Crawford can finally find the time to work on his hair.
…The Oakland A’s don’t need a new stadium.
…Bonus points: You don’t have to go to the Oakland Coliseum.
…Boston fans can only sing Sweet Caroline while sadly drinking alone at home … like the rest of us.
…Dodgers fans don’t have to leave early to beat the traffic.
…San Diego fans won’t even notice there’s no baseball.
…Just think of the time you’ll have to gamble on other sports.
…Did I mention Steph Curry?
And if that’s enough to cheer you up, think about how ridiculous and petty these knuckleheads look in comparison to the brave patriots in Ukraine, fighting for their lives while civilians are dying at the hands of the villainous Russians.
While Kyiv burns, Manfred & Co. are fiddling around with competitive-balance tax thresholds, minimum salary and the ever-pressing bonus pool for pre-arbitration players.
Think about how baseball would be the perfect vehicle to reunite American society in a post-pandemic, post-Trump, pre-apocalyptic world.
Thanks for clarifying things for us, Major League Baseball. You didn’t want our money or our hearts. You wanted more money in your vaults.
And congratulations once more. You’ve done the impossible: Making the NFL look good.
Will USF basketball make it to the NCAA tournament?
It’s been a great run on the Hilltop, where the team has returned to top form
Can the Warriors spell defense without Green?
The team doesn’t look like a title contender without him | 2022-03-02T03:53:50Z | www.sfexaminer.com | No baseball? No problem. Here’s why - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/no-baseball-no-problem-heres-why/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/no-baseball-no-problem-heres-why/ |
S.F. can’t prevent climate change. But can we adapt?
Sobering new report details irreversible impacts of global warming
By Jessica Wolfrom • March 2, 2022 1:30 am - Updated March 2, 2022 9:16 am
Smoke from numerous wildfires sits over the East Bay behind a view of Coit Tower from Ina Coolbrith Park in August 2020. A new report released this week by some of the world’s top scientists warned that it is too late to reverse some of the devastating effects of climate change, and that humanity must learn to adapt. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner)
It is already too late to reverse some of the devastating effects of climate change. Instead, humanity must learn to adapt.
A sobering new report released this week by the world’s top climate scientists warned that the window to stave off the most devastating impacts of climate change is rapidly shrinking and that some impacts of global warming have already been baked in.
On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body convened by the UN, offered a grim report that served as a guidebook for how to survive in an increasingly hotter world. It’s a reality that has become all too familiar in the Bay Area as record droughts, scorching wildfires, rising seas and blistering heat waves have become benchmarks of this new normal.
“California and the West are, in many ways, crosshairs of vulnerability to climate change impacts – whether that’s drought or wildfire or coastal erosion or excessive heat,” said Chris Field, Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. “We have seen all of those in recent years, and we’ll continue to.”
The report makes clear that these extreme events are poised to worsen in the coming decades if humans fail to curb greenhouse gas emissions by transitioning energy, transportation and buildings away from fossil fuels.
“We’re really running out of time – we are out of time, basically – and unless we can make super dramatic changes, essentially now, we’re really going to be stuck with totally unacceptable levels of impacts,” said Field, who was a co-chair of a previous IPCC report released in 2014.
The good news is that San Francisco, which has long billed itself as a leader on environmental issues, rolled out a plan late last year to reach net-zero emissions by 2040, a decade ahead of the deadline set by climate scientists.
“San Francisco is admired around the world as an icon of how to be thoughtful with investments,” said Field. But he added if it wants to remain a leader on climate issues, it needs to commit to achieving net-zero “substantially before the rest of the world.”
That said, at the moment, The City’s Climate Action Plan remains merely a plan – and its ability to persuade nearly a million residents to wean off fossil fuels swiftly has yet to be seen. Despite bans on natural gas in new buildings and The City’s investment in programs like CleanPowerSF, many San Franciscans still depend heavily on fossil fuels to power their homes, cars, and offices.
The Examiner also found that the Department of the Environment, which has been tasked with the plan’s implementation, has been historically underfunded. The department recently announced it would be requesting General Fund dollars this year – the first time in nearly two decades.
It also remains unclear how San Franciscans will begin to adapt to the extreme events inflicted by a warming world. There’s still much work to be done around how rising sea levels might displace shoreline communities and the ways in which blistering heatwaves and wildfire smoke will impact human health, Field noted.
But glimmers of hope for adapting to a warming world do exist. The IPCC report stressed the importance of “nature-based solutions,” as a critical component of adaptation. These solutions include wetland restoration, conservation of forests and greening cities – projects, experts say, that have the greatest potential to sustain the quality of life for Bay Area residents and protect the region’s biodiversity.
“Backing nature is the best way to adapt to and to slow climate change while providing jobs and boosting economies,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme. “We need to bring nature into baking hot cities to keep them cool. We need to conserve mangroves, coral reefs, and other nature’s defenses. We need to protect and restore wetlands for nature and incorporate wetlands into our cities.”
San Francisco Crissy Field’s wetland restoration project is one such example. The former military base has been converted back to a tidal marsh modeled off the ancient salt marsh system that flourished for thousands of years before development rerouted watersheds and paved over the natural dunes.
“The National Park Service has actually developed a plan for Crissy Field that incorporates climate change and sea-level rise,” said Patrick Gonzalez, a forest ecologist and climate change scientist at the University of California, Berkeley and an author of the latest IPCC report. In practice, he said, this means “using the natural dunes but also restoring the wetland inland so that it can accept increasing storm surge and absorb the shock.”
But even before this report’s publication, many in the Bay Area’s environmental community had already conceded that people have warmed the planet past the point of no return.
“There’s an important distinction to be made between resilience and resistance,” said Cole Burchiel, a field Investigator at the environmental watchdog Baykeeper. “The dominant philosophy regarding climate change for many years and persists really prevalently today is resist: We’re going to build the seawall. We’re going to put out the fires. We’re going to do all these things. But it’s really hard to engineer away a natural disaster – and when the world becomes one continuous natural disaster, that’s going to become even more difficult.”
Still, that doesn’t mean an inaction is an option either, the report urgently points out. “Humanity has spent centuries treating nature like its worst enemy,” said Andersen. “The truth is that nature can be our savior, but only if we save it first.” | 2022-03-02T17:31:49Z | www.sfexaminer.com | S.F. can’t prevent climate change. But can we adapt? - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/as-the-world-adapts-to-climate-change-s-f-can-serve-as-an-example/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/as-the-world-adapts-to-climate-change-s-f-can-serve-as-an-example/ |
By Sydney Johnson Examiner staff writer • March 1, 2022 2:00 pm
A homeless woman sits outside of her RV on Carroll Avenue during the Point-in-Time Count in the Bayview District on Feb. 23. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
I rode along for the Point-in-Time Count, a biannual survey that provides a snapshot of The City’s homeless population. The results are crucial because, though widely considered an undercount, they directly translate to federal funding for homelessness services.
This year’s Point-in-Time Count is especially important, experts and advocates say, because the number of people experiencing homelessness is believed to have increased during pandemic-related lockdowns, layoffs and illness.
“I want this to be the most accurate count The City has ever done. We want to make it so these people can get help,” said one worker with Urban Alchemy, a nonprofit that contracts with The City on a number of services ranging from overseeing safe sleeping sites for homeless residents to street outreach. Staff from Urban Alchemy, which hires people who have experienced homelessness or incarceration, received a stipend for participating in the extra shift.
In the Urban Alchemy offices, our group was briefed on what to look for and how to record findings in a digital app.
Around 7:45 p.m., recorders took off on foot and by bus and car. With maps and apps in hand, my team piled into a truck and headed to our assigned destination, Bayview-Hunter’s Point.
Brian Van Der Court, who works at Urban Alchemy, was driving while Kevin Lee, an Urban Alchemy director who works at the safe sleeping village at 33 Gough St., oriented the map and recorded our team’s findings in the app.
At 8:03 p.m. we arrived at the edge of our designated zone — one of 160 assigned spaces covering the entire city that nearly 200 individuals would scour over the night, street by street.
The neighborhood we were assigned is vast and the night was particularly chilly in the low 40s. Fortunately, most of our counting took place in the car. Unlike in dense neighborhoods such as the Tenderloin, homelessness is more sprawling and in some ways less visible in The City’s southeast corner.
In the Bayview, we were told to look for signs of life attached to cars, motorhomes or the occasional tent-dwelling tucked between abandoned cars or dimly lit warehouses.
The Point-in-Time Count relies on estimations. It’s an imperfect process that almost certainly overlooks some individuals. We were not going to find people who were sleeping on friends’ couches or other unknown shared spaces to get through the cold snap, for example.
We kept our distance and avoided conversation to respect each person’s privacy as the evening got late. But that also meant our guesses — based on the physical appearances of people, tents or vehicles — were prone to error.
Still, it’s the best estimate anyone has of the scale of the largest issue facing The City.
Necessary numbers
The most recent tally in San Francisco occurred in 2019 when there was a recorded 8,035 people experiencing homelessness — the highest number since 2013. That figure led to $44.5 million in federal funding for San Francisco’s homeless services in 2019, the second-highest allocation in California behind Los Angeles.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development requires cities to count their homeless populations every two years to qualify for federal aid. But this year’s count came a year late. The 2021 count was canceled due to COVID-19, and it was further delayed from its original date in January to Feb. 23 to wait out the surging omicron variant.
In previous years, the Point-in-Time Count relied on up to 600 volunteers from across The City to spend one night canvassing every street in The City and gather information on people who live on the street or in a motor vehicle.
The count includes people living in transitional and temporary housing as well as shelters, such as the emergency cold weather shelter that opened at Gene Friend SoMa Rec Center for a recent cold night. It also aims to take the tally of those taking respite on public transit.
This year, San Francisco took a different approach by working with fewer individual volunteers and relying more on community-based organizations that work with The City, such as Urban Alchemy. Other organizations involved included Downtown Streets Team, Code Tenderloin, SF Homeless Outreach Team, Five Keys, Bay Area Legal Aid and Department of Veterans Affairs.
Part of the idea was to cut down on the number of people involved to be mindful of COVID-19, according to a spokesperson for the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. It also was intended to send groups familiar with local homeless communities into neighborhoods they already know.
How the strategy shift, and a significantly smaller number of volunteers, will impact the count will be hard to tell. Results are slated to be made available this summer after the data are processed and after follow-up interviews take place.
About a month after the single-night count, a survey contractor will do a follow-up assessment asking people who are homeless for more detailed information about their situations.
The 2019 survey found 37% of respondents were chronically homeless, 19% were veterans and 18% were unaccompanied youth. Nearly a third identify as LGBTQ+ and almost half are between ages 41 to 60, signaling an aging homeless population in San Francisco.
According to the 2019 Point-in-Time Count, about 70% of people counted became homeless in San Francisco.
Countless challenges
Back in the Bayview, Lee strategized as we pulled up to India Basin. “We’re going to start with the outskirts,” he said.
Lee knows the area well. He and Van der Court previously worked the overnight shift at a port-o-potty station set up by The City for homeless people in the area.
“Slow down, was that a tent?” our navigator chimed in as we drove down Cargo Way near Islais Creek.
“I think it’s trash,” Van der Court answered. We took a U-turn for a closer look. I rolled down my window and smelled the cement factory that towered above us.
A bike leaning on the tarp structure signaled it could be someone’s home. It was unclear how many people might be inside, and we were told not to disturb anyone living on the street. Lee marked one dwelling in the app.
We kept driving up and down every street, cul-de-sac and backroad lining empty warehouses and new housing developments.
In scanning sidewalks, we looked for signs of habitation such as music playing near tents, power cords or foggy windows on cars. We counted all of the motorhomes, even if we didn’t know who or how many people were inside.
Van der Court, who lives in the Bayview, has seen the area change and conditions ebb and flow.
“I grew up here all my life,” he said. “It’s cleaned up a lot more, but it’s still dangerous out here.”
Lee provided his own expertise.
“I never see anyone who is homeless in this area,” he said as we drove through one of the newest housing developments in the area. He went on to share stories about the graveyard shift at the bathroom station.
“It’s hard out here man. Just to see it every day is hard,” said Lee, who regularly has to de-escalate fights and fits of outrage on the job. “You’re not only a practitioner, you’re a doctor and a therapist.”
Lee still manages to carry hope and patience with him. “If you listen to someone long enough, their anger will go down from a 10, to a 9, 8, 7 and so on,” he said. “They might even thank you later on in the day.”
Near the end of the night, we slowed down as we approached a line of motor homes on Palou Avenue. We counted five RVs, plus a car without plates and with covered windows. As we continued driving, we spotted a dark shrubby area where the road ends.
“Do you think anyone’s back there?” I asked.
Van der Court pointed the car headlights toward the darkness. An old basketball court, an abandoned couch and some trash came into view. But there were no clear signs that anyone was there. The group agreed to keep driving.
Later, we spotted a woman walking alone. She was not wearing shoes and wandering in the street. A ‘yes,’ everyone agreed, and Lee marked a note in the app. She was one of only a few individuals we saw outside and exposed to the frigid temperature that evening.
Around 9:26 p.m., we got to the end of the last street on our map and Lee eventually directed us back to Market Street, where we called it a night.
Mike Anderer, chief system engineer for Urban Alchemy, gives out maps to people before they go out for the Point-in-Time Count. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
Volunteers spot a tent on Carroll Avenue during the Point-in-Time Count in the Bayview District. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
Tags: homelessness, housing, public health | 2022-03-03T04:45:18Z | www.sfexaminer.com | A cold night counting San Francisco’s homeless - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/a-cold-night-counting-san-franciscos-homeless/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/a-cold-night-counting-san-franciscos-homeless/ |
Last year, the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office reached a $100 million settlement with Recology, the company contracted by The City to handle waste collection, over excessive charges to customers. (Shutterstock)
San Francisco voters in June will decide whether to reform the way garbage collection rates are overseen after the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved the ballot measure.
The measure would establish the City Controller as the refuse rate administrator, requiring the official to monitor waste collection expenses, revenues and rates.
The measure would also replace the City Controller with a ratepayer advocate to serve on the Refuse Rate Board in an effort to remove conflict of interests connected to the role as refuse rate administrator, city officials said.
In April, the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office reached a $100 million settlement with Recology, the company contracted by The City to handle waste collection, over excessive charges to customers.
To ensure customers are protected in the future, the Controller’s Office has called for more safeguards and recommended The City re-evaluate its decades-old Refuse Collection and Disposal Initiative Ordinance, drafted in 1932. Changes to the ordinance, however, would require voter approval.
“These reforms are an important step in bringing transparency and accountability to our rate-setting process,” Mayor London Breed said in a statement. “We can’t have a system that is open to abuse that harms our residents and our ratepayers, and I want to thank our controller and Supervisor (Aaron) Peskin for working collaboratively to come up with these reforms. They will strengthen trust in government and create more clarity for everyone involved in this important process.”
“As recent and reoccurring revelations of ratepayer overcharging from the Controller’s Office have reaffirmed, we are long overdue to reform our refuse rate-setting process,” Peskin said. “Our residents and our ratepayers deserve accountable and transparent regulatory processes, particularly if we are still going to keep the existing monopoly for the time being. This has been a long negotiating process, but I’m confident we have secured the best possible outcome for San Franciscans.”
The excessively high waste collection rates were uncovered in 2020 as then-City Attorney Dennis Herrera was investigating public corruption tied to former Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru, who was charged with wire fraud by federal prosecutors earlier that year. Part of Nuru’s responsibilities included making recommendations on waste collection rates and ensuring rates were fair to customers.
Prior to the $100 million settlement reached with Recology over the high rates, Herrera alleged Recology failed to accurately account incoming revenue when it sought to increase rates by more than 14% in 2017, and although Recology disclosed the error in 2018 to the Department of Public Works, no action was taken and Recology continued to charge excessive rates through 2020.
In addition, federal prosecutors have alleged former Recology group government and community relations manager Paul Giusti provided Nuru with bribes totaling over $1 million to influence decisions linked to rate increases, funding and contract approvals. Giusti has since pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to bribe a local official and to commit honest services fraud, while Nuru has since pleaded guilty to wire fraud. | 2022-03-03T04:45:24Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Amidst scandal, measure to reform Recology will appear on the June ballot - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/amidst-scandal-measure-to-reform-recology-will-appear-on-the-june-ballot/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/amidst-scandal-measure-to-reform-recology-will-appear-on-the-june-ballot/ |
By Sydney Johnson • March 2, 2022 1:30 am
Gina Helvie, who has worked in restaurants for nearly 20 years, started a support group for fellow food and hospitality workers who are seeking sobriety. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
Sober living can seem impossible to some professionals in the food and beverage industry, where cultural pressures like the after-shift drink can make efforts to curb drug or alcohol habits feel like it’s at odds with one’s workplace.
But more and more, workers in San Francisco’s gastro scene are saying it doesn’t have to be that way.
“You can drink and be social in your job and actually get better tips or feel like you’re performing at a higher level,” said Gina Helvie, who lives in San Francisco and has worked in restaurants for nearly 20 years. “There is a culture where you can make a mistake and identifiable drug use behavior is overlooked because the industry is so stressful and challenging.”
In February, Helvie along with David James Welch, who also works in San Francisco restaurants, organized the first in-person gathering for San Francisco’s newly formed chapter of Ben’s Friends, a national community of food and hospitality workers who are seeking sobriety. The hope is to provide a network of support while giving individuals hope that they can continue in the line of work that they love.
The group had its first hour-long meeting on Sunday, Feb. 20 with around six attendees, still small in its early days. Waiters, cooks, bar staff, managers and plenty more who are sober or simply want to examine their relationship with substances are all invited to join the weekly meetings, which take place every Sunday at noon on the top floor of Che Fico Alimentari in the NoPa neighborhood, where Helvie works.
Now six years sober and in a job where she’s found support, Helvie wants to break the myth that recovery and hospitality can’t coexist.
“A lot of people suggest the restaurant industry isn’t for people in recovery. I was told I’d need to find a new job,” said Helvie. “Having that specific support has helped. When things got really hard, I had people who understood my business and my life.”
Before moving from Portland to San Francisco in 2021, Helvie dreamed of owning a restaurant after years of working in them. But becoming her own boss became a double-edged sword. There were suddenly little to no consequences for drinking on the job, and her struggle with alcoholism spiraled.
“I had been drinking heavily for many years in the restaurant industry. Once I was my own boss, no one was paying attention,” said Helvie, who has since sold her restaurant in Portland. “I had keys and was the first person there in the morning and no one knew I was drinking as soon as I got there in the morning and no one had the seniority to point out that what I was doing was inappropriate.”
It took several years in that position before drinking seriously impacted her performance and coworkers began to take notice. She tried to get sober but stumbled in a fast-paced, stressful environment where a drink or two after work is common.
“I told my business partner that I needed help and couldn’t stop. I went to a drug and alcohol counselor and he told me I’m an alcoholic,” said Helvie. “I thought he’s crazy. I just need to drink less. And I tried that, and it didn’t work.”
Helvie’s recovery journey has involved joining an alcoholics anonymous group and a 30-day rehabilitation program. But she said having a community of people who understood the work environment she loved and the struggles it came with allowed her to stay sober during the tumultuous pandemic.
“I needed to know there were women in their 30s who had lives and joy and normalcy and all the things I wanted, and that they didn’t drink,” said Helvie. “I found people like me in those meetings.”
Started in 2016, Ben’s Friends is not a 12-step program or another substance use disorder treatment program. Leaders describe it as a complement to treatment and therapy options and that it serves as a community space to meet other people looking to make similar lifestyle choices.
South Carolina-based restaurateurs Steve Palmer and Mickey Bakst formed the initial group after losing a friend and chef named Ben to suicide. After Ben’s death, Palmer learned from talking to his mother that Ben had also struggled with substance use disorder, had been in and out of detox efforts, but had avoided going public with his struggles.
“I was so devastated by the idea that Ben was suffering and nobody knew it. I felt so strongly that I needed to do something,” said Palmer, who has been sober for more than 20 years.
Shortly after forming the first local Ben’s Friends group, renowned chef and food journalist Anthony Bourdain died by suicide. The loss reverberated throughout the food and beverage industry, Palmer said, and particularly among workers struggling with substances and mental illness.
Since then, Ben’s Friends has grown in a grassroots fashion across the country with local chapters forming in more than 15 cities including Atlanta, Austin, Charleston, Columbus, Detroit and San Francisco. There are meetings online at different times of day for irregular schedules, and specialty groups for men or women.
Even those outside of the recovery space say The City is overdue for more spaces to invite individuals to explore sobriety, especially after the pandemic slashed business in bars and restaurants, and as San Francisco attempts to unwind a spiraling overdose epidemic.
“We are pleased that Ben’s Friends has expanded to San Francisco,” said Laurie Thomas, Executive Director, Golden Gate Restaurant Association. “The past two years have been particularly challenging for the restaurant community with great uncertainty and reopening remains an ongoing process.”
Although the pandemic upended work for people like Helvie, she said there was a silver lining in that it allowed her to discover sobriety groups online. Now, as in-person gatherings and social events begin to come back with regularity, Helvie is eager to build up a community of professionals like herself who are seeking sobriety.
Anyone who is even thinking about changing behavior is welcome, she said, adding that she sees Ben’s Friends going hand-in-hand with the harm reduction practices taking place across The City to prevent and reverse overdoses.
“Recovery for me personally is sobriety, and that doesn’t work for all people. Recovery should be a person living their best possible life. If that means staying on methadone or only using once or twice a month, who am I to say what that should look like for them,” Helvie said.
“It’s more about creating awareness of if this substance is causing problems in my life and how can I alleviate those problems. To what extent can I do work to relieve that?”
Tags: bars, Community, Food & Dining, public health, restaurants | 2022-03-03T04:45:36Z | www.sfexaminer.com | New group aims to help San Francisco’s restaurant workers get sober - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/new-group-aims-to-help-san-franciscos-restaurant-workers-get-sober/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/new-group-aims-to-help-san-franciscos-restaurant-workers-get-sober/ |
San Jose’s gun law — is it constitutional?
City’s move to require gun insurance already is facing a court challenge
By Christopher B. Dolan and Matt Gramly
I know you are personal injury lawyers but read that you are also civil rights lawyers. I was wondering if you can answer my question on whether the new gun law in San Jose is constitutional?
— Jason P., San Jose
Thanks for your question Jason. You are correct that we are personal injury attorneys, as well as employment attorneys and cover various civil litigation issues. At the same time, we wanted to share our thoughts on the question you have for us.
The Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the United States of America is a single sentence: “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.” Many outspoken proponents of the Second Amendment focus on the second half of that sentence while dismissing the first. But the first half of the sentence is of equal importance to the second, not the least of which is because it includes the phrase “well regulated.”
Every right we have as Americans is subject to regulation or limitation. There are limitations on our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, the most familiar being that no one has the right to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater if there is, in fact, no fire.
The Second Amendment is no exception. Ask any gun owner who lives in California about the state’s gun laws and you will surely get an earful about how overbearing, cumbersome and confusing they are. Gun owners in California are not legally permitted to buy many of the same guns that gun owners in Nevada or Arizona are. Gone are the days of ordering ammunition online and having it delivered to your home. Those purchases must now be made in person and require a background check. Similarly, California has no open-carry law for either handguns or rifles. Such activity is legal in 31 other states but is illegal within California.
In January San Jose voted to place additional requirements on gun owners living within the city. The first law of its kind to be passed by any U.S. city, it requires gun owners to carry liability insurance to cover accidents and negligence. It also requires gun owners to pay an annual $25 fee, the proceeds of which would be given to a nonprofit organization to fund crime prevention and assist victims of gun violence.
It has been reported that approximately 50,000 to 55,000 households in San Jose own guns. The fee provision of the law would generate about $1.3 million per year. Prior to the city council vote, Mayor Sam Liccardo estimated gun-related expenditures cost San Jose residents approximately $440 million per year.
At first glance, the law does not seem unreasonable or overly burdensome. Every person who operates a motor vehicle in California is required to carry liability insurance for negligence and accidents. And every motorist is also required to pay annual fees to register their vehicle or renew their registration. There are bridge tolls and toll roads also that exclusively affect those driving cars and trucks and motorcycles.
Critics of the law, however, say there is no constitutional right to drive a car or truck, while the right to own firearms is actually enshrined in the Constitution. Their argument is you cannot regulate or tax a right guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.
Gun ownership has been heavily regulated for as long as the Second Amendment has existed and many of those regulations have been upheld by multiple courts, including the Supreme Court. Recently, California’s ban on high-capacity magazines, magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, was upheld by a 7-4 ruling from the Ninth Circuit Federal Court as not placing too great a burden on gun owners or constituting an improper infringement on their Second Amendment rights.
As with most “new” gun laws and regulations, San Jose’s law, which is expected to take effect later this year, will most certainly be challenged in the courts. In fact, Colorado-based National Association for Gun Rights filed a lawsuit the same day the San Jose City Council preliminarily approved the bill. The group filed for an injunction in U.S. District Court in San Jose. That lawsuit is pending.
California has been a hotbed of gun control laws and subsequent litigation in the courts ever since passage of the Mulford Act in 1967 by the state legislature and signed into law by then-Governor Ronald Reagan. Prior to 1967, it was legal to carry loaded firearms in public. During the late 1960s, the Black Panthers availed themselves of this right by conducting armed patrols of Oakland neighborhoods, keeping an eye on local law enforcement. The Black Panthers also regularly showed up at protests at various city halls and the statehouse fully armed. The Mulford Act was carefully crafted to prevent the Black Panthers from doing this, and it was successful in that regard.
San Jose’s law has no such racial targeting component or intent. But we will have to wait for several years and endure multiple court challenges to learn whether the law is, in fact, constitutional or not.
For more information on Dolan Law Firm, go to Dolanlawfirm.com.
To read more articles on our blog, visit us at: Dolan Law Firm Blog.
Christopher B. Dolan is the owner of Dolan Law Firm, PC. Matt Gramly is a Senior Litigation Attorney in our San Francisco Office. We serve clients throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and California from our offices in San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles. Email questions and topics for future articles to: help@dolanlawfirm.com. Each situation is different, and this column does not constitute legal advice. We recommend that you consult with an experienced trial attorney to fully understand your rights. | 2022-03-03T13:56:23Z | www.sfexaminer.com | San Jose’s gun law — is it constitutional? - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/san-joses-gun-law-is-it-constitutional/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/san-joses-gun-law-is-it-constitutional/ |
A labor of UK cinephilia at the Vogue Theater, March 10-17
By Anita Katz • March 4, 2022 11:30 am - Updated March 4, 2022 1:58 pm
“The Duke,” a comedy co-starring Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent, who plays a cab driver who steals a Goya painting from the National Gallery, is the opening night feature of the Mostly British Film Festival. (Courtesy Pathé, Warner Bros. Pictures)
Canceled due to COVID last year, the Mostly British Film Festival is back, celebrating the cinematic terrain of pre-Hollywood Hitchcock, Ealing Studios comedies, kitchen-sink dramas, David Lean, Ken Loach, Andrea Arnold, Judi Dench, Daniel Kaluuya, Emma Thompson and some great foot-chase scenes.
Presented by the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation, Mostly British features films from the United Kingdom and places linked to it, with screenings at the Vogue Theater in San Francisco. The 2022 edition takes place Thursday, March 10 to Thursday March 17, with a preview screening on Tuesday, March 8. Twenty-six movies from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and India are on offer.
“I just can’t wait for this to happen,” says Ruthe Stein, Mostly British founder and co-curator and former San Francisco Chronicle movie editor and critic.
COVID issues caused the cancelation of last year’s festival, and the postponement of this year’s program as well. But now, ticket sales are happening and a strong lineup of movies is ready to roll.
“The Duke,” a comedy directed by Roger Michell (it’s the “Notting Hill” director’s final film) and slated for an upcoming theatrical release, is the opening night feature. The 1960s, fact-inspired, very British story centers on a cabdriver, played by Jim Broadbent, who confesses to stealing a Goya masterwork from the National Gallery for Robin Hoods reasons. Helen Mirren costars and will make a Zoom introduction at the March 10 screening. A reception also precedes the screening.
“The Beatles and India” closes the festival. Directors Ajoy Bose and Peter Compton look at how Indian music and culture affected the Fab Four artistically and personally in this documentary, which is not expected to screen elsewhere in the United States. A reception follows the film.
Another prime selection, set for March 16, is “After Love,” featuring BAFTA-nominated Joanna Scanlan in a stellar lead performance. Were there a jewel-box honor granted to little gem indies, “After Love,” director Aleem Khan’s feature debut, would surely qualify. Scanlan plays Mary, a Muslim British widow who discovers that her recently departed husband had a second life, with a French woman.
“I spent a lot of time in the mosque,” Scanlan said about her preparation for the role. “I spent a lot of time talking to Aleem, talking to his mother, who is probably the most profound influence on the whole character.”
Documentaries featured in the Mostly British Film Festival include “Ronnie’s,” about London’s Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, and “My Name Is Gulpilil,” the award-winning Australian doc about the popular indigenous actor David Gulpilil.
Also from Australia is the festival centerpiece “Rams,” a sunny remake of the Icelandic tale about two ornery brothers and their prizewinning sheep.
Fare from Ireland includes “Wild Fire,” a domestic drama set in a community still traumatized by the Troubles, and “Deadly Cuts,” an over-the-top hairdressers-turned-vigilantes comedy.
From India, “The Last Film Show” is described as an “East Indian ‘Cinema Paradiso.’”
“I am pleased that I can give these movies a second chance, on a big screen,” says Stein, referring to films that “slipped in and out of theaters during the pandemic before most moviegoers knew they existed.”
These include the Australian crime drama “The Dry,” the aspiring opera singer comedy “Falling for Figaro” (costar Joanna Lumley will introduce the film via Zoom), and a Stein favorite, “Ammonite,” starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan as emotionally isolated women who find love together on an 1840s English beach.
While the festival officially begins March 10, filmgoers should take note of a preview screening — of “Mothering Sunday” — set for Tuesday, March 8. Adapted from Graham Swift’s novel, the theater-bound drama involves love, loss, class and endurance in depressed post–World War I England. Odessa Young, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth and Olivia Colman star.
The Mostly British Film Festival was launched in 2009 as a showcase for British cinema — which, despite being in the English language, is sometimes considered by distributors to be too foreign for U.S. audiences.
The first year, “Colin Firth was our poster boy,” Stein recalls. “He was appearing in a movie called ‘Genoa.’”
“Back then, films arrived in cans,” says Stein, remembering the almost comical sight of Jack Bair’s San Francisco Giants office filled with film cannisters. Bair, in addition to being senior vice president and general counsel for the Giants, is cofounder of the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation and a longtime force behind Mostly British.
Stein attributes the festival’s staying power to several factors.
First, the festival has a permanent home, the Vogue Theater, which the foundation owns.
“We’re also a community event,” Stein adds, describing the Vogue as an inviting neighborhood setting.
Further, the festival has built up a following. “There’s even a couple from England who come every year,” Stein says.
Stein also credits co-curators Maxine Einhorn, who is British, and Kathleen O’Hara, who is Irish, as key reasons for the quality of the festival, along with the film distributors who “gave us leeway this year.” Distributors “understand how hard it is to put a festival together during a pandemic.”
As for her own favorite British films, Stein cites: “Darling,” set in swinging London; the gangster drama “The Long Good Friday”; the romantic classic “Brief Encounter”; and “anything by Michael Powell,” including “The Red Shoes” and “I Know Where I’m Going!”
Where: Vogue Theater, 3290 Sacramento St., S.F.
When: Tuesday, March 8; and Thursday, March 10 through Thursday, March 17
Admission: $12.50 to $30 for individual tickets; $250 for a series pass
Screening schedule and contact: mostlybritish.org | 2022-03-05T06:06:33Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Mostly British Film festival returns - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/mostly-british-film-festival-returns-with-26-movies-of-many-uk-flavors/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/mostly-british-film-festival-returns-with-26-movies-of-many-uk-flavors/ |
Google is asking employees to come back to campuses in the Bay Area and other cities three days a week.
Google made big news this week with an announcement that employees will come back to the office three days a week in the Bay Area and other locations. Unfortunately, some of that news broke before employees got the company email informing them their work lives were changing.
The hybrid work announcement, made Wednesday, applies to the Bay Area and several other U.S. locations. Under the new plan, “most employees will spend approximately three days in the office and two days working where they choose.”
The Mountain View search engine giant says it “shared the news with a few media outlets” under embargo, an agreement that the news agencies would not publish until a time the company stipulates.
At 11:11 a.m. PST Wednesday, the company sent an email to Bay Area employees about the change, according to an email timestamp I saw. The Wall Street Journal then posted their story about the hybrid work week 19 minutes later, at 11:30 am PST.
But here’s where things went sideways. Google didn’t send out the email informing Boston-area Googlers about the change until noon PST, a half hour after the WSJ broke the news. By that time, the announcement was published by the WSJ, the WSJ had posted its story to Facebook and the news was sent out widely to other members of the press.
How does it feel for the internet to know you’re going back to the office before your company has told you?
“It’s upsetting but not surprising,” Alex Gorowara told me. “It does really feel like this was a publicity thing.”
Gorowara, a software engineer and seven-year Google veteran, works in the Boston area and got an email informing him of the change at 3 p.m. his time, after the news was out, according to a timestamp I saw.
Google says it rolled out the news to different offices throughout the day. When asked, the company did not explain why it pushed out the news in advance under an embargo that was earlier than some of the emails to employees. What was the rush? That’s unclear.
Gorowara is a member of the Alphabet Workers Union, the employee organization that has been a leader in holding big tech companies accountable. He says reaction to the hybrid work announcement has been “a bit mixed.”
Some folks want to stick with “what’s worked for the past two years,” Gorowara told me. He said Google appears to be looking at a Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday plan. “It is looking mid-week.” We wrote about that trend on Feb. 18. One downtown worker told me she is seeing the trend and that it means “Wednesday is the new Friday” when it comes to going out with friends after work…
What tech company gets the most money from The City? City data shows that would be Dallas-based AT&T, which has raked in $187 million in contracts since 2010 for telephone services, data transmission and wireless services. How do you get that kind of dough? Make friends with city officials, of course. Over that time, AT&T lobbyists have gotten together with San Francisco public officials 379 times.
This is also worth noting: None of the top five tech companies getting San Francisco taxpayer dollars is in San Francisco, the city data shows. Only one is in the state of California. The rest of the top five are taking their SF dollars away from here. Motorola ($151 million in city contracts) is in Chicago. ConvergeOne, an IT and cybersecurity company ($100 million), is in Minnesota. Oracle ($78 million) moved from Redwood City to Austin. Only Computerland of Silicon Valley ($78 million) is nearby, and it’s in San Jose…
Grammarly, the San Francisco company that uses artificial intelligence to fix up businesses’ writing, has stepped up again to help Ukraine. Grammarly’s three co-founders are all from Ukraine: Max Lytvyn, Alex Shevchenko and Dmytro Lider. And the company has many employees in the country that is currently being devastated by a Russian invasion. Grammarly will donate all of the net revenue earned from Russia since 2014 to causes supporting Ukraine, a total of more than $5 million. The company has already contributed $1 million to Ukraine organizations. The company has also suspended service in Russia…
Finally, there’s this. The World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit is coming to town March 22–23. An initial press release I received for the event was incorrect in promoting a talk by the CEO of GROINTELLIGENCE. The company thankfully has a space in the name, Gro Intelligence. Hey, GROINTELLIGENCE still wouldn’t be as bad as Fashism, the late, not-great clothes shopping app out of New York. | 2022-03-05T06:06:39Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Google gave the media its new work-from-home policy before telling all employees - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/google-gave-the-media-its-new-work-from-home-policy-before-telling-all-employees/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/google-gave-the-media-its-new-work-from-home-policy-before-telling-all-employees/ |
By Sydney Johnson Examiner staff writer • March 4, 2022 11:30 am - Updated March 4, 2022 5:40 pm
A man is surrounded by discarded needles outside the Turk-Hyde Mini Park in the Tenderloin in October 2019. A judge recently said people with substance use disorder and mental illness were not receiving appropriate treatment in The City. (Kevin N. Hume/S.F. Examiner)
San Francisco’s efforts to get people who suffer from both mental illness and addiction off the street and out of jail has failed many of the people it aims to protect.
In The City it often takes weeks or months for individuals who are in jail to be placed into the mental health treatment they need. And most often, they are referred to a lower level of care because not enough beds are available for people struggling with both severe mental illness and substance use disorder, together known as a dual diagnosis.
State and local officials are starting to focus on the issue.
On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a new approach to mental health care in California centered around an alternative CARE Court, in part inspired by conditions on the streets in San Francisco. The idea is to connect the thousands of Californians with untreated mental illness and substance use disorders to a court-ordered care plan for up to 24 months, and prevent homelessness and incarceration among those who are suffering.
The announcement comes after a judge in San Francisco’s own alternative court system — created with a similar goal in mind — said The City’s program is failing.
No one who came through San Francisco’s Adult Drug Court in recent years struggling with combined mental illness and substance use disorder was placed at Baker Places or the Progress Foundation, the only two facilities in San Francisco that are specifically for persons with dual diagnosis conditions, court officials said in a public hearing Wednesday.
As a result, some of the most vulnerable San Franciscans have been sitting in jail for weeks and months, often with worsening mental health conditions, as The City works to add more care beds.
“Drug court treatment staff have basically abandoned hope of getting anyone into a dual diagnosis treatment program,” San Francisco Judge Michael Begert, who presides over San Francisco’s Adult Drug Court, said at a hearing to probe The City’s efforts to increase the availability of mental health care beds. The alternative court was created in 1995 as part of an effort to reduce recidivism and respond to drug-related crimes with treatment rather than jail time.
Out of 15 people currently in two San Francisco jails who could qualify for treatment, wait times spanned from three to 37 weeks to receive placement in a facility, the judge said. Individuals in jail are eventually placed into treatment, but the judge said it’s often less acute care than what people struggling with dual diagnoses need.
The City is working to add 30 more dual diagnosis beds. And mental health care facilities across San Francisco offer a range of mental health treatments, including substance use disorder treatment and a combination of the two, said Dr. David Pating, who working with the Department of Public Health on the effort.
But bed availability does not meet the current demand.
“These are people who are not well and they are not getting better by staying in the county jail,” said Begert. “Not only do you have the impact of paying for them to be in jail and not accessing treatment, but there is a negative impact of being in jail on their mental health.”
Newsom has his own plans for relying more on the criminal justice system to help people struggling with homelessness, substance use and mental illness. CARE Court, which stands for community assistance, recovery and empowerment, would create a mental health-focused arm of the civil courts in all 58 counties across the state.
The proposal, which needs legislative approval, focuses on individuals experiencing severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia or psychosis, as well as substance use disorder.
Unlike San Francisco’s Adult Drug Court, participants in CARE Court may not always be criminal defendants. Under the governor’s plan, people could be referred to the system by a doctor, family member or first-responder. They could also be put into the system when their involuntary psychiatric hold ends, or if they are involved in a criminal case that gets diverted to the CARE Court program.
California counties could face sanctions if they do not provide adequate treatment, and individuals who refuse to participate could be required to appear before a court or be referred for a conservatorship.
Participation would also be limited to one year, with the possibility of an extension, unlike an indefinite conservatorship.
To fund the idea, Newsom is proposing to add $2 billion to the state’s $12 billion allocations to address homelessness and mental health in its most recent budget cycle. About a third of that $14 billion would be earmarked for mental health treatment.
An additional $3.8 billion from California’s Mental Health Services Act will be allocated across counties to implement treatment options.
The governor’s proposal won applause from mayors across the state including in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, all cities dealing with similar mental health challenges as San Francisco. Supporters say it could be a valuable tool outside of the state’s existing mental health infrastructure to help individuals with some of the most severe cases of psychosis or substance dependence who might not otherwise receive help.
It was also met with skepticism from some professionals who have seen other alternative court approaches fail to meet their mission.
“Governor Newsom wants to have a fast solution to a very entrenched problem through his recently announced CARE Court proposal. But the reality is that we already have a number of alternative courts. We don’t need another court that criminalizes mental health and poverty,” San Francisco Public Defender Manohar Raju said in a statement. “As it stands, because of the drastic underfunding of our mental health care system, our clients are waiting for nine weeks to six months in jail for treatment.”
Persons involved in CARE Court would be represented by a public defender.
Others said the issue of mentally ill individuals waiting in jail comes back to lack of beds and dollars for treatment, and are waiting for more details on how Newsom’s idea will be funded.
“I think it should make anyone think twice if they are thinking the criminal legal system is a way to get people treatment or that an arrest will help people get treatment,” said Laura Thomas of the S.F. Aids Foundation. “By virtue of being in that (alternative drug court) system we have already said jail is not the appropriate place for them, and yet they end up sitting longer in jail.”
Hunt for beds
The backlog in San Francisco’s jails is top of mind for those examining the puzzle of approaches in tackling mental health, substance use disorder and homelessness in the Tenderloin, where the majority of overdose deaths in San Francisco occurred in the last two years.
The City poured attention and resources at the new Tenderloin Linkage Center, which aims to serve as a low-barrier access point for individuals experiencing homelessness or struggling with substance use to find social and medical services and housing opportunities. The center offers a variety of crucial health services, including showers, meals and assistance signing up for health care.
But city documents show very few people have successfully been linked to substance use treatment, one of many stated goals of the operation.
Begert’s remarks also leave a big question mark for Mayor London Breed’s recent signal that police will ramp up efforts in the Tenderloin to push drug users on the street into treatment or face jail time, given that treatment beds to refer anyone to are still scarce.
In July 2021, Breed and the Department of Public Health announced they would be adding 400 new mental health and substance use disorder treatment beds, a 20% expansion at the time. The goal was based on a 2020 report assessing the scope and scale of what beds are needed. (An updated version of that survey is expected for December.)
Since then, 89 beds have been added and more are expected later this year. For example, SoMa RISE, a 20-bed center where people who are intoxicated can sober up and be connected to longer-term treatment, is slated to open this spring.
But those working closely with drug users and homeless populations say treatment options must be available before law enforcement comes down hard on individuals.
“The more important issue is the underlying lack of capacity in our treatment system. We have judges saying this isn’t working, we can’t get people into treatment and they are going to a lower level of care than what they need,” said Thomas of the AIDS Foundation. “Dual diagnosis is so important for people with concurrent mental health and substance use because they are often intertwined.”
Stumbling on solutions
The comments from Begert appeared to come as a shock to several San Francisco supervisors, the majority of whom were present for the hearing Wednesday.
“When I look at this dashboard I get depressed,” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, referring to a webpage where the Department of Public Health tracks available mental health beds. “It does not feel like we are anywhere close to achieving the things we need to.”
Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who called for the hearing, decried the lack of progress in adding beds, which was a key component of Mental Health SF, San Francisco’s landmark legislation that overhauled how The City is addressing health and homelessness.
“I have been quiet during the pandemic because it was absolutely impossible to address both crises at the same time. I will no longer be quiet. This is not moving fast enough,” said Ronen, who co-authored the Mental Health SF legislation. “Our behavioral health court is rendered useless.”
Officials at the Department of Public Health responded by noting the frustratingly slow progress of adding beds. They also said many existing mental health care facilities that work with The City have some capacity to treat both mental illness and substance use.
“I want to acknowledge and share a sense of urgency and need to go faster,” Dr. Hillary Kunins, director of behavioral health for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said at the hearing Wednesday. “We are not ahead of where we were 10 years ago in some areas. We need to identify these resources to be able to move quickly.”
Stakeholders on all sides bemoan how slow the process has been. Health department officials said it’s been a labored process of securing sites, navigating bureaucracy and finding trained professionals to staff or contract with.
“Our next step is to talk with the judges and jail staff to try to understand the cases,” said Pating of the Department of Public Health. “Each case is different and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all.”
In the meantime, mental health care beds across the board in San Francisco remain limited.
“We should be dramatically and vastly expanding our treatment capacity on the ground so people can access it when they need it,” said Thomas. “We need to make it easy before we punish people.”
Tags: Cops and Courts, mental health, public health | 2022-03-05T06:06:45Z | www.sfexaminer.com | How S.F.’s court system fails to treat combined addiction and mental illness - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/how-s-f-s-court-system-fails-addicts-with-mental-health-issues/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/how-s-f-s-court-system-fails-addicts-with-mental-health-issues/ |
By Mary L. G. Theroux and Theo Ellington Special to The Examiner • March 4, 2022 1:30 pm - Updated March 4, 2022 3:20 pm
People line up outside the new Tenderloin Linkage Center at 1172 Market St. on Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
By Mary L. G. Theroux and Theo Ellington
San Franciscans have largely applauded Mayor London Breed’s state of emergency declaration in the Tenderloin, as well as her swift establishment of a new linkage center, but gaping holes in resources remain. Because few shelters and residential programs are available, The City simply cannot connect most people with the services they need. For our future to be anything other than the status quo, we have to expand our thinking beyond the “homeless” problem.
That problem of so many living people on our streets has driven federal and local policy to focus narrowly on permanent supportive housing, called “Housing First.” According to the Independent Institute’s Beyond Homeless initiative, the challenge of that policy is partly a matter of economics: developing significant housing takes many years and is incredibly expensive — with costs running into the mid-to-high six figures per unit.
But more importantly, not everyone experiencing homelessness needs or wants to be permanently dependent; instead, many seek programs that offer a path to a transformed life.
Permanent supportive housing too often means bringing individuals with their problems indoors — as one social worker put it, “They’re inside, but culturally homeless” — rather than providing tools to overcome what caused them to fall into homelessness in the first place.
The top cited reason for becoming homeless is the loss of a job; so clearly, job training must be an important component of recovery. Close behind this problem is drug and alcohol abuse; yet again, the permanent supportive housing model offers little help. In 2020, for example, only three people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco died from COVID-19, but 712 San Franciscans died from overdoses, two-thirds of whom were housed.
As currently practiced, the most widely available recovery option in San Francisco is often characterized as a “washing machine”: Individuals participate in a recovery program for two to six months, then move into publicly funded housing that mixes active drug and alcohol users with those attempting to stay sober; or, when even such housing is unavailable, back onto the street. Not surprisingly, the relapse rate is 90%.
However, the Independent Institute’s research shows that when recovery is combined with holistic programming, including workforce development, life skills training and compassionate care over an extended period, the success rate climbs to 90%.
Armed with these figures, the San Francisco Salvation Army is radically reshaping its programs and services, pivoting to redevelop its multiple San Francisco properties to provide a “way out” of homelessness for every San Franciscan who suffers from substance abuse and desires to change. The Salvation Army aims to provide up to 1,500 new long-term, sober-living transitional beds, with recovery, life skills training and workforce development to enable participants to chart their own paths to stability, sobriety and self-sufficiency.
In addition, on March 2 a new coalition of more than 30 for-profit and nonprofit San Francisco organizations launched — called Urban Vision Alliance — to start building community support for more holistic programming.
The success of holistic homeless programs has been demonstrated elsewhere. The most dramatic has been in San Antonio, Tex., where a community-wide model and campus called Haven for Hope has reduced its downtown homeless population — similar in numbers to San Francisco’s when it started — by 77% since 2010.
One key to success is a challenge in highly politicized San Francisco: a willingness to stop pitting our smallest differences against each other and to work together to provide a hand up to our homeless neighbors while renewing our city. In San Antonio, a successful oil entrepreneur and a Democratic mayor came together and were then joined by community activists, law enforcement, emergency services and virtually every nonprofit, to devise and execute on a model that is accountable to donors, taxpayers and residents.
San Francisco can return to being the Golden City we’re proud to call home and to which tourists flock — but only if we embrace our diversity and work together to transform our community.
Mary L. G. Theroux is senior vice president of the Independent Institute and host of the new documentary Beyond Homeless: Finding Hope. Theo Ellington is director of homelessness initiatives and community development at the San Francisco Salvation Army, leading The Way Out initiative. | 2022-03-05T06:06:58Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Opinion: Housing first isn’t working to solve homelessness. We need a holistic model - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/opinion-housing-first-isnt-working-to-solve-homelessness-a-holistic-model-is-needed/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/opinion-housing-first-isnt-working-to-solve-homelessness-a-holistic-model-is-needed/ |
By Al Saracevic • March 4, 2022 9:30 am - Updated March 4, 2022 3:19 pm
Surveillance footage shows James Durgin prowling outside Ann Rea’s Presidio apartment. (NBC Bay Area via Ann Rea)
James Durgin has been charged with 54 felonies. That’s on top of 104 misdemeanor cases. Judges have ordered him to undergo a dozen mental health evaluations. He’s been represented by more than 40 public defenders, who have represented him against more than 40 assistant district attorneys.
He’s been sent to various jails and rehabs, but always ended up back on the streets of San Francisco. And the forests of the Presidio. He is “the man in the woods,” as some people call him, lurking about and stalking residents late at night.
He’s also the new face of San Francisco’s homeless disaster, the poster child of the NBC Bay Area docuseries “Saving San Francisco,” which tracks Durgin’s journey through drug addiction and homelessness and uses his story as a proxy to discuss the larger societal issues and system failures facing The City.
The first installment of this ambitious work dropped this week, with senior investigative reporter Bigad Shaban, alongside producer Robert Campos, unearthing a story of criminal, judicial and public health neglect that has left most everyone involved in a worse place.
“We came upon this story involving this really quiet, quaint neighborhood in the Presidio. To hear some people tell it, there was a boogie man in the woods,” said Shaban. “This story was emblematic of so much of what San Francisco is struggling with right now. Homelessness. Poverty. Gentrification. Mental health. … The notion of what it means to be safe, or unsafe, in this city.”
Durgin makes quite an entrance in episode one, titled “The Man in the Woods.” The opening sequence shows the majestic beauty of San Francisco’s northwest corner, where a woman named Ann Rea has lived in a rental for the past 15 years. She used to think it was paradise, but now it’s become a nightmare.
That’s because Durgin has been stalking her. Truly scary video footage shows him at her door in the middle of the night, jiggling the door handle and trying to enter. In one shot, he is nude during a 3 a.m. visit.
She’s called San Francisco police more than 50 times over the past five years about Durgin, and got a restraining order against him. But he kept coming back.
“I worry about when I go to sleep at night, if he’ll bust the windows and make it upstairs,” Rea told NBC. “And so I sleep with a taser and a single-blade knife. Every night.”
NBC dug into Durgin’s back story to tell the larger tale. He grew up in Duxbury, Mass. His friends say he was a charismatic classmate, one they expected would one day change the world. He was an English teacher at Woodside Priory, a boarding school in Portola Valley, and once very proud of his sobriety, helping others along that path. But somewhere along the line, things went terribly wrong.
Campos told me, according to court records, you can start finding Durgin’s name in the early 2000s.
James Durgin has been in and out of California’s criminal justice system for the past 20 years. (NBC Bay Area)
A quick look online led me to Durgin’s Facebook page, where you can see a series of demented posts picturing meth pipes and increasingly delusional writing, dated back in 2017. To this day, the man still has 632 friends on the social media platform, and it’s heartbreaking to see his high school classmates begging him to get help in the comments to his posts. A lot of people were rooting for this guy.
None of it seemed to work. Friends, judges, lawyers and social workers couldn’t seem to put Durgin back together again. And that’s why this story is important. Our systems are failing us. How do we fix them?
I asked Shaban what his core takeaways were from the project, which took about a year to report. He’s come to believe the various institutions involved in addressing homelessness, drug addiction and mental health are not communicating well enough. The various silos are not talking to each other, allowing people like Durgin to fall through the cracks, using systems such as San Francisco’s diversionary courts to avoid jail by agreeing to rehab instead. Oftentimes, Durgin would then simply walk out the door.
“He has been in and out of jail for two decades,” said Shaban. “If you just look at the time and money that‘s been dedicated to one man’s journey in the criminal justice system, it’s astonishing. But he hasn’t really been helped by any of this.”
Which leads to the wider issues of accountability and solutions.
“You’re going to hear from a whole long list of public officials,” said Shaban. “You will definitely hear from Chesa Boudin in this piece. We have an exclusive interview with Mayor (London) Breed that was an interesting interaction. The hope is to hold people accountable for what’s happened, and will happen, in San Francisco. There’s no magic potion to fix the city. We hope to give people information to make sense of it.”
In one instance, a surveillance camera shows James Durgin arriving at Ann Rea’s Presidio apartment stark naked, in the middle of the night. (NBC Bay Area via Ann Rea)
I plan to watch the series, which will be streaming every Monday for the next five weeks. In the meantime, the stark reality of San Francisco remains. A man was stabbed and killed on Sixth Street the other day. A woman celebrating at a birthday party with friends and their daughters on Ocean Beach was assaulted with an aluminum can by a mentally ill man, sending her to the hospital with serious injuries. A day doesn’t go by that we don’t see the misery and destruction in our streets.
What do we do about it? Three different developments of note emerged this week.
First, the Coalition on Homelessness released a report Wednesday that showed The City, and its army of nonprofit partners, are not matching up people with effective social services. Specifically, the study targets San Francisco’s “coordinated entry” system, which is supposed to connect candidates with housing, for reform.
“Our current system hides the actual need for housing and other services by telling unhoused people that they are not in need enough to deserve services, “ said Ian James, organizing director at the Coalition on Homelessness. “We need to move away from a system of scarcity if we are going to understand, let alone address, the housing crisis in San Francisco.”
The group goes on to list 35 proposed changes to coordinated entry, emphasizing a shift from “a system of prioritization to a system of targeting individuals to appropriate services.”
Given the recent news that nearly 900 available housing units sit vacant in San Francisco, while the list of approved and unapproved applicants grows, the targeted reforms outlined in this study seem on point. Let’s see if anyone’s listening.
The second development this week involved the unveiling of yet another coalition of homeless service providers, combining private and public interests, calling itself the Urban Vision Alliance. The 32-member group has $7.8 million in its coffers, which isn’t a lot in this town, but it does have an interesting ideological bent.
Instead of solely following the federally encouraged “Housing First” ideology, which promotes getting people into permanent housing as a crucial first step to end homelessness, the group acknowledges transitional housing, combined with a healthy dose of services and other housing solutions, is needed to ease San Francisco’s crisis.
“At the heart of Urban Vision Alliance is a coalition of inspired people who believe street homelessness can be solved; and that we have the land, capital and expertise to do it,” said Gabriel Baldinucci, CEO of Urban Vision Alliance. “UVA’s focus is to bring these stakeholders together to collaborate in new ways to help our fellow citizens experiencing street homelessness and improve our cities.”
The Salvation Army is a big part of the early plans, announcing it will build out 1,500 beds in San Francisco to offer housing and wraparound services.
The group points to San Antonio as a success story, where business and government built a compound of sorts downtown to house homeless people for stretches of two to three years. They believe this kind of transitional housing, coupled with services, works best. It is better, at least, than getting someone into a housing unit and then finding services piecemeal.
Third, and most importantly, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced his plan Thursday to overhaul California’s failing mental health system, unveiling an idea he’s calling Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Court, or CARE Court. The proposal, which needs to pass muster with the state legislature, would create a structure where troubled individuals could be referred to this system before they commit a crime, creating a pathway to county care and services. If the people entering this track cannot complete the programs provided, then there would be a further path toward state conservatorship.
“CARE Court is about meeting people where they are and acting with compassion to support the thousands of Californians living on our streets with severe mental health and substance use disorders,” said Newsom.
Put these three things together, and we may be headed toward the compassionate, common sense solution San Francisco is looking for.
Perhaps that’s what the James Durgins of the world need. | 2022-03-05T06:07:04Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Shocking tale of ‘Presidio boogie man’ reveals The City’s broken homeless system - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/shocking-tale-of-presidio-boogie-man-reveals-the-citys-broken-homeless-system/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/shocking-tale-of-presidio-boogie-man-reveals-the-citys-broken-homeless-system/ |
By Jessica Wolfrom • March 6, 2022 1:30 am
Richard Blum speaks while his wife, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, laughs alongside George Shultz at an event at the Blum Center at UC Berkeley. (Courtesy photo)
Richard C. Blum was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley in the 1950s when he decided to hitchhike through Europe and Northern Africa as an exchange student the summer before his senior year.
Until that point, he’d hardly left the United States, let alone ventured beyond San Francisco’s 47 square miles. But as he walked the streets of Vienna and roamed the coastline of Casablanca, he was confronted by a starkly different reality than the one he’d left behind.
“I did not know much about the world,” he wrote in his book “An Accident of Geography: Compassion, Innovation and the Fight Against Poverty.” He went on to share: “I never realized how difficult life was for so many.”
This realization would inform the remainder of his life. He was a wildly successful businessman, political adviser, intrepid traveler and philanthropist. He was a close friend of the Dalai Lama, and notably, the husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein. He died on Feb. 27 at his home in San Francisco after a long battle with cancer. He was 86 years old.
Throughout his life, Blum retained a steadfast commitment to UC Berkeley, from which he graduated with two business degrees. From 2002 until his passing, he served on the Board of Regents, including a stint as chairman emeritus, and he established the Blum Center for Developing Economies in 2006.
“The University of California gave him such a wonderful opportunity in education and launching pad,” said Janet Reilly, who worked with Blum on the Board of Regents. “He wanted that for every student.”
Blum was known as a fiercely devoted Regent who worked tirelessly to trim the bureaucracy and make the UC system function better.
“When I came on to the Board of Regents and became chairman, I decided that this place needed to be shaken up and restructured, and I set out to do that,” Blum told Berkeley’s Victor Geraci. “An easier thing would have been to just show up at the meetings and pound your gavel every now and then.”
But gavel-pounding was not Blum’s style. He was a man of action. “Dick was not going to sit on his hands,” said Mark Yudof, former president of the University of California, who Blum wooed from the University of Texas in 2008.
“What I’ll miss about Richard is really his fearlessness,” said Shankar Sastry, director of the Blum Center for Developing Economies, which has since expanded to 10 UC campuses. “No problem was too hard. Nothing was insuperable. He had a sense of possibility about everything.”
During his tenure as a Regent, Blum shepherded the University through the 2007 financial collapse and fought continuously for students and faculty, defending the importance of research, pushing to revise the University’s pension plan and advocating for the seismic retrofit of California Memorial Stadium and other aging campus buildings.
“I’ve never met anyone quite like him,” said Yudof. When he wanted something done, “no bureaucrat was going to stand in his way.”
This was also true of his desire to solve global poverty through an entrepreneurial lens. The Blum Center for Developing Economies quickly became home to one of the most popular minors on campus, attracting students and faculty from “every nook and corner,” noted Sastry.
“The first thing that struck you about Dick is that he really was a Renaissance man. He was a man of big ideas,” said Reilly, who is also the co-owner of Clint Reilly Communications, which owns The San Francisco Examiner. “He had a deep compassion for human beings and really understood that we’re all part of the human family.”
Blum was an ever-present figure at graduations, handing out certificates and shaking hands. Sadly, this will be the first year he will not attend, noted Sastry.
“You can’t understand Dick without his feeling of loyalty to people and to the institutions that he encountered along the way,” said Yudof. “His interest was in always doing the best he could do for the University of California.”
When Blum did leave campus, he spent his free time traveling the world. But it was a trip to Nepal in 1968 where his interest in global poverty grew into something greater.
“I’d always wanted to go there,” he said. “Got to know the Tibetans and the Sherpas. As human beings, it’s very easy to like them. They’re all good Buddhists, and most of them believe that the way you bring happiness is to try to help others.”
That philosophy became deeply ingrained within his own life. In the early aughts, he established the American Himalayan Foundation, which focused on education, health care and also worked to stop the trafficking of young girls in Nepal. Blum served as an honorary consul of Nepal and Mongolia.
“Everything with Richard was a bit of an adventure,” said Sastry. “At heart, I think his spirituality was sort of an interesting combination of Jewish and Buddhist. Especially the Buddhist message of spreading compassion and being accepting of what people are like to enable them to develop that really, to my mind, was really what drove him.”
Over the years, Blum amassed a star-studded list of close friends and contacts in the political world and beyond. He traveled with Jimmy Carter, hiked Mt. Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary, advised Presidents Obama, Clinton and Carter on economic policy, and hosted the Dalai Lama at Berkeley.
“He was comfortable in those settings and talking to dignitaries and to political leaders,” said Reilly. “But he was equally as comfortable with folks who he helped — people who had absolutely nothing materially. He recognized that money didn’t make you wealthy.”
That was on full display Friday morning under the soaring domed ceilings of Congregation Emanu-El, where hundreds of people from the general public joined with San Francisco’s political elite, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, former Gov. Jerry Brown and former San Francisco Mayors Art Agnos and Willie Brown to celebrate his remarkable life.
Despite the enormous loss and the void Blum leaves behind, Reilly said, “This is a life well lived. This is the life of an extraordinary man who really made a difference in the world. That was by choice.”
Richard Blum, right, with the Dalai Lama. (Courtesy photo)
A memorial service for Richard Blum at Congregation Emanu-El on Friday. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner)
Pallbearers prepare to move the casket at the memorial service for Richard Blum. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner)
Sen. Dianne Feinstein waves to friends at the memorial service for her husband, Richard Blum. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner)
Inside the mind of California’s first female architect
New book chronicles the stunning career of San Francisco’s Julia Morgan | 2022-03-06T18:06:01Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Richard Blum’s legacy lives on at the University of California and beyond - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/richard-blums-legacy-lives-on-at-the-university-of-california-and-beyond/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/richard-blums-legacy-lives-on-at-the-university-of-california-and-beyond/ |
Why NFTs are kitsch, not art
What we have is a commodity scam, not an aesthetic innovation
By Max Blue Special to The Examiner • March 6, 2022 6:30 pm - Updated March 6, 2022 6:51 pm
“Everydays — The First 5000 Days” is a collage of all the images that the artist known as Beeple has been posting online each day since 2007. The work set a record for a digital artwork at Christie’s, selling for $69.3 million. (Courtesy Christie’s/The New York Times)
Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are a decidedly bewildering topic and one that has caused quite a ruckus in the art world. Even the major art auction house Christie’s seems confused: Their condition of sale for NFTs states, “There is substantial uncertainty as to the characterization of NFTs and other digital assets under applicable law.”
So what are NFTs and how come their place in the arts is overblown? I have a romantic notion.
The digital equivalent of a deed, an NFT is a unique line of code linked to an asset. NFTs live on the blockchain, a virtual ledger distributed across a global network of computers, making those shared records difficult to alter, steal or hack. This ability to verify ownership of a digital file, and the resulting illusion of scarcity, has enabled a high-dollar market for digital files (usually illustrations or animations) in a movement called Crypto Art.
Art galleries and auction houses typically provide buyers with a certificate of authenticity for physical artworks -– except galleries also provide buyers with the artwork. Imagine handing an art dealer a check for a painting, then getting the certificate of authenticity but no painting, and being told the painting doesn’t really exist but can also be viewed for free by anyone who wants to see it at any time. That’s not an innovation: That’s a scam!
Scarcity does lend an exciting aura to an artwork -– looking at a polaroid and knowing it’s the only one, or finally standing in front of the “Mona Lisa” in the Louvre. What’s striking about NFTs is that their scarcity is so artificial it doesn’t produce much excitement -– not even at the highest level of the market. That’s because the digital asset they’re linked to still possesses no scarcity in itself: It can be copied and disseminated the same as any digital file.
The most a single buyer has yet paid for an NFT was $69.3 million at an auction through Christie’s on March 11, 2021. The NFT corresponded to “EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS,” 2021, by illustrator Mike Winkelmann (who signs his work Beeple), a digital collage of 5,000 drawings Beeple produced over about 14 years.
To date, the highest selling work of art, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi,” c. 1500, went for about $450 million at Christie’s in 2017, making the largest NFT sale closer to something on the collectibles market, where a rare Ferrari might go for around $50 million. What the NFT market seems to be doing is reducing the concept of art to its most vulgar form: Commodity.
An historical byline and an artwork’s scarcity certainly factor into its value, but they aren’t the whole of it. What makes art, at any commercial or noncommercial level, valuable, is something you can’t put a price on: A relationship with another human being mediated by an object or sensorial experience that bypasses the restrictions of time and space. That, to me, is art. Let us not confuse it with other modes of cultural production.
But if NFT Crypto Art isn’t art, what is it? It’s kitsch, plain and simple. In his 1939 essay “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” art critic Clement Greenberg wrote that kitsch “is the source of its profits,” and that it “is the epitome of all that is spurious in the life of our times.” If virtual deeds to digital assets don’t fit the bill, what does?
The aesthetics of much Crypto Art is gaudy, crass, vapid or all three. Beeple’s “Kim Jong-un Rebrand,” 2019, shows a giant Kim Jong-un wearing panties, garters and a combination Buzz Lightyear and Pikachu costume that fails to cover a pair of massive breasts. Cutesy illustrations of blinged-out, blasé monkeys, in the case of the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, are just boring.
“Kitsch,” as Greenberg warns, “is synthetic art.” And only the real thing offers viewers an empirical experience of any value.
Sure, maybe it’s a romantic position – actually, that’s exactly what it is.
Romanticism, which promotes and equates nature, truth, goodness and beauty, was a reactionary movement in arts and letters opposing the Industrial Revolution of the 1760s. So, wouldn’t it follow that the Fourth Industrial Revolution, as the current moment of technological advancement is sometimes called, would warrant a renewal of Romantic sentiments?
As a sort of anti-philosophy, Romanticism begins with a strong feeling, such as the emotional response one has to an artwork in real time and space.
What moves me about a work of art is the transference of energy I experience: The fact that what I am looking at is the residual effect of an action taken by an artist. A mark on a canvas is the result of the painter’s gesture; A photograph is the product of the photographer’s having been there.
Forget a virtual reality headset: This is the closest I get to the experience of being someone else. And when the experience that the artist relates through the art object resonates with an experience I’ve had, or is in some way recognizable to me, I feel a deep sense of human connection. It’s life-giving, harmonious, maybe a little metaphysical, but real.
The sterility and anonymity of the internet foreclose the possibility of having this kind of sensorial relationship with the digital asset, or emotional relationship with the artist. A digital illustration always exists at a distance, at the very least through a screen and what we’re looking at isn’t even the residue of an action, only the record of a digital command. (The fact that digital files load fresh every time we look at them furthers the fact that there’s essentially nothing there.)
The Fourth Industrial Revolution could well be defined by a refusal to settle for a plateau of progress. In striving for more, we lose sight of the sensorial pleasure of viewing art in its own context, be it the gallery, museum or sculpture garden, rather than looking at kitsch in the ungrounded void-space of the internet. But I’m not worried that kitsch will replace art. Reality is non-fungible.
Max Blue is a San Francisco-based critic who writes about the visual arts and modern culture.
Title IX is a serious criminal charge, and the law exists to protect students from sexual misconduct. If someone framed… | 2022-03-07T15:45:48Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Why NFTs are kitsch, not art - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/why-nfts-are-kitsch-not-art/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/why-nfts-are-kitsch-not-art/ |
By Jonah Raskin Special to The Examiner • March 7, 2022 5:30 pm - Updated March 7, 2022 6:18 pm
Jack Kerouac in 1956, a year before “On the Road” was published. (Photo by Jack Palumbo/Wikimedia Commons)
Jack Kerouac never took a creative writing class and never taught one either, but he compiled what he called “a List of Essentials” that has helped novelists, poets and non-fiction writers for decades.
This year, the 100th anniversary of his birth on March 12, 1922, provides an opportunity to read or reread Kerouac, heed his “List of Essentials” and rethink his place in American literature. Over the last year or so some white male authors have been eased to the margins, however gently, while women and writers of color have taken their place on reading lists and in anthologies. It would not be easy to dislodge Kerouac. After all, he was prolific and he was part of a literary and cultural movement, “The Beat Generation,” that included women like Diane di Prima and Blacks like Bob Kaufman, both of them longtime San Francisco writers.
Events to honor Kerouac are taking place across the U.S., notably in San Francisco at City Lights abd the Beat Museum and in Lowell, Massachusetts, his birthplace. In Lowell, San Francisco’s own Dennis McNally, the author of “Desolate Angel,” one of the first biographies of Kerouac, shares the stage with Holly George-Warren, who is writing the official biography of the author.
On March 12 at the Beat Museum in North Beach, co-founder Jerry Cimino, who has greeted Kerouac fans from around the world for nearly two decades, will unveil plans for a new home for the treasures he has gathered over a lifetime.
The City Lights March 10 event, “Still Outside,” is free and virtual (but requires registration). It features leading Kerouac scholars Ann Charters, Ann Douglas, Tim Hunt and Joyce Johnson.
Bird & Beckett on Chenery Street in the Glen Park neighborhood hosts a Kerouac Centenary event on March 15 starting at 7:30 p.m., with Garrett Caples from City Lights, Steve Wasserman from Heyday and yours truly — I am the author of “American Scream, Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ and the Making of the Beat Generation.”
Kerouac is an odd and unusual character and a real American legend, often misunderstood as “The King of the Beats.” Largely self-taught and often a loner, he cast himself as an outsider who liked nothing better than to sit at a typewriter and get creative.
A college dropout who attended Columbia College briefly in the 1940s and who played football, he grew up in a Catholic working class family. His first language was joual, a regional French Canadian dialect. English was his second language. In today’s literary marketplace, he’d be called an ethnic writer.
The San Francisco Bay Area never provided him with a real home, not for long. But it played a major part in his life, as it did in the lives of his fellow Beat Generation writers Allen Ginsberg,Neal Cassady and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the latter of whom founded City Lights Bookstore in 1953 and published Kerouac’s work, though not “On the Road” (Viking, 1957), an American classic that has spawned dozens of imitations.
Kerouac began his literary career by copying the lifestyle of his adventurous hero, Jack London, the author of a memoir titled “The Road,” and by imitating the prose of Thomas Wolfe, the author of “Look Homeward Angel” who died at 37.
Kerouac’s “List of Essentials” includes 30 items. The first reads, “Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy.” The last one reads, “Writer-Director Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven.” Influenced by the movies and by jazz, especially by bebop giants like the African American saxophonists, Charlie Parker and Lester Young, he urged wanna-be novelists to “Blow as deep as you want to be” and also to “Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibitions.”
Kerouac had many inhibitions to overcome. Some were social rather than syntactical. But by breaking syntax he was able to loosen some of the dogma of the Catholic Church into which he was born and raised, and yet never totally escaped, though he tried to become a Buddhist. He wrote a spiritual biography of the Buddha and learned about Zen from his pal, Gary Snyder, who appears as Japy Ryder in the novel “The Dharma Bums.”
Almost all of his friends, including Snyder, Ginsberg and Cassady, plus his three wives, appear as fictional characters in his novels. Were they to be published today, the author would probably be sued for libel and invasion of privacy. At 91, Gary Synder is the only living member of the original circle of Beat writers that also included San Francisco’s Philip Lamantia. Initially, Snyder didn’t like the way he appeared in print. But he grew to live with his portrait.
Kerouac’s books are valuable today as a record of the ways that bohemians, hipsters, Beats, misfits and road warriors lived their lives, with ample doses of booze, drugs, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll and fast cars. The author wasn’t comfortable in the 1960s of political protest, though he helped to give birth to the protesters. When civil rights activists like Tom Hayden and Mario Savio went South to desegregate lunch counters and to register voters, they carried “On the Road” with them as inspiration in backpacks and back pockets.
One of the genuine albeit reluctant founding fathers of the Sixties, Kerouac drank too much and consumed too many harmful drugs. Still, his whole life, he was dedicated to the craft of fiction and aimed to find an escape route that would take him away from the confines of the comfortable white world and into the world of what he called the “fellaheen,” the people that Franz Fanon describes in “The Wretched of the Earth.” Mexico and Mexicans figure significantly in “On the Road” and “Tristessa.” Kerouac also made it all the way to North Africa.
The Bay Area is an important setting in “The Dharma Bums” and in some of the non-fiction pieces collected in “Lonesome Traveler,” especially “October in the Railroad Earth.” Readers can retrace the walks Kerouac took in San Francisco — “Frisco” he often called it — beginning on Third Street and moving to Howard, Townsend and beyond. They can also stand in Kerouac Alley, behind City Lights and commune with the spirit of the epic wanderer who aims to find America and who loses himself on the road.
Too bad Kerouac died on October 21, 1969 at the age of 47, largely unknown and forgotten, now a voice for intrepid travelers, visionaries and the down-and-out. One hundred years from now, the name Jack Kerouac might mean as little as the name Booth Tarkington, the Indian-born author of “The Magnificent Ambersons,” twice awarded a Pulitzer Prize in literature, in 1918 and 1922, the year Kerouac was born.
While the name Kerouac still resonates with readers of American literature and while his books are still in print, it’s worth remembering his Quixotic life and his experimental novels that reinvented narrative and the craft of fiction.
City Lights’ “Still Outside: Kerouac at 100”
Thursday, March 10, 6 p.m. Free virtual event. RSVP required
Beat Museum’s “Kerouac Centennial Open House”
Sunday, March 12, 12-7 p.m., 540 Broadway, S.F.
Bird & Beckett’s “Kerouac Centenary”
Tuesday, March 15, 7:30 p.m., 653 Chenery St., S.F.
Jonah Raskin lives and writes in San Francisco. He is the author of many books, including “American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ and the Making of the Beat Generation.” | 2022-03-08T02:27:50Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Jack Kerouac at 100 - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/jack-kerouac-at-100/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/jack-kerouac-at-100/ |
By Ashley A. Smith
California’s Department of Finance, in a letter to the Legislature last week, recommended that five community colleges, UCLA, UC San Diego, San Francisco State and San Diego State receive a piece of nearly $480 million to create affordable housing for 3,545 students. The community colleges are Imperial Valley, Fresno City, College of the Siskiyous, Ventura and Sierra.
San Francisco has one of the most expensive rental markets in the country. As of February, the average price for a one-bedroom apartment was $2,930 a month, according to rental listings site Zumper. A two-bedroom apartment averages $3,930 a month.
The grant doesn’t completely cover the building cost of San Francisco State’s or other colleges’ projects. Jodatian said the San Francisco campus would use dollars from bonds the CSU system regularly issues for housing to cover the rest.
According to the letter to the Legislature, in addition to S.F. State, funding is proposed for seven other projects:
-UC San Diego would receive $100 million for 1,100 additional beds;
-UCLA would receive $35 million for 358 more beds;
-Imperial Valley College and San Diego State would share $8.86 million for a joint project to add 51 affordable beds;
-Fresno City College could see about $34 million for 360 beds;
-College of the Siskiyous would add 252 beds for about $32.6 million;
-Ventura College could see nearly $63 million for 320 beds; and
-Sierra College would see about $80.5 million for 354 additional beds.
EdSource is a nonprofit newsroom that reports on state and local education issues. | 2022-03-08T02:28:02Z | www.sfexaminer.com | S.F. State on the short list to receive major affordable housing grant - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/s-f-state-on-the-short-list-to-receive-major-affordable-housing-grant/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/s-f-state-on-the-short-list-to-receive-major-affordable-housing-grant/ |
After decades of failure, California governor presses ahead with big plan to solve homelessness
By Gil Duran • March 7, 2022 1:30 am
Gov. Gavin Newsom has committed over $14 billion toward homelessness and launched programs such as Project Homekey and Project Roomkey, which used existing hotels and motels to get people indoors. (Associated Press/Jeff Chiu, File)
In his characteristically bold fashion, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced plans to address the homeless crisis with a new system that will use courts to push mentally ill and addicted people into housing and treatment. Unless we see drastic changes in the availability of housing and treatment, however, Newsom’s CARE Court may end up on the scrap heap of his big but failed ideas.
“There’s no compassion stepping over people in the streets and sidewalks, there’s no compassion in reading about someone losing their life under 280, in an encampment,” Newsom said, referring to the death of a 40-year-old woman in a fire at a Glen Park homeless encampment two weeks ago. “There’s no compassion in that. I mean, we could hold hands, have a candlelight vigil, talk about the way the world should be. Or we could take some damn responsibility to implement our ideals.”
Under Newsom’s proposal, the so-called CARE Court would require homeless people struggling with addiction or mental illness to get help. Some advocates reject the idea of using the legal system to compel treatment, but I don’t have a problem with that aspect. Many people who live on the streets are so far gone with drug addiction or mental illness that they cannot act in their own best interests.
My problem with the plan is that cities and counties clearly don’t have enough housing, treatment beds and medical care to help people actively seeking to escape the misery of the streets today. How can we require the “sickest of the sick” to get treatment when such options are scarce?
“Refuse WHAT services?! The ones that don’t exist?” tweeted Kelley Cutler of the Coalition on Homelessness on Wednesday after Newsom used the death of the homeless woman in Glen Park to push the idea of requiring treatment for people who decline services. “There are so few resources these days & yet these damn politicians keep blaming the people who are being abused & neglected by the system. People are dying trying to keep warm & politicians are over here playing sick games.”
In San Francisco, people struggling with opioid addiction show up to methadone clinics and get told to come back another day. Homeless elderly people and patients in need of serious medical care get dumped on the streets in their wheelchairs because there’s apparently nowhere to put them. This is the reality in The City named for St. Francis, and it’s the same in cities statewide.
Last week, I wrote about Mary Gilbert, a disabled homeless woman with a serious skin infection who cycles between local hospitals and a bench at an abandoned MUNI bus stop because the system provides no alternatives. Since then, I’ve met others in similar situations: Taken into hospitals when their illness becomes critical and then dumped back on the street.
These cases of mentally cogent and non-addicted people in need of care would be low hanging fruit if we actually had the resources and the will to help. Yet despite billions in spending, California leaves even ailing homeless seniors to die in the streets. So, where are we going to put people like the 191-year-old woman I met on Sansome Street last Tuesday?
That’s right, 191. She also told me she was the daughter of God and owns all of the motels in the world and could buy me anything with her massive fortune. A few minutes later, she volunteered that she suffers from schizophrenia and had been homeless since getting kicked out of a motel room.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I have lots of money and I’m going to help you.”
Clearly, she needed housing and treatment, but after writing about Gilbert I knew better than to try to help. Adult Protective Services and the Homeless Outreach Team might check in on such people, but they’ll remain on the street — because we don’t have enough housing or services to meet current demand.
“There remains a gap in the number of shelter placements for (people experiencing homelessness) in San Francisco,” said a Department of Public Health spokesperson last week when I inquired about disabled people discharged from hospitals to the streets. “Shelter capacity is limited and not everyone referred to shelter accepts the placement. Shelter capacity does not always meet the needs of the individual. To live in shelters individuals must be independent of all activities of daily living.”
Despite a 2018 law to prevent hospitals from dumping homeless patients with no place to go, the practice apparently continues because everything has a loophole. Just shuffle some paperwork and, like magic, the law doesn’t exist.
On Thursday, Newsom mentioned two previous laws — 1999’s Laura’s Law and and 1967’s Lanterman-Petris-Short Act — which have fallen short of their goal to require treatment for people with serious mental illness.
“We made progress with Laura’s Law … but when you look at the results, 200 — by the way, this is an exact number — 218 people in the entire state of California served by Laura’s Law,” said Newsom. “That wasn’t much of a reform.”
In 2019, San Francisco adopted a plan to compel homeless people into treatment through conservatorship, but so far only two people have been helped, according to a Feb. 5 story by J.D. Morris of the San Francisco Chronicle. Again, no amount of “tough love” talk can make up for the lack of beds, shelter and treatment.
Newsom deserves credit for taking on homelessness and doing more than any governor in state history to try to fix it. He’s committed over $14 billion to the issue and launched innovative programs like Project Homekey and Project Roomkey, which used existing hotels and motels to get people indoors. There is real courage in his decision to focus on homelessness when seemingly wiser politicians have avoided the intractable issue.
The main question, however, is whether local governments will have the resources to provide the court-mandated housing and services on an ongoing basis. If they have money for this, it’s not clear where it’s all been going.
Under the governor’s proposal, those county governments that don’t comply could face sanctions from the court.
“Penalizing the county safety net system when certain housing resources, workforce or funding don’t exist in the first place is counterproductive and won’t expand connections to life-saving treatment and services,” Michelle Doty, executive director of the County Behavioral Health Directors Association of California, told CapRadio.
Newsom’s announcement made a big splash, but will it make a big difference? Or will it go the way of Newsom’s Care Not Cash and the Ten Year Plan to Abolish Homelessness? He pushed these ambitious solutions to homelessness and addiction as mayor but, judging by the state of things in San Francisco, they did not work as planned.
But — heaven help him — Newsom refuses to give up.
“We’re putting everything we can into this,” he said. “We recognize what you see every single day. It’s unacceptable. And we recognize our responsibility, our moral responsibility.”
Newsom is right to elevate the issue and force a conversation about how our wealthy state treats its poorest and most vulnerable citizens. Perhaps he has failed enough times to finally succeed. For the sake of the unhoused human beings suffering in danger, misery and poverty on California’s streets, let’s hope so.
Tags: California, Gavin Newsom, homeless, Mental Health and Addictions Minister Judy Darcy, Politics, Poverty, San Francisco | 2022-03-08T02:28:08Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Opinion: Can Newsom’s ‘Care Courts’ actually help? - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/opinion-can-newsoms-care-courts-actually-help/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/opinion-can-newsoms-care-courts-actually-help/ |
By Lincoln Mitchell • March 7, 2022 1:30 pm - Updated March 7, 2022 3:11 pm
Mayor London Breed promised to crack down on criminality in the Tenderloin at a news conference on Dec. 17, 2021. She made good on that promise a few weeks later, declaring a state of emergency in the neighborhood for 2022. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)
So far, 2022 has been a pretty good year for Mayor London Breed
The Feb. 15 recall of three school board members, which Breed supported, passed overwhelmingly, giving her three appointments to the board and an opportunity to further consolidate her power. The same day, the District 17 Assembly race put candidates David Campos and Matt Haney into a runoff. That runoff on April 9 is expected to be close, but most think Haney will win. And, you guessed it, if Supervisor Haney goes to the Assembly, London Breed will appoint his successor, increasing her political strength.
Breed will have two more such opportunities in advance of her reelection campaign in 2023.
The first is June 7’s recall vote on District Attorney Chesa Boudin. Breed has not taken a formal position on the recall, but she does not appear to be against it. A successful recall of Boudin would be a blow to San Francisco progressives and demonstrate that moderates, like Breed, are winning in The City. It also would give Breed the opportunity to choose Boudin’s successor.
The second opportunity comes in Nov. 8, when Breed’s new school board appointees face an election, possibly against one or more of the recently recalled members. If Breed’s appointees win, it will affirm her choices and signal she is well positioned to win reelection in 2023.
On the other hand, much could change between now and June. The San Francisco County Democratic Committee Party recently voted overwhelmingly against the recall. This does not mean it will fail, but shows the city’s political leadership does not support it. Also, Boudin will have enough of a war chest to run a real campaign. Supporters of the school board recall were able to outspend its opponents by a margin of about 28-1. That will not be the case in the DA recall.
Boudin has already sought to make the recall a little bit about Breed, explaining to the New York Times, “The mayor appoints the replacement after a successful recall vote. It creates an incentive for the mayor to always support a recall…When we have problems like the Tenderloin or a housing crisis or an opioid-overdose epidemic, it is convenient for someone with access to those resources and power to have a foil when people are upset.” Boudin’s analysis is more or less accurate, but he needs to strike a delicate balance, asking voters whether they want to further empower Breed without actively taking on a relatively popular mayor.
If Boudin survives the recall and one or more of Breed’s candidates lose, Breed will become more vulnerable in 2022.
No mayor of San Francisco has lost a bid for reelection since Frank Jordan in 1995, and many incumbent mayors face weak opposition when running for reelection. One of the reasons for this is that San Francisco mayors, through the power of their appointments, are able to consolidate their power after taking office.
Another reason is that although there are several other citywide elected officials, none enjoy the visibility of the mayor. Most San Franciscans know who the mayor is, but how many know the name of the city attorney – who is a Breed appointee? Or how many know the name of the assessor-recorder, even though voters just renewed his term? Not many.
Breed is poised for a reelection campaign that looks a lot more like Gavin Newsom’s in 2007 or Ed Lee’s in 2015 than Frank Jordan’s in 1995. If that changes, it will happen this year in one or two electoral setbacks. | 2022-03-08T02:28:14Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Opinion: London Breed’s next political test - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/opinion-london-breeds-next-political-test/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/opinion-london-breeds-next-political-test/ |
By Markos Kounalakis Special to The Examiner • March 7, 2022 3:15 pm
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine during a news conference in Kyiv, March 3, 2022. (Lynsey Addario/The New York Times)
By Markos Kounalakis
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky came to America a few months back to cajole and plead for support — both military and political. He saw the storm coming. It is now a Putin-driven hailstorm of rockets and bullets raining down on cities and civilians. Urban residents have gone from sheltering-in-place against COVID to picking up arms to fight in the streets. Europe is again embroiled in a war that will not end all wars.
San Francisco feels a million miles away from today’s shooting and mayhem. Yet when Zelensky came to visit President Biden in September, he made a pilgrimage to America’s largest Ukrainian community: California. He gave a critical speech warning of Russia’s intentions at Stanford’s FSI center, the academic home of Mike McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia.
Zelensky then jumped in a car and headed to Mountain View to visit the Adjutant General David S. Baldwin, to review the California National Guard at Moffett Field. I was there for much of Zelensky’s time with my wife, Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis, and felt both the urgency of Zelensky’s appeal and his ability to cajole and convince his hosts for the material support that the last presidential administration held hostage.
Looking back at Zelensky’s visit, I vividly recall F-15 fighter pilot Colonel Robert “Tigger” Swertfager talking with the president about his time in Ukraine, as part of a cycling contingent of California National Guard who have trained with Ukrainians both here and in-country since 1993. The airman had maintained close personal ties with his Ukrainian pilot friends — there may have been drinking involved — and spoke of both their daring and the danger they faced. He then reached up to his shoulder and ripped from his flight suit a special patch, handing it to Zelensky.
The Ukrainian President touched the unique patch to his heart and said he would carry it with him always. When I see Zelensky now in an online video or sandbag-backed press conference, I think of the patch that likely is in his pocket. If the order comes, the California aviator would be among the first to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine. A no-fly zone over Ukraine, however, runs the risk of a wider war — one that would evolve into a Russia-NATO conflict and might trigger the use of tactical nuclear weapons that are at Putin’s fingertips.
Anyone watching the war on cable news channels knows that it is both far away and very close. We feel the immediacy; we are pained by the suffering of innocents. Eating dinner while viewing the growing stream of fleeing refugees to Poland and other bordering countries makes us feel grateful for our own peace and prosperity.
The juxtaposition of war abroad and peace at home creates for a schizophrenic present, for cognitive dissonance. America just pulled out of its longest war in Afghanistan — a war that was mostly out of sight and, for both citizens and political leaders, is now out of mind.
Ukraine is different. Not because it is a war against white Europeans who are dominantly Christians. It is different because it is being attacked by Putin’s Evil Empire. He has sent the equivalent of the Death Star to descend on Kyiv, and the rebel forces are outnumbered and outgunned. But they are not out of luck or pluck; they are standing their ground.
The Taliban was outgunned and outmanned, too, but the U.S. was not going to enter into World War III to oppose the Taliban. Also, nuclear conflagration from Afghanistan was never a threat. Putin, on the other hand, is ready to pull the nuclear trigger.
We know this viscerally and we are all trying to understand what it means two weeks into the Russia-Ukraine war. We try to understand what it means to our daily lives, how it will change the geopolitical balance of power, whether we will be able to travel as easily or frequently as we once did to remote parts of the world.
Wars of this magnitude and consequence used to require significant citizen sacrifice. Gas going up 26 cents a gallon is an annoyance, but does not qualify as broad societal hardship. There are a few who recognize the gravity of the moment and have shipped off to Ukraine to fight in the International Brigade, a ragtag fighting force reminiscent of the American Lincoln Brigade that went to fight in the Spanish Civil War (for a refresher, read Hemingway).
How this war ends is unclear. Ideally, Russians rise up to remove their dangerous leader, who is in his 22nd year in power. As Putin walks through his gilded Kremlin corridors, he has become increasingly isolated and paranoid, aware that his future holds only three options: 1) power, 2) prison or 3) death.
What can San Franciscans do? Lifelong Giants fans know how to root for an underdog. San Franciscans are showing blue and gold flag Zoom backdrops, sending aid and demonstrating publicly. We are rooting for Ukrainians, rooting for Zelensky. Because a loss for Ukraine will bring darkness to all, delivering a temporary but significant blow to freedom and democracy.
Putin knows Zelensky symbolizes hope and freedom and will do everything in his power to destroy him. Zelensky’s survival means that democracy has another day of life. America is using sanctions and other tools short of direct confrontation with Russia or no-fly zones to save the nation. It must do everything it can to help President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine.
Markos Kounalakis is author of “Freedom Isn’t Free: The Price of World Order” (Anthem, 2022) and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. | 2022-03-08T02:28:20Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Opinion: What Zelensky means for world democracy - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/opinion-what-zelensky-means-for-world-democracy/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/opinion-what-zelensky-means-for-world-democracy/ |
Interview with Domee Shi, first woman filmmaker on a Pixar feature, and producer Lindsey Collins
By Jeffrey M. Anderson • March 8, 2022 9:30 am - Updated March 8, 2022 10:08 am
Pixar’s newest feature, “Turning Red,” which debuts Friday on Disney+ and in local theaters, is a groundbreaker in more ways that one.
“Turning Red” director Domee Shi had been working as a storyboard artist at Pixar when she made her directing debut with the 2018 “Bao,” a strange and wonderful short film about a mother raising a steamed dumpling like a son.
When it came to working on her first feature, Shi discovered that there were major differences between shorts and features. Shi and her producer, Lindsey Collins, both Bay Area residents, recently spoke with The Examiner during a screening of the film at the Castro Theater.
“At first, I thought, it’ll be like ‘Bao,’ but just a little longer,” Shi says. “Wrong! Yes, longer, but the stakes are higher, the crew is bigger, the story is more complicated. It’s more unpredictable. Things are happening on top of each other.”
Not only did “Bao” win an Academy Award for Shi, but it was also the first short Pixar film directed by a woman. Now “Turning Red” becomes the first Pixar feature to be directed solely by a woman; 2012’s “Brave” was co-directed by Brenda Chapman.
It’s also the second Pixar feature with an Asian character in a major role. (The first was “Up” in 2009.)
The movie depicts the Chinese-Canadian culture in which Shi grew up. Shi explains that, before moving to the Bay Area, she was born in China, and lived briefly in Newfoundland (“it was so cold!”) before moving to Toronto, where her mother attended college.
“It was so normal for me,” she says. “I always loved how multicultural it was. I never felt like a token, or an other. I felt ‘othered’ in other ways, like being nerdy and fat, but not being Chinese. I was thankful for that experience, and I wanted to share that.”
Another fresh aspect of “Turning Red” is the depiction of what Shi calls “girl puberty.” In the movie, we meet 8th grader Mei, who is great at school, has three “besties” and loves the pop group 4-Town. She also loves, but is often frustrated by, her mother, who pushes her to perfection.
Then, one day she wakes up, and she’s an eight-foot red panda!
“I don’t think I’ve seen many movies that really explore girl puberty, with all of its messiness and taboo-ness. I just remember this time of my life, being such a rollercoaster of emotion,” she says.
“I wanted to impress my mom and I wanted her love, but I was also fighting with her every single day,” she continues. “And suddenly I woke up one day, and I had completely changed overnight. There was hair everywhere, I was huge and I was hungry all the time.”
Meilin, right, in big red panda form. (Courtesy Disney/Pixar)
The casting of Mei is yet another unusual aspect of “Turning Red.” Since Pixar films are in production for many years, the studio starts with temporary actors, usually people on staff or close by, who can record at a moment’s notice. Then, when things really get moving, the professional actors with the busy schedules can be brought in.
Collins and Shi decided they needed to cast an actual kid in the role, to give it an authenticity. After listening to auditions by many local actors, they found Rosalie Chiang.
“She was so charming,” says producer Collins. “She was 12 at the time, and she had a little bit of a lisp in her voice. She was weirdly confident … she just wasn’t polished. We worked with her for a year, and she started to inform the character. She WAS this girl, growing up, right in front of us.”
When the time came to cast the role for real, Collins and Shi were already on the same page.
“We just kind of looked at each other, ‘Do we even want to look at anyone else?’ One of our best days, ever, was being able to offer her the job. We captured it on camera. We did a fake script read and did it on camera. She started to cry,” says Collins.
“It was the beginning of COVID, so I couldn’t hug her,” Shi remembers sadly.
Another casting coup for the film was 93-year-old James Hong, as wise old Mr. Gao, who tries to help remove Mei’s panda curse. Hong is one of the most prolific English-speaking actors of all time, with well over 600 film and TV credits, including local productions like “Big Trouble in Little China” and episodes of “The Streets of San Francisco” and “Nash Bridges.”
Even though they only met Hong over Zoom, Collins and Shi were “starstruck.” They speak excitedly together: “He was so cool. He’s a total pro. He had two thermoses, for tea and water. As soon as we started rolling … I don’t know where this energy came from. He’s inexhaustible. He was ad-libbing, so funny. He wanted to take a selfie. He was telling us stories about his first gigs. And he sent a thank you afterward. He types all in caps!”
“Killing Eve” star Sandra Oh was also an essential voice, performing the character of Mei’s mother, Ming.
“Ming is a tricky character,” says Collins. “You could see her coming off more arch or stereotypical or not likable. And Sandra came in and was able to ground her in a warmth and humor. She had this ability to switch on a dime from being at ‘11’ to being very loving.”
In addition to Shi, Collins, and Chiang, another Bay Area resident proved essential on “Turning Red.” Playwright Julia Cho came to Northern California to work with Collins on a Pixar project that never saw the light of day.
“Pixar is not an easy place for a writer,” says Collins. “We’re weird. It takes forever. There’s always endless notes. It’s such a collaborative environment. You have to work with the story department. A lot of writers are like, ‘who’s idea was this?’”
“But Julia’s great,” Collins continues. “She’s a playwright, so she’s used to workshopping. She’s not precious.”
Cho magically fit right in to the Pixar environment, and when Collins introduced her to Shi, they clicked.
“Both of us are very close with our moms and we both have Asian backgrounds,” says Shi. “She’s down to work fast and make mistakes, which is my style too. We bonded over writing Mei because we both felt so close to her.”
Cho also helped Shi create Mei’s trio of “besties”… all except Abby.
“Abby is literally just inspired by my real-life friend,” says Shi. “She’s short, cute on the outside, but she’s a demon powerhouse with an incredible scream-o karaoke voice who will defend you in a bar fight.” | 2022-03-08T18:43:36Z | www.sfexaminer.com | ‘Turning Red’ breaks glass ceiling with puberty-plumbing drama - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/turning-red-breaks-glass-ceiling-with-girl-puberty-plumbing-drama/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/turning-red-breaks-glass-ceiling-with-girl-puberty-plumbing-drama/ |
Chesa Boudin expressed ‘disappointment’ that a jury on Monday found an SFPD officer not guilty on three assault charges. (Kevin N. Hume/S.F. Examiner)
Prosecutors expressed disappointment after a jury’s acquittal Monday of a San Francisco police officer accused in the 2019 beating an unarmed Black man with a police baton.
The jury found Officer Terrance Stangel not guilty of three of the four charges, including battery, assault with a deadly weapon and assault likely to cause great bodily injury. On the fourth charge for assault under color of authority, the jury was unable to agree, resulting in a mistrial on that count.
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin first announced charges against Stangel back in December 2020 in connection with the encounter, which left Dacari Spiers with a broken leg and wrist, as well as lacerations to his leg.
Stangel became the first on-duty officer in the city’s history to be tried in court for such crimes.
After Monday’s verdict, a statement from Boudin’s office thanked the jury for their consideration and shared the disappointment of Boudin and other prosecutors.
“We respect the jury process, although we remain disappointed that police accountability remains so elusive and difficult to achieve,” Boudin said in the statement. “I am committed to continuing to hold those who commit harm accountable — regardless of the uniform they may wear or the badge they may carry.”
Boudin noted that last month, the city and county of San Francisco settled a lawsuit with Spiers for $700,000 for his beating. He also commended the prosecutors in his office who handled the case: Hans Moore, Rebecca Young, and Lateef Gray.
“They fought an uphill battle to hold a police officer — backed by the powerful [union] — accountable for severely beating an unarmed Black man,” Boudin said. “Our work to hold those who harm our community members accountable continues. No one is above the law — including those tasked with enforcing it. We are committed to protecting the right of all people to be safe.”
On Oct. 7, 2019, Stangel and his partner, Officer Cuahtemoc Martinez, responded to the city’s Fisherman’s Wharf area after 911 callers reported a man choking a woman. At the scene, a struggle ensued between Spiers and the two officers.
At one point, Martinez brought Spiers to the ground and Stangel struck Spiers’ legs with a baton several times.
Although Spiers was not arrested, he was handcuffed and later cited for obstructing an officer.
Spiers required surgery and stitches and was wheelchair-bound during his recovery, according to prosecutors.
Stangel’s attorney Nicole Pifari has maintained Stangel and his partner acted lawfully as they attempted to protect the public from a potentially dangerous situation. | 2022-03-08T18:43:37Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Boudin ‘disappointed’ about not-guilty verdict in police brutality case - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/boudin-disappointed-about-not-guilty-verdict-in-police-brutality-case/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/boudin-disappointed-about-not-guilty-verdict-in-police-brutality-case/ |
Hallo to dozens of North American premieres and auf Wiedersehen to at-home movie watching
By Jeffrey M. Anderson • March 8, 2022 10:30 am - Updated March 8, 2022 11:37 am
Festival Director Sophoan Sorn and Festival President Noémie Njangiru unveiling the feature live action and documentary film lineup of the 26th Berlin & Beyond Film Festival on February 22, 2022. (Photo by Lisa Klien)
In a remarkable stand against the virus, and the events of the past two years, the Berlin & Beyond festival is back in a fully in-person capacity. That means everything will be in theaters and nothing will be streamed or zoomed.
The festival, which plays March 11 through 16, will feature around a dozen new feature-length films — many making their North American premieres — as well as shorts, a director’s panel and more. Events are scheduled at the Castro Theatre, Landmark’s Aquarius in Palo Alto, Landmark’s Shattuck in Berkeley and The Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley.
The opening night feature is a doozy; it’s the directing debut of Daniel Brühl, who is perhaps best known on these shores as race car driver Niki Lauda in 2013’s “Rush” and the fascinating villain “Zemo” in both “Captain America: Civil War” and “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” TV series on Disney+.
His film, “Next Door,” is what they call a “two-hander.” Brühl plays a semi-famous movie actor, called “Daniel Weltz,” on the day of a big audition for a superhero movie. He stops at a quiet bar before heading to the airport, and is unnerved by the direct, unsettling stare of Bruno (Peter Kurth).
Daniel Brühl, right, plays a version of himself in his directorial debut “Next Door.” (Courtesy Reiner Bajo)
At first, Bruno simply offers Daniel some searing criticism of some of his performances, before letting on that he knows some very unsettling things about Daniel’s life. It becomes a compact, punchy little chess game between two very different personalities, with a devastating payoff.
That opening night film will be followed by a small reception on the Castro’s upper mezzanine. The film will be shown again on March 14 at the Aquarius.
The centerpiece film, “Dear Thomas,” a black-and-white, New Wave-style biopic of writer Thomas Brasch, will screen at the Castro on Saturday, March 12.
The Castro closing night film will be the touching, pointed “Precious Ivie,” about a young woman, Ivie (Haley Louise Jones), who is trying to land a job as a teacher. She suddenly receives a visit from Naomi (Lorna Ishema), claiming to be Ivie’s half-sister and providing the information that their father is dead.
Through delicate, nuanced performances and a patient tone, it’s one of those special films that gets close to life. The film screens Sunday, March 13 at the Castro, and again on March 15 at the Shattuck.
Other programs include “Youth 4 German Cinema,” which features two films chosen by a special panel of young folks. “Mission Ulja Funk” tells the story of a 12-year-old astronomy nut who takes an illicit road trip to see an asteroid crash, while “Wet Dog” is about an Iranian/Jewish teenager who joins an anti-Semitic street gang. Admission to these two films is free, although registration is required.
Documentaries include the highly-acclaimed “Mr. Bachmann and His Class,” about how an unconventional elementary school teacher bonds with his students. And “Genderation” is a sequel to director Monkia Treut’s “Gendermauts,” in which she revisits her trans subjects (many of whom live in the Bay Area).
Detailed information on these and the festival’s other films is available on their website, where tickets may also be purchased.
Prices range from $7-10 for matinee shows to $14-16 for most screenings. The opening night feature is $26-30, and $200 for the reception. A pass for all Castro films with priority entry is available for $175 general, $160 for seniors, students, and disabled patrons, and $150 for Berlin & Beyond members.
26th Berlin & Beyond Film Festival
March 11-13, 2022: Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., S.F.
March 14, 2022: Landmark’s Aquarius Theatre, 430 Emerson St., Palo Alto
March 15, 2022: Landmark’s Shattuck Cinemas, 2230 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley
March 16, 2022: UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), 2155 Center St., Berkeley
Regular Film Tickets (Castro Main Screenings, Aquarius & Shattuck Screenings)
$16.00 general, $14.00 senior/student/disabled, $13.00 Berlin & Beyond member
Castro Opening Night screening of “Next Door”
Shorts Program
$10.00 matinée special (no discounts)
Children’s Matinée
$7.00 matinée special (no discounts)
Youth 4 German Cinema Screenings
Free Admission (ticketed registration required)
BAMPFA screening of “Mr. Bachmann and His Class”
$14.00 general, $10 senior/student/disabled, see website for additional prices
Opening Night Benefit Reception
$200.00 ($125.00 applicable for tax-deduction)
Castro Priority Film Pass (films only March 11-13 with priority entry)
$175.00 general, $160.00 senior/student/disabled, $150.00 Berlin & Beyond member | 2022-03-09T00:56:08Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Berlin & Beyond Film Festival is 26 and entirely in person - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/berlin-beyond-film-festival-is-26-and-entirely-in-person/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/berlin-beyond-film-festival-is-26-and-entirely-in-person/ |
By Jean Schiffman • March 8, 2022 1:20 pm
Marc Anthony Thompson and Roger Guenveur Smith, right, collaborated once again to bring “Otto Frank” to the stage. (Courtesy Magic Theatre)
When film, TV and stage actor Roger Guenveur Smith was invited to Amsterdam to perform in his solo piece “Rodney King” — one among many works he has created with composer Marc Anthony Thompson — he visited the Anne Frank House. In a “visceral and direct way,” he says he pictured Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, returning to the empty, haunted space after the war, having lost two daughters and his wife.
Now, the 60-minute “Otto Frank” premieres as a Campo Santo production under the umbrella of the Magic Theatre, directed by Sean San José, the Magic’s new artistic director who is also a Campo Santo founding member.
It’s not Guenveur Smith’s first appearance with that inventive, 26-year-old ensemble; Campo Santo premiered his “Casa de Spirits” in 2018. Nor it is his first appearance with the 54-year-old new plays hub Magic Theatre, where his enormously successful “A Huey P. Newton Story” — his first collaboration with Thompson — opened in 1995 and was later filmed by Spike Lee. For Guenveur Smith, who was born in Berkeley, worked with various Bay Area theaters and taught at UC Berkeley, “Otto Frank” is a brief and welcome return home in the midst of a busy career.
During his career, Guenveur Smith has embodied such figures as Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, Bob Marley and others, and worked with Spike Lee on seven films. In “Otto Frank,” the eponymous character speaks directly to his beloved younger daughter, who died at Auschwitz in 1945 at the age of 15. Otto Frank himself died in 1980 at the age of 90.
In a recent phone chat, Guenveur Smith was voluble, eager to discuss his work and the upcoming show. With “Otto Frank,” he says, he has once again been able to “step outside of the expected cultural-racial-ethnic shackles” to pursue a compelling story. This Q&A has been edited for length.
What was your initial response to the Anne Frank House and how did you proceed from there?
When I stepped into the house I had a vision of a man stepping into a now empty room, where eight people had hidden for two years. A psychic, spiritual commitment that emerged in that moment. Then I did my due diligence: reading everything I could get my hands on by and about the character and visiting several Holocaust study centers in the Northeast where I was exposed to raw materials. Eventually, Marc Anthony Thompson came in to accompany me. We continued to present chunks of the work in the Northeast and Northwest and at my home theater here in L.A., Bootleg Theater. It’s been a journey, of course impeded by COVID.
You worked without a director?
I come out of a tradition of self-direction. When I was a rapper, no one was directing me. I incorporate hip-hop in a lot of my work. I’ve been mentored by (British actor/writer/director) Steven Berkoff, also self-directed. He has lent me psychic permission to be in charge of my own work. Also influential is (the late) Hal Holbrook who began playing Mark Twain (on stage) as an undergraduate. I began my solo work playing Frederick Douglass as an undergraduate, and I continue to play him.
How do you and Marc Anthony Thompson collaborate?
It’s different every time. With this piece, the script came first. He’s in the room, feeling the temperature, riding the depth of the piece — not only sonic design but manipulation of my voice. He’s a brilliantly gifted composer and performer of his own work… . I’m always listening to him as he’s listening to me, we work as an ensemble. It’s very much a two-person endeavor, a two-hander.
How did you approach the piece emotionally, historically?
I have to find a permission, a form, a way of saying, “OK, why am I saying this and to whom am I speaking?” … With “Otto Frank,” I had to find a way to make the words work effectively. Otto speaks to his deceased daughter from beyond her time and beyond his own time as well. So it’s not simply a story from the 1940s but a man who is engaged in our present moment, not something the audience can simply walk away from and say wasn’t it horrible back then. I’d like the audience to engage in our present moment and see how it’s relevant today.
Otto Frank was white, Jewish, Dutch-German, a concentration camp survivor — how did you find ways to connect to him personally?
I am a father of two daughters. That’s one of the compelling reasons for my interest in the story as well. When I say as Otto to Anne, “You are a Gemini star-crossed and stubborn and the apple of your father’s eye,” I can’t help but think of my own Gemini daughter… . Otto was a man who had a great connection to our country… . He desperately wanted to get his family to the United States as the Holocaust was impending. He was fluent in English. I don’t do it with a German accent. I’m not dressed as Otto — he was formal, natty, but I wanted to take the formality out of it. I wanted this piece to exist on a poetic plane and not simply as an impersonation. It speaks to our present day as much as to those days.
You’ve played at least one white person before, Christopher Columbus, in 1992. Are there particular challenges?
That’s never been an issue for me. I played a Dominican (baseball player Juan Marechal) and others. … This story is not just about Otto Frank; it’s about the black security guard who stood up to a racist and was killed at Washington D.C.’s U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2009. It’s a story of the man trying to get his family across the Rio Grande and drowned with his daughter. (He chokes back sobs.) It’s about the people in Charleston, Pittsburgh, Christchurch. It’s all of those stories. It’s not just about 1942 Amsterdam; it’s about our present moment.
Where: Campo Santo at Magic Theatre, Fort Mason, 2 Marina Blvd., S.F.
Contact: magictheatre.org
Each show is followed by discussion with Roger Guenveur Smith.
Tags: Arts and entertainment, Theater | 2022-03-09T00:56:14Z | www.sfexaminer.com | ‘Otto Frank’ is not just about 1942 Amsterdam, it’s about our present moment - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/otto-frank-is-not-just-about-1942-amsterdam-its-about-our-present-moment/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/otto-frank-is-not-just-about-1942-amsterdam-its-about-our-present-moment/ |
By Jessica Wolfrom • March 8, 2022 1:30 pm - Updated March 8, 2022 4:25 pm
Dorothy Erskine Park, which was named for one of The City’s first protectors of open spaces. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
Before San Francisco had a citywide tree-planting program, there was Friedel Klussmann. Before City laws protected the rolling hilltops from overcrowding, there was Dorothy Erskine. Before there was a movement to defend San Francisco Bay from filling in with development, there were Sylvia McLaughlin, Kay Kerr, and Esther Gulick.
San Francisco has long been thought of as an environmental leader on the world stage, but behind this identity exists a long history of women who fought freeways, protected open spaces, and saved the Bay.
“There was this network of civically-minded ladies that provided the leadership that helped save the region,” said Amanda Brown-Stevens, executive director of Greenbelt Alliance, a Bay Area-based environmental nonprofit.
Given the times, she said, “these women weren’t going to go into leadership positions or even have jobs. And at the same time, they still had that civic energy….and didn’t necessarily have a lot of outlets for that.”
In celebration of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, The Examiner is highlighting a few of those women who, despite many odds, made The City’s eco-identity possible.
Friedel Klussmann and Mr. A. O. Olson examine the Powell and Market Street Cable Car turntable in May 1949. (Courtesy SFMTA Photo Archive)
For Friedel Klussmann, it started with cable cars. Or rather, it started with the threat of losing them.
Following World War II, many, including then-Mayor Roger Lapham, saw the future paved with asphalt and gas-powered automobiles. “Cable cars were already antiques at that time,” said Darcy Brown, executive director of San Francisco Beautiful, a nonprofit Klussman founded in 1947.
But Lapham’s plan to “junk the cable cars” was complicated by Klussmann, who formed a coalition to oppose the measure and began a public campaign to demonstrate that the value of San Francisco’s cable cars was greater than their operational cost.
“Friedel Klussman was just your average neighborhood lady,” said Brown. But, “she decided this was not a good idea. She was far more forward-thinking than the mayor.”
Ultimately, Klussamn’s actions forced a referendum on an amendment to the city charter, compelling the city to continue operating the lines. “Diesel buses did not prompt romance in the minds of riders, and there were no thrills to be found in chugging over a hill, belching exhaust fumes as it went,” the Cable Car museum wrote in commemoration of Klussman’s victory.
But her civic activism did not stop there. In the 1960s, her organization partnered with the Chamber of Commerce to jumpstart San Francisco’s first tree planting program and merged with the Chamber’s litter program to clean City streets and promote green space throughout the city.
Preservation of open space was also important to Dorothy Erskine, a lifelong resident of San Francisco who watched as the sand dunes and lupin bushes surrounding her home on Broadway and Divisadero gave way to housing as the City’s population boomed following the first World War.
“You saw the city begin to fill up with people,” she said during an oral interview with the San Francisco Public Library. “And after a certain point, the filling up process was anything but welcome. You wanted the open spaces. You wanted something left.”
In the late 1930s, Erskine and a cohort of women who attended the University of California Berkeley became engaged in urban planning and conserving the City’s dwindling open spaces.
Dorothy Erskine in an undated photo. (Courtesy the Greenbelt Alliance)
At the time, the City did not have an official planning department, so Erskine, who felt that urban planning was crucial to solving some of the most pressing social problems, including the jerry-building of public housing in places like Chinatown, set out to create one.
“There was a real push at the time that modernizing meant developing everywhere,” said Brown-Stevens. “And I think women like Dorothy said hey, what part of what makes the Bay Area special is the natural landscape that surrounds us.”
Erskine, who also founded SPUR and The Greenbelt Alliance, is primarily credited for the passage of Proposition J in 1974, a charter amendment that allowed the City to set aside funds to buy its last remaining hilltops to preserve open spaces, which she felt were critical to balance out the skyrocketing development.
“It really was this moment of “‘we need to step up as citizens,’” said Brown-Stevens. “It was this idea that local people can stand up and make a difference by putting together and advocating for a different pattern of development. And that, I think, has been a huge legacy and is what is special about the Bay Area.”
But it wasn’t just San Francisco’s land that was filling up with people and development. It was also the Bay.
By the late 1950s, nearly a third of San Francisco Bay’s tidelands had already been diked off and filled, and plans to expand such landfills throughout the region were on the rise. Berkeley, for example, sought to double in size, proposing a plan to pave over nearly 2000 acres of Bay.
But an Oakland Tribune article outlining the plans galvanized Sylvia McLaughlin, Kay Kerr, and Esther Gulick – all wives of prominent UC Berkeley faculty members – into action. “It showed that the Bay could end up being nothing but a deepwater ship channel by the year 2020 because of the enormous amount of fill being planned,” Gulick said in a speech at UC Berkeley in 1988.
As soon as the trio began organizing, it quickly became apparent that there was scant interest in helping three women save the Bay. “It was totally a man’s world,” said David Lewis, executive director of Save The Bay, an environmental nonprofit. “There were almost no women elected officials. The leaders of the conservation organizations, which were national organizations focused on protecting wilderness, those leaders were all men.”
Lewis added that this was before this spirit of environmentalism permeated the Bay Area. “There were basically no environmental laws or regulations to prevent (fill) from happening, and there wasn’t even that much public awareness that it was happening,” he said.
To spread awareness, McLaughlin, Kerr, and Gulick began hosting gatherings in their homes that Erskine also attended. “They built a movement with phone calls and handwritten letters,” said Lewis.
Eventually, the movement gained steam. Membership to Save San Francisco Bay Association, now known as Save The Bay, skyrocketed along with public support. A study was commissioned to examine the impacts of such fill. A moratorium was placed on filling the Bay until the study could be completed.
This momentum eventually led to the passage of the McAteer-Petris Act in 1965, which established the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) as a temporary state agency, designated the Bay as a State-protected resource, and charged BCDC preserving the Bay from indiscriminate filling.
Today, BCDC is a permanent agency that protects and preserves the Bay. After decades of stewardship, the size of the Bay has increased significantly and hosts the nation’s largest urban wildlife refuge and thousands of acres of permanently protected wetlands, salt ponds, and managed marsh.
“These women were heroes, not only for what they did, but the environment in which they did it, which was not particularly welcoming to women,” said Lewis. “Women were the last people that anybody in the halls of power was expecting to listen to.”
Though it can be easy to take San Francisco’s tree-lined streets, scrubby hilltops and sprawling blue Bay for granted, let today be a reminder that you can thank a woman for that.
The dedication of Dorothy Erskine Park on February 24, 1979. From left: Mayor Dianne Feinstein; an unknown woman; Tom Malloy; Dorothy Erskine; and Ken Hoegger with microphone. (Photo by Greg Gaar, courtesy of Ken Hoegger and the Sunnyside History Project)
Tags: climate change, environment | 2022-03-09T00:56:20Z | www.sfexaminer.com | San Francisco’s environmental pioneers had one thing in common: They were all women - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/san-franciscos-environmental-pioneers-had-one-thing-in-common-they-were-all-women/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/san-franciscos-environmental-pioneers-had-one-thing-in-common-they-were-all-women/ |
Russian President Vladimir Putin is displayed on a massive screen on the side of a hotel on the outskirts of Moscow in April 2021. As media is shut down in the country, Wikipedia volunteers are filling an information gap. (The New York Times)
As independent media abandon Russia or are censored, Wikipedia is filling the information vacuum, thanks to volunteers writing and editing articles on the Russian-language Wikipedia, which drew more than 600 million page views from readers inside Russia in February.
Around 4,000 volunteers worked on Russian Wikipedia last month, some at great personal risk. One of those volunteers is Pavel, a Moscow senior citizen.
Pavel told The Examiner in written comments that Wikipedia has become “one of the main sources of information for millions of people, while more traditional media is subject to censorship.” Pavel, which is not his real name, said “contributing to Wikipedia is the best thing I can do” amid what he called “widespread fears of mass crackdowns of the remnants of civil society in Russia.”
Those efforts impress the San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation, which supports volunteers around the world by maintaining Wikipedia servers, holding fundraisers and providing legal support. “The resilience of volunteer editors who continue to work throughout this ongoing crisis to ensure that Wikipedia remains a fact-based, dependable source of knowledge is remarkable,” the Foundation’s CEO, Maryana Iskander, said in a statement to The Examiner.
An organization in Russia, Wikimedia Russia, one of many global affiliates, also raises funds and supports volunteers in Russia. But the people who work on the crowdsourced encyclopedia, like Pavel, do so unpaid, and often for deeply personal reasons.
“Everyone has fears now,” Pavel said. He works on Wikipedia because “the benefit is knowing you are doing the right thing.”
The Examiner interviewed a dozen Russian Wikipedia volunteers who are working to provide unbiased information under extraordinary circumstances. Their identities are withheld and the first names given are not their real names, due to the significant danger of reprisal from the Putin government. Through emails from Russia and screenshots of their Wikipedia work, The Examiner was able to verify their identities.
Wikipedia is created, edited, and maintained by volunteers around the world. While the San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation supports the volunteers with grants and training, no one is paid to write or edit Wikipedia. The global community of Wikipedia volunteers gathers for events, including an annual conference, called Wikimania, and maintains a rich online culture of building informational resources with a neutral point of view and verifiable sources.
Those volunteers’ work lures around 750 million page views a day to Wikipedia-related websites, from English and Russian Wikipedia to the freely licensed media collections on Wikimedia Commons.
Perhaps no volunteers are making a bigger personal commitment than those in Russia.
President Vladimir Putin has expelled independent journalists and Facebook, while Apple, Google and Microsoft have all pulled services from the country in protest of a bloody invasion of Ukraine. But Putin has not banned Wikipedia, yet. Some believe that is coming.
Last month, the most popular article on Russian-language Wikipedia, with 3.25 million page views, was “Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022),” which cites 499 references for its information. It notes “Vladimir Putin used the false image of Ukraine as a neo-Nazi state,” and “at least 406 civilians have been killed” and “The invasion led to anti-war protests… and caused the largest monetary and economic crisis in Russia since 1998.”
Those are highly unusual facts in Russia today, as the government seeks to shape its version of the Ukraine invasion. They did not go unnoticed.
On March 1, the Russian government sent a threatening letter to the San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation, which manages Wikipedia servers, fund-raising, and legal issues. The letter claimed the article on the Russian invasion of Ukraine “contains false messages about terrorist attacks or other kind of information of public concern disseminated under the guise of reliable information that threatens life and health of citizens.”
The Wikimedia Foundation pushed back in a blog post “defending the right of volunteers to continue their diligent work of editing Wikipedia with the most up-to-date and reliable information available related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
“At a time when knowledge and information are increasingly weaponized, maintaining the reliability of the information on Wikipedia is more important than ever,” said the foundation’s CEO, Iskander.
But for many Russian Wikipedians, the article on the Ukraine invasion is just one of 1.8 billion articles on Russian Wikipedia. Their mission is to treat all subjects with the same diligent and unbiased approach.
“People still need reliable information on local history topics that I’m working on,” an electrician in northwest Russia who asked to be identified as Andrey told The Examiner. “Feels a bit like a musician on Titanic. Everybody goes apesh*t about what is happening between Russia and Ukraine, society panics, and we’re still doing articles about various historical towns of Russia.”
Another volunteer, an executive in a Russian company in his 30s who gave his name as Anton, said that Wikipedia allows people in Russia to “avoid propaganda, see different points of view,” and lets him “pretend that at least something is still the same, though it’s not.”
He said he keeps in mind that working on Wikipedia is dangerous because “you are publicly exposed and could be identified easily by your name or even location, experience and interests.” He said he keeps in mind that “I need to keep my family safe and be on a short alert to make significant changes to my life if needed.”
The Examiner connected with Russian contributors to Wikipedia via an American volunteer. Victor Grigas, a videographer who makes films for Wikipedia, spent time with Russian Wikipedia volunteers on a trip to Russia several years ago. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he asked some of his acquaintances why they were updating and editing articles on Russian Wikipedia about the invasion.
“I asked people, ‘What are you aiming for?’ They said they were trying to get things to be clear with verifiability, a neutral point of view, and facts. That’s what Wikimedia Russia has done a great job of doing. They’re being Wikipedians, under extraordinary circumstances.”
San Franciscan Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, has given millions to support Wikipedians in this kind of effort, he told The Examiner. “I’m seriously impressed by the courage of all involved, also very concerned regarding the safety of both Wikipedians and Wikipedia, given the increasing intensity of information warfare,” he told The Examiner in an email.
Valentin, an IT worker in St. Petersburg who is around 50, told The Examiner in a written comment that some people might be willing to delete or change articles under government pressure in order to avoid blocking of the entire Russian Wikipedia. “Wikipedians perceive such pressure as an attack on neutrality,” he said, “and that is sacred.” Usually there are ways to include opposing points of view by treating all ideas with respect, he said, but these are unusual times. “Now there are very real problems, and no one wants to negotiate.”
Fighting disinformation doesn’t mean the Russian volunteers do not have their own political opinions.
“Part supports Russia, part Ukraine, part distanced themselves from the war for various reasons,” said a Russian Wikipedia volunteer, who called himself Stepan. Expressing those opinions anywhere online can be dangerous. “We live in a state where a repost or even a like in the social network can be blamed for treason with all the ensuing consequences.”
How long can Russian Wikipedia walk the tightrope of neutrality in this difficult atmosphere?
“I do not rule out that tomorrow the Russian special services will try to influence the content of Wikipedia by coercing the participants,” Stepan said. “We see the closure in Russia of the media that broadcast a point of view that does not coincide with the point of view of Putin. Will such a fate await Wikipedia? Probably, yes.”
Tags: Russia, social media, Ukraine
‘Cars to Casas’: Housing solution, or more of the same?
Mayor’s plan to convert former gas stations reprises a familiar debate | 2022-03-09T00:56:52Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Russia’s Wikipedia volunteers risk their freedom for truth - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/how-wikipedia-volunteers-in-russia-are-beating-disinformation/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/how-wikipedia-volunteers-in-russia-are-beating-disinformation/ |
By Livia Albeck-Ripka • March 8, 2022 2:40 pm
California became the first state in the nation to adopt a plan to combat the spread of microplastics, which aims to reduce the amount of single-use plastic items that end up in the ocean. (Photka/Shutterstock)
They are in your gut. They are in the ocean. They are even floating through the air in the most remote regions of the West. Microplastics — fragments of broken-down plastic no larger than a fraction of an inch — have become a colossal global problem.
California wants to fix that.
Last month, the state became the first in the nation to adopt a strategy addressing the scourge of tiny detritus. “We need to eliminate our addiction to single-use plastics,” said Mark Gold, the executive director of the Ocean Protection Council, the governmental body that approved the plan.
The strategy is not regulatory, but the council has committed to spending $3 million this year, with reduction targets laid out between now and 2030. Gold added, “You find microplastics everywhere you look.”
By some estimates, humans have manufactured about 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic, only 9% of which has ever been recycled. About 11 million metric tons of this plastic end up in the ocean every year, and without intervention, this number is expected to triple by 2040, according to the council. When these plastics break down, they can be eaten by marine animals, stunting their growth and causing reproductive problems. They have also been found in human organs, including placentas, as well as in soils and plants.
California’s strategy is part of a global effort to address this problem. Last week, representatives from 175 nations agreed to begin work on a legally binding treaty that would commit them to recycling and cleanup measures, as well as curbs on plastic production. The treaty, supporters say, would be the most important environmental accord since the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
At the local level, California’s strategy primarily aims to do two things: First, prevent plastics from entering the environment. Second, monitor those that are already out there.
The first step, Gold said, is reducing or ultimately eliminating the worst culprits, including single-use plastics, synthetic fabrics, cigarette filters and car tires. Research from 2019 showed that nearly half of the microplastics polluting California’s coastal waters were rubber fragments probably shed from vehicle tires, making them the largest single contributor to the problem.
The strategy also sets goals to improve stormwater systems to catch the pollutants before they reach the ocean. “The thing about microplastics is if they get into the ocean environment, they are there to stay,” Gold said.
The plan also commits to monitoring levels of microplastics in California’s waters, just as the state monitors the level of harmful particulate matter in the air, which can often increase during events like wildfires. Such a program would be among the first to consistently monitor these pollutants in the environment.
It also sets goals to research where the majority of the microplastics are coming from, and how much risk each kind poses to the health of humans and aquatic life. Though scientists agree that plastic pollution is a blight, little is known about exactly how it affects us.
“The evidence of harm is not the same as the evidence of presence,” said Britta Denise Hardesty, a principal scientist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, an Australian science agency, and an expert on microplastics, who is not involved in the plan. She added, “It’s awesome that California is doing this.”
A sensible state strategy, she added, was far more likely to succeed than some previous efforts, including a giant boom that set sail into the Pacific Ocean in September 2018 with plans to remove 150,000 pounds of plastic from the ocean in a year. “You couldn’t design something to be more costly and less likely to succeed,” Hardesty said.
The vessel returned several months later, in pieces.
The hope is that California — the state with the largest economy and among the best environmental protections in the nation — can forge ahead in reducing the harm of microplastics, even if it can’t solve the problem on its own, Gold, the Ocean Protection Council executive, said.
“We’re California, we lead by example; it’s in our DNA,” he said, adding: “We don’t want to wake up in five years and find out this is absolutely devastating to our marine ecology, and we didn’t do anything.” | 2022-03-09T00:56:58Z | www.sfexaminer.com | In a first, California plans to clean up microplastics - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/in-a-first-california-plans-to-clean-up-microplastics/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/in-a-first-california-plans-to-clean-up-microplastics/ |
Sacramento firefighters respond to a fire at a homeless encampment under Highway 80 near 14th and X street in Sacramento on Feb. 24. (Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters)
“We’re building the system, building the capacity, building the data, and communities are rising to the occasion. I know people are really frustrated because they feel like they don’t see that change,” said Lourdes Castro Ramirez, secretary of the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency. “But I don’t think you can see change that is going to be long-lasting overnight.”
California last tallied its homeless population in January 2020, and found at least 161,000 people without a roof over their heads on any given night, with the biggest concentration in Los Angeles. Most were single adults, about a third were chronically homeless and Black Californians were overrepresented in the count nearly fivefold.
The state poured billions of dollars into alleviating homelessness, creating thousands of shelter beds and housing units. But the housing affordability crisis — to which most experts attribute homelessness — only worsened as millions lost their jobs and rents skyrocketed. Shelters also reduced bed capacity and federal officials urged local law enforcement not to disband camps like the one in Sacramento to guard against the coronavirus, making tent cities more visible than ever.
The result of California’s tally is very likely to be an undercount, in part because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which orders the count, in its definition of homelessness excludes people who are couch-surfing or staying in cheap motels. Researchers say that means families with children who are teetering on the edge are most likely to be overlooked.
For all its flaws, the count is still an invitation for policymakers to interact with the people affected by their decisions, Castro Ramirez said at a small kickoff event at CSU Sacramento.
“Very few people come over here and talk to us,” said Jessica Hud, who’s been homeless for five years, and had been staying in the encampment on X and 10th streets for about seven months.
Years of disinvestment
Newly available metrics collected by local officials still reveal some information about how they are serving the homeless population. Over the course of 2020, for example, the state reported that local agencies served more than 246,000 people, and nearly 40% of them moved into some form of housing. (That number is higher than the one-night snapshot because someone may have been homeless at the start of the year, but housed by the end.) What the data doesn’t reveal is where people went, which types of programs worked better than others or which service providers excelled and which ones fell behind.
“Here in the city and county of Sacramento, we are committed to making housing and shelter a human and a legal right, and mental health care and treatment as a human and legal right,” he said. “That has to be our commitment coming out of this point-in-time count.”
John Vasquez, 61, sorts through the remains of a fire at a homeless encampment under Highway 80, near 14th Street, in Sacramento on Feb. 24. (Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters) | 2022-03-09T10:44:39Z | www.sfexaminer.com | California counts its homeless, but can it track the money? - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/california-counts-its-homeless-but-can-it-track-the-money/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/california-counts-its-homeless-but-can-it-track-the-money/ |
Documentary film screening and panel discussion about the building of Transcontinental Railroad
By James Salazar • March 9, 2022 10:30 am
Wong Fook, Lee Chao and Ging Cui in 1919, three of the eight Chinese rail workers who put in the last spike on the Transcontinental Railroad. (Unknown photographer; Amon Carter Museum of American Art Archives, Fort Worth, Texas; courtesy of Kate Patterson)
Chinese immigrants laid down 690 miles of track in the mid 1800s for North America’s first transcontinental railroad, connecting Sacramento to Promontory Summit in Utah. The efforts of these migrant workers were long overlooked, but recently local organizations have collaborated to celebrate their contributions.
Now through May 22, the San Francisco Public Library, the Chinese Railroad Workers Descendants Association and the Chinatown History and Culture Association present “Silent Spikes: Following in the Footprints of Chinese Railroad Workers.” And Saturday, the library’s main branch will host a special event with a screening of “Crossing Donner Summit,” a documentary by Min Zhou about the laborers’ heroics, along with a panel discussion featuring historians, scholars and descendants of the workers sharing stories and mementos.
The centerpiece of the exhibition comprises 30 panels in which photographer Li Ju places his contemporary shots next to historic photographs, to show the accomplishments of the 20,000 Chinese workers. Li traveled the entire route of the Transcontinental Railroad seven times, making sure that his images’ angles and locations were historically accurate. For the exhibition, the Chinese Railroad Workers Descendants Association and the Chinatown History and Culture Association prepared original Chinese translations of the panels.
Curator and CHCA head Nancy Yu said pandemic restrictions delayed the exhibition’s opening for two years. Translations were critical for Yu, who wanted the show to be accessible to Chinese immigrants who may not read or speak English.
“We want to connect the community and different groups of people who want to help the Chinese community,” said Yu. “We also want to promote our Chinese history and culture.”
Chinese immigrants arrived in significant numbers during California’s Gold Rush as southeastern China endured war, famine and a poor economy. As the rush subsided, immigrants worked as farm laborers, in low-paying industrial jobs and railroad construction. The Central Pacific Railroad, a company chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1862 to lay tracks eastward from Sacramento, was initially opposed to hiring Chinese laborers but the number of white applicants was less than needed.
In February 1865, the Central Pacific Railroad hired 50 workers on a temporary basis and more were soon hired as contractors. Immigrant labor turned into an asset for the Central Pacific Railroad, which set up recruiting efforts in China’s Guangdong province. Workers labored for as little as $1 a day and were exposed to harsh weather, illnesses and other hazards. Their presence is omitted from photographs of the 1869 Golden Spike ceremony, an event that celebrated the joining of the Central Pacific’s portion of the railroad with the Union Pacific Railroad from Omaha.
Zhou’s documentary “Crossing Donner Summit” points out the omission with one sentence: “When they laid the last rail, people only saw their backs.” The film includes interviews with descendants like Gene Chan, the great-grandson of railroad worker Jow Kee. Zhou also interviewed Union Pacific Vice President Scott Moore, railroad conductors and local historians.
Larry Yee, a featured panelist and president of The City’s Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, says the exhibition corrects previously incomplete historical portrayals of the Chinese workers, referencing the June 1867 labor stoppage, considered the largest of the era. Chinese laborers were grading topography and digging tunnels in the Sierras when they decided to strike in protest of inadequate pay, long hours and sordid working conditions.
although the Central Pacific Railroad did not concede to any demands, the laborers’ actions defied impressions of Chinese immigrants’ supposed docility.
“We must learn from our ancestors who fought for their rights,” said Yee. “Now it is our time to fight. If we could do it 160 years ago, we can do it today. We must be role models for those who follow in our footsteps.”
The exhibition is very much oriented to students. Last week, classes from the Children’s Day School visited and were given a lecture by historian David Lei.
Though Yu’s schedule only allows her to host only one class a week, she wants the program to be a regular fixture.
“Our hope is that the Chinese contributions to the formation of this country will be better represented in textbooks and school curricula for future generations,” she said.
“Following in the Footprints of Chinese Railroad Workers”
When: 11 a.m., Saturday, March 12
Where: San Francisco Public Library, Main Branch, Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin Street, S.F.
Contact: (415) 557-4400, https://sfpl.org/exhibits/2022/01/19/silent-spikes
The San Francisco Public Library is hosting an exhibition about Chinese immigrants who worked on the Transcontinental Railroad in the mid 1800s. (Photo courtesy Nancy Yu)
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Sitting over 12,000+ square foot lot with views of the Bay and San Mateo Bridges, 2828 Mariposa has an open… | 2022-03-09T20:30:56Z | www.sfexaminer.com | San Francisco Public Library resurrects brave history of Chinese railroad workers - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/san-francisco-public-library-resurrects-brave-history-of-chinese-railroad-workers/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/san-francisco-public-library-resurrects-brave-history-of-chinese-railroad-workers/ |
By Will Reisman • March 9, 2022 2:30 pm
Adrianne Noell and Ian Richard Devaney of Language of Nation. (Photo by Andreia Lemos)
Several years ago, Ian Richard Devaney had a musical epiphany.
The Nation of Language frontman and chief songwriter was idling around and heard a snippet of “Electricity,” the 1979 synth pop single from Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. A beloved song from his childhood, Devaney hadn’t heard the tune in years and he was inspired by, well, just how amateurish it sounded.
“It had this great reckless charm to it,” said Devaney, whose band will play at Bimbo’s 365 on March 22. “It was very imprecise and felt kind of unprofessional, and that really spoke to me. Like, I don’t really know anything about synths, and it kind of sounds like these guys don’t know anything either, as least at this moment in their career. And I started thinking, ‘Maybe I can do this, too.’”
This happened when Devaney was winding down his involvement with the Static Jacks, an indie rock group which specialized in an earnest and untidy aesthetic that defined so many bands of the late aughts and early 2010s era — when emotional acuity, not technical prowess, was prized. Looking to convey the same sense of immediacy and accessibility, Devaney began exploring a keyboard-heavy synth group specializing in electronic pop hooks.
Devaney first tinkered with simple keyboard sounds, and eventually enlisted his partner Adrianne Noell and former Static Jacks bandmate Michael Sue-Poi to form Nation of Language in 2016. Devaney said he viewed the band more as a collective than a set group (Sue-Poi is not taking part in the current tour, for example).
“In those early days of the band, it was just basically a series of friends helping me out,” said Devaney. “So, I wanted to write parts that were so simple anyone could step in on the synth and join the band if they wanted to. … I didn’t want to over-complicate things or make it so you’d have to be a synthesizer scientist or something.”
While Nation of Language songs may seem simple at first blush, each track evinces a richly emotional energy. Take, for example, “Wounds of Love” from the group’s 2021 album “A Way Forward.” The track starts with a couple of kids-bop keyboard moments, then quickly evolves into a stirring paean to heartbreak, elevated by Devaney’s honeyed vocals and plaintive musings: “Can I ever get past the wounds of love?/No.” Like most Nation of Language songs, this one features pathos in a deceptively simple package.
Of course, what makes this dichotomy work is the band’s penchant for writing unstoppable pop hooks. “A Way Forward” is stuffed with great synthpop earworms. (The band’s debut, “Introduction, Presence” which came out in 2020, is also a masterpiece.) “Across That Fine Line” is a digital krautrock masterpiece, evoking the best elements of Kraftwerk’s propulsive dynamism; “This Fractured Mind” is a cacophony of ambient New Order melodies; and “Whatever You Want” recalls all the soaring and triumphal pop songs of the ‘80s.
Like his forebears, Devaney writes songs with a precise ear for movement and restless motion. His songs perfect for the Peloton, or perhaps speeding out of The City in your car, watching the lights of the skyscrapers fade away into the darkness of the exurbs. This is not an accident — the Nation of Language catalog is filled with song titles like “The Motorist,” “Automobile” and “The Grey Commute.”
“I always loved how Kraftwerk talked about modes of transportation so much, and I thought it was so cool how the music worked with that concept,” said Devaney. “I kind of look at the first album as my driving album and the second one as my train album, but they are both about having that form and function line up. I want to have the things I reference in the song match what the music is doing.”
Driving and transit are perfect environments for Nation of Language songs. You might find yourselves miles from home, carried along by simple melodies of your travelling soundtrack. Fortunately, there are few better bands to get lost with than Nation of Language.
Nation of Language w/Glove
Where: Bimbo’s 365 Club, 1025 Columbus Avenue, S.F.
When: 8 p.m., Tuesday, March 22
Contact: (415) 474-0365, bimbos365club.com | 2022-03-10T01:32:35Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Nation of Language specializes in making simple songs move - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/nation-of-language-specializes-in-making-simple-songs-move/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/nation-of-language-specializes-in-making-simple-songs-move/ |
Supervisors passed legislation Tuesday that would create a regulatory framework for street vendors. (Shutterstock)
The Board of Supervisors passed legislation Tuesday backed by Mayor London Breed that regulates street vending.
The law specifies a time, location and other parameters by which street vendors must operate. Failure to comply will result in fines and possible confiscation of goods, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said. Violations will not, however, result in criminal charges.
The Department of Public Works will work with community-based outreach teams to inspect goods and enforce the law, requiring proof of ownership of goods for sale or an authorization to sell the goods.
The mayor said the goal of the legislation is to support “legitimate” street vending.
The legislation does not apply to food vendors or artists, both of which are already regulated, the mayor’s office said.
U.N. Plaza will be vendor-free except on Wednesday and Sunday when the Heart of the City Farmers Market takes place.
Backers of the legislation say a saturation of street vending in various locations has impeded the ability of pedestrians, specifically people with disabilities, to use public spaces safely.
“The streets of the Mission are in chaos and we cannot continue the status quo,” said Ronen. “The sidewalks are impassable, there is trash and debris everywhere, and street vendors are often selling stolen goods at half the price of the brick-and-mortar stores.”
“Immigrant owned small businesses that barely survived the pandemic have called me pleading for help. We must disrupt the status quo and this legislation strikes the right balance by restoring order on the streets while simultaneously allowing opportunities for street vendors to sell products, with a permit, in a more orderly way,” Ronen said. | 2022-03-10T01:32:47Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Supes vote to crack down on street sales of stolen goods - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/supes-vote-to-crack-down-on-street-sales-of-stolen-goods/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/supes-vote-to-crack-down-on-street-sales-of-stolen-goods/ |
By Adam Shanks • March 9, 2022 2:00 pm
Mayor London Breed delivered a message of hope and resilience while addressing concerns about crime, homelessness, mental health and drug addiction in her the State of the City address at the Mission Rock mixed-use development on Wednesday, March 9, 2022. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
Mayor London Breed delivered a message Wednesday to those who believe San Francisco is dying: look behind her.
Breed spoke over the din of construction in Mission Bay, on a lot undergoing a transformation into eight acres of open space and more than 1,000 apartments. It’s just one development in a cluster of them in what was once a strip of land along the waterfront.
“This doesn’t happen in a city that’s dying; it happens in a city that is growing and thriving,” Breed said during her annual State of the City Address.
The mayor used her State of the City Address to counter the persistent narrative in conservative media outlets that San Francisco is a crime-ridden city from which people and businesses are fleeing.
She described San Francisco instead as a city that has weathered the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic better than its peers, a bastion of progressive values and poised for continued growth.
At the same time, Breed addressed longstanding concerns about crime, homelessness, mental health and drug addiction.
“Too many people across this city don’t feel safe,” Breed said.
She rejected the notion that public safety could be addressed without police, and noted that the San Francisco Police Department’s staffing is at a “crisis level,” short 540 police officers of what a city-commissioned study claimed is needed.
“We simply do not have the police staffing to meet the needs of a major city,” Breed said.
She credited The City’s police department with embracing reform, diversifying its ranks and decreasing its use of force. But while she defended police, Breed did not point to law enforcement as the cure to The City’s ailments.
She touted community investments like the Dreamkeeper Initiative, which launched last year and aims to address racial disparities with a $60 million commitment to The City’s Black communities.
Such programs focus on the root causes of crime, which Breed said point back to poverty.
“Let’s be the national model for reform, for alternatives and for safety,” Breed said. “We can do it all, and we don’t have to choose.”
Breed declared a state of emergency in the Tenderloin last December amid a surge in fentanyl use and overdose deaths.
The emergency declaration allowed The City to quickly open the Tenderloin Linkage Site, which aims to connect people with myriad social services, like drug addiction treatment, and offer access to basic human necessities, like showers.
The swift opening of the Linkage Center was coupled by the mayor with a promise to crack down on illicit and illegal activity in The Tenderloin.
“The families and the small businesses of The Tenderloin deserve better, those on the street deserve better, the people of this city deserve better,” Breed said Wednesday.
Breed touted The City’s expansion of shelter and housing for the homeless since 2018, and is on pace to exceed its goal of 1,500 new units of permanent supportive housing. She said she would push legislators to reform mental health laws that limit when a person can be forced into treatment.
“I’m done arguing if it’s OK for people to remain on the streets when we have a place for them to go, because it is not. It just isn’t,” Breed said.
On the housing front, Breed acknowledged that The City has fallen short of her goal of 5,000 new housing units in both 2020 and 2021. She lamented that much of The City’s new housing has come in the form of major projects like those she stood in front of on Wednesday.
Families and working people need housing of all sizes in a variety of neighborhoods, and one way to accomplish that, Breed argued, is for voters to support her proposal to streamline the review process for certain housing projects.
The proposal, which will come in the form of a Charter amendment on the November ballot, has been rebuffed by the Board of Supervisors.
Breed also noted she’ll be responsible for appointing replacements for last month’s recall of three school board members, which she supported. She didn’t indicate who she’ll pick, but did describe the recall as a strong signal from voters to focus on “the basics.”
“They sent a message that we must do better by our children, but they also sent a message that while big ideas are important, those ideas must be built on a solid foundation,” Breed said.
Despite the litany of challenges The City faces, Breed struck a decidedly hopeful tone.
The City – which navigated the pandemic with a relatively low death rate and high vaccination rate – has lifted its mask mandate and vaccine requirements of businesses.
Despite lethargic applause when she mentioned The City’s reopening, she insisted, “I look forward to going to a club to have a good time – without my mask,” Breed said. “It’s time.” | 2022-03-10T01:32:54Z | www.sfexaminer.com | The City’s not dying, it’s thriving, insists San Francisco’s Mayor London Breed - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/the-citys-not-dying-its-thriving-insists-san-franciscos-mayor-london-breed/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/the-citys-not-dying-its-thriving-insists-san-franciscos-mayor-london-breed/ |
Opinion: COVID has claimed many lives, but it’s also saved others
The pandemic raised awareness about mental health issues and affirmed the importance of treatment
By Helen Marlo Special to The Examiner • March 8, 2022 2:30 pm - Updated March 9, 2022 4:10 pm
A 2018 UCSF Healthforce Center report predicted an 11% pre-pandemic shortage of psychologists, licensed marriage and family therapists, licensed professional clinical counselors and licensed clinical social workers by 2028. (Shutterstock)
By Helen Marlo
My patient looked at me like she was about to share a shameful, dirty secret during a psychotherapy session. Eyes averted, she exclaimed, “The pandemic saved my life,” because she had finally decided to prioritize her mental health and seek the help she needed.
As a practicing clinical psychologist, professor and graduate department chair, I have provided psychotherapy, education and training for graduate students and mental health professionals for over three decades. My patient’s experience expresses what I have heard, repeatedly, since the pandemic began — a sentiment many are reluctant to share.
While it has claimed many lives, the pandemic has saved others by humanizing mental health. It raised awareness about the ubiquity of mental health conditions and affirmed the vital importance of mental health treatment. Moreover, the pandemic encouraged many of us to reevaluate our lives and realize that having a life worth living matters. By stimulating anxieties around death, perhaps, the pandemic provided an opening for fuller consciousness about life.
A number of paradigm shifts around mental health are well underway. One life-saving response has been the evolution of tele-mental health care, which became essential in the early days of the pandemic and quickly gained legitimacy and popularity. This format can ease psychological and practical barriers and support greater access to mental health care.
Promising legislative and political actions have also accompanied this mindset shift, recognizing the value of mental health care by investing in mental health education, training and improved working conditions.
The Behavioral Health Workforce Revitalization Act (SB 964), introduced by Senator Scott Wiener, takes a holistic approach to mental healthcare by supporting behavioral health-care workers through scholarships, accelerated training programs, simplified licensing regulations and financial benefits to retain behavioral health workers and students in the field.
Additional legislation proposed by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond would provide scholarships and streamlined licensing processes to complement the state’s investments in community schools and student mental health. Senator Anthony Portantino’s Pupil Instruction: Mental Health Education bill (SB 224), which was passed into law, mandates mental health education in public schools from qualified instructors.
These legislative efforts aim to address the surge in mental health concerns and accompanying shortage of mental health practitioners. Some research reports that rates of mental health problems have tripled during the pandemic. The steady increase in mental health problems, pre-pandemic, is well documented. Between 1990 and 2016, the Global Burden of Disease study demonstrated an 11% increase in mental health and substance use disorders in the United States.
Relatedly, a 2018 report from the Healthforce Center at UCSF predicted an 11% pre-pandemic shortage of psychologists, licensed marriage and family therapists, licensed professional clinical counselors and licensed clinical social workers by 2028. We have markedly increased need and have far fewer mental health professionals to meet that need.
These sobering findings are compounded by another major pandemic trend: the “Great Resignation.” For many providers, being “in the trenches” is where the work happens. Ironically, the Old English meaning of service — “of religious devotion” — encompasses what calls many to service. Still, mental health care providers are not immune to burnout and exhaustion.
These laudable legislative actions may help change the face of mental health care for practitioners and patients. But simply providing more funding is not the only solution. It is imperative to support behavioral health-care workers while not compromising on the quality of training — which would come at the expense of those we serve and, ultimately, cost society more.
The quality and effectiveness of mental health services vary widely. Psychotherapy research consistently shows high drop-out rates: Approximately 50% of patients leave early. Novice clinicians are most likely to lose patients with some reporting drop-out rates of 75%. Well-trained and well-compensated licensed mental health professionals can help counter this disturbing trend.
Indeed, my patient felt the pandemic saved her life, because she was able to name, normalize and understand her mental health concerns, and ultimately seek convenient and accessible treatment from an experienced practitioner.
To be sure, this sentiment does not negate the immense pain of the pandemic, especially among marginalized populations who have suffered disproportionately. However, psychologically, the pandemic has leveled the playing field. From world leaders to service workers, we have all been part of a collective trauma.
Perhaps the pandemic is paving a way for a long-awaited renaissance in the field of behavioral health care. May we uphold the wisdom that knowledge and training offers, while embracing a spirit of innovation spurred by advances in the mental health field and lessons learned from the pandemic. Ours is a life-saving opportunity.
Helen Marlo, Ph.D., is professor and chair of the graduate Clinical Psychology Department at Notre Dame de Namur University. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice. | 2022-03-10T01:33:06Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Opinion: COVID has claimed many lives, but it’s also saved others - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/opinion-a-life-saving-pandemic/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/opinion-a-life-saving-pandemic/ |
A construction site at Gilman Avenue and Arelious Walker Drive in the Bayview district that has been blowing harmful industrial dust into the paths of nearby homes, schools and playgrounds has been ordered to cease operations. The order, issued Thursday by City Attorney David Chiu, follows months of complaints from nearby residents. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
After months of sounding the alarm over harmful industrial dust blowing into homes, schools, and playgrounds from nearby construction activity, residents of the Bayview’s Candlestick Heights neighborhood may finally be able to breathe easier.
On Thursday morning, City Attorney David Chiu issued a cease and desist order to Bauman Construction, M Squared Construction, Precision Engineering and landlord Murphy Properties to halt the concrete production, recycling and other industrial operations being conducted on privately owned parcels near the site of the old 49ers stadium.
“No amount of dust is appropriate at this site,” Chiu, who lives in the Bayview, told the Examiner. “It is not an industrial area.”
The order comes after months of heated complaints from residents in nearby townhomes and the Alice Griffith Apartment buildings, who watched as heavy trucks and earthmovers rolled into the vacant lots across the street and began crushing materials, kicking up dust and tracking dirt through the community, sometimes in uncovered vehicles.
“It’s a third-world country over here,” said resident Gayle Hart. “It’s bad.”
Gayle Hart, who lives across the street from the site. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
Thursday’s order requires all three operators to wind down their activities over the next few days, arguing that the site is not zoned for industrial activity. Instead, these parcels fall under the Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan and within the Candlestick Mixed Use Residential District, which means the area is zoned for residential and light commercial uses, including retail, restaurants, community centers, and childcare and recreational facilities.
“The redevelopment plan serves as the zoning controls for this area,” said Jim Morales, the acting executive director and general counsel for the Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure (OCII), which oversees the redevelopment plan for the area. “It’s a substitute for the planning code.”
Still, the order falls short of permanently curtailing all industrial activity in the neighborhood by leaving open the possibility for the companies to apply for a temporary or interim land-use authorization with OCII.
Although Morales said OCII never authorized the companies to begin operating in the area in the first place, it would still be obligated to consider any applications for interim use requests. But he said, its standards are pretty strict.
“While this is a complicated web of public health, environmental and land use issues, it is crystal clear that the land Bauman is operating on is not zoned for industrial uses,” said Chiu.
Chiu’s office has not been the only agency investigating these operators. Over the past few months, at the urging of concerned residents, the Department of Public Health, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), and the Department of Public Works have all been asked to inspect the area.
The Air District sent updates to District 10 Supervisor Shaman Walton’s office throughout January and February, records obtained by the Examiner show. The Air District previously issued two violations to Bauman, one for operating without a permit and another for administrative violations.
Records obtained by the Examiner also show that Air District staff observed the “dumping of wet soil into Precision’s yard,” and that dust was being emitted from trucks entering and exiting Precision’s facility. Precision’s mountainous dirt piles were observed to be only partially covered by a tarp, which is not a violation, but “can be a source of dust,” reports found.
Additionally, the company routinely did not comply with dust control measures, like the use of watering trucks to suppress dirt tracked through the community. Precision’s watering trucks “were only initiated after contact with staff,” on a number of occasions, the reports show.
Chiu’s office also noticed a daily parade of around 30-40 trucks hauling raw material, including broken concrete and asphalt, in and out of the site — confirming what many residents had been saying for months.
“I’m seeing all these trucks with no cover, fully with dirt, and as they’re driving and bouncing along, you can see dirt coming from the trucks,” said Hart. “You can smell the diesel fuel.”
Murphy Properties has previously asserted that its parcels comply with The City’s zoning laws, and these open lots – a rarity in San Francisco – have long been used for industrial activity. This was true, said Morales, until the redevelopment plan was introduced in 2010 and changed the zoning codes.
But many residents say that The City’s zoning policies have long burdened the Bayview community, who are predominantly people of color and already suffer disproportionately from respiratory and other diseases compared to other neighborhoods.
“It’s this whole indifference to Black life,” said Ray Tompkins, a retired chemistry teacher and environmental activist. “This is what you’re seeing now…this form of racism, this subtle quiet but deadly, deadly form of it. And that’s what we see.”
Whatever the outcome, this cease and desist order is poised to clear the air – at least for now.
“There have long been concerns about environmental health hazards in the Bayview and equity questions those hazards raise,” said Chiu. “We cannot allow Black and brown neighborhoods to be a pollution free-for-all. These conditions wouldn’t be tolerated in any other neighborhood in The City, and they shouldn’t be tolerated in the Bayview.”
A photo of a violation from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District against Bauman Construction for no permit to operate equipment at a construction site in the Bayview where numerous residents have complained about the operation kicking up large amounts of dust. (Courtesy Bay Area Air Quality Management District via Public Records Request)
A photo of a violation from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District against Bauman Construction for not having monitoring equipment at a construction site in the Bayview where numerous residents have complained about the operation kicking up large amounts of dust. (Courtesy Bay Area Air Quality Management District via Public Records Request)
Tags: climate change, Ecojustice legal challenge, environment, Racial injustice | 2022-03-10T17:32:36Z | www.sfexaminer.com | City Attorney cracks down on toxic dust in the Bayview - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/city-attorney-cracks-down-on-toxic-dust-in-the-bayview/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/city-attorney-cracks-down-on-toxic-dust-in-the-bayview/ |
By Kate Lazarus and John Crittenden Special to The Examiner • March 10, 2022 10:30 am - Updated March 10, 2022 1:54 pm
Lowell High School has used academic admissions since 1966, according to the student publication The Lowell. (Kevin N. Hume/S.F. Examiner)
By Kate Lazarus and John Crittenden
Recently, we have seen the reemergence of a longstanding misconception that the California Education Code section requiring “random, unbiased” school selection makes Lowell High School’s academic admissions illegal. But that provision, part of a 1993 district-wide school choice law, merely keeps popular schools from cherry-picking top students and athletes. It has nothing to do with academic entrance criteria, which Lowell has used for generations.
The education code section in question, Section 35160.5(b)(2)(B), originated in Assembly Bill 1114, which Assemblymember Dede Alpert (D-Coronado) introduced in March 1993 amid a debate about school choice, at a time when most public school students were assigned to their neighborhood schools.
“The purpose of (Alpert’s) bill,” according to the April 14, 1993, Bill Analysis, was “to give parents the opportunity to select schools in the district in which they reside that best fit their children’s educational needs in the public school environment.”
But then Proposition 174, which would make the state provide vouchers for religious and other private schools, qualified for the November 1993 ballot. That prompted “swift passage” of the Alpert bill, the Los Angeles Times reported on Aug. 23, 1993.
In short, the bill was simply about increasing public school choice and stopping the voucher movement — and it was successful, as Proposition 174 failed in a landslide. The new law had nothing to do with the selective admissions policies at Lowell or other academic high schools like Gretchen Whitney High School in Cerritos or California Academy of Mathematics and Science in Carson.
Section 35160.5(b)(2)(B), which some insist makes Lowell’s academic admissions illegal, merely kept oversubscribed schools under the new choice system from taking advantage of their popularity to siphon off top academic performers and athletes.
It required schools receiving requests exceeding capacity to select enrollees “through a random, unbiased process that prohibits evaluation of whether a pupil should be enrolled based on the pupil’s academic or athletic performance.”
Nothing in that law, the legislative history or contemporaneous news stories says anything about ending academic admissions at schools like Lowell.
To the contrary, the law grandfathers in schools like Lowell, saying, “school districts may employ existing entrance criteria for specialized schools or programs if the criteria are uniformly applied to all applicants.”
A draft December 1993 memorandum from Acting Superintendent of Public Instruction William D. Dawson to local superintendents stated: “It is the view of (the California Department of Education) that districts may continue to employ entrance criteria for schools such as magnet schools, and they may develop criteria for any magnet schools established in the future.”
Dawson’s advisory noted Alpert’s view that, far from denying schools like Lowell the authority to use academic criteria, the “random” and “unbiased” admissions rule served to preserve that authority, explaining:
“(T)he language in these bills was only meant to assure districts with existing magnet or other specialized programs, including GATE programs, that these programs were not preempted by the random and unbiased selection process.”
Lowell has used academic admissions since 1966, according to student publication The Lowell.
And for generations, Lowell has been recognized as San Francisco’s specialized high school for high-potential, highly motivated students seeking a rigorous, college preparatory program.
As of September, SFUSD’s website described Lowell as “serving students from throughout the city who demonstrate academic excellence and are motivated to pursue a rigorous college preparatory program.”
Federal courts have also consistently recognized Lowell’s specialized status.
A 1983 consent decree to desegregate San Francisco schools labeled “premier” high school Lowell an “alternative” school, with unique enrollment requirements.
In 2001, the federal court approved a district-wide desegregation settlement that carved out Lowell’s and Ruth Asawa School of the Arts’ selective admissions programs.
If Section 35160.5(b)(2)(B) barred academic admissions at Lowell, the state Department of Education would have told Lowell to stop using them in 1994, and the federal court would have disallowed them in 2001. But they didn’t.
Now, some argue Lowell isn’t a “specialized school” under this law because it wasn’t established as a “specialized high school” under Education Code Sections 58800 and 58801.
But those sections were added in 1983 and amended in 1985 and 1987, long after Lowell was established, in practice, as an academic-focused college preparatory school with a mission and admissions distinct from those of SFUSD comprehensive high schools.
People may debate the best admissions policy for Lowell. But the 1993 school choice law doesn’t prevent Lowell from using academic criteria.
Kate Lazarus is a 2001 graduate of Lowell High School and president of the Lowell Alumni Association and a San Francisco attorney. John Crittenden is a 1974 Lowell graduate and member of the Lowell Alumni Association Board of Directors, retired San Francisco attorney and former adjunct law professor at UCLA. | 2022-03-10T22:09:37Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Opinion: Why California’s education code does not prohibit academic admissions at Lowell High School - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/why-californias-education-code-does-not-prohibit-academic-admissions-at-lowell-high-school/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/why-californias-education-code-does-not-prohibit-academic-admissions-at-lowell-high-school/ |
de Young Museum exhibit confronts art-goers with exacting questions and exacting subjects
By Jonathan Curiel Special to The Examiner • March 10, 2022 4:30 pm - Updated March 10, 2022 5:37 pm
Alice Neel with paintings in her Spanish Harlem apartment in New York City, 1940. (Photograph by Sam Brody, Courtesy Estate of Alice Neel and David Zwirner)
By Jonathan Curiel
In the last decade of Alice Neel’s life, when she attained a level of name recognition that went beyond the art world, outsiders saw a maternal, gray-haired figure who was a muser, a quipster, a storyteller and, let’s put this as simply as possible: Happy. Everywhere she went — whether it was on national TV in 1984 as a guest of Johnny Carson, or to the White House in 1979 when she received a prestigious art award and gabbed with President Jimmy Carter — Neel was the apotheosis of a content, joyful person. And that makes for a disconnect when you experience the new de Young Museum exhibit, “Alice Neel: People Come First,” which features scores of paintings that expose a world of personal suffering, political persecution, situations of great physical challenge, and what can otherwise be called “confronted realities.”
How could an artist of such relaxed countenance plunge the depths of human existence with such detail and empathy — and do it for many decades — without taking on some of those very depths? That’s one of the many questions that art-goers will have as they traverse an exhibit that reveals an artist who was both of her time and ahead of her time in the way she spotlighted people and scenes the art world had previously ignored. A prime example: Women in revealing stages of pregnancy, where we see unvarnished views of bodies subject to the vicissitudes of extreme formations — as with Neel’s 1939 painting “Childbirth,” which shows a woman with bruised, darkened eyes that match the conditions of her darkened, exposed breasts. A vase of beautiful flowers stands to the woman’s left, and arms and hands caress the woman’s head, but these comforts belie a scene of utter exhaustion and trauma.
One way to think of “Childbirth”: It’s the antithesis of art history’s male gaze at nude women as personified by Ingres’ “Grand Odalisque” or Titian’s “Venus of Urbino.” Another way to think of “Childbirth”: It did for female childbirth what Goya did for war with his monumental 1814 painting “The Third of May 1808.” Like Goya, who showed how war’s barbarism led to executions of unarmed men, Neel portrayed an unromanticized side of a subject that had been essentially hidden from public view. Similar to Goya, Neel entered spaces like mental asylums that classically trained artists weren’t expected to paint but did. And like Goya, Neel experienced a series of personal tragedies around children — in Neel’s case, the 1927 death of her infant daughter to diphtheria, and then an early estrangement from her subsequent daughter whom Neel’s then-partner took from New York to Cuba in 1930.
After those two events, Neel tried to kill herself and spent time in psychiatric wards, giving her a level of empathy for people in precarious situations that would forever inform her painting, like the early exhibit works “Synthesis of New York— The Great Depression” from 1933 and “Ninth Avenue El” from 1935, which both feature clothed, skeleton-like figures traversing a shadowy New York City that, in real life, was experiencing devastatingly high unemployment.
Alice Neel, “The Black Boys,” 1967. (Courtesy Estate of Alice Neel and David Zwirner)
Politically, Neel said she was “an anarchic humanist” — a term that referenced her lifelong interest in socialism and communism (she joined the Communist Party in 1935); her active contributions to leftist publications; and her public protests, with other artists and activists in the late 1960s and early 1970s, to have New York museums hire more Black curators and showcase more art from Black artists. Neel’s beliefs are evident in her 1964 portrait of civil rights leader James Farmer, made three years after Farmer organized the first Freedom Ride event that helped force the U.S. federal government to eliminate de facto bus segregation in Southern states. “James Farmer” is Neel at her artistic heights. Neel shows him with a clenched mouth, furrowed brow and his right leg crossed over his left — all the while looking almost directly at the viewer, but to the right just enough to give this portrait an added visceral edge, as if Farmer is asking the viewer, “What have you done to make the world a better place?”
Confronting art-goers with exacting questions or exacting subjects was a Neel specialty, and true to Neel’s character, she didn’t spare herself. Perhaps Neel’s best-known painting is her 1980 work called “Self-Portrait,” which shows the elderly Neel naked as she sits on a blue-striped chair and holds a paint brush in her right hand. Like Farmer, she’s looking just to the right of the viewer, giving this painting an added tension beyond the artwork’s upfront nudity. By then, Neel was overweight and sagging across her body. She didn’t care. One year after hanging out in the Oval Office with Jimmy Carter, who had himself crossed a cultural line in 1976 with a Playboy interview where he admitted that “I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times,” Neel crossed an artistic Rubicon that elevated her name to a wider public.
Alice Neel, “Self-Portrait”, 1980. (Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)
But one of the enduring dichotomies of Neel’s life was her relative lack of attention during her lifetime. Yes, she had flurries of name recognition and celebratory honors before she died in 1984, as with her 1970 commission to paint feminist author Kate Millett for the cover of TIME magazine (a copy of which is at the de Young). And she exhibited widely in her last decade, but that was mostly in galleries and smaller museums. In 2000, the Philadelphia Museum of Art organized the first comprehensive retrospective of her work, which inspired renewed interest in Neel’s art and eventually led to “Alice Neel: People Come First,” which originated at New York’s Metropolitan Museum before arriving in San Francisco.
At Wednesday’s press preview, Thomas Campbell, director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, called Neel “one of the 20th century’s most radical painters” and a “groundbreaker who ignored convention.” He also said the exhibit “has brought Neel from obscurity to a well-deserved limelight,” but the truth is more complicated than that. During her lifetime, Neel was widely known in the art world — including for her works of LGBTQ figures. Andy Warhol was a friend, and Neel painted Warhol. That portrait isn’t included at the de Young, but in the excellent exhibit catalog; Met curators Kelly Baum and Randall Griffey say that Neel’s portrait generated significant debate about how accurately it portrayed Warhol. Did it make him look too effeminate? Warhol had mixed feelings. And that’s what Neel did much of her artistic life: Give art-goers and the subjects she painted an unadorned look at themselves. Whether that made people comfortable or not seemed much less important for Neel than getting at a complicated truth.
“Alice Neel: People Come First”
Where: de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr. (Golden Gate Park), S.F.
When: 9:30 a.m.-5:15 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, March 12-July 10, 2022,
Contact: (415) 750-3600, deyoung.famsf.org | 2022-03-11T02:10:58Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Painter Alice Neel was ahead of her time in terms of gender, mental illness and racial justice - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/painter-alice-neel-was-ahead-of-her-time-in-terms-of-gender-mental-illness-and-racial-justice/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/painter-alice-neel-was-ahead-of-her-time-in-terms-of-gender-mental-illness-and-racial-justice/ |
By Sydney Johnson • March 10, 2022 1:30 am - Updated March 10, 2022 4:47 pm
An affordable housing project on the campus of Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center is in the works for a second time. Still in the early planning phases, the facility would include assisting living and independent living components, a child care center for staff, and an Adult Day Health center that provides drop-in services. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner)
Now, city leaders are taking a second swing at a project that aims to add more than 200 affordable units for seniors and disabilities on the campus of the Laguna Honda Hospital nestled in the bucolic hills just west of Twin Peaks.
But only if community members don’t stop the project in its tracks, again.
“We all know there is a tremendous lack of supply of affordable assisted living in San Francisco,” said Mara Blitzer, director of housing development for the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, during a recent public presentation about the project. “Most senior designated units are being built downtown, with a dearth of affordable housing on the west side.”
Planners of the facility, which is still in its early phases, hope to include assisted and independent living components, a child care center for staff and an Adult Day Health center that would provide drop-in services such as medication management, transportation and meals. The project would work in tandem with its hospital neighbor, providing an alternative care environment for elderly patients at Laguna Honda who are ready to be discharged into a less institutional environment.
It could also help free up some of The City’s existing low-income housing supply. San Franciscans over the age of 62 and people with disabilities occupy 58% of The City’s affordable housing inventory, a city report from October 2021 found, far more than the amount that is specifically carved out for this population.
“People often need to move far from their homes to find affordable housing developments,” said Blitzer. “We’re looking for opportunities on the west side to build affordable housing. And large parcels of land are scarce; that’s another benefit of working with Laguna Honda.”
But efforts to build a similar 150-unit facility for low-income seniors near the Laguna Honda campus were thwarted by neighbors in the wealthy Forest Hill and Midtown Terrace neighborhoods back in 2016. Members of the community who opposed the project said it could damage the hillside that gives Forest Hill its name and change the look, feel and physical skyline of the neighborhood, which is predominantly single-family homes.
The sentiment echoes much of the opposition that other low-income housing proposals have faced, causing delays or altogether abandonment of projects across San Francisco.
After the original plans floundered, city officials moved to give the idea another shot, this time in a slightly different location and new goals for the facility in mind.
In 2019, The City released a request for qualifications for a development team that could transform an empty oval lot on the hospital campus that had previously been used for construction parking during renovations. Mercy Housing, an affordable housing development nonprofit, was tapped to lead the new effort. The organization has 49 senior residential communities in California and 30 of those are in the Bay Area, and claims to have a 98% retention rate across all of its senior properties.
The pandemic shifted needs and priorities and now, in 2022, conversations with local community groups, hospital leaders, planners and other stakeholders are taking form to once again resurrect the effort of building affordable senior housing on The City’s west side.
“We are just commencing our community outreach. There is lots of time to come back,” said Tim Dunn of Mercy Housing, who is working on the project. “If things go well we would submit our permit at the end of summer this year, in which case we could have entitlements at the end of the year and funding applications for federal programs in 2023, and start construction in 2024. But there are a lot of variables in there.”
A website with information about the project in different languages offers a place for concerned residents to submit questions. And Dunn said that his team is currently working with Supervisor Myrna Melgar, whose district includes the Laguna Honda campus, to connect with neighborhood groups over the coming weeks and months. Mailers have already been sent out, and Dunn said others will follow.
Given prior pushback, Dunn’s team is approaching the process with sensitivity but also optimism.
“A lot of opponents of that project were supportive of doing senior housing on the Laguna Honda campus,” said Dunn. “Our ears are open, and with robust community outreach, we can address those concerns.”
Tags: affordable housing, Health, hospitals, Housing and Homelessness, public health | 2022-03-11T02:11:04Z | www.sfexaminer.com | San Francisco takes a second swing at affordable senior housing - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/san-francisco-takes-a-second-swing-at-affordable-senior-housing/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/fixes/san-francisco-takes-a-second-swing-at-affordable-senior-housing/ |
Russell Wilson has been traded to the Denver Broncos, which should make Niners fans happy. The man tortured San Francisco’s teams for years. (Chang W. Lee/The New York Times)
It’s wrong, every bit of it. Getting rid of Russell Wilson was supposed to feel like a release, or at the very least produce some sort of smug satisfaction: “I told you he was done.” Seeing Wilson shipped out of the NFC West is the sort of moment that probably should lead to a jubilant, defiant fist-pump for any self-respecting 49ers fan.
That guy – finally gone.
But something weird happened this week, when Wilson’s trade from Seattle to Denver became official, and if you were paying close attention you undoubtedly noticed it. A little bit of the air went out of the room. That’s really what happened. It’s like they turned off the electricity.
And it comes down to this: We just watched a chapter go past. It ended strangely – almost dishonorably, considering everything. But it absolutely ended.
The Seahawks don’t matter in the NFC West right now.
It really, really stinks.
There are only a few things that are iron-clad in sports fandom, and one of them is that rivalries are critical. They matter disproportionately, and they matter in a year-over-year sort of way, one that transcends any single meeting. They compound interest, if you know what I mean.
The Russell Wilson-era Seahawks against the 49ers? Oh, lord, the compound interest. Wilson’s decade as Seattle’s quarterback culminated in a 17-4 record against San Francisco, which is absurd, obscene, twisted. Gut-punchingly real.
Wilson beat the Niners when he had the superior team. He beat the Niners when he had the inferior team. He beat them twice in 2021 – twice! – with a Seahawks crew that absolutely sucked carbon monoxide otherwise. Seattle was 5-10 against the rest of the world, 2-0 versus the 49ers. It was just despicable.
Remember? It was just last December that Wilson, still trying to return to form after a finger injury had cost him about a month, took the field in Seattle against a San Francisco team that was grinding for playoff position. The Niners were 6-5 at that moment; Seattle was 3-8 with an anvil tied around its neck.
It’s almost too grisly to recount, Wilson went 30 for 37 for 231 yards and two touchdowns, and his lone interception actually should have been his third TD – it bounced right off the hands of Gerald Everett and into the waiting arms of the 49ers’ K’Wuan Williams. The Seahawks took out the 49ers, 30-23.
It didn’t ultimately matter; Kyle Shanahan’s crew got on a roll and went to the NFC title game despite a pedestrian 10-7 regular season record. But it was a 49ers-Seahawks moment, another one. It generated some good sports-hate. You get into a real rivalry, you’re allowed to go full-on sports-hate, and there isn’t much else in fandom that matches it.
By blowing out Wilson (trade) and Bobby Wagner (release) in back-to-back announcements this week, the Seahawks effectively closed up shop on all of that. Those two players were the last real remnants of the Seattle rosters that both bedeviled the 49ers and made their matchups absolute must-see appointments.
Pete Carroll went from USC to Seattle in 2010; Jim Harbaugh left Stanford for the 49ers in 2011. Looking back, we see that these were golden moments in an era of escalation. The Seahawks added guys like K.J. Wright and Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas and Malcolm Smith. The Niners brought on Anthony Davis and Mike Iupati, Colin Kaepernick and Aldon Smith.
Everybody battled everybody. Harbaugh and Carroll despised each other. It took Carroll two seasons before Seattle’s fortunes turned; Harbaugh, as you undoubtedly know, racked up a 13-3 record his first year out of the gate. By 2012, both teams were powerhouses. It was titanic.
And even as the personnel began to switch out, and even after Harbaugh took his dour countenance and his flashes of brilliance to Michigan, we still had Niners-Seahawks. That became galvanized at some point. Seattle started to pile up decisions – it got lopsided – but the tension grew rather than shrank. The Rams had been off in St. Louis, a rivalry faded; but the Seahawks were a terrific villain, and right up the road.
That was Russell Wilson, by the way. Just pure villain. He was always a little too cool. Wilson in post-game and off-day settings was just barely this side of tolerable, executing semi-perfect pre-rehearsed responses to seemingly every question asked. If nothing appeared to get to him, it might have been because he never came close to allowing the sports media or fans to know who he was. He was a human façade.
But that same placid guy was the one carving up the 49ers on the field, game after game, year after year. Even as the Seahawks began to fray around the edges, Wilson was a problem. For San Francisco fans, he represented a whole bunch of problems, really.
It’s interesting, what Seattle just did. In essence, the Seahawks are choosing to rebuild around their 70-year-old coach. Maybe the calculation on Wilson and Wagner was that they can be a last-place team in 2022 without paying those salaries. That’ll undoubtedly prove true enough.
At the same time, it’s tough to see a good sports-hate rivalry lose its luster. Maybe the rebuilt, ring-bearing Rams will suffice. Seattle, though, was a terrific foil. The 49ers might just have picked up another victory or two with Wilson’s departure, but let’s call that what it is: a double-edged sword. | 2022-03-11T02:11:10Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Russell Wilson trade marks end of magical era in Niners-Seahawks rivalry - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/russell-wilson-trade-marks-end-of-magical-era-in-niners-seahawks-rivalry/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/russell-wilson-trade-marks-end-of-magical-era-in-niners-seahawks-rivalry/ |
Steve Kerr and the Warriors face a number of key issues going down the stretch towards the NBA playoffs. (Chris Victorio / Special to The Examiner)
Some thoughts as the Warriors get ready for the stretch run:
• Jonathan Kuminga, who had another tremendous game against the Clippers, is looking like one of the steals of the draft and a future star after a (bumpy) year in the G-League. LaMelo Ball won Rookie of the Year after spending years playing overseas instead of going to college or even finishing high school. (And he had his fair amount of struggles overseas, especially in Australia, which was his last stop before the NBA.) There are an increasing amount of venues for top prospects to play professionally instead of spending a year in college while they wait to become draft-eligible. It might not be long until a significant proportion of the top U.S. prospects won’t be setting foot on a college campus (or participating in March Madness) before they become draft-eligible.
• The Grizzlies did manage to overtake the Warriors for the No. 2 spot in the West recently, but the Warriors are only a half-game behind Memphis after a stretch where they went 2-9 over 11 games and lost five in a row. There’s still a very strong possibility that the Warriors will get the No. 2 seed back and get a first-round matchup against a team from the play-in tournament. (The Suns, who have a nine-game lead on the Warriors and just became the first team in the NBA to officially clinch a playoff spot, seem fairly well out of reach.)
• Even though Jordan Poole has played well above expectations this year and Thompson is still struggling to get back into form, expect Thompson to keep his starter’s spot. Thompson hasn’t come off the bench since his rookie year. Poole is better at creating his own shot, which makes him a natural fit for the second unit. Thompson is at his best when he’s working off of an assist, which makes him better suited for the starting lineup.
• How much of a luxury is it, especially in close games, that the Warriors have three players currently shooting over 90% from the free throw line? Steph is shooting 91.9%, Klay is shooting 94.3%, and Poole is shooting 92.8%. For those of us that remember the days of Baron Davis and his 71.1% free-throw stroke at the line in big situations, it’s a welcome change.
• Looking towards the off-season, the following players will be unrestricted free agents at the end of the year: Kevon Looney, Otto Porter, Nemanja Bjelica, Andre Iguodala, Damion Lee, Juan Toscano-Anderson, and Gary Payton II. The Warriors already have the highest payroll in basketball, so they’ll have some tough choices to make. The James Wiseman situation really hurts when it comes to Looney: If the Warriors let him go in the offseason, will they have a serviceable center on the roster next year? Apart from that, the players I’d feel strongest about keeping are Porter and Payton, although they may have priced themselves off the Warriors. Every team in the league wants 3-and-D players who don’t give away possessions, and Porter and Payton have both excelled in that role this season. | 2022-03-11T02:11:17Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Warriors week: Key issues facing team going into the playoffs - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/warriors-week-key-issues-facing-team-going-into-the-playoffs/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/warriors-week-key-issues-facing-team-going-into-the-playoffs/ |
Giants fans can rejoice after baseball owners and the players union reached an agreement to end a lockout that threatened the upcoming season. (Ian C. Bates/The New York Times)
Giants fans may get that look at Joey Bart sooner than we thought. With Thursday’s conclusion to an MLB lockout that fell one day short of an even 100, players are rushing to spring training camps, and the Giants should be playing games within about a week.
Here’s an overview of the new labor agreement, which is based only on what’s known publicly. Fine-point details are certain to emerge over the next couple of days.
•It’s a five-year deal.
•This year’s 162-game schedule is preserved in full. The season will start about a week late, with three days added on to the end of the schedule and a few double-headers thrown in during the summer to make up for the missing first week. (Yes, you’ll be charged full price each game for both games of a DH. The franchises didn’t all of a sudden go soft on us.)
•The Designated Hitter is now common throughout baseball.
•The playoffs have been expanded to six teams per league, so 12 teams out of MLB’s 30 franchises will make the postseason.
•The two division-winners with the best records in each league receive a bye past the Wild Card round.
•The players wanted to go to salary arbitration after two seasons of MLB experience rather than three. They didn’t get that. They did get a pre-arbitration “bonus pool” for award-winning and highest-rated rookies and second-year players. The pool works out to less than $2 million per team, but the $50 million total is roughly the midpoint of the owners’ and players’ initial asks.
•The players wanted to reach free agency in their sixth season rather than their seventh. They didn’t get that.
•The players wanted a system in place that would discourage teams from tanking. In the main, they didn’t get that. There will be a draft lottery, six teams deep, so the team with the worst record no longer is guaranteed the automatic No. 1 overall pick. It’s also possible, although unlikely, that expanding playoffs by two teams will cause many more clubs to spend on salaries trying to get in.
•The owners didn’t want the luxury-tax threshold to rise in any meaningful way. They came pretty close! The first-year threshold for the competitive balance tax is now $230 million, where it was $210 million last season. But over the full five years of the deal, it rises to a maximum of only $244 million. In other words, that ceiling isn’t rising much. Players wanted it boosted because it functions as a virtual hard cap on salaries.
•The owners wanted the universal DH and the expanded playoffs. They got both. A subset of the owners pressed for a 14-team playoff field, but even at 12, the extra TV revenue from that expansion is estimated at $85 million.
•The owners did not want salaries to improve significantly. They ultimately agreed to raise the MLB minimum pay from roughly $570k per season to $700k, escalating to $780k by 2026. These increases, while important to first- and second-year players, are trifling by owner-revenue standards.
All in all, it was a pretty good day to be an owner — all of the pillars of massive profit remain solidly in place. Players were split on the deal; their official vote, including bargaining committee members, was 26-12. The committee voted 0-8 against the deal; the 30 team reps broke 26-4 in favor. What can you say? They wanna play ball.
For now, buckle up. The free-agent frenzy is about to be unleashed – and the Giants have some work to do. | 2022-03-11T02:11:23Z | www.sfexaminer.com | What Giants fans need to know about the baseball lockout ending - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/what-giants-fans-need-to-know-about-the-baseball-lockout-ending/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/what-giants-fans-need-to-know-about-the-baseball-lockout-ending/ |
(Courtesy Zoo Station)
Zoo Station: U2 tribute on St. Patrick’s Day
Sometimes the universe tells you when it’s time to say goodbye, and Bay Area U2 tribute band Zoo Station is definitely listening. Back in 2002, the band started playing the part of the Irish rock stars just for pints at SF’s pubs. Now, after 578 shows and 160+ different U2 songs performed, the band is calling it quits on their 20th anniversary following four final shows, including their annual St. Patrick’s Day concert at The Chapel. Expect a greatest hits-heavy set, with a few rarities thrown in for the hard core fans, as the band don their pun-drivenalter egos (“Bonalmost,” “The Sledge,” “Adamesque” and “Barely Larry”) for the first time in two years and the final time in San Francisco. Thursday, March 17, 8:30 p.m., The Chapel, 777 Valencia St., S.F., $25 adv, $28 day of. thechapelsf.com
(Courtesy Art Battle)
Art Battle San Francisco regional championship
During the Renaissance, painters were the true rock stars of the art world. You can experience a little bit of that again during “Art Battle.” As DJs help get the crowd pumped and the paint flowing, you’ll surround all the previous S.F., Oakland and Monterey Art Battle champions from the past three years (plus a few “all-stars”) as they compete for the audience’s favor during three rounds of live painting. After the final, 30-minute round of four artists going canvas-to-canvas, one winner will be crowned the COVID-delayed Bay Area champion and head to the finals in Texas and battle brushes with the nation’s best. Wednesday, March 16, 7 p.m., The Great Northern, 119 Utah St., S.F., $25. artbattle.com
(Courtesy Brides of March)
Brides of March wedding dress crawl
Is there any better indication of San Francisco coming back to “normal,” than seeing dozens of people in thrift store wedding dresses parading through North Beach and creating DIY wedding receptions at the parklets along Grant Avenue? As long as you’re wearing a wedding dress (no grooms allowed), brides of all genders are welcome to join this participatory pub crawl / street theater mash up. And what if you find that “perfect” wedding dress at Goodwill or Out of the Closet, but you’re not a size 2? Here’s some handy tips on “hacking” your dress to fit any body type. Saturday, March 19, 2:30-8:30 p.m., Washington Square Park and Grant Ave., S.F., Free, but wedding dress required. facebook.com
Royal Exchange’s St. Patrick’s Day Block Party
Over the past few months, people have slowly started to come back to the Financial District for work. And now we’ll see if people are also ready to come back downtown to play. The Royal Exchange is hoping to continue breathing life into the FiDi with a bit of tradition. They are shutting down the entire block and inviting party band Wonderbread 5 to once again headline the outdoor stage of the annual St. Patrick’s Day Block Party they’ve been throwing since the mid ‘80s. The bar has 72 taps, including eight of them dedicated just to Guinness. Throw in a special menu of corned beef and cabbage, Irish Stew and Shepherd’s Pie and hopefully it will all seem like 2019 again. Thursday, March 17, 3-10 p.m. (ish), live music, 5-8:30 p.m., Front St. between Sacramento and California., S.F., no cover. funcheap.com
GreenFest Block Party & St. Patrick’s Day at United Irish Cultural Center
The St. Patrick’s Day Parade thankfully returned to San Francisco in 2022, but there’s no downtown festival like in years past. To help make up for things, the United Irish Cultural Center is throwing open their doors and closing off the streets for two big events this week. On Sunday, it’s a “GreenFest” indoor/outdoor block party on 45th Avenue (Wawona to Sloat) with pipers, Irish dancers and rollicking pub bands, along with vendors selling Irish wool scarves (who will make a killing if it’s cold). On Thursday, they do it again with entertainment on three stages, in an 1,800-square-foot tent and in their massive upstairs hall (where corned beef is king) and wood-paneled Emerald Pub, where the Guinness, Harp and Magners will flow until late. GreenFest, Sunday, March 13, 11 a.m.-9 p.m., St. Patrick’s Day Celebration, Thursday, March 17, 11:00 a.m.-10 p.m., United Irish Cultural Center, 2700 45th Ave., S.F., no cover. irishcentersf.org
By Teresa Moore | 2022-03-11T20:22:13Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Fun, free, cheap: What to do in San Francisco this week - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/fun-free-cheap-what-to-do-in-san-francisco-this-week-12/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/fun-free-cheap-what-to-do-in-san-francisco-this-week-12/ |
By Adam Shanks • March 11, 2022 10:00 am - Updated March 11, 2022 11:52 am
Mayor London Breed will name her three picks to appoint for the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
Mayor London Breed will tap three parents to fill the vacancies left by last month’s recall of San Francisco School board members.
The expected appointments are Ann Hsu, Lainie Motamedi and Lisa Weissman-Ward, according to a report published by The San Francisco Chronicle ahead of an announcement by Breed on Friday.
Although the appointees have varying professional and personal backgrounds, all three are parents of current students in the district, according to The Chronicle.
The appointments are a significant decision for Breed, who supported the recall amid widespread frustration over the school board’s focus on issues such as renaming schools and its perceived lack of attention to reopening school.
The new board members will hold their seats until January 2023, when the terms of the recalled members are set to expire.
The recall proved enormously popular with voters, of whom more than two-thirds voted to boot each of the three board members.
Breed acknowledged the message sent by the recall in her annual State of the City Address on Wednesday, saying it proved San Franciscans wanted its government to address “the basics” and focus on providing “a well-run school system that puts kids first.”
The appointment of Hsu, in particular, signal’s Breed’s alignment with the recall movement.
A leader of the recall effort, Hsu is the president of the Parent Teacher Student Association at Galileo High School, where her twin children attend.
But myriad challenges await the new board members.
The city’s public schools face declining enrollment, which exacerbates the financial woes that may prompt a state takeover of the district. The district reported last fall that it had lost 3,499 students in the past years, placing about $35 million of state funding in jeopardy.
The newly shaped school board will be tasked with addressing the district’s $125 million deficit, as well as finding a replacement for Superintendent Dr. Vincent Matthews, who announced he will retire at the end of the school year.
The new board members also will play a key role in deciding the fate of the admissions policy at Lowell High School. Amid much controversy, the previous iteration of the board voted to permanently end the school’s merit-based system, opting for a lottery instead.
Tags: Politics, school board recall | 2022-03-11T20:22:26Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Mayor Breed names three parents to school board - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/mayor-breed-to-name-three-parents-to-school-board/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/mayor-breed-to-name-three-parents-to-school-board/ |
By Jeff Elder • March 11, 2022 10:30 am
A homeless woman enters a tent on Ellis Street in the Tenderloin in January 2022. The City’s database for homeless services has been unable to track available housing units to get people off the streets for years, despite fervent calls to fix the system. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
The City’s database for homeless services has been unable to track available housing units for years, despite urgent calls to fix the problem, resulting in vacant units and longer wait times for people on the street, auditors and homeless agencies say.
The ONE System, which the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing calls “the system of record for all department services,” has never been able to inventory available housing units. Homeless agencies say they pointed out that issue before it was implemented, and an audit documented the problem in 2020.
That frustrates managers of housing for the homeless.
“It seems like an easy fix,” said Lauren Hall, the director and cofounder of Delivering Innovation in Support of Housing, a housing provider to the homeless. “Given the amount of resources at HSH, I’m baffled by it. This has created a significant barrier. I just want to drive a bus to the shelter and pick up people to put in our empty units.”
HSH says it is working to fix the problem, and Hall and others give the department credit for transparency and diligence tacking monumental challenges. But the inability to address a lingering problem with longterm consequences must be overcome, experts say.
In the struggle to help San Francisco’s 8,000 homeless people, fixing a database is just one of many issues, experts say. But it is also low-hanging fruit in an orchard of seemingly unreachable challenges. And unlike many other issues The City must address, there is plenty of funding – the HSH budget for the next two years draws from $1.2 billion in federal, state, and local funds. Yet the lingering problem has contributed to hundreds of homes being vacant, experts say.
Hall’s non-profit, known by its acronym, DISH, and others pointed out the issue years ago, she says. “A bunch of us told them in the beginning that the system wouldn’t track vacancies. But I guess they had a vision.”
The ONE System (the acronym stands for online navigation and entry) is the technical framework for The City’s “coordinated entry” strategy to streamline homeless services. Homeless agencies across The City enter data about homeless people into the ONE System — including location, contact information and history of city services — which calculates a score used to allocate services and housing.
The ONE System was unveiled with great fanfare in 2018, when Mayor London Breed told The San Francisco Chronicle, “I’m really excited about this.” Breed said “This new system is important because it gives us an understanding of the big picture.”
In a 68-page, full-color, five-year plan in October 2017, the department said “The ONE System will be fully implemented by mid-2018.” By 2022, the plan said, “We can reduce all chronic homelessness 50% by December 2022.”
But the system was not finished in 2018, or anytime since then, and homeless rates have gone up. In 2017, The City reported 6,858 homeless people. The latest count, from 2019, shows 8,035.
And the ONE System’s “big picture” that Breed cited has never shown perhaps the most important aspect of addressing homelessness: Available housing units. In fact, the system can cause The City to lose sight of them.
“The clearest evidence of the system’s inadequacies occurred in December 2019, when the department realized that an estimated 250 units were available and ready for occupancy, but with no referred clients,” a performance audit compiled for the Board of Supervisors in August of 2020 found. The audit found that one-third of the housing units that should be included in the inventory did not show up in the system.
Severin Campbell, one author of the audit by the San Francisco firm Harvey M. Rose Associates, told The Examiner that the issue led to “vacant units and longer wait times to place eligible clients in housing.” Campbell’s team cited “the urgent need to expand the ONE System to incorporate all relevant housing information. The Department should prioritize the development of this functionality.”
But two-and-a-half years later, HSH and homeless agencies say the issue has still not been fixed.
The department says it is “continuing work to expand the functionality of the ONE System,” citing work with the ONE System’s maker, a Las Vegas company called Bitfocus, “to facilitate housing placements and track housing inventory.”
Meanwhile the computer system that The City calls “the single point of truth for information about San Francisco’s homeless housing portfolio” still does not show all the available housing units. The City’s data on housing vacancies cobbles together ONE System data with reports from housing providers that is not online.
HSH data shows there were 852 vacant housing units for the homeless in January. Nearly a third of them, 293, were not in the ONE System. That means homeless agencies could not connect homeless people with those units online, despite spending time working on the ONE System with homeless people to enter other data.
“What it doesn’t do is link to the available housing units,” said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, a group that has analyzed The City’s homeless services since 1987. A February report from the coalition cited city records that show “not all housing is represented in ONE.”
Homeless people can also be knocked out of the system if they do not sign in regularly, or can be sent to the end of the line for housing if The City updates records, experts say, an issue reported by ProPublica in February. “The city’s software to track vacant units is error prone,” ProPublic wrote, and “information on people trying to get indoors still isn’t recorded accurately.”
At a Coalition on Homelessness press conference on March 2, Tina Collins, a case worker for the nonprofit Code Tenderloin said she signed up for services in the ONE System and, “When I went back nine months later, I wasn’t even in the system.”
The ONE System is what the federal government classifies as a Homeless Management Information System, and HMIS systems are required of cities by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Some homeless agencies told The Examiner that the system is relatively manageable, despite the vacancies issue. Bitfocus, the creator, is a leader in the growing tech sector of homelessness data management, serving other major cities including Los Angeles, San Jose, and San Diego. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
And HSH is building believers among many homelessness agencies. The audit that cited the ONE System’s inability to manage housing vacancies highly praised the HSH staff, writing, “Even with limited staffing and unprecedented external challenges, its staff is among the most dedicated – as noted by many in leadership at the COVID-19 Command Center (CCC)— and its strategies and goals focused on to making a sustained reduction in homelessness.”
Hall, the housing provider frustrated by the ongoing ONE System issue, says “I’m very confident in the current HSH leadership” and Executive Director Shireen McSpadden.
But the auditors noted that HSH has failed to spend all of its budget, effectively manage its programs or hire much-needed staff.
“The Department has consistently carried vacant positions year to year,” the August 2020 audit found. “The Department must prioritize hiring immediately.” But HSH only recently hired a ONE System lead to oversee a team of “analysts to manage all aspects of the ONE System projects.” Two other roles that work with the ONE System and a head of information technology role remain open.
HSH says it has spent $8.5 million on the ONE System, but city records show $11.3 million in HSH contracts have been issued to Bitfocus. HSH did not immediately comment on the differing figures. The City says it has expanded its contract with Bitfocus.
McSpadden, the head of HSH, told The Examiner in a statement that, “The ONE System is still a work in progress, with ongoing projects to add functionality, improve data quality, and consolidate additional databases. We are moving steadily closer to our ONE System vision.”
Ongoing work with Bitfocus “will mark the first time the City has a comprehensive picture of its entire homelessness housing system,” the department says. “We anticipate this project to be completed in 2022.” | 2022-03-11T20:22:32Z | www.sfexaminer.com | San Francisco’s ‘homeless tracker’ has been broken for years - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/san-franciscos-homeless-tracker-has-been-broken-for-years/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/san-franciscos-homeless-tracker-has-been-broken-for-years/ |
By Teresa Moore • March 10, 2022 5:30 pm - Updated March 11, 2022 12:13 pm
Left: Azemeru Abraha, 13, and her ailing mother, Ametkiros, in the Ethiopian city of Mekelle in the country’s Tigray region in June were among nearly 2 million people displaced by war. Right: Yelena Lavinska, 22, holds a photo of her fiancé, Mikhailo Pristupa, a Ukrainian soldier who was shot and killed in Irpin on March 5, during his wake and funeral at Baikove Cemetery in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday. (Examiner photo stitch; left photo: Finbarr O’Reilly/The New York Times; right photo: Lynsey Addario/The New York Times)
The other evening I stumbled upon a Twitter debate over whether it was “too soon” for a Trevor Noah monologue calling out television news coverage of the war in Ukraine as “racist.” The segment featured a super cut of white correspondents noting how “European” and “like us” the Ukrainians are compared to the besieged and suffering in places like the Middle East and Africa, where this sort of thing — war, fleeing refugees — is more expected.
Noah’s segment featured what may be the most notorious of many such examples, CBS reporter in Kyiv Charlie D’Agata saying, “This is a relatively civilized, relatively European — I have to choose those words carefully, too — city where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that it’s going to happen.”
D’Agata, who has since apologized for the viral statement, was one of many in the news media and in politics framing the invasion as something that isn’t supposed to happen to “Europeans,” “people with blue eyes and blond hair,” “people that you would live next door to.”
Noah reminded his viewers that war is “Europe’s thing,” referring to WWI and WWII and the Hundred Years’ War. He lampooned the offensive absurdity of positing that war is alien to predominantly white, “relatively civilized” countries.
In other parts of the mediascape, journalists of color also have been condemning coverage that seems to presume that war is for colored people. AMEJA, the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association, issued a statement that read in part:
“Newsrooms must not make comparisons that weigh the significance or imply justification of one conflict over another — civilian casualties and displacement in other countries are equally as abhorrent as they are in Ukraine.
To be clear, the problem is with the coverage, not with the Ukrainian people or those who support them in their fight to save their sovereign nation and their very lives. Noah’s YouTube page includes a fundraising link for aid for Ukraine. AMEJA stands with them. So do I and millions of people around the world. But it can be hard for those with ties to other war-torn and devastated countries to see the plights of their people abandoned when new international crises arise, as in Afghanistan, or ignored, as in Ethiopia.
Jerusalem Makonnen grew up in Ethiopia and has made her home in the East Bay for many decades. Her sister and other family are still in Ethiopia, a country almost three times the size of Ukraine, where 2 million refugees have left and thousands have died during more than a year of civil war and famine.
She is sympathetic to the Ukrainians, particularly the women and children. “It’s sad that this small nation that has been independent so long is about to be annexed,” she said. “I grew up during the time the Russians were in Ethiopia. It’s one of the reasons Ethiopians are all over the world.”
Although there’s not a direct comparison, Makonnen sees overlaps between Russia’s war on Ukraine and the civil war in Ethiopia — conflicts among people with shared roots, leaders who have had to call upon civilians to arm themselves and fight, brave people who love their countries.
As the civil war in Ethiopia worsened and Ethiopians in big cities around the United States held demonstrations, she kept waiting for some kind of wider solidarity for Ethiopia to catch on here. “Where’s the red and the gold and the green?” she said, referring to the colors of the Ethiopian flag. Noting that the conflicts in Ethiopia are “complicated,” she said, “I don’t expect the U.S. to be informed on stuff that happens outside of the U.S. and Europe, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t feel the emptiness.”
Makonnen recognizes Americans are more familiar with the countries of Europe than of Africa, which is often spoken of as a country and not a continent and often assumed to always be at war. “There is racial bias,” she said. “There’s this whole hierarchy: Europeans, Middle Easterners and then at the bottom, the Black people.”
We commiserated over feeling disappointed but not really surprised when news broke that African students trying to flee Ukraine were being turned back at the border. Seeing Haitian immigrants chased by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on horseback last year stunned both of us. Our “us” includes these people, too.
Sometimes the pain of Black and brown people does break through the media noise. Remember the Menlo Park couple who started an online fundraiser to aid the parents and children the Trump administration were separating at the Mexican border? Their goal was $1,500 and within about a week they had raised $20 million from people moved by scenes of suffering children from Latin America. People on every continent rose up in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement after millions of Americans took to the streets and the video of the lynching of George Floyd went viral.
It wasn’t ethical or even necessary for news outlets to make such a big event of white peril in covering the war in Ukraine. The images — and the stories the people themselves are sharing — show us who they are. Good reporters — and savvy amateurs on social media — transmitted the humanity of the border families, the BLM families and, now, the Ukrainian families in ways that draw our attention to the realities of strangers’ existences.
In each of these spaces, we have the chance to witness grace. Recently on television, I saw a young Ukrainian man who had sent his wife and two young children out of the country and was still trying to convince his father in Russia that the war is real and Vladimir Putin is lying. At the end of the interview, when he asked NATO to establish a no-fly zone, he had the most beautiful smile, like his whole heart was in his eyes. There are people like him in Ethiopia and Afghanistan, too, if only there are reporters willing to find them.
A white colleague of mine, sociologist Joshua Gamson, said he was hopeful that witnessing an unprovoked invasion by Putin, and seeing white people fleeing Russian forces, might be a “wake-up call” for at least some Americans “who have been entertained, complacent or supportive of (Donald) Trump and Trumpism, or who just thought it couldn’t happen here.”
His tentative hope is that they “might now see that this is no game, that the end result of Trump’s authoritarian impulses could plausibly be very similar to what we’re seeing in Ukraine.” Gamson added that for many white people, he suspects, the familiar whiteness of most of the Ukrainians they see in the war coverage likely makes it easier for them to imagine the possibility of a similar thing happening here, and to feel the stakes.
I confess my not uncommon American self-absorption: For most of my life, it was easy to feel superior to the rest of the world when it came to stuff like elections and democracy and science because we sent our people to tell other countries what’s what. I own my ignorance and inattention. But then the Tea Party sprouted like a plague of boils and all of the little hairline cracks I’d ignored started splitting into gaping fissures. The Jan. 6 insurrection and the toxic half life of its attendant lies killed the remnants of any fairy tale that the United States was different and better.
We’re broken, too. It’s not all that hard to look at white Ukrainians huddling in bunkers under their apartment buildings and not imagine how that could play out here. But I’m with Makonnen and her people, too: I want all of us also to be able to see ourselves in the African students trying to leave Ukraine and the Ethiopians fighting to save their country, too. | 2022-03-11T20:22:44Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Opinion: The Russia-Ukraine war as white peril - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/the-russia-ukraine-war-as-white-peril/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/the-russia-ukraine-war-as-white-peril/ |
‘We’d like to see them repurposed and have people continue to enjoy these cars’
By James Salazar Examiner staff writer • March 11, 2022 11:30 am
The Bay Area Electric Railroad Association, which runs the Western Railway Museum in Suisun City, plans to create a “Rapid Transit History Center” with one A, B and C BART car each to educate visitors about earlier modes of transportation. If all goes to plan, the museum will include various displays, a small theater, BART artifacts, and a history of the transit system. (Courtesy the Western Railway Museum)
Eight decommissioned BART cars will get new leases on life as video game parlors, mini museums and training aids as the agency rolls out its new “Fleet of the Future” in the coming months.
Finalists for the eight legacy cars were selected out of a pool of 20 proposals, which described what was planned for the cars. BART estimates that the cost of transporting, installing and permitting each car will be between $8,000 to $15,000.
Brian Tsukamoto, a BART special project manager, said the transit agency wanted the cars to be “given a new life. We’d like to see them repurposed and have people continue to enjoy these cars,” he said.
The remaining decommissioned legacy cars will be recycled a few at a time by an Oakland scrap metal company.
Arthur Mac’s Tap and Snack, an Oakland beer garden, will be transforming their legacy car into a retro video game arcade and children’s play area as well as a seating area for weatherproof dining. In its proposal, Arthur Mac’s said it wanted “to create a time capsule that transports our customers and community members beyond the confines of time and space.”
Across town, the Oakland Athletics, another recipient, are adding a car to the Oakland Coliseum. Known as “Coliseum BAR(T),” the space will have a museum that promotes the history of transit and sports in the East Bay as well as a local craft beer garden.
Hospitality in Transit, a Washington D.C. business which built a bar out of an old Metro car, will bring their concept to the Bay Area with “BARTbar.” Though a location has not been disclosed, the venue will act as a coworking space, café and meeting place during the day and a drinking spot at night.
The Bay Area Electric Railroad Association, which operates the Western Railway Museum in Suisun City, hopes to create a “Rapid Transit History Center,” which will span three cars and educate visitors on early modes of transportation. The museum is currently accepting donations to include displays, a small theater and other artifacts in their project.
Some legacy cars will act as training grounds for emergency service teams. The Hayward Fire Department will use their legacy car to provide “station familiarization, vehicle rescue simulations and safety of the track and third rail system” training.
The Contra Costa County Fire Protection District’s legacy car is being designed for “scenario-based training and car familiarization training.” Located at a regional training center, the car will also serve local EMS agencies, law enforcement agencies and the Los Medanos Junior College Fire Academy.
Further afield, a partnership of private residents in the Sierra Foothills proposed an environmentally friendly structure that will feature a solar panel roof, a gray water system and passive cooling.
Down the road, the Original Scraper Bike Team, an East Oakland organization that offers bicycle skill training, mentorship programs and artistic opportunities for urban youth, will divide their car into two spaces. The first half is a shop that will provide free bike repairs and bike education to children. The second half is a clubhouse for community events and mentorship programs. Local artists will be recruited to decorate the car with a mural.
A partnership of private residents will transform a legacy car into a “metaphoric train station that blends the space age-modern esthetics of BART and a cozy cabin” in a Gold Rush-era town in the Sierra Foothills. The structure will be constructed as green as possible, with a solar panel roof, a gray water system and passive cooling, the partnership said. (Courtesy Hernandez-Eli Architecture)
Hospitality in Transit, the purveyors of “metrobar,” built from an old Metro car in Washington D.C., intend to bring a similar concept to the Bay Area with “BARTbar.” To be placed at a yet-to-be-decided location, the primarily outdoor venue will serve as a coworking space, café and meeting place during the day and transition to a beverage-slinging joint by night. (Courtesy Hospitality in Transit)
The Hayward Fire Department plan to repurpose their car as a training “prop” to provide “station familiarization, vehicle rescue simulations and safety of the track and third rail system.” (Courtesy Hayward Fire Department) | 2022-03-12T02:09:48Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Old BART cars will get new lives — from a beer bar to a bike shop - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/old-bart-cars-will-get-new-lives-from-a-beer-bar-to-a-bike-shop/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/old-bart-cars-will-get-new-lives-from-a-beer-bar-to-a-bike-shop/ |
By Jeff Elder • March 11, 2022 1:30 am - Updated March 11, 2022 4:49 pm
A Meta employee complained about losing free company laundry service on an anonymous social network that requires work email to identify where you’re employed, which sparked more than 1,300 searing responses. (Iv-olga/Shutterstock)
A Meta employee complained about losing free company laundry service on Blind, the anonymous social network that requires work email to identify where you’re employed. A day after the post, there have been a lot of roasts, as in searing responses — more than 1,300 of them.
Under the headline “Meta cutting benefits ruthlessly,” the employee wrote:
“Laundry benefit GONE. I have been using laundry benefit and love that cleaners come home, pick up stuff and bring it back.” The employee pined for the days “where clothes are folded and I don’t have to worry much.” The employee asked the world: “Why, why WHY??”
The post required a Meta email address, so some employee was involved. I reached out to Meta, and the company confirmed the service has, in fact, stopped. “As we return to the office, we’ve adjusted on-site services and amenities to better reflect the needs of our hybrid workforce,” said Tracy Clayton, a Meta company spokesperson.
But the company formerly known as Facebook has upped its wellness benefit, which employees can spend on gym fees or many other personal benefits, to $3,000 from $700 annually.
It’s hard to know if the post was tongue-in-cheek, but the responses from employees at other companies are hilarious:
“No one should have to live in these conditions. Maybe try gofundme…..?”
“Such a tragic life you have. those folded clothes.”
And a co-worker at Meta chimed in:
“The amount of entitlement demonstrated today is absolutely insane. It’s embarrassing being associated with people complaining about sh*t like this.” Well said…
Not all tech workers have it so cozy, like, say, the ones in Ukraine.
“The industry continues to operate even during air strikes on cities. A large number of tech workers have moved to safer western Ukraine,” Anton Melnyk of The Ministry of Digital Transformation told me in an email. But others have remained “to work in their cities, such as Kyiv, using bomb shelters.” Melnyk has a specific ask of Silicon Valley VCs: “It’s time to create a special venture fund to support Ukrainian startups.”
Yaroslav Azhnyuk and his fianceé, Darka, as they leave their Kyiv apartment after the Russian invasion. (Yaroslav Azhnyuk)
Uklon, the Uber of Ukraine, now has an option to “evacuate” when you hail a ride on your phone, former San Franciscan Yaroslav Azhnyuk told me. That’s if you need a ride to another, safer, city. Azhnyuk lived in Hayes Valley, ate at the 20th Century Cafe on Gough Street and grew his company, Petcube, until two years ago. Now he is back in his homeland, where everything has changed. He has two messages for Silicon Valley:
“My message to the folks in the Valley is that we really appreciate all the help so far. We really feel it and really appreciate help from the whole, global tech community. The second thing is that this war has high risks of spilling over and threatening not just Ukrainians, but the whole world if Putin is not stopped.”…
Mosquito vasectomies. Why didn’t I think of that? The World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit is coming to the Marriott Marquis on Mission Street on March 22-23, and some of the tech is fascinating. Take for instance, BigSis,a British company that says it “has reinvented the sterile insect technique.”
If ever there was an industry that needed disrupting, it was the sterile insect racket. BigSis says it uses artificial intelligence to create sterile males of the pest, then release them where they mate with wild females. The females have no offspring, so the target pest is suppressed.
So the mosquitoes catch a buzz and have recreational sex. You sure they aren’t San Franciscans?…
A San Francisco company that is creating “millions of unique, high-quality 3D digital humans” was just named one of Fast Company’s most innovative small companies in the world. Synthesis AI doesn’t seem like it could cram that many people into its suite on Geary Street, but the people are all in the “metaverse,” a word I swore I would never write.
Why do this? Synthesis AI allows companies to train facial recognition programs using their synthetic humans, rather than real people, who have considerable privacy considerations. Synthesis AI’s people can be created customized, and set into action in a hurry to do neat things like teach cameras to recognize people wearing masks. Now we’re going to get that, right as the masks come off!…
I love The City’s data sets, and have found some fascinating stuff in them, not all of it to embarrass public officials. For instance, the database of movies filmed in The City. Did you know Charlie Chaplin made the first studio release movie in San Francisco in 1915? You can watch it on YouTube. It’s called “A Jitney Elopement,” and features scenes in Golden Gate Park, some in front of the Dutch Windmill. | 2022-03-12T02:09:55Z | www.sfexaminer.com | The week in tech: Meta worker bemoans loss of free laundry service - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/the-week-in-tech-meta-worker-bemoans-loss-of-free-laundry-service/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/the-week-in-tech-meta-worker-bemoans-loss-of-free-laundry-service/ |
Khalil Shabazz, Coach Todd Golden and Jamaree Bouyea speak at a post-Selection Show press conference. (James Salazar/SF Examiner)
The University of San Francisco men’s basketball team punched their ticket to the NCAA basketball tournament this afternoon, marking their first return to March Madness since 1998.
Placed in the East region, the No. 10 seed Dons will face No. 7Murray State on Thursday in Indianapolis.
“It’s one thing to kind of strive for, it’s another thing to actually accomplish it and we made history. That’s something that I’ll be super proud of for the rest of my life,” said head coach Todd Golden.
USF began the season 10-0, their best start since they earned 26 straight wins in the 1976-77 season. Finishing the season at 24-9, the Dons posted their best record since the 1981-82 campaign. This is the first time in 20 years that a West Coast Conference team not named Gonzaga, Brigham Young University or Saint Mary’s has gotten an at-large bid to the Big Dance.
The Dons were projected to play in the tournament, but Sunday’s festivities made their status official. “We’re definitely happy to be here but we want to be in the tournament to win games, as well,” said Jamaree Bouyea, a team-leading guard who returned to the program for his fifth and final season. “I don’t think this is the end of our journey…going into this tournament, we want to win games as much as possible.”
Supporters by the hundreds flocked to War Memorial Gym at the Sobrato Center for the Dons’ “Selection Sunday” watch party. Clad in green and gold, fans held their breath as the selection committee ran through the first three regions before picking USF as one of the tournament’s last three teams.
Fans celebrate as the selection committee announces that USF will be playing in the March Madness tournament. (James Salazar/SF Examiner)
“It was definitely nerve-racking, for sure,” said senior guard Khalil Shabazz. “We were all up there sweating and all that stuff but I wouldn’t want it to happen any other way. Just coming right at the end, it makes our story so much better.”
In their heyday, the Dons were a college basketball powerhouse. Former coach Pete Newell led the program to the 1949 National Invitation Tournament title and his successor, Phill Woopert, led the team to consecutive national championships in 1955 and 1956 with a squad that featured Oakland native, and future NBA legend, Bill Russell. In later years, Bill Cartwright, another USF legend in his own right, led the team to the first round in 1977 and to the Sweet Sixteen in 1978 and 1979.
Golden took over as head coach in 2019 and has posted winning records in his three seasons at the helm. USF’s postseason push could signal the start of a new chapter for the Dons. “As the years go on at USF, this program will be a better program since the way we left it. With it in (Coach Golden’s) hands, I think the sky’s the limit,” said Bouyea.
Tags: basketball, College Sports, University of San Francisco | 2022-03-14T15:17:16Z | www.sfexaminer.com | USF basketball makes it to the NCAA tournament - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/usf-basketball-makes-it-to-the-ncaa-tournament/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/usf-basketball-makes-it-to-the-ncaa-tournament/ |
‘Anxiety among mental health professionals themselves is just as prevalent’
Adri Jayaratne, Chief of Staff of the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and one of the leaders of a UCSF task force on mental health services related to climate change. (Courtesy Adri Jayaratne)
It’s become clear that climate change doesn’t just ravage our physical environment — it also permeates our interior worlds.
As extreme weather events like wildfires, droughts, and heatwaves become ever-present reminders of our rapidly warming planet, the number of people seeking out mental health services for climate-related anxiety is on the rise.
But despite the growing demand for mental health services related to climate change, the lion’s share of the psychiatric community has been reluctant to address the psychological impacts of climate change.
Now, a small group of researchers and administrators at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) have set out to change that. The University’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences has formed a task force to take this issue on through education, advocacy, and research.
The Examiner talked to Adri Jayarante, one of the task force leaders, about how his group is working to increase the awareness of the psychosocial impacts of climate change within the mental health community.
You moved to the Bay Area from Washington D.C. in 2017. When did you become aware of climate change, and why is this issue important to you?
This has always been a big issue for me personally. But admittedly, I don’t think the actual impacts of climate change really personally hit me until I got out here with the fires and droughts and other things that actually impact people. DC weather stinks, but here it was definitely more in your face.
Tell me about this task force. How did it get started?
There are so many issues related to mental health, but one area where there has not been as much discussion until recently was the impact of climate change on mental health.
We had a small group who started getting together to talk about what we should do and how to move this forward. We tried to do a bit of digging into what was happening across the country and departments – and there was really not much. No other departments of psychiatry had anything going on around this. So at some point, we said, let’s create something formally in the department because if we don’t, we’re not going to be able to get much accomplished.
You hosted a kickoff event in October 2019. What resulted from that event?
For the most part, it was a brainstorming session. There were a lot of great ideas, a lot of passion, a lot of interest, and a number of things started. Then the pandemic hit. And a lot of very good ideas and things that we wanted to do just got completely waylaid. I had to literally, on a dime, turn to pandemic response.
Members of a UCSF task force on mental health services related to climate change meet on Zoom. (Courtesy photo)
The pandemic has taken an enormous toll on health care professionals. But so too has climate change. How is the psychiatric community responding to these dual crises?
It’s interesting because most people think about the anxiety for other people, and how mental health professionals can help those who are experiencing anxiety related to climate change. But the anxiety among mental health professionals themselves is just as prevalent, if not more, because of what they see.
The stories range from people whose kids were asking them questions to the amount of anxiety they are dealing with from patients. Then there are those who are dealing with fires – and the patients they see dealing with climate change-related disasters.
Just like the pandemic has had a really horrible impact on medical professionals, I think the mental health impact both from the pandemic and climate change can certainly be seen in mental health professionals.
Is it fair to say that the psychiatric community has not been proactive on this issue?
The impact of climate change on mental health was unfortunately late to the broader discussion around climate change. We’re playing a little bit of catch-up.
How has being behind the curve manifested in the psychiatric community?
Despite the increasing number of mental health professionals seeing patients related to climate change anxiety, there is still no specific diagnostic code (DSM) to identify them, so it creates a lot of complications. One of the things we’ve been working on is educating clinicians and others to be able to assess and identify that as potentially overlapping or singular disorders.
The pandemic has also made clear that there is a dearth of mental health services and professionals serving the communities that need them most. What are some of the challenges when it comes to health care and social equity?
Just as the pandemic really starkly showed the health inequities in the system, climate change is exactly the same. Equity is definitely underlying everything we do. It’s front and center in a lot of both the research and education work that’s being done.
But this is, unfortunately, a growing problem. We don’t have enough mental health professionals, period. And certainly, not enough that are trained and well versed enough to specifically address climate change-related issues. And that again goes back to education.
What can people experiencing climate anxiety do to help cope?
One of the suggestions for people who have anxiety is to get out there and do something about it. One of the things our task force has looked at doing is projects in the community, where people turn that anxiety into action – things like community gardens or community advocacy.
Why was this task force possible at UCSF? Why are you the first to pioneer such a program?
We have an incredibly diverse, engaged, passionate community at UCSF that really wanted to make a difference. The creation of the task force was a bottom-up thing. It wasn’t leadership. This was a group of faculty and staff who said, this is an existential crisis and we feel it personally and professionally and we want to do something about it.
What’s next for the task force?
One is just getting this group together to formulate and plan and regroup after two-plus years of unfortunate difficulty getting together. And another is to collaborate with the new UC Climate Center – a new system-wide initiative to address climate change as a social justice and equity issue.
I think the four areas, clinical care, education, advocacy, and research, we will continue to be focused on. There are ongoing efforts with curriculum development and research. And there’s been a really big effort to engage medical students more, who are very passionate about climate change.
Tags: climate change, environment, mental health | 2022-03-15T08:49:08Z | www.sfexaminer.com | UCSF task force examines the mental health impacts of climate change - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/ucsf-task-force-examines-the-mental-health-impacts-of-climate-change/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/ucsf-task-force-examines-the-mental-health-impacts-of-climate-change/ |
A new report found that deaths of unhoused San Franciscans doubled during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to previous years, largely due to overdoses. (Shutterstock)
New data from the San Francisco Department of Public Health released on Thursday found that the number of homeless residents who died in the city during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic doubled compared to previous years, with most deaths being linked to overdoses from fentanyl.
The research, conducted jointly by SFDPH and the University of California at San Francisco, showed that between March 2020 and March 2021, 331 homeless people died in San Francisco.
That number is about twice the number of years prior, with 128 homeless deaths in 2016, 128 in 2017, 135 in 2018, and 147 in 2019.
Overdose deaths linked to the synthetic opioid drug fentanyl accounted for the majority of deaths, or 82 percent, of the 331, according to the data.
Of the 331 deaths, 268, or 81 percent, were males.
“Death from the COVID-19 pandemic may have been avoided, but deaths from other factors known to impact this population disproportionately — drug use and violence — have increased,” she said. “Mitigating death among people experiencing homelessness will require a multi-faceted approach and a willingness to invest significant resources.”
Because 90 percent of those who died within the pandemic’s first year had previously used city health and social services, researchers were able to track their use of services. The researchers found that substance use services declined from 20 percent between 2019 to 2020 to 13 percent between 2020 and 2021.
“The pandemic has significantly impacted our delivery of care and services to people experiencing homelessness,” SFDPH Medical Director of Street Medicine Dr. Barry Zevin said. “We have been able to provide care and treatment to large numbers of people who were previously hidden. The key is meeting people where they are at.”
The full findings can be found at https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2789907. | 2022-03-15T08:49:14Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Research shows homeless deaths skyrocketed during the pandemic’s first year - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/research-shows-homeless-deaths-skyrocketed-during-the-pandemics-first-year/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/research-shows-homeless-deaths-skyrocketed-during-the-pandemics-first-year/ |
By James Salazar Examiner staff writer • March 14, 2022 1:30 am - Updated March 14, 2022 5:20 pm
USF part-time faculty demonstrate for better working conditions at the Lone Mountain Campus on March 2. (James Salazar/The Examiner)
Colleges and universities are facing a reckoning.
As they become more expensive to operate, and as demographics and the pandemic squeeze enrollment, labor strife between administrators, faculty and staff are becoming more frequent. It’s a conflict that is playing out in San Francisco, where three institutions of higher education have been entangled in strikes or labor disputes. Together, experts say, the conflicts are symptoms of a dramatic transformation of the educational landscape.
“Higher education is facing a demographic cliff. We probably have far too many private and public universities than students can absorb,” said Gregory Price, an economics and finance professor at the University of New Orleans. He predicts a major shakeout in the next 10 to 15 years in which some colleges’ businesslike approaches will lead to budget cuts, closures or getting absorbed by other institutions.
City College of San Francisco may be a case in point. CCSF’s looming fiscal cliff has been brought on by an enrollment decline of 35% since 2013. In the past, the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, a state-funded agency, and the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), a national accrediting organization, expressed concerns over the institution’s viability.
“Community colleges depend disproportionately upon enrollment revenues,” said Price. “When those things decline, you basically have operational budget deficits and the pandemic pretty much accelerated that.”
Should City College not become financially solvent, a state takeover could take place.
The ACCJC, which monitors City College’s fiscal stability annually to ensure the college is meeting its missions and serving students, has placed City College on its watch list for two years and the school is set to be reviewed this spring to determine accreditation through 2030.
While City College administrators scramble to change their fortunes, faculty and staff are fighting for their jobs. Last month, the Board of Trustees approved layoffs for 50 full-time faculty members in 18 departments and five administrators for the 2022-23 academic year. Before this can happen, more than 300 instructors will have to be laid off as labor regulations require part-time faculty to be let go before full-time layoffs can take place.
Malaika Finkelstein, union president of the American Federation of Teachers 2121 which represents CCSF faculty, called the move “an unconscionable destruction of our college. Just looking at the number of faculty who would be gone, we can’t sustain a college at that level. We can’t serve the people of San Francisco who are trying to come get an education,” said Finkelstein. AFT 2121 claims that between academic years 2017-18 and 2020-21, over 30% of CCSF’s sections were cut and a 36% decline in enrollment followed.
Private institutions are feeling the pinch, too. California College of the Arts (CCA) and USF rely heavily on tuition and endowments for a large portion of their funding. The pandemic affected these streams of income and administrators are tasked with getting back on track.
“Their response has been to try and squeeze costs in other areas, including labor costs, wages for adjunct faculty and things like that,” said John Logan, a labor and employment studies professor at San Francisco State University.
This year, the CCA will shutter its Oakland campus to consolidate operations, a move that has been in the works for over a decade. School leaders believed one central location would cut down on transit costs and the time students spend traveling between both cities. When CCA’s Board of Trustees purchased a tract of land behind the San Francisco campus in 2011, expansion there became a possibility.
As CCA has sought to join its campuses, the staff unionized and tried to flex its muscle.
In February, staff and the Service Employees International Union 1021 struck for four days to protest alleged unfair labor practices. They accused CCA of spending the two years since they formed their union stalling, delaying and violating federal labor laws.
Across town, USF took a two-pronged approach to its budget. The administration entered contract negotiations with the Part-Time Faculty Association last summer, and the pandemic briefly shaped their proposals. Salary cuts and freezes were unanimously recommended by the University Budget and Advisory Committee for the fiscal year 2022 budget, a move prompted by enrollment reductions and increased expenses.
In addition, USF bumped up tuition for the 2022-23 academic year by 3.5%, with a traditional undergraduate comprehensive fee costing roughly $72,000. An email sent in December had USF President Paul Fitzgerald citing “high rates of inflation for goods and services required to operate the university” as reasoning for the move.
Still, there was skepticism about the higher costs argument after Fitzgerald revealed in a November email that the university was experiencing a “larger-than-anticipated forecasted operating surplus in the current academic year.”
“If you tell us that you can buy the San Francisco Art Institute with the $50 million mural, I think you have enough money to afford our (pay increase), which we estimate to be about $475,000,” said Jill Schepmann, president of the part-time faculty association.
On the backs of the adjuncts
To avert their budget woes, colleges have overwhelmingly relied on adjunct professors who can offer high-quality instruction at low cost.
“The number of tenure-track positions open every year sort of declines year in, year out but the number of PhDs continues at a sort of fairly high number,” said Logan.
According to the CCA website, there are 100 full-time faculty and 400 part-time faculty. USF, which last updated its numbers in fall 2020, lists 453 full-time faculty and 655 part-time faculty.
Ironically, USF’s part-time faculty are using this cost-saving reliance to negotiate better pay increases, reduced health care costs and job security. Because they legally cannot strike, the PTFA, USF’s adjunct faculty union, used public demonstrations to garner support from the campus community and pressure the administration into resuming talks.
“There’s a tremendous privilege in talking with young people about their deepest values at the moment in their lives when they’re trying to figure out what those are. That is an extraordinary privilege but the fact that I regarded it as a privilege doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be compensated for it,” said Rebecca Gordon, a USF adjunct philosophy professor and PTFA policy board member.
USF spokesperson Kellie Samson said, “The parties are currently in a cooling-off period after 20-plus bargaining sessions with the assistance of a federal mediator. Representatives for the PTFA and the University will resume bargaining on March 17.”
After striking for four days, CCA staff met with administration for a week of bargaining talks. Both sides reached tentative agreements on eight proposals. Union representative Jennie Smith-Camejo views the staff’s plight as “a sad statement on how we value education and how colleges are being run more like corporations. They’re looking for the cheapest labor possible,” she said.
As costs soar, faculty and staff will be among those hit the hardest by the squeeze on higher education. “It’s just a problem where the people who actually do the teaching are often the least rewarded,” said Logan.
David Cruz, an employee at California College of the Arts joins a strike on Feb. 8. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)
Tags: college, education, labor, University of San Francisco | 2022-03-15T08:49:20Z | www.sfexaminer.com | Showdown on S.F. college campuses points to crisis in higher education - The San Francisco Examiner | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/showdown-on-s-f-college-campuses-points-to-crisis-in-higher-education/ | https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/showdown-on-s-f-college-campuses-points-to-crisis-in-higher-education/ |
Ask Amy: How do I permanently exit a group chat?
Fed Up: Given that this is the way they notify the group about meetings, it seems prudent for you to receive texts from the youth leaders. You might want to hand your phone to your daughter for a period of time so she can participate in these conversations — or at least to confirm that she has received the message.
(Personally, I would also have an interest, albeit limited, in what these kids were talking about — but I take it as a given that you don’t.)
Because of the large age difference between us, we’ve never been close.
There’s no animosity or issues, we’re just borderline strangers to each other (I don’t even have his phone number).
If we decline the invite, my father will be extremely upset. To avoid that, my wife and I have decided that we’ll attend the ceremony and leave before the reception.
Elder: You state that you are not close to this brother, but only because of the age gap between you. And now this family member has invited you to celebrate an important milestone in his life.
Donna: I hope your response is posted on employee bulletin boards: It is never appropriate to comment on a person’s body. | 2022-05-29T04:16:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: How do I permanently exit a group chat? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/05/29/ask-amy-group-text-messages/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/05/29/ask-amy-group-text-messages/ |
Carolyn Hax: ‘Horrible person’ doesn’t like boyfriend’s prying mom
Carolyn Hax is away. The following is from Feb. 1 and 13, 2008.
Carolyn: I feel like a horrible person. My boyfriend’s mother seems like a really nice person and only has good intentions, but she grates on my last nerve. Her only fault is that she talks about things that make me uncomfortable, things I only would want to talk about with people I am close with.
I don’t know why it bothers me so much. I want to get to a point where it doesn’t, because it prevents me from developing the closeness that she is trying to get. I know she isn’t bad and that this is my issue, but I don’t know how to loosen up and not be so offended by her. It upsets my boyfriend that I don’t love her; he’s never known anyone not to.
— Maryland
Maryland: Repeat after me: His mother drives you nuts; you are perfectly capable of deciding for yourself who drives you nuts; disliking someone is not an affliction to be cured, it is a reaction to be managed.
A perfectly normal reaction. Feeling pressured to reveal private information is a sign of poor social skills — on the part of the person applying the pressure.
In fact, dislike is normal in general; it's part of social interaction. The person who believes there's such a thing as being adorable to every soul on Earth needs to stop hanging out with the Tooth Fairy.
Do you see the lines where your skin ends, and where the air around you begins? Those are your limits. Outside those limits, you will find other people, many of whom will have ideas about ways you should live your life, including whom you should like and what you should feel comfortable discussing.
The duty of outsiders isn’t to force those ideas upon you (or manipulate you into them by noting “everyone else” says you’re wrong). It is, instead, to accept that you will form opinions different from theirs; to respect your right to do so; and to form their opinion of you based on the whole — of your judgment, of your actions, of the quality of your companionship. Your boyfriend is dating a private person. Either he likes that about you and accepts it and understands that it puts you at odds with his mother’s style, or he finds someone else for his mother to love.
You, of course, may not even like it about yourself that you're so private. But you are inside the limits of you, and that entitles you to scrutinize, second-guess and generally mess with the mechanics of your judgment all you want, in a way that no one else has any business doing. You can figure out what makes you a certain way, and whether that's something you think you can change, and are willing to take on. In this case, if you think the problem is that you're too reticent, not that the mother is pushy, then, great, work on it.
In other words, you don't scrutinize/second-guess/self-flagellate just because your boyfriend is moping and his mother is closing in fast. As long as you employ it kindly, using your own judgment does not make you “a horrible person.” It makes you you.
Hi, Carolyn: I have a friend who just hit 37 and is single. He is leaning heavily toward dismissing the notion of having children because by the time he met someone, decided she was worth having a kid with, and conceived a child, the earliest he would probably see a baby is just shy of 40 — which he sees as being too old for kids, financially, physically, etc.
How do I have a conversation that illustrates that he doesn’t need to shop for the retirement village at 37?
— Downtown D.C.
Downtown D.C.: You don’t. He’s not arguing the merits of walking into traffic; he’s stating an opinion that he can’t even act on yet. And when he can, the only relevant counterargument will be the one from Her Worthiness herself.
If your real question is, how to help a guy who’s 37, single and blue, then that’s a different answer — though it still isn’t to sketch out his new life with your words. If he’s depressed, then urge treatment; if he’s just moping, then invite him along while you set an example of getting on with your life. | 2022-05-29T04:16:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: ‘Horrible person’ doesn’t like boyfriend’s prying mom - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/05/29/carolyn-hax-boyfriend-prying-mom-uncomfortable/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/05/29/carolyn-hax-boyfriend-prying-mom-uncomfortable/ |
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a ruling party’s politburo meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea, Sunday, May 29, 2022. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP) (Uncredited/KCNA via KNS) | 2022-05-29T04:17:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | N. Korea moves to soften curbs amid doubts over COVID counts - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/n-korea-moves-to-soften-curbs-amid-doubts-over-covid-counts/2022/05/28/84026b8c-defa-11ec-bc35-a91d0a94923b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/n-korea-moves-to-soften-curbs-amid-doubts-over-covid-counts/2022/05/28/84026b8c-defa-11ec-bc35-a91d0a94923b_story.html |
Chesapeake baseball has a whole lot of fun in becoming Class 3A champs
Chesapeake 5, Towson 1
Chesapeake's Nick Karls allowed one run in 6⅔ innings Saturday. (Craig Hudson/For the Washington Post)
While his teammates lined up to receive their Maryland 3A baseball championship medals — earned in a 5-1 victory Saturday night over top-seeded Towson — Chesapeake’s Adrian Gonzalez rushed back to the dugout to grab a plastic basketball hoop and a small rubber ball.
As the players congregated toward the trophy they would soon lift, Gonzalez held up the hoop and handed the basketball to junior Mason Shanahan, who got a running start and dunked the ball to great cheers from his teammates and the crowd of Chesapeake supporters.
This celebration was planned a week earlier, before the Cougars had even secured their spot in the title game. And it defined a team, led by first-year head coach Jeff Young, that has made it to the top by having fun.
Young and his staff — which bought the basket — created an enjoyable dynamic that helped the Cougars (20-3-1) bring home their first state title since 2014.
“He just did something unspeakable with a unique group,” said senior Kyle Hickson, who went 2 for 3 and scored the first run for Chesapeake on Saturday. “The main thing was, ‘You give me what I want, and I give you what you want.’ And we gave him what he wanted, and we got what we wanted and had fun.”
Young, a former Chesapeake player and an assistant the past nine years, built off the work of previous coaches Ken King and Jim Simms — both of whom won state titles with Chesapeake and were in attendance for the title game at Regency Furniture Stadium in Waldorf.
“We’re so proud of him. He deserves everything, what we gave him today,” said senior pitcher Nick Karls, who had six strikeouts in 6⅔ innings. “He’s my favorite coach I’ve ever had; I’m glad we were able to do this for him.”
Young said one of the keys to the team being successful this season was his players’ willingness to listen. But from top to bottom, players said they would never forget the fun the group had together.
Having walk-up songs was a particular favorite for Hickson, who strode to the plate to “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” by Kanye West.
Chesapeake fell behind in the first inning against Towson (17-3) but scored five unanswered runs to become champion.
“Right now it’s hard to think about because I just wouldn’t let myself think about it,” Young said. “Hopefully in a couple days it’ll sink in. I’m just proud.” | 2022-05-29T04:17:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Chesapeake baseball has a whole lot of fun in becoming Class 3A champs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/05/28/chesapeake-baseball-has-whole-lot-fun-becoming-class-3a-champs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/05/28/chesapeake-baseball-has-whole-lot-fun-becoming-class-3a-champs/ |
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