Beaten Generation

President Barack Hussein Obama II

2009-01-20T06:09:00.000-08:00

The news media would like to think this is a day for:

African-Americans
Immigrants
Post-Partisanship (civility)
Democrats
Minorities
Etc.

Nonononono. Today is a day for intellectualism, progressivism, leftism and secularism, which encompass and thus result in all of the things above and more. Societal groups cannot and do not exist within a vacuum and this is a major paradigm shift.

Because of this, at least for today and for the first time in at least 8 years, I will feel comfortable listening to our National Anthem. Perhaps I might even think about purchasing a flag.

Today is a good day for me to write a diary again.

Princeton!!!!!!!

2008-07-02T17:02:00.000-07:00

No Bust.

From my future Senator

2008-06-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

Menendez: McCain Has Taken Sides with Hardliners and Anti-Immigrants

One of Congress' most influential Hispanic members says that John McCain "walked away" from the Latino community and is not a "person of principle" on immigration reform -- a perception that could haunt the Arizona Republican in the general election.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Sen. Robert Menendez offered a scathing rebuke of McCain, painting him as a candidate who sold his political soul to secure his party's presidential nomination.

"In my mind, he has dramatically shifted. He has really taken a Republican tact," said the New Jersey Democrat. "It seems to me, and it is out there in the community, that he walked away at a critical time. And when you take that view, which shows that he is not the person of principle that he would like to show himself being, and you wear the Republican mantle that is so negative and anti-immigrant... I think it is very hard for John McCain to make hay with Latinos at the end of the day."

During the course of the Republican primary, McCain veered away from his support of a comprehensive immigration reform bill, citing, openly, the political pressures being put on him by the conservative base.

"I understand why you would call it a, quote, shift," McCain told reporters. "I say it is a lesson learned about what the American people's priorities are. And their priority is to secure the borders."

Ultimately, the move helped McCain net his party's nomination. But not without a cost. As Menendez argues, many now believe that the GOP nominee caved for political gain; something McCain's camp adamantly denies.

"Everyone knows that John McCain risked his political life to lead on the bipartisan immigration reform effort last year," his spokesperson Brian Rogers told The Huffington Post. "He bucked his party in the middle of a presidential campaign, and was attacked relentlessly for it. These cheap partisan attacks are unfortunate and absurd."

How McCain transitions on immigration during the general election could, in the end, be a major determinant of his candidacy's success. Will he try to champion his initial position, which included pathways towards citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country? Or will any move away from conservative orthodoxy be seen, as Menendez predicts, as a flip-flop-flip of historic proportions?

"The question that I would ask is: 'How are we supposed to believe you?' said Menendez. "Considering what they did to John Kerry on the question of the war, this would be much easier to do with John McCain. It would be: 'I was with you, before I was against you, before I was with you.'"

Those questions will come into sharp focus in July, when McCain is scheduled to appear before the National Council of La Raza, a pro-immigration group that took great umbrage with his adopted hard-line mentality.

"I expect him to try and dissemble and speak in ways that would lead you to the impression that we have to have comprehensive immigration reform," said Menendez. "But the question that has to be posed to him, first and foremost, is... how are we supposed to believe you in the first place, when you previously said something different? I think he's made his bed. He's tried to have it both ways and he came to the conclusion that to win the Republican primary he had to fall in bed with all the hardliners and anti-immigrants. And I think he will not successfully equivocate on this."

Menedez's critique of McCain's immigration policy is the hardest yet during the general election campaign. Various pro-immigration groups and elected officials had previously taken the Arizona Republican to task for his shifted position. But colleagues in the Senate have, by and large, kept their powder dry.

That said, Menendez wasn't 100 percent convinced that the Latino vote would break overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. While recent polling has the Illinois Democrat doing better among Hispanics than Sen. John Kerry in 2004, the numbers may not be enough to change the dynamics of the election.

"The latest poll I saw was Latinos supporting Obama over McCain by a margin of 60-40," said Menendez. "To be honest with you, we can't afford that. I think the Republicans would be happy if they go 40 percent of the Latino vote particularly in key states. If they could achieve that they will be on the road to the White House. I do think Obama will ultimately do well with Latino voters, but there is work to be done."

And what would that work be? Menendez suggested that the presumptive Democratic nominee talk to the Latinos about issues like health care and the economy, both of which disproportionately affect the Hispanic-American community. But there was a short-term solution as well.

Picking Hillary Clinton as vice president "would solidify the Latino situation immediately," said Menendez, a national co-chair of the Clinton campaign, "because she overwhelmingly had that support across the country."

Obama/Tusk '08 - Steal your grandmother's ID

2008-06-06T12:07:00.000-07:00

In recent years, the Polish government has been dominated by identical twin brothers, Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński. Jarosław is the leader of their party, Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS).

In 2005, after serving as the mayor of Warsaw, Lech declared that he would run for President of Poland. He said that if he won and his party took control of the Sejm (Parliament), someone else besides Jarosław would serve as the Prime Minister. Nevertheless, after Lech won the Presidential election, and his party became the majority, his brother became Prime Minister anyway. The two of them led the country, pushing for a very conservative, traditional Catholic platform, including a ban on Warsaw Gay Pride parade, continued abortion bans, and a relationship with the EU marked by extreme animosity. They were often seen as the most troublesome EU member country. They wholeheartedly supported the Bush Administration, the Iraq War, the missile shield and they even traveled to the US to speak at radical Christian fundamentalist meetings. More or less, they functioned as the Bush(es) of Europe.

In late 2007, to the relief of many, the Polish government fell apart and elections were held. The lead candidate for the main opposition party, the center (perhaps even center-right) Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO) was the young, affable Donald Tusk.

Tusk ran a campaign of tolerance, promising to loosen Catholicism's grasp on the Polish government, establish better relations with Germany and the EU, discuss reparations with Jews who had lost their homes during the Holocaust, push tolerance (perhaps even for same-sex couples, something unheard of in Polish government), revisit the decision to allow the US to build a missile defense system near the Ukrainian border and withdraw Polish troops from Iraq.

Now for the fun. It was extremely exciting for a country still reeling from the end of the Cold War. The older generations were afraid of some of the changes pushed by Tusk, while the younger generation and the urbanites cheered in delight. Tusk even had the foresight to travel to England to campaign where over a million Poles now work to make ends meet. He was reaching out to the industrious, educated youth. Again, sound familiar?

In the lead up to election day, young Poles created a plethora of youtube videos, advertisements and songs, and used mass text messages to promote their candidate for change. The massive generation gap made it clear that the GOTV campaign for the younger generation was the only hope for Donald Tusk. The advertisements took this into account.

There were joke ads about how the twins would switch places without anyone else knowing and that's why their administration was in such disarray.
Kaczyński is derived from the word "kaczka", which means "duck", so some ads mocked the election as "Donald vs. the Ducks".

The best ad encouraged young people to "Steal your grandmother's ID", thus allowing the youth vote to reign and running one of the Ducks out of office. While the ruling government fumed, the young people laughed and fought on. And Tusk won! After a few days of pouting, Lech admitted his brother's loss and Poland was rid of one Duck.

Now, only backwards Lech remains as President, while tolerant, young Tusk and his centrist party start moving Poland forward. And Poland, Europe and the world breathed a sigh of relief! Sound vaguely familiar?

Perhaps in the states where ID is required (Indiana, right?), we can encourage the same thing to stop the out-of-touch McCain:

Obama '08 - Steal your grandmother's ID

We can only dream, because in reality that's disenfranchisement..... hehe.

a nytimes article on the subject if you're interested

Congratulations!

2008-06-03T19:58:00.000-07:00

Congratulation Barack Hussein Obama and family!

I am extremely proud of our nation today.

It's on to Washington, President Obama. Hail to the Chief!

Do not go gentle....

2008-05-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Hang in there Mr. Kennedy.......

Same-Sex Marriage Is Legal in CA!

2008-05-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

"In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual's sexual orientation -- like a person's race or gender -- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights." -CA Supreme Court

She's done! (from Der Spiegel)

2008-05-06T23:24:00.000-07:00

CLINTON IM AUS

Das Ende einer Ära

Die frühere First Lady hat hoch gepokert. Und verloren. Wenn nicht noch ein Wunder geschieht, ist Barack Obama der Kandidat der Demokraten - in einem dramatischen Finale wurde heute Nacht die Ära Clinton beendet.

CLINTON IS DONE

The End of an Era

The earlier First Lady bet everything. And she lost. Unless a miracle occurs, Barack Obama is the Democratic candidate for president - in a dramatic finish, today signals the end of the Clinton Era.

I do not understand.

2008-05-01T23:56:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading my Christmas present from Agnieszka, "Inny świat" (or "Another World") by Gustaw Herling-Grudziński (written as Gustav Herling on the jacket....) It is his account of his life in the GULAG (a word which happens to be an acronym for Главное Управление Исправительно-Трудовых Лагерей и колоний, ГУЛАГ, Glavnoye Upravlyeniye ispravitel'no-trudovich LAGeryei i kolonii or Main Administration for Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies...... and actually refers to the prison system rather than the prisons themselves.....).

He ends the book with an amazing epilogue. He has been released from the prison as part of a much-belated general amnesty for Poles after the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement that allied Poland with the USSR against the Germans in 1941. He joined the Polish Army and, after the war, ended up in Rome. He was working at a government newspaper when he was approached by a former Polish Jewish cellmate, who had a similar story. The man had been the prisoner that announced the Fall of Paris to Gustaw in 1940. It signaled the end of all hope for the prisoners.... The then allied Germans and Russians had effectively conquered Europe; only London was left. The Poles would never be freed...... This man had been released under the same agreement as Gustaw, joined the Red Army, was injured, joined the Polish army and stormed Warsaw. There, he found all of his extended family dead, and he escaped to Italy.

Now, at the end, he has come to Gustaw for help. He wants to tell him a story of his life in the zone (what they call the GULAG), to which he would like Gustaw to simply reply "I understand". His story is that he was taken from a reasonable job in the zone and worked ragged in the Siberian forest for a few months. He was then taken before 4 of his fellow prisoners, Germans. The authorities wanted him to sign a statement claiming that he had heard the Germans discussing the impending fall of Moscow to Hitler. If he did as much, he would be allowed to leave the forest and go back to his previous, comparatively cushy, engineering job. He chose to sign the statement. He then heard the four Germans get shot.

Our hero Gustaw mulls the story over, remembering the depravity and horror to which he was driven, while in the zone. He decides that he has to make a similar choice to that of his friend. He can help his friend by condoning his actions and thus suffer -- this would mean reentering the realm of altered morals and lack of humanity that had existed during their incarceration -- or he can choose to escape this fate and remain a human being.

From the end of the book, after his friend has finished his story and is hoping for his "I understand":

'The choice was the same: it had been his life or the lives of the four Germans, now it was his peace or mine. No, I could not say it.
"Well?" he asked quietly.
I got up from the bed and without looking him in the eyes walked over to the window. With my back to the room I heard him going out and gently closing the door. I pushed the blind up. On the Piazza Colonna a cool breath of afternoon air had straightened the passers-by, as it would a field of corn bowed to the ground by drought. Drunk American and English soldiers walked along the pavements, pushing the Italians aside, picking up girls, looking for shade under the striped awnings of shops. Under the pillars of the corner house the black market was in full swing. The Roman "lazzaroni", small ragged war-children, dived in and out between the legs of enormous negroes in American uniforms. The war had ended a month ago. Rome was free, Brussels was free, Oslo was free, Paris was free. Paris, Paris, Paris....
I watched him as he walked out of the hotel, tripped across the road like a bird with a broken wing, and disappeared in the crowd without looking back.
The End'

Amazing book. Thank you Agnieszka.

Tonight I met Cindy Sheehan

2008-04-24T00:21:00.001-07:00

(Welcome to my first diary on DailyKos..... so far, including my contributions, I have 38 comments and 17 recs.)

I live in CA-8, Nancy Pelosi’s district. In fact, I live right in the middle of downtown San Francisco. I see, literally every day, some of the ills of gentrification, as well as the high-rise development in downtown and the dire situation of drug use and homelessness that plagues our nation. I have lived in and traveled all over Europe, and I’ve never seen the devastation of the San Francisco Tenderloin.

I have been following this presidential race obsessively, first cheering for Obama, then Edwards, then Clinton, then Obama again, then Clinton again, then Edwards again, and finally Obama. Now, without any reservations, I am strongly behind Obama. I currently live in CA-8, but will soon be moving to central NJ.

Tonight, however, I faced one of the most interesting tests in the development of my political thought. I grew up in suburban Phoenix, believing in Bill Clinton due to my parents, reading Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky and listening to Rage Against the Machine and hardcore. I was the stereotypical simplistic radical teenager. I voted for Ralph Nader (and not only do I stand by my vote, I challenge anyone to convince me that Nader is to blame, rather than the US Supreme Court, the Florida Supreme Court, the Republican Party, George W. Bush, the Democratic Party, Al Gore, the media, etc. etc). Yet, I heard Democrats claiming that by supporting a Green, I had betrayed the Democratic Party. I had to remind them that the Democratic Party was only the answer insofar as it represented my views..... and Gore had not.

Finally though, I went to Berkeley and watched my (theoretical) wing of the Democratic Party grow and come into conflict with the moderates on one side and those prone to radical ignorance on the other. I strongly pushed for social programs, for civil liberties and for tolerance. Those were my biggest concerns and issues. I finally became a Democrat.

Then, the war came. I was told, by two Japanese friends of my girlfriend, almost with glee, "your country just bombed Iraq". I cried at the University Health Center, watching pictures of "shock and awe". I had opposed both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. I was disappointed in us, the people of the US. I loved my East Bay representative Barbara Lee for her contributions to our country. Yet nobody listened. And people died.
Suddenly, Cindy Sheehan came forward and spoke on behalf of her son. He was killed for an embarrassing, horrifying and destructive war. I saw her as a person in more than legitimate pain for the loss of a family member. Then, I saw her lampooned by the media. She was called crazy, delusional, an anti-Semite, etc. I began to ignore her.....

But it was entirely unfair. Tonight, she held a fundraiser in San Francisco for her campaign to take on Nancy Pelosi for the CA-8 seat in 2008. I watched her discuss her points. I didn’t think she represented her angle well. She sounded like a naïve groupie who was preaching to the choir. BUT then she started discussing Iraq. The obscenities started to fly. She was no longer the friendly, understanding person who had begun the discussion. Her passion overwhelmed me. I FELT her point. Here was a woman who had been completely devastated by the disastrous policies of my government and she was lashing out, screaming, "LISTEN TO ME!!!!!!"

Despite the errors of the activists that represent the left, we need to hear the voice of people like Cindy Sheehan. As much as we try to theorize about the political aspects of our current or future administrations, we are not allowed to fail to understand that people’s lives are at stake. Not just Cindy Sheehan’s son. Also: the children of countless others whose kids/parents/boyfriends/girlfriends/brothers/sisters are dying in Iraq; the Iraqis who’ve died by the hundreds of thousands; the victims of Hurricane Katrina who died, suffered and continue to suffer while our government just sits; low-income families who have to live with little income and no health insurance, and countless, COUNTLESS, other victims that I’m too angry to be able to name.

In the end, I don’t support Cindy Sheehan’s candidacy, because I don’t think she has the knowledge to lead our country. However, I have to say, and I want to repeat, ad infinitum, that her grievances are real, that the grievances of all our citizens are real...... and that this election is the fight of our lives.... THE FIGHT... OF OUR LIVES. This is the twilight of our nation, and it is up to us to pull it back from despair, if only to preserve it for another generation of two. I’m sure you know whom I will be voting for. I hope you do the same. If you need a little guidance, think of those like Cindy Sheehan.

Thank you for enduring this speech. It has been building for a long time, yet I fear it still lacks so much....

This editorial is perfect

2008-04-23T07:59:00.000-07:00

From the NYTimes

The Low Road to Victory

Published: April 23, 2008

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11. A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” the narrator intoned.

If that was supposed to bolster Mrs. Clinton’s argument that she is the better prepared to be president in a dangerous world, she sent the opposite message on Tuesday morning by declaring in an interview on ABC News that if Iran attacked Israel while she were president: “We would be able to totally obliterate them.”

By staying on the attack and not engaging Mr. Obama on the substance of issues like terrorism, the economy and how to organize an orderly exit from Iraq, Mrs. Clinton does more than just turn off voters who don’t like negative campaigning. She undercuts the rationale for her candidacy that led this page and others to support her: that she is more qualified, right now, to be president than Mr. Obama.

Mr. Obama is not blameless when it comes to the negative and vapid nature of this campaign. He is increasingly rising to Mrs. Clinton’s bait, undercutting his own claims that he is offering a higher more inclusive form of politics. When she criticized his comments about “bitter” voters, Mr. Obama mocked her as an Annie Oakley wannabe. All that does is remind Americans who are on the fence about his relative youth and inexperience.

No matter what the high-priced political operatives (from both camps) may think, it is not a disadvantage that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton share many of the same essential values and sensible policy prescriptions. It is their strength, and they are doing their best to make voters forget it. And if they think that only Democrats are paying attention to this spectacle, they’re wrong.

After seven years of George W. Bush’s failed with-us-or-against-us presidency, all American voters deserve to hear a nuanced debate — right now and through the general campaign — about how each candidate will combat terrorism, protect civil liberties, address the housing crisis and end the war in Iraq.

It is getting to be time for the superdelegates to do what the Democrats had in mind when they created superdelegates: settle a bloody race that cannot be won at the ballot box. Mrs. Clinton once had a big lead among the party elders, but has been steadily losing it, in large part because of her negative campaign. If she is ever to have a hope of persuading these most loyal of Democrats to come back to her side, let alone win over the larger body of voters, she has to call off the dogs.

A loss of 8.6% is painful because the monster can spin it.

2008-04-22T23:20:00.001-07:00

Will everyone please stop representing this race as if the two sides are equal? Hillary's attacks are disgusting. Obama's main left-field attack on Hillary was that she did, in fact, lie about Bosnia.

Her attacks on him?
1) He's a Muslim (Farrakhan, Hamas newsletter, picture in African garb, her answer of "I have no evidence of that" rather than "no" when asked if he's a Muslim)

2) He is soft of terrorism/he is a terrorist (9/11, Weather Underground, 9/11, Muslim, anti-American preacher, OH, and 9/11)

3) He's an arrogant elitist who hates guns and religion.

So, to my understanding, he's an elite terrorist Muslim, who hates religion and has a crazy Christian pastor.

What do I think the Democrats should do? I think they should elect Obama, the Democrat in the race, before our neo-con/neo-lib (yes both) friend Clinton destroys our party, allows McCain to use her attacks on Obama, the clear nominee, and causes more war, more tax-cuts for the rich, abortion bans, homophobia, basically the end of our constitution and thus any meaningful USA.......

Let's face it. It's Obama, or the destruction of our country. Here's a hint: Hillary is not Obama.

I'm truly sick.

2008-04-16T21:53:00.000-07:00

I'm sick of feeling like the only one that sees that our democracy is imploding. I'm sick of being the only one truly afraid for our future.

-We have a President who pardons a man after he covers up for a political hit-job that he himself likely ordered (Libby-Plame)
-We are mired in a never-ending war of aggression, built on blatant lies, supported by our media.
-We are mired in a second war that's been a complete disaster
-We have tortured and passed bills allowing for more torture
-We have confirmed "black sites" in Eastern Europe and Guantanamo is still open
-We have, under the pretense of nationa security, allowed for foreigners to be locked up without being charged
-We have, under the pretense of national security, allowed the government to spy on our library records, phone records, etc.
-We are the only "developed" nation to lack health care for all of our people
-We are the only "developed" nation to allow state executions
-We are completely ignoring the environmental destruction increasing daily, endangering our planet's ability to survive
-We are seriously considering a man for President who claims to ignore science on whether condoms prevent HIV/AIDS

This debate tonight was just another in a long line of disastrous steps leading us in the wrong direction.

I'm honestly starting to be a little worried about bringing Agnieszka here.....

Why do I feel like the only one who's frightened? Am I wrong?

Hillary performed marvelously tonight on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars"

2008-04-16T20:29:00.000-07:00

With tonight's disgusting debate, ABC joins the FOX ranks. CNN is headed in that direction. What is happening to our media? This is truly frightening.......

From the Huffington Post:, a little sum up of the questions from the first half of the debate:

Both: "Any chance at a "Dream Ticket?"
Obama: "Bitter, much?"
Both: "Do you think your opponent stands a chance against McCain?"
Obama: "What about Reverend Wright?"
Obama: "Wait. I have an even stupider question about Reverend Wright."
Hillary: "Seriously. Who were you fooling with that Bosnia shizz?"
Obama: "Hey, Hussein! Why no American flag lapel pin?"
Obama: "Hey, Sean Hannity wanted me to ask you something, Barack! I got a question on the Weather Underground! Maybe later we'll talk about the Symbionese Liberation Army!"

You'll notice that of these 8 questions, 7 were directed at Obama and 3 at Hillary. Obama got 5 attacking "gotcha" questions and Hillary got 1.

When did Hillary Clinton become part of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" (she means fascism/corporatism)?

Then she attempted to link Obama to Hamas, referring to a pretty sanguine article written by a major Hamas figure, featured on a page of the bulletin from Obama's church....... My god. And Farrakhan again?!?! Hillary really wants us to think he's Muslim.

I'm starting to truly think that if Hillary manages to destroy Obama with attacks and somehow magically pulls this off (incredibly) unlikely, I will not vote at all. Will she be any better than McCain?

I truly think Hillary does not care at all about this country, peace, women's rights, etc. She's trying to hand the Supreme Court to the fascists on a platter. Goodbye abortion rights! What a f!$§ing deplorable person. I think I'll move to a liberal country, like Poland (ha).

Like Billie Joe said......

2008-04-14T15:51:00.000-07:00

Phoenix Mayor Wants Feds to Investigate Sheriff's Racial Profiling

by Blue Intrigue

Mon Apr 14, 2008 at 03:15:37 PM PDT

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon has had enough of Sheriff Joe:

In the wake of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office crackdowns on illegal immigrants throughout the Valley, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon is calling on the FBI to investigate whether Sheriff Joe Arpaio has violated any civil-rights laws.

Link

Blue Intrigue's diary :: ::

In an April 4 letter to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Gordon asked the Justice Department's civil-rights division and the FBI to probe what Gordon calls a "pattern and practice of conduct that includes discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests."

Justice Department officials promised to review Gordon's letter but declined further comment.

Hopefully, the feds will take Gordon's request seriously, coming as it does from the mayor of a large Southwestern city. Naturally, Arpaio is condescending and dismissive in his response:

"I think the mayor is disconnected from the people he represents and he doesn't get the point. Now he's going to Washington to confuse the issue and try to get the public against me," Arpaio said Saturday. "It's not going to work. I've done nothing wrong." ... Arpaio insists Gordon is taking the opportunity to play political games and said the series of letters, whether they come from ministers or politicians, don't bother him.

"I don't think any of them carry any weight cause I have nothing to hide," he said. "(Gordon) did this on his own because he's taking the heat. Now he's degrading my office and my deputies by insinuating that they're violating all these civil laws. We don't profile."

Phil Gordon, a lawyer, is not likely to waste the FBI's time on false claims.

Gordon's four-page letter details Arpaio's recent sweeps through predominantly Latino neighborhoods in Phoenix and Guadalupe.

"Over the past few weeks, Sheriff Arpaio's actions have infringed on the civil rights of our residents," Gordon wrote. "They have put our residents' well-being, and the well-being of law enforcement officers, at risk."

In his letter, Gordon says he was moved to write after Arpaio pledged to bring his sweeps to other Valley cities on an ongoing basis. Gordon, who is an attorney, asks that Arpaio be investigated for possible violations of four laws, including the Civil Rights Act and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act.

Additionally, Gordon has the backing of the ACLU, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Arizona Ecumenical Council, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League.

The sweeps, which Gordon has called "made-for-TV stunts", heve brought out the worst elements of society:

In his office, Gordon has a pair of posters held by protesters at the recent sweep that took place near Cave Creek and Bell roads. Given to him by a Phoenix police officer who was on the scene, one refers to Latinos with an expletive and a slur. Another says "Hooray for the slaughtering of the illegals!" and is adorned with a swastika.

The bottom line in this is that Sheriff Joe has poured resources into catching a few illegals (always in front of cameras) while violent crimes go uninvestigated and unsolved. And he has violated the rights of many citizens in the process. One of the more common citations issued during the sweeps has been for honking the car horn in support of the protestors who greet Arpaio wherever he sets up shop with his two hundred deputies. What kind of law enforcement is this? Oh, and how many non-Latinos have been stopped for this?

It's time to stop this thug.

Help elect Dan Saban.

From Today's Chronicle

2008-04-10T08:51:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Mr. Mayor

Editor - Congratulations to Mayor Gavin Newsom on turning liberal San Francisco into an extension of the repressive Chinese government. The relay should have just been canceled.

JOHN NAVAS

San Ramon

Shameful, San Francisco

Editor - I have just watched one of the most embarrassing public spectacles imaginable with the San Francisco Olympic torch relay being beamed worldwide. It was like watching a car wreck, a failed surprise party or a canceled wedding. The sight of torch bearers waving at nobody along a nondescript stretch of Van Ness Avenue, following a flatbed truck, was pathetic. Flanked by double rows of dark uniformed police officers on foot and on motorcycles, the procession resembled a military drill more than a celebration.

As the world was watching, the powers that be in San Francisco blinked at the challenge of controlling both celebrants and dissidents. Whoever made the decision to cause this travesty should apologize to the thousands who waited hours to take part in something that should have made San Francisco proud.

WAYNE KATSUMATA

Berkeley

Decision

2008-03-26T17:22:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Princeton. Hurra!

Protests

2008-03-25T10:10:00.000-07:00

I will be protesting China and San Francisco on April 9th. The Olympic Torch is passing through SF and the SF government wants to establish Free Speech Zones. Many nuts, the ACLU, Code Pink and I say "to hell with that". They are hiding the 8-mile path of the torch, to avoid conflicts. I say "to hell with that".

China poisons us, tortures its own people, enslaves Tibetans, Uighurs, etc. and is indirectly responsible for the murder and rape of hundreds of thousands of Darfurians.... And SF's gonna protect them?

What's going on?

Maher and Hillary

2008-03-14T21:39:00.000-07:00

Bill Maher is done. He's pretty much lost me in just the last three shows. He uses racism. He thinks he's not sexist, but he is. He used to be racy, but never offensive. Now, he's politically incorrect. WHICH MEANS OFFENSIVE.

And speaking of being done, I think the Democrats are done for this year. I hope by saying this, it will turn out not to be true. If Hillary doesn't quit her nonsense now, McCain will continue our wars, our torture (he voted to protect the CIA's right to torture), our illegal surveillance, our war on the poor, our terror fears, our racist Nativism towards "Mexicans", our idiotic tax policy, etc. etc. etc.

Bill, quit now. And bring Hillary with you.

I'm afraid

2008-02-21T20:29:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I have to admit, I violated my own call for a boycott of CNN. I'm too much of a media junkie, and CNN has become my barometer for the right wing of the popular media (FOX being the radical right). They are right wing, not because of the political attitudes indicated by the positions they take, but rather by the fact that readership seems to have become more important than fact.

I have started to wonder whether the media would turn strongly against Obama, as Hillary looks done for. They can't want this veritable piggy bank of a news story, the constant battle between Clinton and Obama, to end just yet....

Some background:

Instead of reporting all of the different sides of a story, CNN likes to basically reduce their stories to catchy, vague one-liners posted on the right side of the screen, designed to make you click on them. The worst one I've seen is "Bear Falls Out of Tree with Loud Womp".

The worst one in this campaign cycle was "Kucinich to drop out of presidential race." This, in and of itself, seems quite legitimate..... but then five minutes later, they retitled it "Dem to drop out of presidential race." They seem to think that, with the original title, we won't click on it, because we already have the story, OR because we don't care/know about Kucinich. The bottom line is: they need advertising revenue. So, they makes things as vague, strange and provocative as possible.

A sampling of the current lines from the front page:
1) Smear or story? I-Reporters on McCain latest
2) Prof who found noose hit for plagiarism
3) Utah students hide guns, head for class
4) Throat-slashed player "knew it was bad"
5) "Virgin Mary pretzel" for sale on E-Bay

Now, those are all disgusting, and the first one is downright pandering to the radical right. But the worst of all the stories listed on the right is side of the site is this: "Clinton sparks standing ovation". Now, they could have said, "Obama calls Hillary's attacks 'silly season'", or "Clinton booed for xerox comment", or if they wanted to be positive towards her, "Hillary ends on a strong note".

Strangely enough, my final statement is exactly what was up on CNN following the debate. Then, they kept the link destination the same, but changed the wording. The title of the story after you follow the link is still "Hillary ends on a strong note", but the wording of the link has now become "Clinton sparks standing ovation". Now, that is clearly biased towards Hillary. During the debate, she was also booed for comments she made. But the shilling for Hillary is really not the worst part. It's that the ovation is questionable and the comments that supposedly elicited it suspect.

In the past weeks, she has accused Obama of plagiarism, which I will not dignify with a response (he did, and it was a "zinger"). Then, during this debate, she took Edwards's closing sentiments from an earlier debate, reworded them, and provided her final answer, for which she was awarded with a standing ovation. Obama's campaign feels so strongly about this plagiarism, they immediately put out a press release showing it. Wait, wait, if you didn't follow me on this, and think I am just standing by my man (Obama), this is not the actual point of this post.

The penultimate point is the ovation. It came at the end of the debate, and strangely enough, the audience gave a standing ovation at the break too. Now, I'm sure that there are those who were excited by her speech (plagiarized or not), but how can CNN be so sure that the standing ovation was a direct result? Strong enough to post it on their front page?

But as I said, even this is not the final point. The real question we should be asking is: Why did CNN choose to pick out specifically that point to put on their front page? Does that not show an extreme bias? Why did they favor one candidate over another?

Clearly CNN wants Clinton to stick around. Why? Perhaps so they can sell more advertising? Or because they want her to win? Why does CNN no longer report news? Why is the NYTimes under attack when they got the story on McCain from a McCain source? Has the anti-intellectualism really reached the point where the media is against the educated? Or controls the non-educated? Is it all for financial gain? I'm truly getting afraid.

A New Ocean!

2008-02-17T21:06:00.000-08:00

Did anyone know that in 2000, the International Hydrographic Organization officially termed the ocean circling Antarctica the Southern Ocean? So, now, there are 5 oceans:

1) Pacific Ocean
2) Artic Ocean
3) Altantic Ocean
4) Indian Ocean
5) Southern Ocean

5 oceans and 8 planets...... In German, there are 6 continents because Amerika is one continent, from the tip of Chile and Argentian up to the Arctic Ocean..... Weird. Was anyone aware of this?

The newly unvailed flag

2008-02-17T09:57:00.000-08:00

of the Republic of Kosovo. Kosovo declared independence today in the capital of Prishtina (formerly Priština under Serbian rule). The Albanian population of the world celebrates.

A view of the capital. This street is called Bulevardin Bill Clinton (Bill Clinton Boulevard). Below is another picture of the street.

Kosovo declares independence!

2008-02-17T09:48:00.000-08:00

Another day....

2008-02-15T15:28:00.000-08:00

Another day, another story on Natalie Holloway, another omission by CNN. The charge of first-degree murder in the case of Lawrence King has been elevated to a hate-crime. The 14-year old will be tried as an adult, according to the Ventura County prosecutor.

What is this not huge news? If it were a racist murder it would be on the front page! A 27-year old gunman in Illinois is front-page news for days? Matthew Shephard was big news!

The following have reported this story, barely:
Miami Herald
Los Angeles Times

Everyone else is barely carrying the AP line that they're unaware of the reasons why it's been upgraded to a hate crime. Students at the school said that he came out as gay. He wore make-up, painted his nails, wore high-heeled boots and skirts. This is the reason those kids gave for what happened. It's pretty clear that they didn't make it up and would be grounds for a hate crime. I've heard that they omit the word gay,for fear of defamation lawsuits. I don't know if this is true.

I used to paint my nails. Did I deserve to be shot and have the story buried? I am so disgusted with our press.

Please Boycott CNN

2008-02-14T10:10:00.000-08:00

There is a story about a boy named Lawrence King in Oxnard, CA, who was shot and killed yesterday. No official motive yet, but it was most likely due to the fact that he was gay and wore women's clothes to school. He had a fight with the killer over his sexual orientation and was shot in the head. LATimes devotes half the story to the question of motive, discusses the possibility of it being a hate crime and discuss GLBT issues in schools.

CNN does not have the story on the right side of the screen, while reporting on two other shootings perpetrated by young children. The story it does have has no mention of the issue of sexual orientation!

How dare they! Natalie Holloway is big news, but a school murder of a gay teen is not important enough? I mean, the boy was white! That should count for something!

Boycott CNN!

McCain, You've Already Lost

2008-02-13T19:38:00.000-08:00

You really want to be president? You want to be considered a hero, respected by our nation?

Let's paint this in broad, wide strokes here. Let's make this basic and clear.

You are against Bush's tax cuts? Actually, you changed that in the early 2000s.

You are pro-immigration? In the last debates, you said that you would not vote for your own bill, because it wouldn't have a chance.... HUH?

You are against torture? YOU VOTED TODAY AGAINST A BAN ON TORTURE AND THUS LOST ANY MODICUM OF RESPECT ANYONE SHOULD EVER HAVE FOR YOU!

You are a warmonger, who supports Bush's tax cuts, harsher border security and torture. This country better stand up and fight if you are elected.

From around the world

2008-02-12T21:27:00.000-08:00

Poland (Rzeczpospolita, Warsaw)

Obama wygrał nad Potomakiem

Barack Obama wygrał wszystkie trzy wtorkowe demokratyczne prawybory: w Wirginii, Maryland oraz stołecznym dystrykcie Columbia (DC) i ma już większą liczbę delegatów na przedwyborczą konwencję partyjną niż Hillary Clinton.

Austria (Der Standard, Austria)

Dreifach-Triumph für Obama

Nach Siegen in Virginia, Maryland und Washington DC hat Obama erstmals Clinton bei Delegiertenstimmen überholt.

England (BBC News, London)

Obama wins primaries clean sweep

Barack Obama has won the Democratic primary polls in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, according to US media projections and early results.

Russia (Izvestia, Moscow)

Обама победил на очередном этапе "праймериз"

Сенатор-демократ Барак Обама стал абсолютным победителям очередного этапа "праймериз", которые прошли во вторник параллельно у демократов и республиканцев в штатах Вирджиния и Мэриленд, а также в столице США Вашингтоне.

Switzerland (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich)

Translated 100th post extravaganza

2008-02-12T21:18:00.000-08:00

DEMOKRATEN- DRAMA

Obama zieht an Clinton vorbei

Schwere Schlappe für Hillary Clinton: Ihr Rivale Barack Obama hat die Vorwahlen in Virginia, Maryland und in der Hauptstadt Washington klar gewonnen - und damit erstmals die Führung im Rennen um die US-Präsidentschaftskandidatur der Demokraten übernommen. Bei den Republikanern siegte John McCain.

"DEMOCRATS' DRAMA
OBAMA PASSES CLINTON
Hard slap for Hillary Clinton: Her rival, Barack Obama, won definitively the primaries in Virginia, Maryland and in DC. With these victories, he has become the front-runner for the first time in the race for the Democratic nomination for the US-Presidency. John McCain won amongst the Republicans."

EUROPE LOVES IT, AND SO DO WE!

The cover of this week's Der Spiegel has a picture of Obama and the title "Der Messias-Faktor" (The Messiah-Factor).

JA, WIR KÖNNEN ES! TAK, TO MOZEMY! SI, SE PUEDE! YES, WE CAN!

Somebody out there oughta enjoy these county results.

2008-02-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

Fairfax updated 3 minutes ago		Obama	90,042	59%	96% reporting
Fairfax updated 3 minutes ago		Clinton	61,756	41%	96% reporting

We Will Miss You, Mr. Lantos

2008-02-11T08:29:00.000-08:00

A man who fled the Nazis in Europe, came to America and got a PhD at Berkeley, became a professor for 30 years and served the citizens of San Mateo and San Francisco counties in Congress 28 years died today of esophageal cancer.
A member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, he called for health care reform, a balanced budget, an end to Bush's tax cuts. He opposed the privatization of Social Security. He supported marriage equality, a woman's right to choose and gun control. He was a champion of public transportation and an advocate for green energy.
He spoke out for religious freedom around the world and called for intervention abroad to stop war. He originally supported the Iraq War, but changed his mind. He desperately called for a force to be sent to Darfur.
He had announced that he would not seek a 15th term, as he was ill and wanted more time with his family. It was not to be.

His ratings by Project Vote Smart:
American Civil Liberties Union – 91% for 2005–2006
AFL-CIO – 100% in 2006
Humane Society of the United States – 100% for 2005-2006
League of Conservation Voters – 92% for 2006
NARAL Pro-Choice America – 100% for 2006
National Education Association – 100% for 2005-2006
National Organization for Women – 95% for 2005-2006

Americans for Tax Reform – 0% for 2006
Gun Owners of America – 0% for 2006
National Rifle Association – F for 2006
National Right to Life Committee – 0% for 2005-2006

We've lost a great champion of our rights.

In his own words: "It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family, and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a Member of Congress.... I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country."

Thank you, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA-12)
(born Lantos Tamás Péter)

SUSA

2008-02-08T09:45:00.000-08:00

The pollster that got almost everything right, nailed California and got only Missouri wrong (which I got right by the way, hehe), has polled Virginia at Obama 57 - Clinton 39. Beautiful.

-Nebraska and Washington are Obama-type states and are caucuses, so he should do well.
-Louisiana is heavily African-American, so he should do well.
-Maine is a closed-primary? I think..... so he may have an issue there.
-Virginia is polling beautifully.
-He would have to murder someone on national television to lose DC.
-Maryland is heavily educated, wealthy, politically involved and African-American, so there's that.
-Hawaii is his.
-Wisconsin is heavily labor-leftist, Edwards-type people, plus Chicago suburbanites/exurbanites. Milwaukee is heavily African-American.

He CAN, but may not be able to sweep the rest of February.

He's most vulnerable in Maine, less so in Wisconsin and Washington.......

Tim Kaine, the D-governor of Virginia has said he should not be Obama's running mate, should he win the nomination. He recommended Jim Webb!

Obama/Webb '08

Germany's Rodney King?

2008-02-07T15:44:00.000-08:00

I'm sure you've heard the story of the 9-month old baby dropped from the window of the burning building in Ludwigshafen, Germany. But are you aware of the racial tension throughout Central Europe?

9 people were killed (5 children), 60 injured, all of them Turks or German Turks. Just 2 years ago, the building was bombarbed by a Molotov Cocktail. The door of the Turkish cultural center inside the building was painted with Nazi-slogans. Two girls saw a "German-looking" man light a baby carriage on fire in the foyer.

This would be the worst Nazi-attack on Turks in Germany's history. Turkey's Prime Minister arrived in Nordrhein-Westfalen, the state where Ludwigshafen lies, and spoke with Kurt Beck, the state's Prime Minister. They asked the crowds to hold off judgment before anything became known. During the speech, 2 right-wing extremist youths were detained just 1 block from the crowd for violating an existing restraining order.

The 2.6 million Turks of the country (and countless others in Austria and other neighbors) are angry. They are scared. One 18-year old Turkish woman hoped that it was not a Nazi-attack. "Otherwise there will be war here in the streets." (Sonst gibt es Krieg hier auf den Straßen.) Let's hope she's wrong.

The Death of the Democratic Party?

2008-02-07T14:53:00.000-08:00

Oh no! From DailyKos:

The Math: Impossible for HC Or BO to Win Nom Process

by Public Servant

Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 02:30:20 PM PST

Paul Kane at the Washington Post has crunched the numbers and finds that it is mathematically impossible for Clinton or Obama to win the Dem nomination in the standard process. That puts the super-delegates, the Dem Party elite, front and center to choose for us.

There are 3,253 pledged delegates. These are assigned based on votes in primaries (and caucuses). To win the Dem nomination, a total of 2,025 delegates is necessary. So far, nearly 55% of the total of 3,253 delegates have been pledged via primary/caucus voting. Hillary and Barack are fairly close to even so far, ~900 delegates each, leaving ~1450 delegates up for grabs in the next few months

The problem is that if they both have about 900 pledged delegates so far, that totals ~1800, leaving ~1450 delegates available. If 2025 are needed to win, its highly unlikely that Obama or Clinton would win the 1100+ of the remaining 1450 delegates (45%) necessary to win through actual voting.

So unless Obama can win this politically in February and somehow knock Clinton out on Super Tuesday II on March 4th in Ohio and Texas, or unless some huge scandal pops up which is also unlikely, this thing is going to end with a few hundred Super-Ds making the call. That is, unless Clinton manages to push the Dems to include Florida and Michigan in the mix. I haven't looked at that math, but it's doubtful that including FL and MI might not make push Clinton over the top.

I haven't seen anyone else do the math on this and put it out there like Kane at WAPO has done, which is surprising. But if others have done so, I'd like to see if there are different interpretations out there. Thoughts?

YES.WE.DID...Obamomentum '08

2008-02-06T20:43:00.000-08:00

So went San Francisco, so went the nation...... it just had to endure a mild bruising in some of the more unsavory parts of California. Hehe.

This is beautiful. Obama now offers me "Change I Can Believe In", because, for the first time, I believe that he is the odds-on favorite for the nomination. He's got the momentum, the clear road in February ahead, the Super Tuesday win, the massively superior funding..... and my $25. I better get good returns on my donation. Hehe.

Oh, and some of her campaign people are going unpaid, and she's loaned $5mil. of her own money. She aims to win $1mil per day for today, tomorrow and the next day. Obama has raised $6mil. (including my meager attempt) since the polls closed yesterday!

Obama '08!

Here are some beautiful statements I pulled off of DailyKos:

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
John Kenneth Galbraith

Our 'neoconservatives' are neither new nor conservative, but old as Bablyon and evil as Hell.
Edward Abbey

Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Yes.We.Can

2008-02-05T15:47:00.000-08:00

So goes California, so goes the nation. And so goes San Francisco, so goes California!

The eyes of the entire world are upon us. We must show them what a compassionate, progressive country we are.

How young and dynamic we are.

How peaceful we are.

How we fight for the little guy.

Obama/Sebelius(/Napolitano/Webb/Edwards) '08

Predictions

2008-02-05T15:44:00.000-08:00

Just for fun.

California	Obama	52-48
Idaho	Obama	61-39
Arizona	Obama	51-49
Utah	Obama	61-39
Colorado	Obama	52-48
New Mexico	Clinton	52-48
North Dakota	Obama	59-41
Minnesota	Clinton	52-48
Oklahoma	Clinton	55-45
Kansas	Obama	52-48
Missouri	Obama	51-49
Illinois	Obama	67-33
Alabama	Obama	52-48
Georgia	Obama	59-41
Connecticut	Clinton	52-48
Massachusetts	Clinton	52-48
New York	Clinton	58-42
New Jersey	Clinton	51-49
Alaska	Obama	62-38
Arkansas	Clinton	61-39
Tennessee	Clinton	55-45
Delaware	Obama	51-49
American Samoa	?	?

Feb. 5th, 2008 YES.WE.CAN

2008-02-03T10:13:00.001-08:00

Obama! Obama! Obama!

2008-01-26T14:05:00.001-08:00

GO Obama! Kick some Southern ass!

Oh, and Dad, the answer is, apparently. Hehe.

Darfur ad

2007-12-22T08:54:00.001-08:00

This is a test.

Welcome to Europe, Poland!

2007-12-21T14:20:00.000-08:00

Today is a historic day for Eastern Europe and for Europe as a whole. Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Malta and Hungary have, as of today, become members of the Schengen Treaty. They have a common border with the rest of Europe. You can now travel without a passport within Eastern Europe. The EU common boarder now reaches to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, etc. Switzerland and Liechtenstein will enter in 2008, Cyprus in 2009 and Romania and Bulgaria in 2011.

Witamy do Europy, Poland!

January 3rd, 2008

2007-12-14T09:18:00.000-08:00

Wow. This election is actually incredibly exciting and I feel somewhat about values and issues rather than just "rockstarness".

So, I was sure that Hillary would win, so I was just deciding which loser I liked the best to vote for here. I lost some respect for Obama after his horrifying pandering to homophobes moment, and I put my support behind Edwards. I figured that any vote, including one for Hillary, was irrelevant as far as the end result goes. I think I'm still supporting Edwards more than anyone else (although I have a ton of respect for Biden), but now, it's a real race. Obama is doing incredibly in many of the early states. According to many polls, he's now winning or tied with Hillary in Iowa, SC and NH.

So now, I have to rethink my idea. I no longer think that the race is irrelevant. It may come down to Feb. 5th or even later. In all of the later states, other than Illinois, Hillary has a commanding lead. However, this could be due to Obama's underexposure in these states, which could change. Also, if he wins in early states, he'll get a boost in the others, especially if Edwards drops out and throws his support to Obama, which I'm hoping he'll do.

God help us if Hillary wins and names Wesley Clark as her running mate. She wouldn't be great, I think, but I wouldn't be opposed to her, but W. Clark is a nincompoop.

It looks like I'm voting for Obama on Feb. 5th!

On the Republican side, I love it. Huckabee is a lackluster, friendly and fairly non-confrontational fellow. He is not opposed to social programs for the poor. Anti-tax nuts hate him. He seems to honestly discuss issues and have real answers. I also think he can't win. I think Obama or Hillary will mop the floor with him. I'm also no longer afraid of Giuliani to the extent that I was before. I think he has a much better chance of winning against Hillary or Obama, so I'm rooting for Huckabee, but as long as we don't get Romney (which I consider to be an impossibility), we'll be relatively alright, and much better off than now.....

Obama/Edwards, Obama/Webb, Obama/Biden, Obama/Villaraigosa or Obama/Napolitano 2008!

Where would we be without the Baghdad by the Bay?

2007-12-11T14:13:00.000-08:00

San Francisco is about to become the world's first major city to introduce a program to subsidize the outfitting of houses with solar panels. Berkeley is planning a loan from the city to be paid back over 25 years to completely outfit homes with solar power. San Francisco is gonna give a 50% discount! This plan will be released on Thursday. Go SF go!

Independence for Kosovo!

2007-12-10T10:19:00.000-08:00

Hey Bush, Merkel, Brown and Sarkozy, recognize Kosovarian indepence!

STOP ROMNEY NOW!

2007-12-06T10:59:00.000-08:00

"Of all the tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst. Every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in, but this attempts a stride beyound the grave and seeks to pursue us into eternity."
- Thomas Paine

Governor Romney just became public enemy number one. I will vote for Newt Gingrich for every office for the rest of my life to avoid this man becoming president. His answers at the Youtube debate on torture were horrific. He had McCain (who looks liberal and sane compared to Romney) screaming, "So you would do away with the Geneva Conventions?" He all but told Romney that he wasn't fit to stand on the same stage.

And then comes his speech today. I am no longer a friend of America or of freedom according to Romney:

"Any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me."
- Well, I guess I cannot be his friend and ally.

"I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from ‘the God who gave us liberty.’"
- WHAT?!

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."
- So, those without freedom (read: the Axis of Evil, right?) can never know religion? Conversely, those who are not religious (read: ME and much of Europe) cannot know freedom?

"We should acknowledge the Creator."
- SHOULD? According to your morals or your political beliefs? ARE YOU F§$%ING NUTS?

This horrifying bigot has just disenfranschised me, most of my friends, most of Europe and almost the entire Muslim world. He does this while attacking the constitutional ban on the establishment of a religion (Christianity). Finally, he still refuses to allay any of the legitimate fears surrounding his religion.

This man would be the final key in our turn towards fascism/tyranny, a la Sinclair Lewis/Thomas Paine. STOP ROMNEY NOW.

Why San Francisco is the best!

2007-12-04T09:24:00.000-08:00

On top of the fight towards covering everyone with health insurance (they're moving towards it already, have already insured thousands of uninsured in Chinatown), there are now four other fields SF is forging ahead with.

The second is a bit silly and really has not so much to do with the city, but it cannot be separated. At 9th & Brannan, right off the freeway, you can see the world's first solar billboard outside of South Africa (strange, huh?). PG&E has powered a billboard and more that advertizes for PG&E by saying simply, "This is not a billboard. It's a power plant." I hope PG&E does something real soon. At least they're trying something.

The third is of course mandatory paid sick-leave for all SF employees, even if you work part-time. This allows people to go to the doctor, care for a loved one or even avoid work for up to 2 days without a doctor's note. (This time is accrued and therefore can never really be abused, but it can be very useful).

The fourth is something called Bank on San Francisco. It has been in effect since 2006. It allows those who do not qualify for a bank account at a major bank because they are too poor to get a bank account with the city. This allows them to avoid the fees to cash Social Security checks and not worry about being mugged when they carry their money out the door. New York, Boston, Chicago and Atlanta have contacted San Francisco officials about the effort. Los Angeles and Seattle are starting their own programs as we speak.

The final is to create city identification cards for all residents regardless of legality.

Socialism here we come!

Current music: Paprika Korps - Riddim

Barry Bonds

2007-12-03T15:36:00.000-08:00

Barry Bonds will be arraigned at my building, as we house the 9th Circuit Federal Court, on Friday, Dec. 7th. First Pearl Harbor, now Barry Bonds. Ha.

Robert F. Kennedy

2007-12-02T12:21:00.000-08:00

"When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of Heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun."

-William Shakespeare "Romeo and Juliet", used by Bobby Kennedy to open his speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention after a 22-minute standing ovation, in reference to his brother, JFK, less than a year after he was assassinated

My Neighborhood

2007-11-24T19:27:00.000-08:00

My neighborhood has been rechristened by the city. On a map on the ferry building, there was a new designation, from approximately Vanness to Taylor, from O'Farrell to wherever Nob Hill started. I know live in NOMA (NOrth of MArket). I moved from NOPA (NOrth of the PAnhandle) to NOMA (NOrth of MArket). Heh, now I have to SOMA (SOuth of MArket) and then, it's on to NOLITA (NOrth of Lttle ITAly), SOHO (SOuth of HOuston St.), NOHO (NOrth of HOuston St.), TRIBECA (TRIangle BElow CAnal St.) DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), and RAMBO (Right After the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) all in NYC. The final destination would of course be Soho (possibly South of Holborn St.) in London.

Do other cities have this? Perhaps my parents live in SOTO (SOuth of ThOmas Rd.)? or EaSe (EAst of SEventh)? or NoDo (NOrth of DOwntown)? That won't work.......

Any suggestions?

JROTC

2007-11-15T11:32:00.000-08:00

I attended a meeting two nights ago at the SF School Board. The point of my presence was to lend support to those who oppose a resolution that would grant JROTC another year of existence. Last year, the SF School Board voted to end JROTC programs at all San Francisco high schools, effective at the end of this year. They voted to end it, because they believed it is a recruitment tool for the military. Also, as it is tied to the military, which the SF School Board termed a "homophobic organization", they wanted it out of schools. Those who want to keep it claim that it is about community building and discipline. Therefore, included in the resolution to end it was the recommendation for a new JROTC-like program, sans militarism.

Tuesday night's meeting was supposed to be dedicated to a vote on a resolution that would extend JROTC for one extra year, but close it at 2 of the 7 high schools (presumably those with the lowest enrollment), block freshman enrollment, and disallow the use of JROTC for PE credit (as many of the JROTC instructors don't even hold a teaching certificate (let alone a PE-teaching certificate)). This would allow for more time to come up with a new program, which detractors argue, has not been done. Upon arrival, there were about 400 students and several parents completely filling the room. I stood at the back with my friend Melissa. The nuts from Berkeley (you know, the older women who wear corduroys and don't wash their hair, etc.) were out in full force to scream about the war in Iraq and detract from real concerns. The only speaker with a brain from either side was a father of an 11-year old who railed against the militarism and the wasted tax money. He made the point that it was unfair to his son to lack a sufficient after-school program because he doesn't want to be trained to fight in a war. He spoke about the lack of teaching credentials. He directly quoted, from the Department of Defense, statements on recruitment intentions.

It didn't matter. Before the meeting even started, the School Board announced that the resolution was off the table and they were unsure if they would bring it again. Therefore, as it stands, JROTC is done in SF. Health care for all, military out of schools, plastic bags out of our city, further development of public transportation. For all of our faults, San Francisco values should be a beacon to the nation.

The Best Letter to the Editor Ever

2007-11-15T11:31:00.000-08:00

Oil-free interrogation

Editor - Between your Monday headline ("Feinstein slams spill response") and Wednesday's letter by Senator Dianne Feinstein ("What I said"), some confusion has arisen as to the Senator's position on the oil spill. Hopefully, I can clarify her position for the benefit of your readers: Senator Feinstein strongly believes that clean, oil-free water is essential ... to perform safe, effective water boarding.

MATTHEW FRONDORF

San Francisco

Mukasey

2007-11-09T23:36:00.001-08:00

And the country spirals further down. Long live torture! We have become the Evil Empire.

Oil

2007-11-09T22:38:00.000-08:00

The cover of the Chronicle today featured a duck drenched in oil. The headline read "Heartbreaking". There was a major oil spill in the bay when a ship smashed into the bridge dumping its fuel on the marine life. Disgusting. Filth.

Sad

2007-10-31T12:21:00.000-07:00

Last night around 6pm a man jumped in front of a BART train at Powell Station. What a sad event. I also feel sorry for all the other people who had to stand and watch. And the BART driver. And the train passengers who could apparently feel it. I am also eternally grateful that I decided to walk to Powell Street after work at 5:50 and did not take a train. There are only a few trains that go through there... Really sad though.

Jesus Barabbas

2007-10-31T11:05:00.000-07:00

For anyone who has ever wondered about the origins of Anti-Semitism, one must at least go back as far as, if not much further than, the composition of the Bible. The figure of Barabbas, depicted in different places as thief, murder or most recently, terrorist is important to the story of the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus was brought before a group of people, the identity of which is the key, and was placed next to the figure of Barabbas, or more completely, Yeshua bar-Abbas. Pontius Pilate gave the crowd the choice of setting either Barabbas or Jesus free and they picked Barabbas. Jesus was crucified.

The identity of the crowd is disputed. The word used to describe it is "masses", "people" or sometimes "Jews". This is the origin of the seemingly specious claim that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. Obviously the Romans did the actual killing, but the responsibility was often placed on Jews because they chose to free Barabbas and not Jesus. This was used by Mel Gibson in "The Passion of the Christ" and is one of the reasons many see the film as anti-Semitic.

The story becomes much more interesting when you research the identity of Barabbas, or Yeshua bar-Abbas. He was born in the city of Galilee between 7BCE (BC) and 7CE (AD). Jesus was born in Nazareth between 8BCE and 2BCE. Galilee is another name for Nazareth. Yeshua is the actual Hebrew name of Jesus. The years overlap. Finally "bar" means "son of" and "Abba" is "father". When Jesus Christ prayed to God, he called God "Abba". So, one could translate "Barabbas" as "Son of God". The "s" on the end of "Abbas" is an ending for the possessive or genitive case.

This means that Jesus Barabbas) Son of God the Father was born in Nazareth in 7BCE-7CE and was crucified next to Jesus Christ, Son of God, who was born in Nazareth btw. 8-2BCE. This seems too large a coincidence to ignore. There was likely only one person crucified and the choice offered by Pontius Pilate is different than it seems.

Jesus Christ was seen by his adversaries as in insurrectionist against the Roman Empire. He was crucified as a revolutionary.

The story goes like this. The two are brought before the crowd and Pontius Pilate asks which one should be saved. Let's say for the sake of argument that the crowd was actually mostly Jewish. The Jews yell out "Save Barabbas!" or translated "Save the Son of the Father". The Romas decided to crucify Jesus. Why the second figure? The possibilities here are plentiful. One is that it was a common parable in stories from the time to free one person while lynching another. Another is that it was a misinterpretation in translation or relating the story over time. The third is that it was added in by Paul of Tsaurus around 310. This is the most interesting account. The Christian religion was legalized in the Roman Empire to Emperor Constantine between 310 and 315. The Romans did not want to be seen as the murderers of Jesus, so Paul shifted the blame onto the adversaries of the Romans, the Jews. This could have been done in order to allow for its legalization. The question would then be, were there Jews there calling for Jesus's freedom, calling him Yeshua bar-Abbas, but not referring to someone else.... OR, were there no Jews at all, and the Jews and the second figure were fabricated in the story?

This assumes a lot. There are other ideas. One is that early Christians were persecuted by Jews and therefore sought revenge by putting anti-Semitic statements in the Bible, using the word "Jews", when it shouldn't have been there, or fabricating the whole aspect of the second figure (same as above, only it was not done to appease the Romans, but rather to propagandize Anti-Semitism). Or that anti-Semitism largely predates this and this was one in a long line of attacks on Jews through propaganda.

Either way, assuming that it would be difficult for a Roman convert to accept that his own people murdered the only Son of God, thus inflaming anti-Semitism, or assuming that an anti-Semitic attitude was placed in the Bible to inflame hatred, it would seem quite interesting for the history of anti-Semitism.

The final, most controversial interpretation, is that Jesus was actually somewhat violent. That he was more of the wrathful righteous one than the peaceful righteous one. This would claim that Pontius Pilate said, "Should we kill this violent terrorist?" and the Jews responded with, "No, please save him, he's the Son of God!" The result is the same as the first one above, that the idea that someone was actually freed was either an intentional fabrication, a parable, a metaphor or a mistake.

Anyway you see it, it's pretty interesting stuff. In the end, it seems that in the original story there was likely only the one figure of Jesus, either peaceful or violent and that over time the story was altered, either mistakenly due to retelling, or intentionally in order to either to shift the blame away from the Romans, to satisfy the propaganda needs of anti-Semites, or both. Interesting stuff, huh?

GREs and Obama

2007-10-29T13:28:00.000-07:00

I did quite well on the GREs. At least 2 out of the 3 sections. The third section is theoretically being graded as we speak and I will know in the next 2 weeks. Now, I'm writing my essays.

Just when I'm sure I can vote for someone in the primaries I like, Obama, he goes and does a stupid stupid thing. He puts an openly homophobic singer on stage at his gospel tour concert and does nothing to speak against the man's message. First of all, he should not be having a gospel tour for crying out loud. The Democrats should not try to take over the religious nut vote from the Republicans. They should let it realize it has no party and let it mire in obscurity. Secondly, the singer once said on the 700 Club that gay people kill children and he openly propagates the ridiculous falsehood that homosexuality is a choice. He said so at the Obama event.

Lest you think I'm being intolerant (the last argument of the truly intolerant), imagine a white preacher who defames black people as sinners. Or Hitler speaking against Jews. Or a Minuteman trashing Latinos. Or a Neo-Nazi German bashing Turks. Or a Wahabi bringing down women. Should an American politician put one of them on stage and allow them to perform and espouse their hatred? Good job, Obama, you stupid f@$k. You just lost my vote. Back to Edwards?

Presidents Roosevelt, Wilson, Carter and now... GORE

2007-10-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

Contratulations on your receipt of the Nobel Peace Price! You are a true (American) hero.

Dear me, to think what was, then wasn't, and what should've/could've been.

Current music: Radiohead - Morning Bell (Amnesiac)

Is Radiohead the Übermensch?

2007-10-10T11:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes they are.

THEY'RE BACK. The best band of my generation and one of the greatest of all time.

Radiohead has released a new album without any of the fooli$hne$$ that accompanies record companies on their unending quest.

This album will please everyone. Their first phase ended after OK Computer. It now seems that their second phase started with Kid A and has now finished with Hail to the Thief. "In Rainbows" is the first chapter in their third phase.

I really recommend that listening to the whole thing. There are bits of noisy chaos, there is an acoustic, folky-sounding song. There is even a sweet ballad called House of Cards. Electronica is not gone, but it's now used to alter guitar and drum tone, rather than act as the main component.

This may be their best album of all time, or at least their best since OK Computer (oh wait, maybe that was Kid A?).

Buy the new album now. You can pay 0 cents (or pence technically). There is no reason to not download it for free. Don't walk, run to www.inrainbows.com, where you can request that a link be delivered into your inbox and you can download the zip file from there.

Current music: Radiohead - Jigsaw Falling into Place

The Blue Angels

2007-10-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

Every year on the weekend after my birthday, the Blue Angels fly their massive jets over our city for 4 looooooooong days. I have only lived here for the past year, but I remember vividly enjoying some bluegrass in the park when all of a sudden this ridiculous display of military machismo totally stopped the pleasant song. Yesterday, I felt the building shake and it was frightening. They are flying directly over our little town and doing tricks. Tomorrow, they will disrupt my visit to the Bluegrass Festival again.

People in favor of them say "How much fuel is wasted on our freeways everyday?", "I don't like the Folsom Street Fair (the leather festival), but I put up with it, why can't you put up with this", "Commercial airliners are more dangerous." Let me clearly respond. Military displays of power do not allow people to travel, visit their friends and families and conduct business which develops our economy, while commercial airliners do. We also aren't trading commercial airliners for Blue Angels, so the Blue Angels are merely adding an unnecessary danger. The same argument can go for cars. Cars will still be there, doing many functional things, while the Blue Angels are wasting massive amounts of fuel. Cars are largely USING it, not WASTING it. Lastly, the Blue Angels disrupt my daily life and I have no say. If you don't like the Folsom Street Fair, walk one block in the other direction and continue on your bigoted way. I can't escape these jets, something I politically (and without bigotry) oppose without leaving the city. They are wasting fuel, my tax money and my patience. They are wowing young people into thinking that flying a small fighter jet is cool. It never was and never will be. It might be necessary in certain situations, but not non, when our government is bombing innocent people in poor countries. Lastly, the sound is deafening and frightening. I applaud the progressive members (something I almost never do) of the board of supervisors for opposing this ridiculous self-gratification for ignorant war-mongers.

STAY THE HELL OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO, BLUE ANGELS!!!!

Bush stoppt Hilfe für arme Kinder

2007-10-03T12:01:00.000-07:00

The criticism surrounding Bush is unfocused. It should be very clearly stated. The man is a dangerous ideologue. I suppose that's redundant. When someone cannot see past their own ideology and examine their ideas objectively, they become tyrannical. Stalin, Hitler, Emperors of Japan, Bush. These are not empty or rash comparisons. These are also not conflations of ideological-style or actions with the degree of rigidity.

The tyrant king has now vetoed health insurance for poor children. I am grateful that my brother and sister-in-law can provide for my niece. Our president sure doesn't care. He thinks that this will unnecessarily move our country towards federalized health care. What a small and petty man. Once again, Der Spiegel has made asses out of us: "Bush stoppt Hilfe für arme Kinder" (Bush blocks help for poor children). Maybe, just maybe, it is Mr. Ideologue who is making asses out us and the concept of equal rights for the poor. Last time I checked, LIFE, LIBERTY and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS all required some sense of being able to stay healthy and not die. Apparently that's not of paramount importance for us. We should however back Lieberman and McCain and BOMB IRAN!

Current music: The Beach Boys - Barbara Ann

Debates, bur real quick

2007-09-27T11:54:00.000-07:00

The best question in the Democratic debate last night was, "What is your favorite Bible verse". It was such a floater question, easily a grand-slam question if I've ever seen one. Too bad not one, even Gravel or Kucinich managed the obvious answer. "Religion has no place in a political debate. I do, however, have two favorite parts of the Constitution: Article VI and The First Amendment. The Establishment Clause and the protection from a religious litmus test for the presidency show us what a great country we should be." Would have been simple.... Sad. I would have liked for someone, were they going to quote a religious text, to find something peaceful from the Koran and try to pass it off and see if anyone noticed. Why only the Bible? What about the Bhagavad-Gita or the I Ching or the Tao de Ching or the Book of Mormon? All carry the same level of legitimacy in the poltical sphere.... Boo on us.

Homosexuality in Iran

2007-09-24T21:42:00.000-07:00

Questioner: Your government has imposed draconian punishment including execution on Iranians who are homosexual. Why do you do these things?

Ahmadinejad: In iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country, we don't have that in our country. In iran, we don't have this phenomenon, i don't know who's told you that we have that.

This bastard denies history, commonsense foreign policy and now science.

Oh wait, so does our president. Bush was probably cheering inside when he heard this comment.

I heard a rumor that there are no Mexicans or African-Americans in Iran too.

San Francisco Falling and Rising

2007-09-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

Two very interesting things developing here today. First the fun: The final decision on which tower will be built atop the new Transbay Terminal has come. It is a 1,200 foot tower (Empire State is 1250), with a 5.4-acre rooftop park (at the moment called City Park) atop a new terminal. Access to the park will be via funicular railway through a grove of oak trees from "Mission Square", a huge covered square on Mission St. It will be built by architecture firm Pelli Clarke, who built the twin Petronas Towers in Kaula Lumpur, Malaysia, which were the tallest buildings in the world until the Burj Dubai passed it very recently. It will house local and East Bay buses, with a direct connection to the Bay Bridge. In the future, it will house commuter trains to San Jose (Caltrain) and hopefully someday CHSR (California High-Speed Rail). It will likely have an one-block long underground tunnel connecting the station to Montgomery Station. Therefore, it will, in effect, if all is built, house BART trains, MUNI metro underground trains, MUNI trolley-bus lines, MUNI hybrid bus lines, AC (Alameda County) Transit buses, Caltrain to San Jose and CHSR trains to Sacramento, San Jose, Oakland, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego. Grand Central indeed. Add to that the Renzo Piano plan to build 5 towers accross the street, two of which (The Twin Towers...... i know, i know, i know, dear god) would also be 1200 feet. I think that would help make the height of the transbay tower look a little less silly. The new San Francisco will begin to play in the same league as Chicago and New York.

The other interesting tidbit, is that Ed Jew, Supervisor in the Sunset was here in my work building today, and news teams from around the bay were present, as Jew was arraigned for yet another federal felony count. The first count is of bribery, and the new one is of mail fraud. He allegedly solicited a bribe through the mail. He is also charged by the state with somewhere around 8 counts of electoral fraud, as he registered to vote and voted in the Sunset, when his actual residence was in Burlingame, a separate city near SFO. If convicted of any of these 10 or so federal and state counts, he will surely be removed from his supervisorial position and for the federal crimes, he will likely face jail time.

Look here for pictures: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?o=0&f=/c/a/2007/09/21/BAO7S9J2H.DTL

Anger Concerning the Jena 6

2007-09-20T09:55:00.000-07:00

Let me start off by agreeing with Sharpton, Jackson, et al that there is something wrong with justice in the town of Jena, LA. My agreement with them ends there.

The boys who hung the nooses should have been expelled and charged with federal hate crimes (despite the fact that it was in a state school, this is protocol) and possible aggravated assault. Not because I have a personal vendetta against them or because hate crime laws are always helpful; no, simply because that is the law.

It was right for white Justin Sloan, who beat up black Robert Bailey at a party, to be charged with battery, but he only gets probation? Because it was not aggravated (though Bailey claims a bottle was broken over his head, which would make it aggravated)? Why?

The white boy who pulled a shotgun on black Robert Bailey should have been charged with aggravated assault (assault with a deadly weapon). He was not charged. Because there was no assault charge, it takes away any valid reason for Bailey to leave with the gun (such as self-defense), so it is obvious why he was charged with theft and robbery, but it's ridiculous. Also, how can one person in a fight be charged with disturbing the peace? I don't understand.

So, now we have white kids on one side who have not been charged with hate crimes and who were not expelled, another white kid who gets off with probation for (possibly aggravated) battery and a third gets off after aggravated assault with no charges.

On the other side, we have 6 black kids who committed, at the most, aggravated assault being charged with attempted murder? Then, it's reduced, which is great, but it's reduced only to aggravated assault. This charge necessitates a deadly weapon. Do you know what the deadly weapon was? A shoe. A shoe which was used to kick the kid.

My anger over this part is obvious. I'm also, however, annoyed at the treatment of the situation by the media and by black leaders. Black leaders should be calling for equal justice. They are calling for the Jena 6 to be freed. That is absolutely wrong. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as well as the general media should know better than to oversimplify a legitimate situation, leaving the door open for people to say, "They're playing the race card" and allow them some legitimacy. This is bullshit.

They should also be calling for the white people to be prosecuted. Three unpunished hate crime counts, one unpunished count of aggravated assault and one possibly underpunished battery charge (was a bottle used?) on the white side VS. 1 count of assault, 4 counts of aggravated assault with a shoe as a deadly weapon and one count of attempted murder on the black side?

Progressive doesn't mean that because your side is right, you should get a pass. It means that everyone should be prosecuted equally. Calling for the release of the black students makes you seem like opportunists and everybody sneers. Calling for the prosecution of the white people makes you look as if you are arguing for equal treatment and you would be on the right side here.

Besides, Al Sharpton is a bigot. He calls for the blood of Imus for statements referring to black women which may be legitimate, but then publicly and callously states that Mitt Romney is not a threat because those who "really" believe in God will "defeat him". Foolish hypocrite.

This is not the beginning, or at least I hope not, of the new Civil Rights Movement, as Sharpton was quoted as saying. If you do this, it will polarize everyone more, create more racism, and unlike the original Civil Rights Movement, you won't be in the right! It is ok to polarize and cause more racism if you are justified and believe that this will lead in the right direction. These people, however, are not.

September 1, 1939 by W.H. Auden

2007-09-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

Apparently this poem became popular after September 11th, 2001 via NPR. I came to it via wikipedia. It's pretty great, I think. And "imago", in the poem, is not a typo. Apparently it is an entymological term meaning "adult stage" of a flying insect, or something like that. Enjoy. September 1, 1939
by W. H. Auden

I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night. Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; Analysed all in his book, The enlightenment driven away, The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again. Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse: But who can live for long In an euphoric dream; Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism's face And the international wrong. Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good. The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone. From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; "I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work," And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the deaf, Who can speak for the dumb? All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame. Current music: Max Roach - Body and Soul

Christopher Hitchens

2007-09-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading the latest book by Christopher Hitchens, the caustic, pro-war, British-born intellectual often featured on Real Time with Bill Maher, called "god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything".

He makes one very interesting and important point that I feel needs to be relayed. First, the build-up: If God does or does not exist, we cannot know. Therefore, as he believes, we can choose whether to believe or to not. He employs many reasons to explain why he does not believe. One is the following: Morality comes not from God, but from reason, philosophy, ethics, etc. (This is the main point upon which all else follows) This doesn't actually preclude the existence of a clockmaker God that set the world in motion, yet has no thoughts or influence on how it turns out. As a person who concedes that he cannot disprove the existence of God, Hitchens might even be willing to believe in that sort of a God. However, if that were true, then belief in the clockmaker would be irrelevant to anything else: the afterlife, salvation, etc. Upon these statements, Hitchens makes his main point against religion. Here it is:

Religion is destructive. When a religious person does something morally wrong, it is POSSIBLY due to religion alone; when a religious person does something morally good, it CANNOT be due to religion alone. This is the interesting point. Let me explain.

When a religious person is incredibly angry at someone yet refrains from acting violently and killing this person, it is due to a sense of morality. Atheists have the same sense of morality, and one could call it humanism. Whereas a religious person believes he/she is acting on religious morals, an atheist is acting on humanistic morals. Without the religious morals, the humanistic morals would still exist. Therefore religion has not added anything to the equation. On the other hand, when a Catholic in Ireland reveals his/her religion to a Protestant, there is a biult-in reaction of animosity. That is something that is created by religion. An atheist would not understand it, nor have any need for it. The same can be said for genital mutilation, most wars, honor killings, etc.

Obviously, there exist other bases of hate such as race, gender, sexual orientation, class, etc. Atheists can absolutely hate and act violently based on these ideas. BUT SO CAN THE RELIGIOUS. In fact, many religions espouse or have espoused such hatred. Hitchens attacks religion as a classifying divider that is ultimately artificial, just like racism. Hitchens believes the heads of religions are similar to doctors of eugenics.

So, put into practive, his point is, that without religion, Hitler could never have carried out the Holocaust (celebrated by the Catholic Church), or the Croatian Ustashe the slaughter of Serbs (celebrated by the Catholic Church), or the Serbs the slaughter of Croatians (celebrated by the Serbian Orthodox Church), or the Christians the crusades (Catholic Church), or the Wahabis Sept. 11th (wahabiist clerics). All of these were done and willfully carried out by soldiers due to religious belief. They could have happened in a different way, with different sources, but not in the way they did. Hatred of the other in all of these situations was inflamed by religious imagery. However, without religion, the Civil Rights Movement could have occurred, as well as the liberation of South Africa, India, Poland, the end of South African apartheid, etc. These were all built on moral belief, supposedly based on religious morals, yet organized under beliefs that exist outside of their religions, ideas like justice, fairness, transparency, freedom. This is also the clear rebuttal of the "but churches do great work the poor", as if working for the poor was absent from general morality.

Interesting point.

Current music: Arcade Fire - Intervention

Justice and Sadness

2007-09-14T17:13:00.000-07:00

Today, in the United States Court in my building in the case The United States of America v. Judy Green, the verdict was read. The case dealt with the E-Rate scandal, which involved defrauding the government of millions of dollars that was supposed to be for funding underprivileged schools. On all 21 counts, guilty. She will never again see the light of day. This is fair justice. Thank you fair federal court system. At least we still have something. Way to go, Antitrust!

On a much sadder note, this is Katie's last minute. I will miss you. You were a good one.

Yet again, SF shows itself to be the city that CAN and WILL

2007-09-13T16:26:00.000-07:00

San Francisco Takes Unique Approach to Providing Medical Care for All
New York Times
By KEVIN SACK
Published: September 13, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 5 — Diagnosed with polio at age 2, Yan Ling Ho has lived with pain for most of her 52 years. After immigrating here from Hong Kong last year, the soreness in her back and joints proved too debilitating for her to work.

That also meant she did not have health insurance. Not wanting to burden her daughter, who was already paying her living expenses, Ms. Ho delayed doctor visits and battled her misery with over-the-counter medications.

“Sometimes the pain was so bad, I would just cry,” she said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
Last month, unable to bear her discomfort any longer, Ms. Ho came to North East Medical Services, a nonprofit community clinic on the edge of Chinatown, and discovered to her delight that she qualified for a new program that offers free or subsidized health care to all 82,000 San Francisco adults without insurance.

The initiative, known as Healthy San Francisco, is the first of its kind in the nation, and represents the latest attempt by state and local governments to patch a broken federal system.
It is financed mostly by the city, which is gambling that it can provide universal and sensibly managed care to the uninsured for about the amount being spent on their treatment now, often in emergency rooms.

After a two-month trial at two clinics in Chinatown, the program is scheduled to expand citywide to 20 other locations on Sept. 17.

Whether such a program might be replicated is difficult to assess. In addition to its unique political culture, San Francisco, with a population of about 750, 000, has the advantages of compact geography, a unified city-county government, an extensive network of public and community clinics, and a relatively small population of uninsured adults. Virtually all of the city’s children are covered by private insurance or government plans.

At the bustling North East Medical Services clinic, where the staff and signage are multilingual, doctors and nurses are trying to build trust with patients who may have last sought treatment from an herbalist. Families crowd the elevators, as teenagers help parents and grandparents navigate the system. Patients like Ms. Ho say they hope their access to the clinic’s services will bring them independence, and a chance to work.

Healthy San Francisco provides uninsured San Franciscans with access to 14 city health clinics and eight affiliated community clinics, with an emphasis on prevention and chronic diseases. It is, however, not the same as insurance because it does not cover residents once they leave the city.

After a phased start-up, the city plans to bring private medical networks into the program next year, expanding the choice of doctors. Until November, enrollment will be limited to those living below the federal poverty line ($10,210 for a single person; $20,650 for a family of four). Then it will open to any resident who has been uninsured for at least 90 days, regardless of income or immigration status.

Only then will city officials learn whether the program appeals to middle-class workers, who comprise a growing share of the uninsured. And only then can they test whether San Francisco has the medical infrastructure to handle the desired increase in demand, and to do so without raising taxes. So far, enrollment has exceeded expectations. The city projected that between 600 and 1,000 people would sign up by the end of August. More than 1,300 did, even though officials have done little marketing. They hope to enroll about 45,000 people — more than half of the city’s uninsured — in the first year. Some clinics are adding night hours and small numbers of staff.

“We really didn’t know what the interest level would be so we’ve very pleased,” said Mayor Gavin Newsom. “At the same time, we don’t want over-exuberance yet because we don’t want to fall of our own weight.”

At the two pilot clinics, efforts are first made to qualify patients for Medicaid or other state and federal insurance programs. Those left over receive a Healthy San Francisco card that makes them eligible for primary care, dental exams, mental health and substance abuse services, hospitalization, radiology and prescription drugs.

Because the coverage is not portable, officials believe that those with private insurance will have little incentive to drop their policies to take advantage of the city’s cut-rate services.
Like Ms. Ho, many of those enrolling were already using the city’s health clinics — or the emergency room at San Francisco General Hospital — in times of acute need, like an asthma attack or stroke. About 57,000 of the 82,000 uninsured San Franciscans have used the city’s health system at some point.

But the new program hopes to persuade them to become regulars who regard their neighborhood clinic as a medical home. Once enrolled, patients are assigned a physician and encouraged to get blood pressure checks, mammograms and other screenings.

“We had a system that was not a system, and was based on episodic visits for chronic and acute care,” said Dr. Mitchell H. Katz, the city health director. “The idea that you should come get a cholesterol test, that didn’t happen.”

It was also common for patients to ignore doctors’ orders because of cost. Before the program started in July, a clinic doctor had ordered X-rays and blood tests for Ms. Ho, but she never got them.“Now I feel more comfortable coming in to get services and following the doctor’s instructions,” she said, speaking through an interpreter. She added that she recently took the recommended tests and is waiting for results.

The program was born of the city’s impatience with federal and state inaction, said Dr. Katz. In 1998, voters overwhelmingly endorsed universal access to health care in a citywide referendum. In ensuing years, city officials explored ways to provide universal insurance but, like other governments, could not figure out how to pay for it.

“What we did next,” Mr. Newsom said, “was profound and simple. We asked a different question. We asked: how do we provide universal health care to all uninsured San Franciscans? And that one modest distinction allowed us to answer the question we hadn’t been able to answer for a decade.”

Tangerine M. Brigham, the program’s director, projects it will cost $200 million the first year, and Mr. Newsom expects to finance it without a tax increase. The city already spends about that much on care for the uninsured, and those funds will essentially be redirected to Healthy San Francisco.

The program was also selected by the state to receive a three-year federal grant worth $24 million a year for expanding access to care. And because enrollees are still uninsured, they remain eligible for state and federal benefits, like discounts on AIDS drugs.

Patients are asked to contribute nominal amounts through membership fees and co-payments that vary by income.

Those from families with incomes below the federal poverty line pay nothing. Those who earn more pay quarterly fees that range from $60 to $675. That is the rate for those with incomes above 500 percent of the poverty level ($51,050 for a single; $103,250 for a family of four), which is where the subsidy ends. The co-payments range from $10 to $20 for a clinic visit and from $200 to $350 for an inpatient stay.

A final funding mechanism has placed the program in legal jeopardy. To make sure the new safety net does not encourage businesses to drop their private insurance, the city in January will begin requiring employers with more than 20 workers to contribute a set amount to health care. The Healthy San Francisco program is one of several possible destinations for those funds, with others being private insurance or health savings accounts.

Late last year, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association challenged that provision in federal court, arguing that it violates a law governing employer health benefits. A judge has scheduled a hearing for early November.

Mr. Newsom, a restaurateur and former member of the association, said the program would only work if accompanied by an employer mandate. But he said the city will have contingencies if it loses in court. “It may set us back” he said, “but it’s not going to end this program.

Current music: OutKast - Dracula's Wedding (feat. Kelis)

As Virginia goes, so goes our country

2007-09-13T14:13:00.000-07:00

Wow, I'm prescient. As Virginia goes blue, one of the most conservative democrats in the country continues to look more and more like our messiah. I like his economic message and his attitude on the war. This is what wikipedia says about my pick for Democratic VP candidate.

"Webb is expected to be on the top of the Vice Presidential list for the Democratic nominee in 2008 due to his credentials as former Secretary of Navy, his early opposition to the War in Iraq and his ability to attract military voters to the Democratic side and fulfill the "military" imbalance that could occur if either Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) or Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) were the nominee, as neither of them has military credentials. Also, Virginia is seen as a emerging swing state and Webb's presence on the ticket could swing the state on the Democratic side."

He was swept into office by percentage points after Republican incumbent George Allen arrogantly referred to a Webb campaign worker of Indian descent using a racial slur.

Webb is known for holding Reagan and Jackson to be our two best presidents. He is against gun control. He served as Asst. SecDef and Sec. of the Navy under Reagan. He resigned as Sec. of the Navy because he refused to decommission 16 ships out of use. He wanted to INCREASE the size of the navy. His father was in World War II. He (and his brother) fought in Vietnam, where he earned a Navy Cross, the second highest decoration in the Navy and Marine Corps for heroism in Vietnam. He also earned the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts. His son is now serving in the Iraq War, though he recently returned to the US inbetween deployments. Webb is married (3rd wife) to a Vietnamese-American lawyer and he speaks Vietnamese. He has opposed the current war from the start, writing op-ed pieces in the NYTimes and USA Today as early as March, 2003. He is also the author of many books including at least one novel and many books on international relations.

I'm not sure I want him to be President, but he could definitely pull Clinton or Obama along with the right-wingers. He knows his rhetoric and he quotes Republican heroes to make Democratic points.

Jim Webb is the only senator who has a child fighting in Iraq. He refused to have his picture taken with George Bush in 2007 as all other incoming senators did. When Bush asked him, "How's your boy?", Webb answered, "I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President". The President responded with, "That's not what I asked you. How's your boy?", to which Webb responded, while suppressing the desire to punch Bush in the face, according to sources close to Webb, "That's between me and my boy, Mr. President."

"On March 5, 2007, Webb introduced his second piece of legislation, S.759, which is intended to prohibit the use of funds for military operations in Iran without the prior approval of Congress. In a statement on the floor of the Senate, Webb said: 'The major function of this legislation is to prevent this Administration from commencing unprovoked military activities against Iran without the approval of the Congress. The legislation accomplishes this goal through the proper constitutional process of prohibiting all funding for such an endeavor.'" (from Wikipedia)

Here is the text of Webb's career-making rebuttal to Bush's 2007 State of the Union address, in its entirety:

"Good evening.

I'm Senator Jim Webb, from Virginia, where this year we will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown – an event that marked the first step in the long journey that has made us the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth.

It would not be possible in this short amount of time to actually rebut the President’s message, nor would it be useful. Let me simply say that we in the Democratic Party hope that this administration is serious about improving education and healthcare for all Americans, and addressing such domestic priorities as restoring the vitality of New Orleans.

Further, this is the seventh time the President has mentioned energy independence in his state of the union message, but for the first time this exchange is taking place in a Congress led by the Democratic Party. We are looking for affirmative solutions that will strengthen our nation by freeing us from our dependence on foreign oil, and spurring a wave of entrepreneurial growth in the form of alternate energy programs. We look forward to working with the President and his party to bring about these changes.

There are two areas where our respective parties have largely stood in contradiction, and I want to take a few minutes to address them tonight. The first relates to how we see the health of our economy – how we measure it, and how we ensure that its benefits are properly shared among all Americans. The second regards our foreign policy – how we might bring the war in Iraq to a proper conclusion that will also allow us to continue to fight the war against international terrorism, and to address other strategic concerns that our country faces around the world.
When one looks at the health of our economy, it’s almost as if we are living in two different countries. Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits. But these benefits are not being fairly shared. When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it’s nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.

Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world. Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts. Our manufacturing base is being dismantled and sent overseas. Good American jobs are being sent along with them.

In short, the middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table. Our workers know this, through painful experience. Our white-collar professionals are beginning to understand it, as their jobs start disappearing also. And they expect, rightly, that in this age of globalization, their government has a duty to insist that their concerns be dealt with fairly in the international marketplace.
In the early days of our republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy – that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street. We must recapture that spirit today.

And under the leadership of the new Democratic Congress, we are on our way to doing so. The House just passed a minimum wage increase, the first in ten years, and the Senate will soon follow. We've introduced a broad legislative package designed to regain the trust of the American people. We’ve established a tone of cooperation and consensus that extends beyond party lines. We’re working to get the right things done, for the right people and for the right reasons.
With respect to foreign policy, this country has patiently endured a mismanaged war for nearly four years. Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary, that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism, and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable in the most violent and turbulent corner of the world.

I want to share with all of you a picture that I have carried with me for more than 50 years. This is my father, when he was a young Air Force captain, flying cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift. He sent us the picture from Germany, as we waited for him, back here at home. When I was a small boy, I used to take the picture to bed with me every night, because for more than three years my father was deployed, unable to live with us full-time, serving overseas or in bases where there was no family housing. I still keep it, to remind me of the sacrifices that my mother and others had to make, over and over again, as my father gladly served our country. I was proud to follow in his footsteps, serving as a Marine in Vietnam. My brother did as well, serving as a Marine helicopter pilot. My son has joined the tradition, now serving as an infantry Marine in Iraq.

Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues – those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death – we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm’s way.

We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us – sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.

The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable – and predicted – disarray that has followed.

The war’s costs to our nation have been staggering. Financially. The damage to our reputation around the world. The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism. And especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve.

The majority of the nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the majority of our military. We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos. But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq’s cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.

On both of these vital issues, our economy and our national security, it falls upon those of us in elected office to take action.

Regarding the economic imbalance in our country, I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th century. America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines. The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at the bottom were threatening revolt.

Roosevelt spoke strongly against these divisions. He told his fellow Republicans that they must set themselves “as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other.” And he did something about it.

As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. “When comes the end?” asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end.
These Presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

Thank you for listening. And God bless America."

Obama/Webb '08!

Thank you, Gov. Warner!

2007-09-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

It's become painfully obvious to me that our candidate should be Obama. My hope is that Edwards fails early and throws his support behind Obama. Most Edwards supporters would rather relieve themselves in their own bedrooms than vote for Hillary. I think that attitude is rather silly, but I'll take any vote "surge" on Obama's side. However, if Hillary wins, that's ok too.

I'm becoming less and less sure that a Democrat will win in 2008. It's also becoming less important to me. We need to win that 60th Senate seat and retain our majority in the house. Then, President Giuliani will be the only person able to block sensible legislation. 60 stops the filibuster and Giuliani will be hated with a passion if he refuses that large of a majority. Kerrey has a good chance in Nebraska for the good guys and Warner in VA is a lock. Democrats look likely to pick up 5-7 seats. There are a further 5 seats in play. It's a stretch, but with the Republican implosion, it's becoming ever more possible. Democrats are only defending a handful of seats, none of which are in danger, whereas Republicans are defending something around 20, more than half of which are unsafe and many of which they have no chance of keeping.

GO BLUE! (If Michigan doesn't need the phrase for this season, we should co-opt it for the Democratic Party)

Current music: OutKast - Spread

Caffe Bella Venezia

2007-09-12T20:48:00.000-07:00

I met an old friend from undergrad who works at a yoga studio in the city. She was always a good friend of mine, but we had divergent lives and never hung out much. Now, we have less to do so we thought we'd meet up and hang out again.

We decided to try Caffe Bella Venezia, a very cheap Italian restaurant two blocks from my house. We went in and I ordered a small pizza and a glass of wine. She ordered lasagna and a glass of wine. All of that cost less than $20. Amazing prices for SF.

We walked in the door and it was empty inside as it was only about 5:30. The owner greeted us with an Italian accent and gave it menus. We noticed a fruit fly flying about and I mentioned to my friend Joey that there were lots of fruit flies in the neighborhood. It was a little bit apologia, a little bit fact. There was no music, so tt was a little eerie, but then the nice owner man started some Italian music. Then, the flies started flying. There were lots of them. We both started to get annoyed. We got bread and it was wonderful, so we started to feel that everything was ok, but the flies would not dissipate!

A group of four people came in. They were kind of white-trashy. They did not appear to be from the city. They sat on the other side of the restaurant. They were kinda loud, but not a problem at all.

We had already ordered our food so we couldn't leave, but we decided that maybe the table was the problem. We got up and told the man we were gonna take the table next to ours. We figured that since the other people were having fun, there must be flyless tables.

We ended up at a less fly-infested table, and we got our food. It was pretty good. It was definitely good for the price and the sit-down-ness of the restaurant. However, there were still a few flies. Joey's pretty damn cool though and we laughed it off. This whole experience made me quite sad when I surmised that the owner man was also the cook. Here is a man who comes from Italy to SF and opens a restaurant. He features food from his home for cheap prices, which he cooks all on his own. It's his life, his home, his food. His restaurant is empty and fly-infested. All he gets are low-budget tourists, many of which must scowl and write his place off due to the flies.

At this point, the other guests start taking pictures and they go ask the owner if he knows any clubs. The owner looks slightly flustered and mumbles something about a place named Dragonfly. The woman who asked him, who is around 35, overweight, with tight jeans, a leather jacket and frizzy brown hair, returns to her seat and a second later, we hear, "Dragonfly, dragonfly, dragonfly."

The whole scene freaked me out. Sad man from Italy and the tourists who come to SF and this dump is the highlight.

I don't know though. At one point, the man opened the door to street up wide. I wondered if maybe he knew that the flies were a problem and it was only today, so he opened the door up.... Or maybe, this is a constant issue.... I don't really know.

I came home and looked it up on yelp. No one mentioned the flies and it got very good reviews, for being so cheap and good. I would never wanna harm this man's business, so I figured I'd just write my review on my blog instead.

I get sad at the weirdest shit.

Current music: OutKast - A Life in the Day of Benjamin André (Incomplete)

The Mayor of Castro Street

2007-09-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

The title is unclear, but the upcoming docudrama based on the life of Harvey Milk has finally released the names of the actors and director. And the names are big.

Director: Gus Van Sant
Harvey Milk: Sean Penn
Dan White (Assassin of Milk and Moscone): Matt Damon
George Moscone: still unknown
Dianne Feinstein: still unknown

Impressive names. Shooting will start this December in and around City Hall.

Clinton/Webb (or Richardson or Villaraigosa) 2008

2007-08-15T14:47:00.000-07:00

I vote for that ticket. Hillary has proven to me that her campaign knows exactly how to not answer anything while still fighting the good fight. However, unlike our current president, she hides what she really means behind rhetoric designed to say nothing. Whereas Bush says nothing and hides that fact behind bellicose machismo, Hillary says something of substance and hides that behind slogans that only appear to be nothing.

Read her response to the questions: "What is a liberal?" and "Are you a liberal?": "I lament the fact that the word liberal has been turned on its head and has been made to seem as though it’s a word that describes big government, totally contrary to what its meaning was in the 19th and early 20th century.... I consider myself a modern progressive. Someone who believes strongly in individual rights and freedoms, who believes that we are better as a society when we’re working together."

So, she skillfully attacked stereotypes, outlined what she wanted to be, redefined the term and brandished herself a progressive. She tied freedom to working together, rather than as economic independence. She's manipulating the right and they won't even recognize it. She has learned from George Lakoff and Karl Rove.

When asked about the war, she should bitingly decry the Bush administration. When asked about healthcare, she should remind everyone of how she was the first one and how she got lampooned by the Republican hate-machine. She should push through a few populist quips about being a downtrodden woman and how she understands minorities. Then, she should just cloak vague platitudes in language containing just the right mix of intelligence and humor.

Hispanics as a voting bloc will continue to grow every election and Democrats have to work to keep them in their camp. Richardson is a terrible candidate, but he might just make a good VP. Villaraigosa is popular and philandering should not be an issue if Giuliani or Thompson is the GOP nominee. They are the two most successful hispanic politicians of all time. The choice of one over the other may be a discussion of whether a hispanic name would be a plus or a negative.

Then again, Webb would mop the floor with anyone. He'd probably pull every gun-toting hunter in the land behind him. I agree with the man and he still scares me. His rebuttal to Bush's SoTU in January showed him to be a stronger populist than even Edwards AND he managed to push for a New Deal attitude without invoking the words New Deal or FDR!!! He quoted Andrew Jackson. I don't recall any Republican vitriol against Jackson.... Webb ain't no dummy.

With Hillary at the helm and Webb backing her up, who's gonna stop them?

Slam them all, it's so easy, it's fun!:
GIULIANI: mafia, sleazeball, democrat-lite, inexperienced, temper, sadistic, mean, New-Yorker, 9-11 exploiter, firefighters hate him, etc. etc. etc., divorced, cross-dresser, non-Christian, Catholic
MCCAIN: old, Bush-lover, old, skin-cancer, warmonger, old, democrat-lite, old, non-christian
ROMNEY: flip-flopper, Mormon, Tax-achussetts, Mormon, out-of-touch, hypocrite sons, Mormon, flip-flopper, TV father from the 50s, flip-flopper
THOMPSON: lazy, old, cradle-robber, alcoholic, lazy, inexperienced, old, Hollywood
TANCREDO: violent, psychopath, racist, warmonger, insane

HOWEVER, THERE IS:

HUCKABEE: that man scares me. i hope to god noone discovers him. he's friendly and solid on all of the conservative notes, doesn't revolt me, way wrong on everything

Current music: Lou Reed - Satellite of Love

Human Rights Campaign

2007-08-10T11:28:00.000-07:00

The Democrats are truly stupid. Karl Rove is smart. It's so clear.

Karl Rove pushed the Republicans violently towards the far right, and realized that they could make the Democrats constantly bow and play defense. They played towards the base, rather than the middle, turning the Democrats into the middle and the middle into the right.

Last night, the Democrats attended a debate hosted by the Human Rights Campaign in Los Angeles. This group advocates for civil rights for gays, lesbians, etc. This is an issue that is important for a large portion of the left, and it is pallatable to another chunk. It's distasteful to the right.

If any of the major candidates had made an impassioned speech calling for the end of bigotry, if they had invoked the scientific consensus on the fact that there is merely a spectrum that we are all born into that ranges from gay to straight, and that denying someone rights by law is discrimination and is contrary to our country's history and morality, if he/she had tied into the global issue of human rights, of compassion, of equality, if he/she had attacked Civil Unions as "Separate but Equal", and called on the USA to accept a higher morality, a higher equality, etc., he/she would be an immediate rock star and the darling of the liberals.

The Democrats, however, are cowards who still don't get it. You don't win an election by sulking around, attempting to not step on your opponents' toes. They call you socialists, you call them bigots. Guess who's more correct? Instead, they pussyfoot around the issue and let Kucinich make them look stupid. Kucinich will not win, the left will be unimpressed with the Democratic nominee and the door will be open for a Bloomberg or a Gingrich or a Thompson, and then where will we be. Obama doesn't know anything about being a minority and neither does Hillary. Edwards thinks he is a straight-talker? I call bullshit on him. Maybe I won't vote. I don't care anymore about anyone's grandiose theories of how to win elections. Try advocating good things and pushing for positive changes in our culture, instead of doing what the crooked lobbyists make you think the public wants. We are sheep, but you must lead.

I'm sick of 'em. F%§$ing hypocrites.

The Cure - Just Like Heaven

Board of Supervisors

2007-08-09T10:57:00.000-07:00

San Francisco does not have a functional government. We are run by a mayor who has my respect, but is met with violent vitriol by a sizable minority. He will win in a landslide and the issues will continue.

This would not really matter, except that the activist population is represented on the Board of Supervisors. There are two groups on the Boards, the Democrats (conservatives) and the Democrats who call themselves Progressives (liberals). The Progressives have a 6-5 majority on the Board, and the President of the Board, Aaron Peskin, is a Progressive (and my Supervisor).

One of the "Democrats", Ed Jew, representing the Sunset, is currently on trial for 11 counts of voter fraud, amongst other things. He allegedly took a bribe from a business in the Sunset after being elected in a district where he allegedly does not live. He registered to vote and voted in a district where he allegedly does not live. He refuses to step down.

One of the "Progressives", Chris Daly, representing the Tenderloin and the northern Mission, is currently being censured by the board for personal attacks on Newsom. He has claimed that Newsom has a cocaine problem in the middle of a board meeting. Then, one of the other supervisors, (I forgot his name), came up and told Daly to punch him in the face, cuz "you know you want to".

Newsom has enough of his own problems, like sleeping with his campaign manager's wife, paying her off and then paying him off, and going into rehab for an alcohol problem. But he's going to win by a landslide, because no one will oppose him.

I'm gonna vote for him forever because he legalized gay marriage and likely destroyed any highly political hopes for the future!

Vote Newsom in 2007!

Current music: The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 3

Halloweenless SF

2007-08-09T10:43:00.000-07:00

SF Supervisor of the district containing the Castro, Bevan Dufty, has announced that there will be no Halloween party this year. Last year's ended in violence, as 9 people were shot. There had been plans to have a party on Justin Herman Plaza, in front of the Ferry Building, with Pink performing and motorcross performances. Sounds worse to me, but at least it was something. Now, the promoter has pulled out of the show, citing difficulties in organizing the party and the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park earlier in October. Dufty has announced that he is asking the bars and restaurants in the Castro to close, that there will be no public toilets set up, no streets blocked off, but still the same number of police patrols.

I find this revolting. Every city is known for a festival or two. NY has New Year's Eve, Chicago and Boston have St. Patrick's Day, SF has Gay Pride and Halloween in the Castro. Halloween is fun for all, everyone dresses up and it is remarkably tolerant. Everyone is attacking the festival, saying that it has devolved into the "bridge-and-tunnel crowd" (read African-Americans and Latinos) gawking and slurring the "freaks". It may have been different in the past, but I loved it. I saw mostly people in constumes. I saw the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (a transsexual group that organizes the group) and they were dancing and everyone was taking pictures. The negative thing to me was how the police were (not) dealing with the party. They took away Agnieszka's flimsy, plastic dagger and made sure there was no alcohol. However, they clearly let at least 9 men without costumes on (meaning easier to search) with loaded firearms. One guy asked me if he could sleep with Agnieszka, but he was a drunk white guy.

This is a bunch of snotty rich people trying to turn this city into a quiet, dignified ritzy place, which it has never been and never should be. They are capitalizing on racial tension, something that should never occur in a place as supposedly-tolerant as San Francisco. We are the city of the Beats and the Hippies and Gay Activists. We are not a city of businessmen/businesswomen holding their noses above the riffraff.

Interesting. The same week the Board of Supes (which is a downright disaster) announces this, they also unveil plans for the tallest building on the west coast....

Current music: Tom Waits - Martha

San Francisco Rising

2007-08-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

San Francisco unveiled plans yesterday for the western United States' first supertall. The shortest of the three proposals is 1,200 feet, the tallest 1,375. For reference's sake, the Empire State Building is 1,250 ft. At the base of it will be California's "Grand Central Terminal" and push back against Los Angeles. San Francisco will be the global center of California again! To hell with Los Angeles! And all three design have wind turbines for clean energy, a subway station, access to BART, commuter rail down the peninsula, buses to all carriers in the Bay Area, Greyhound and, someday soon, California High-Speed Rail to Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and Sacramento. By 2014! But where will I be?

Current music: Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales of San Francisco

Long Live the 70s!

2007-08-03T11:44:00.000-07:00

So, the more I listen to music these days, the more I am impressed with the music out there. This is obviously a huge shift for me. I think that this whole theory of a ressurgence of 80s music is really misplaced. It has recently hit me that music had formerly been based on certain heroes of the past, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, etc. I think that rather than term the latest movement a throwback to the 80s, we should just suggest that the heroes have changed. I think my generation's heroes have become Bryan Eno, Bryan Ferry, David Bowie and David Byrne. I've recently gotten into David Bowie a little bit more via a Brooklyn band of today called TV on the Radio! which is amazing. Talking Heads, Roxy Music and David Bowie are the root of all that's new and wonderful. Possibly early Elvis Costello as well. So, maybe this is a resurgence of the 70s. Roxy Music, Talking Heads and David Bowie all had their most interesting breakthroughs in the 70s. So, long live the 70s.

Oh, and let me note what an enormous Berlin had on Eno, Ferry and Bowie. Maybe this resurgence is somehow connected to the recent popularity of European travel for every hipster and Berlin as the new center (yet again) of the avant-garde.

David Bowie - Boys Keep Swinging

Earthquake!

2007-07-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went for a walk after work, down Market and then Mission to The Embarcadero. Upon arrival, I noticed a sidewalk extending a good distance into the bay and became interested in taking a walk. I wondered whether or not it was public, but then I saw a few joggers and a guy on a bike exiting it and I made my way towards the end. I got to the end, soaked in the beauty and turned around to face the city. I shielded my eyes from the glaring sunlight and walked back listening to Thom Yorke's jarring sound on my iPod. It was both idyllic and foreign in some fashion and I felt like a tourist in the city of San Francisco. At this point, I thought about all the San Francisco-centric images, songs and moods and tried to feel like an outsider. All of sudden, it hit me: you live in earthquake country. We may be more famous for that than for anything else. I have fear-pangs from time to time and I imagined the earth rocking, jolting the bridge and everyone's screams and cries. I thought about how interesting that would be, were it to happen.

I returned home, ate a sandwich, listened to some music and went to sleep about midnight. At approximately 4:42, was rudely awakened and I felt sick. Something I didn't understand was occurring. Was I dreaming? Was it the big one? A horrible rumble, as if I was in a jeep with bad shocks in the mountains. But I was lying in my bed. EARTHQUAKE! It shook and then petered out. Then, an second rocked my bed again.

I was frightened, but I drifted back to sleep, and forgot it, like a dream. Then, after arriving at work, I read the paper:

From various news sources:
-An earthquake jolted San Francisco Bay area residents awake early Friday, breaking glass and rattling nerves.
-The earthquake was centered about 2 miles northeast of downtown Oakland on the Hayward fault.
-The actual epicenter was in the Oakland Hills near Joaquin Miller Park and the Mormon Temple and had a preliminary magnitude of 4.2 according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
-It could be felt for up to 10 seconds on both sides of the San Francisco Bay.
-According to the USGS, 4.2-magnitude quakes are felt indoors and may break dishes and windows, and overturn unstable objects. Pendulum clocks may stop.
-This quake was strong enough to set off alarms and shatter windows. Pacific Gas & Electric reported 4,600 people in Oakland without power.
-"This is the biggest quake we've had in awhile," reported Rufus Catchings of USGS. "This was a strike-slip mechanism," he said. "These give very strong, if you're nearby, initial jolts from the (primary) wave and then rattling for a couple seconds from the (secondary) wave. It's possible that the temblor was a foreshock that could be followed by stronger seismic events," said Catchings.
-Several business owners in the Montclair District, about 2 miles from the epicenter, arrived at work today to find their merchandise in shambles.

I will be moving my John Coltrane picture from above my bed to a different spot. I don't need that smashing my head in and shattering.

Current music: Roxy Music - There Is Something

Canadian music

2007-07-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

It has recently come to my attention that Canada has amazing music. When I was younger, all that I knew of Canada's music was Neil Young, Celine Dion, Shania Twain, Alanis Morrisette, Barenaked Ladies and Our Lady Peace. Only one of those turned out well...... I am now aware that Leonard Cohen, The Band and Joni Mitchell are from Canada and that's definitely better, but that was a while ago.

Today, it continues with bad acts, but they are much more popular in the US: Avril Lavigne, Nickelback, Simple Plan, Sum 41. Canada seems to be as big here as England is!

Now, it has hit me how much music I have that I love that's from Canada.

Black Mountain (opened for Coldplay, from Vancouver)
The Dears (got it from a friend from Vancouver, from Montreal)
Propagandhi (punk/hardcore, grew up listening to them, from Winnipeg)
The Weakerthans (evolved from Propagandhi, saw them live at 17 at the Nile in Mesa)
Godspeed You Black Emperor (silly name, but good music, from Montreal)
Hot Hot Heat (dancy rock, from Vancouver)
Nelly Furtado (dance-pop a la Madonna, from Victoria)
Rufus Wainwright (wrote a popular song for the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, from Montreal)
Arcade Fire (my vote for best new band, just got into them and makes me think that something new is happening in music, from Montreal, fronted by a Texan)

Innumerable other bands that I don't know, but have heard of, are also from Canada. I may be checking them out:

The Pink Mountaintops (related to Black Mountain, from Vancouver)
Broken Social Scene (from Toronto)
A Silver Mt. Zion (related to Godspeed You Black Emperor!, from Montreal)
The New Pornographers (from Vancouver, fronted by a Virginian)
Death from above 1979 (from Toronto)

So, Montreal is the artsy city, Vancouver the eclectic one and Toronto is largely absent...... hmm.....

All in all, I'm sure these cities have always had good music, and I am just left to wonder "why now are they getting recognition here in the us?" Anyway....

Current music: Arcade Fire - Intervention

The Media and What's Happening Here

2007-06-30T23:40:00.000-07:00

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." -Sinclair Lewis

A last comment about Sicko and it's relationship to the bigger picture. CNN is checking statistics and criticizing the movie, although lightly, and I find it offensive. CNN never does any investigative reporting. It allowed Iraq. Every day, the 10 stories highlighted on the page include at least one on Paris Hilton, one that is merely to promote some ridiculous new piece of technology that cnn.com possessess and one that belongs on "America's Funniest Home Videos".... like: "Bear falls out of tree with loud whomp". Yet it feels the need to attack a movie that attacks drug companies. How much of Ted Turner is owned by AEtna?

Today CNN has a story so insulting it's laughable. It's about a gay man who's happy that public opinion is beginning to change towards accepting the scientific fact that people don't choose to be gay but rather that it's natural. That is good, except that it presents it as opinion. The other half of the story is about a former lesbian who is saddened by it. She says that she has "overcome" her homosexuality. The worst part is, the story mentions that it happened after "she became a Christian". Doesn't CNN see this for the bullshit that it is? Those nutjobs don't even read CNN. Stop pandering!!!!! I DON'T GET IT!!!! YOU ARE OWNED BY TED TURNER, STOP ACTING LIKE HE'S RUPERT MURDOCH!

This is today's America. We have a corporate news media that no longer reports and no longer functions as the 4th estate (because that's Cheney now..... is his special position outside the executive branch); the Supreme Court just outlawed busing, allowed faith-based programs, struck down part of McCain-Feingold and took apart Antitrust Law. A huge debt. Violent crime is increasing. Our infrastructure is falling apart (Katrina, power grids, Big-Dig). No more habeas corpus. Torture. Imprisonment without charges for indefinite periods of time. 100 million people's phones tapped. Capital punishment. No health care for 45 million people.

So, foreigners have no rights, black people have to suffer in ghettos and public infrastructure is no longer to be trusted...... while our leaders evade laws, support government religion, spy on us and take apart antitrust law.

How is this not fascism?

Sicko

2007-06-30T23:12:00.000-07:00

I would like to sum up "Sicko" with one word, "DUH". It's a great movie.

Also, as I walked home along Geary from the movie, I saw the various drug addicts, homeless people and even a dead guy lying on the pavement. The policeman was calling it in. A store owner was frantically trying to distance himself from it and meanwhile, there was A DEAD MAN ON THE SIDEWALK!

What would FDR think of us now? "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." Well, our world is failing that test miserably.

The beginning of the end for Bush/Cheney?

2007-06-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

A response by Senator Leady and Congressman Conyers to White House Counsel Fred F. Fielding concerning the White House's invoking of executive privilege in its refusal to reply to the subpoenas conerning the Attorney firings. This provides insight into the coming actions of Congress against the Executive Branch if (and when) it claims Executive Privilege concerning the subpoenas in the NSA-wiretapping case (served two days ago):

Dear Mr. Fielding:
...We had hoped our Committees’ subpoenas would be met with compliance and not a Nixonian stonewalling that reveals the White House’s disdain for our system of checks and balances.
We urge the President to reconsider this step and withdraw his privilege claim so the American people can learn the truth about these firings. If he is unwilling to withdraw these claims, we call on you to provide more specific information to facilitate ruling on those claims and our consideration of appropriate action to enforce our subpoenas. [...]
Our Committees rejected your "take it or leave it" offer of off-the-record, backroom interviews and severe limits on the scope of our requests as unacceptable, more than three months ago. Since that time, despite our many attempts to narrow the dispute and begin to obtain the information we need, you have not made any effort to work with us on a voluntary basis. Even now, in response to subpoenas authorized by our Committees, you have again merely restated your initial, unacceptable offer. Your proposal is not commensurate with our exercise of the broad investigatory power of Congress. [...]
Please provide the documents compelled by the subpoenas without further delay. If you continue to decline to do so, you should immediately provide us with the specific factual and legal bases for your claims regarding each document withheld via a privilege log as described above and a copy of any explicit determination by the President with respect to the assertion of privilege. You have until July 9, 2007, at 10 a.m. to bring this and any other information you wish to submit to our attention before we move to proceedings to rule on your claims and consider whether the White House is in contempt of Congress.
We were disappointed that we had to turn to these subpoenas in order to obtain information needed by the Committees to learn the truth about these firings and the erosion of independence at the Justice Department. We are even more disappointed now with yet further stonewalling.
Whether or not we have the benefit of the information we have directed you to provide by July 9, we will take the necessary steps to rule on your privilege claims and appropriately enforce our subpoenas backed by the full force of law.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT, Rep. John Conyers, D-MI

Pride Not Prejudice

2007-06-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

In the last week of June, 10's of millions of people around the world stand up and say no to homophobia. It is at this time of year in order to commemorate the Stonewall Riots, in which gay people on Christopher St. in Greenwich Village for the first time fought back against homophobic police brutality.

For reference's sake: Largest Pride event in Europe: Christopher St. Day Parade in Köln/Cologne (1,000,000+); Largest in North America: Pride in San Francisco (1,000,000+); Largest in the world: Parada do Orgulho GLBT de Sao Paolo (3,500,000). (Oh, and Phoenix has one too in April at Steele Indian School Park and a parade along 3rd St.) Moscow's and Belgrade's festivals have been banned due to violence.

Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of John Edwards, was the keynote speaker at a breakfast to kick off this year's Pride festival in San Francisco. She came out in full support of gay marriage. Moreso even than her husband. This is monumental. This is the first time a major candidate or major candidate's spouse has ever supported marriage equality. Bravo. Of course, Bloomberg participated in New York....

Yesterday was one of the best days I've had in a long time. Agnieszka came over, dressed in white with a self-made rainbow flag taped to her dress. We went down the hill through the Tenderloin to Market St. As we got close, we could hear the crowd. We arrived at Market and Jones and we found a spot behind a gay couple that had made the journey from Dallas for the parade. We started watching, and this, not in the actual order it happened, is what we saw.

There were the obvious characters present: men, women, transgender and third-gender people, etc. dressed in all types of colorful and/or leather costumes, which ran the gammut from extravagant to er, um, minimalist. A few men skated by on rollerblades naked.

Then, of course, there were the politicians: Gavin Newsom the mayor; both gay supervisors as well as three or four others from the city; the city DA; the Police Commissioner; the County Sheriff; lesbian CA State Senator Carole Migden and gay CA State Assemblyman Mark Leno; Mike Gravel, Democratic Presidential Candidate from Alaska.

There were the pet (haha) causes: PETA; Greenpeace; the Humane Society.

There were the political groups, including Ramsey Clark's A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition with a float which included a Cheney and a Bush in a cage snarling at the crowds. The caption read: STOP WOMEN-HATING, THEOCRATIC, FASCIST HOMOPHOBES. Several groups held signs reading: IMPEACH!

There was the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), and also the Latinos de Ambiente waving flags of all spanish-speaking countries.

But the most interesting parts were the groups you would never expect: groups of trash collectors; police cars flying the rainbow flag and hundreds of policemen and policewomen holding the hands of their gay and lesbian partners; countless companies or product-lines including Tylenol, Macy's, Google, Wells Fargo, the San Francisco Chronicle, Delta Airlines, Comcast, AAA and Diet Pepsi all had floats. AND THE CHURCHES: Evangelicals for Gay Rights; Unitarian Universalists; Methodists; Reform and Orthodox Jews; and the Catholics. A line of Catholic Priests waved gay flags as they traversed Market St.

The highlights that brought us all to tears were: Gays and Lesbians against Deportation; People for Equal Adoption Rights; Marriage Equality Now! This last group included a float of couples who have been denied marriage rights and the time they have been together. The most touching were two men at the crest of the float, easily in their 80s with a sign that said: "Joe and Bill. 59 years. Denied."

I'll leave the parade with the captions from some of the best signs:

-"Don't Deport Our Partners" (from the group for immigrant rights)
-"If God made you, we want you" (from the evangelicals)
-"We love our 2 gay fathers" (from 2 little 6 yr. old girls from the group for adoption equality)
-"We love our son, even if he turns out to be straight" (same group but from 2 fathers)
-"Love is not a sin" (from the Catholics)
-"Closets are for clothes" (from Carole Migden)
-"Who says God didn't create Adam and Steve?" (from the Methodists)
-"My boss knows I'm gay" (from Macy's)

After the parade, we met up with Connor and his band again and sat in front of Civic Center and watched Gay and Lesbian Hip-Hop and a gay punk band I used to listen to from Lookout! Records (Green Day's original label) called Pansy Division.

Agnieszka and I discussed throughout the day how this parade would have been viewed in Poland. She is sending pictures of the parade, including our blatant critique of Bush and the massive crowds in support of gay rights to her parents. She is proud to be here in San Francisco and I was proud to go with her and to stand next to her at the festival.

1 million or so people came from all over the world to celebrate in the de facto world capital of gay rights.

Today, I couldn't possibly be prouder to be a San Franciscan or an American.

Bob Dylan - Corrina, Corrina

Santa Cruz

2007-06-25T10:06:00.000-07:00

So, on Saturday, Agnieszka, the other Agnieszka and I drove to Santa Cruz. After parking, we walked through downtown a bit and then the two Agnieszkas left for the beach. I stayed and walked around a bit. Then, I sat down and read the George Lakoff book, which I'm almost done with. I went into a few bookstores, a used cd store and some other shops. Santa Cruz appears even more relaxed than Berkeley. Half the men were shirtless. Some guy was loudly drumming on the city's trashcan. Another guy had a didgeridoo. A lot more teenagers than in Berkeley or San Francisco. It actually felt more like suburbia than I would have thought.

Then, we went to the beach again and played frisbee. Connor's band was playing in Santa Cruz that night, and so at about 7:30, we went over to the club and Connor and I sat out back and talked while the Agnieszkas went shopping for something to drink on the way home. It was good to see him. I recommended to him that he drive up to San Francisco for the parade on Sunday. Then we left. The most interesting thing was the show. i say about 2 minutes of a group of 16 yr.-olds playing screaming hardcore and another group of 16 yr.-olds listening. It was strange to see where I was 8 years ago. Odd.

the car shop on the corner

2007-06-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I know that this was a big weekend for the city, but for awhile now, I've been wanting to tell you about a mechanic shop accross the street from my work. They have a large marquee facing the intersection of Turk and Larkin and they like to put up interesting phrases. From now on, I will put up each new one that is placed. Right now, I can only think of the last two and the latest one that has gone up today (or presumably earlier this weekend).

Oldest: "You never know what you have said until you find out what others have heard." - Gore Vidal

Next: "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." - Abraham Maslow

Currect: "Pride Not Prejudice" - theme of this years Gay Pride festival/parade

Learning

2007-06-21T10:37:00.000-07:00

I learn lots of things living in this city. More than learning via answers though, it all uncovers itself through questions. For instance:

Why are their at least a few, if not many, Slavic-looking, old women with their heads wrapped like Eastern-European village peasants trying to sell me random bits of food as I walk along the road? Yesterday, a woman of this description, almost crying, tried to sell me a jar of Jiffy peanut butter and/or a bag of some kind of grain that was not in a sealed package. I don't understand who these women are, or where they're from....

Why is their a public food spot along the wall on Larkin between Eddy and Ellis? There is a little shelf spot on the side of a building where there are infinite half-eaten bags of chips, or loaves of bread, or cup-of-soups. I've seen people go up and grab some, taste them, and then walk on, eating their meal.

What is in the heads of prositutes? At least once a day, if not more, I'm made painfully aware of all the prostitution in this city. I already know that we are the mecca of human-trafficking for sex in the Western Hemisphere. The path seems to be from Bangkok or Seoul to Tijuana and up through LA to SF where the money is. But the women I see are not locked in basements, they are not Asian. They are generally white women. Yesterday at about 5:30, a woman got out of a car yelling, and she looked distraught and then immediately threw herself at a man sitting in his car. "Your girlfriend around?...... Can I be your girlfriend?" She was probably 25 and highly addicted to something. Today, on my way to work at 9:30 it was almost unbearable. An older woman, around 45, looking horrified of life, almost crying, with defeat in her eyes, saw me looking at her. She almost cried to me: "Hi...." I walked on.

Why do so many people nonchalantly pick food out of trash cans and cigarette ends off the street? In this city, there really is no middle-middle class. There are the ultra rich and fairly rich. There are masses of people of comparatively humble means like me who spend all their time buying swanky clothes and expensive meals to emulate the rich. On the other side, there are the working poor who barely make it and then there are the street people. There are so many people who live out of the trash can, it's not even alienating for them to dive right in.

Why does nobody care? I finally met my neighbors accross the hall. They seem nice, and are about 33. I sat with them for about 45 minutes while they (primarily) discussed three topics: their dog, their plans for tomorrow and the legal industry. The dog comments were about taking him for walks. In one story, the woman ridiculed the homeless around on their walks and mocked them using a really insulting voice. The legal industry comments were about the arrogance of lawyers, because she is one (like 10% of San Franciscans). The point discussed about tomorrows plans for them and the guy's mom were primarily about one question: Man:"Should I tell them to eat light for lunch?" Woman: "No, because then they might be expecting more and not enjoy the chips and salsa." Man: "You're right, they will have walked a lot and would really enjoy something to eat." Woman: "But don't have them eat too much for lunch, or they won't be hungry". This went on for 15 minutes and was punctuated by giving directions to the bar they were going to meet at. "You know "Score"? Well, go own that street and turn right before the "Siesta Lounge". Then "Red Room" will be on your left. (I made up these names). Crazy me, I thought streets had names. Good thing I've been to every elitist restaurant in town and have based my entire understanding of the city on the geography of hipster places.

One last story: Agnieszka and I were on Bush, a half a block from Chinatown Gate at the French church. We wanted to sit on the steps and rest, but on one side a man was sleeping, so we went to the other. After about an hour a man showed up, jerking his head crazily about trying to take off his jacket. He was cowering in another doorway to the church and it suddenly occurred to me that our conversation had stolen this man's bed. So, we decided to leave. As we did, he stumbled into some bushes and I fugured he was going to relieve himself. Instead, he picked up a pile of sleeping stuff: sleeping bag, blankets, etc. and I figured it out. He sleeps on the steep, cold steps of this church on busy Bush St. every night and then stashes his stuff in the bushes during the day so he doesn't get yelled at. He's obviously mentally ill.

How can we live in this city when tens of thousands of people are drug addicts, dying of AIDS, mentally ill, malnourished and dying on our streets. Tens of thousands more live in a world of violence where they shoot at, get shot at, or live in fear of getting murdered. Shootings occur here everyday. But no matter. All is well over in Pacific Heights. San Francisco is repositioning itself as a major city of power. We are going to go from a world-class city that tries to avoid living like a big city, to an all-out Manhattan carbon-copy, while we blatantly ignore the statistic that we have 14th largest city in the US, but the 2nd most homeless people. We have almost as many as LA with about 20% of the population. Around 80% of our homeless are known as "hardcore", meaning they've lived on the street for longer than 3 months. Some haven't had a permanent bed in 30 years.

What's the difference again between San Francisco and the third world?

Wir sind Helden - Endlich ein Grund zur Panik

The Free World

2007-06-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

So, I have for years decried the popular division of the world during the Cold War into the Communist World and the Free World. I always thought that it was silly and arrogant. I may have changed by mind. The division is far different than I thought.

I'm reading George Lakoff's book called "Whose Freedom?" about the different concepts of freedom.

I always thought of "freedom" as a fairly nebulous concept that people used to sound good. I have begun to find it a detestable word and I've now learned why. Freedom has come to mean, amongst conservatives, freedom from economic restrictions, freedom to live without the moral degradation that they see in homosexuality, the freedom to practice and spread one's religion, the freedom from evil, the freedom from government imposition on one's wallet.

Freedom in my mind has always been much more up FDR's alley. Freedom from want (restrictions on the ultimate freedom of the market, according to conservatives), freedom to not be controlled by someone else's religion (restrictions on your ability to express your religion, according to conservatives), freedom to be, even if it deviates from someone's conception of normal (harming morality, according to conservatives), the freedom that derives from government support of health (taxation, imposition on one's wallet, to conservatives).

In the Soviet Union, it becomes even more interesting. You had government-alleged freedom from want through the restriction of anyone's excelling in the economy, but the masses ended up poor. This is an attack on economic freedom for both conservatives (restrictions on the free market) and progressives (restrictions on ACTUAL freedom from want). You had restrictions on religion. This is an attack on religious freedom for both concservatives (restrictions on the propagation of your religion) and progressives (restrictions on freedom of opinion and expression). You also had restrictions on security and civil liberties in the progressive sense (an attack on freedom from fear and freedom of expression) but also for conservatives (the conservative ideal of "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" didn't really work in the Soviet Union. You might still have something to fear, as it was often random).

So, in reality, in both conceptions of freedom that have ever been used in America, we were more free than the Soviets, thus making us the Free World. I would argue, though, that I fear the conservative form of freedom as much as I fear the Soviet lack of freedom. Everything I hold dear and moral in this world is diametrically opposed to exactly what conservatives believe in. They attack my freedom, differently than the Soviets, but to similar effect. I have grown up in a time when radical conservatives have been on the rise and I have always thought it a major portion of society. If George Lakoff is correct however, it hasn't always been that way. The Republicans and Democrats both used to support taxes as part of the Common Wealth (the Commonwealth of Virginia, for example). Now, we have these violently individualistic plutocrats who are threatening our way of life. I was SO born at the wrong time.

Under the Soviets I would have had no safety net for food, but I wouldn't under the conservatives either. I would have had no freedom to decide my own religion under the Soviets, but the conservatives oppose my atheism. I would be under surveillance under both systems, restricting my freedom. The Soviets would have promised me health care, but I'm sure not whether they would have funded it. The conservatives would simply not give it to me at all. The conservatives are pretty scary people. The conservatives are not Soviets, but neither of them agreed with my conception of freedom. Can anyone explain to me why the conservatives aren't just as bad?

I think Angela Merkel is a progressive in many of these senses. I'm beginning to think that even if I didn't always agree with politicians like the Kennedys, I may have misjudged them all along. I'm becoming ever more interested in earlier American politicians.

Current music: Avril Lavigne - Imagine (much better thank you'd think - it's on the Save Darfur album)

Good thing I moved.

2007-06-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

This happened less than two blocks from Alamo Square, for those of you who know where that is. Also 5 blocks from where I used to live.

7 injured as feud rages in the Western Addition
Housing complex's residents terrified -- 2 attacks in 12 hours

A feud between groups from two Western Addition housing developments, which flared Tuesday when a 19-year-old man was shot in the foot, exploded Wednesday and Thursday as packs of gunmen wounded seven people in a pair of brazen shootings, San Francisco police said.
Police said they were increasing patrols near both housing developments -- the privately owned Friendship Village Apartments and the city's Yerba Buena Plaza East, just five blocks away -- in response to shootings at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday and 8:50 a.m. Thursday that deeply frightened residents.
The latest two shootings happened at Friendship Village, a three-story complex of wood shingles on Friendship Court, where police said young men and teens are battling rivals from Plaza East, a collection of newer townhouses centered at Eddy and Buchanan streets. That's where the 19-year-old man was shot Tuesday.
"We're making headway" on identifying the shooters, Police Chief Heather Fong said Thursday afternoon at City Hall, after emerging from closed-door meetings with Mayor Gavin Newsom and Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, whose district includes the crime scenes.
Fong said officers would be stationed outside the housing developments 24 hours a day until investigators from the city's gang task force decide the situation has cooled down. Leaflets will be passed out, she said, asking residents to give information that could help solve the cases.
Police also will be keeping an eye on the Juneteenth festival on Fillmore Street this Saturday and Sunday, which celebrates African American history and culture.
Mirkarimi, who went to Friendship Court after each shooting, said he was angry that the second attack was not averted. He said he spoke with Fong by telephone at 12:30 a.m. Thursday, after the first shooting, and that she had promised him that officers would be stationed there.
"The fact is, it didn't happen," Mirkarimi said.
Capt. Kevin Dillon, who heads the Northern Police Station, said he took responsibility for officers not being posted at the location at the time of the second shooting. "There was a communication breakdown," he said. "It's being addressed."
In the first shooting, police said, seven assailants attacked a group of people on the 1100 block of McAllister Street, at the end of Friendship Court. One victim was driven to Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center and three others, including a bystander, were taken to San Francisco General Hospital. None had life-threatening wounds, said Sgt. Neville Gittens, a police spokesman.
Jason Steinberg, a 32-year-old photographer, said he was the bystander. He said he was walking toward his apartment on Fulton Street, a block away from the shooting, when he was knocked to the ground. He initially thought he had been hit by a bottle rocket, but soon realized a bullet had blasted through a metal gate and struck him in the left thigh, leaving him with a deep bruise.
"I'm looking to move out immediately," he said.
The second shooting happened near a playground, a central management office and a laundry room along Friendship Court, which bisects the apartment complex. Police said three or four suspects on foot attacked a group, wounding a 16-year-old boy and two 17-year-old boys. One of the victims had life-threatening injuries, Gittens said.
The shootings left nearby cars and homes scarred by bullet holes. Yellow chalk circles on the pavement, which typically indicate where a bullet casing has been found, were scattered over a wide area, as if the victims of the second shooting had been chased.
"I dove to the floor both times," said Virginia Womach, a 58-year-old woman who lives in Friendship Village. "I couldn't count how many shots there were."
Womach said violence had been a factor when she recently made plans to move away, after nearly 30 years in the complex. She said she and her boyfriend were moving next month to Redding, where she has a grown son.
"That's good countryside," she said.

Justice!

2007-06-08T10:45:00.000-07:00

The immigration bill has fallen! Not for the reasons it should have, but thank god that idiocy is past us!

AND THE BIGOT HOMOPHOBE HAS FALLEN! Peter Pace has announcement his retirement!

If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.

2007-06-07T10:44:00.000-07:00

Our plutocracy is now complete.

I really, really, really wanna spend the next 40 days in a mansion with alcohol, servants, massages, cooks, etc. So, I've decided I'm going to go get drunk, endanger the lives of others with an automobile, get arrested for it, and then arrogantly violate my probation by driving with a suspended license three times.

Mom and Dad, you really failed me by not providing me the skills with which to pull this off.

If you don't know what I'm referring to, I envy you.

Current Music: MIA. - Mind Games

McCain

2007-06-07T07:23:00.000-07:00

I posted the previous after only 80 percent or so of the debate.

Tancredo pleaded for English as our only language. He was adamant and a little crazy. McCain stood up and said, "Muchas Gracias, Governor."

McCain's defended of Spanish as the original language of Arizona and the enrichment of Arizona by Hispanic culture. He defended immigrants as patriots. He openly made it clear that the debate was mostly concerning Hispanics: "Friend, next time you're down in Washington, I want you to go down to the Vietnam War Memorial and look at the names. You're gonna see a whole lotta Hispanic names." He went on to refer in the say way to the Iraq War, and then he said, "They have enriched our culture and our nation as every generation of immigrants before them." Wild screams of approval.

Maybe McCain won that night.

(Still 15 minutes left)

Russia and the Republicans

2007-06-06T22:22:00.000-07:00

I don't want to sound apologetic for Putin and I do believe that he's acting belligerent, but does anyone else get the the feeling that we're trying to create conflict? Is the right preparing for life after Iraq? When we try to stop talking about Muslim terrorism so that we can ignore our failure, who will we hate then? Russia seems good. I feel like Chavez might fight the bill. But I think Chavez is a LOT more ridiculous! Russia could be dangerous. If they wanted to be! I really don't think Putin wants animosity again.... Unless he feels his grip slipping....

Republicans:

Brownback: Doesn't believe in evolution and I think he was in Leap of Faith with Steve Martin about sleazy fake pastors.

Huckabee: Also doesn't believe, but at least he wants to appear friendly. HE CALLED HOMOSEXUALITY AN "ATTITUDE"! What a bigot. His answer on abortion was pretty good. He attached abortion to a culture of life that includes respect for the poor. Well done, Governor Bigot.

Hunter: Actually talked about reaching out to the Democrats

Gilmore: Somewhat reasonable. For a Republican.

Tommy Thompson: Hilarious! Wonderful attitude supporting preventative health care!

Tancredo: Insane on immigration. Great against Bush.

Romney: He's more boring than John Kerry! (and resembles him in many ways) Dumb talking points. He makes the same talking-point silly errors as Richardson. Totally ignores the question. I don't think he has any chance WHATSOEVER.

Giuliani: Strange. He says some things and I wanna scream and other times, I think: Thank god, because he'll probably win his nomination, so at least he's not as bad as the others. He was Associate Attorney General?! Is that below a Deputy Attorney General? He's also a pragmatist. He's not quite as psychotic as he seems. He's a good speaker too. I think he's a formidable candidate. His conflation of environmental health and business health sounded downright Obama-esque. His health-care rant sounded good as a sound byte, but too bad he's way on the right. At least he didn't avoid the issue.

McCain: I feel he's a practical guy who started out saying what people wanna hear. He lost, and now he's trying to be a strange mixture of frankness and lies. HOWEVER. He is one of two to not be TO THE RIGHT of the immigration law! and also singularly, seemed (at least half) against English as an official language. Kudos on that.

Paul: Of course I find him interesting. I think I like him more than any of the other Republicans, mostly because he has a unified idea of what he stands for. However, he did not attack Don't Ask, Don't Tell. He didn't speak against Creationism [sic], but rather only attacked it at as unconstitutional AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL. However, he had an amazing, better even than any answer in the Democratic debate on the most important moral issue. He answered that the biggest problem was "the acceptance just recently that we now promote pre-emptive war. I do not believe that's part of the American tradition." He elaborated and it sent chills up my spine.

I think they all sound silly. The ones who don't believe in evolution should leave. I think Tancredo's in the KKK. That leaves Hunter, Gilmore, Paul and Thomspon in the second tier and Giuliani, Romney and McCain in the top tier.

It seems blatantly clear to me, much more so than in the Democratic Party that with the current 10, meaning without Fred Thompson, that Rudy Giuliani is the only guy that at the moment, seems even half presidential. McCain and Paul are the most intelligent, but Giuliani and Paul are the speakers. Paul sounds too much like a dude (albeit a very intelligent one) in a coffee shop.

I'd say Giuliani, McCain and Paul were the only people I even cared about (except I think Tommy Thompson is funny) watching. Giuliani won and is the biggest snake. McCain might actually turn out to be somewhat reasonable (I know everyone will hate me on that one) and Paul seems to be a burgeoning cult-leader (what's the deal with that).

The Republicans are really awful though. All of them. I feel like it's a clear vote: Democrat and hopefully leave the fake war (War on Terror, not Iraq) or Republican and 8 more years of 1984.

Barack Obama

2007-06-05T11:32:00.000-07:00

I have to be honest. I did not change my mind about Obama ONLY after seeing the debates instead of just reading the transcript. I also was so annoyed at Obama, that I wrote to a friend of mine from Chicago who is an enormous Obama-backer. I will present that discussion here, so you can see more of what has changed my mind. My simplistic thinking is actually a little embarassing to me, but also don't agree with everything my friend said. Obama is not the greatest candidate ever, but after hearing him speak again and discussing some issues he does appear to be the best of those who have a chance. My friend's response to Obama's war stance is especially helpful.

My orignial questions followed by his responses:

John: 1) He claims that he has opposed the war from the start. He was,however, not in the United States government in order to register hisobjection. As a state senator, though, he did oppose the war.However, he did represent Chicago within Illinois. Was he reallygoing to support the war? It seems to me he's just playing on theignorance of the masses, attempting to win points, when he wasn't eventhere.

Peter: 1) When Obama opposed the war, he was already a candidate for the United States Senate. But he made a number of appearances at anti-war rallies, gave speeches against the war, and he was the only candidate for Senate to do so in the Democratic primary (he was the underdog against a wealthy self-funded businessman on the one hand and the son of an old school Chicago machine-politician on the other)... Remember this was when the war was at 80% popularity and Democratic politicians like Edwards and Clinton were loathe to speak against it. Illinois was also just in the process of turning into a blue state. The governor was Republican and the seat for which Obama was running was an open Republican seat. He had reasonably good reason to believe he could be burying his political career by speaking out against the war at a time when it was so popular. Here's a solid video mash-up of various statements on the Iraq war: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhpKmQCCwB8. Now when Obama arrived in the US Senate in 2004, he at first voted for appropriations bills, on the grounds that he thought that no matter how bad an idea the war was, the cost of failure was too great. He said that he would give the situation six months to see if there was any improvement, and when there wasn't any, he came out in favor of withdrawing the troops. (This can be controversial on the left but it happens to match up with my own position and I think it's the most responsible one. I was against the war, participated in protests, but in 2003/2004 I also had no idea what should happen next --- withdrawing immediately after we had already committed the mistake and plunged the country into chaos seemed silly. I've come around to withdrawal basically because it seems to me that our presence there only exacerbates the situation.) And I beg you to read his speech from 2002 here: http://www.barackobama.com/2002/10/02/remarks_of_illinois_state_sen.php. It's a flaming speech.

John: 2) This immigration plan is absolutely ludicrous, yet he supports it. He also voted on a bill last year to build a wall on the US/Mexicanborder. I find that disgusting. However, I realize that leaves me with just Kucinich who didn't.

Peter: 2) He supported the wall with Mexico bill as part of the compromise to get a full immigration bill, as did many Democratic senators, including Biden, Clinton, Kennedy, etc. The idea is that in order to get any Republican votes, there needed to be an "effort" to seal the border. And keep in mind, the wall is to be 700-odd miles in total but certainly not contiguous. The idea was for snippets of fenceline in various urban areas. (None of this fence has yet to be constructed, and the funds may be cut off now that there's a Democratic majority.) As far as the new version of the immigration bill this year, Obama has criticized certain aspects of it sharply and he hasn't come out in favor of its current form. (Democrats are unhappy particularly with the portion that rewrites future immigration policy to focus on education/skill level rather than family relations.) Obama is a pragmatist on this. There are certain Democrats and certain Republicans in the Senate that won't support any immigration bill at all. It's such a controversial issue that you need 60 votes to pass anything since it will almost certainly be filibustered. With Tim Johnson in the hospital, the Dems have 50 votes, and then they lose all the senators with strong union backing who oppose any temporary worker program on the grounds that it lowers wages. The only way they can pass anything at all is by picking up a substantial number of Republican votes from conservative border-state people like Jon Cornyn of Texas and your own dear John Kyl of Arizona. Otherwise nothing will ever be passed. And those votes can be bought if you provide them at least with the pretense that in the future illegal immigration will be cracked down upon. Obviously some sort of way of legalizing the twelve million illegal immigrants already in the country needs to take place. And this is the democratic system that we have, it's how the Senate works: there are a tremendous number of compromises that are necessary to get us there.

John: 3) He advocated the assassination of Osama Bin Laden even if thatmeant collateral damage.

Peter: 3) As far as the assassination of Osama bin Laden, I'm not so sure it counts as an assassination. American troops are in constant conflict with Taliban and al Qaeda forces. How is bombing a camp in which bin Laden is present any different? And obviously in the course of the CNN debate yesterday, all the candidates argued that it depended on the number of causalities. I would point out that Obama was the only candidate answering the question about a hypothetical terrorist attack who emphasized, first, the emergency response, then ensuring there would be no further attacks, third, figuring out who had committed the attack, and only then launch a response --- the other candidates tripped over themselves to talk about how swiftly they would retaliate. Obama, on the other hand, emphasized due process --- and was criticized soundly for it.

John: 4) His health-care plan, while not even being universal, keeps in lace much of the apparatus of the insurance companies and their money-grubbing practices and will be more expensive.

Peter: 4) On health care, Obama chose, like Edwards, not to go with single payer. He instead decided to focus on saving health care costs through expanding preventative care. He also proposed mandatory health care for minors. To quote the New Yorker article, in which he was asked why he didn't go for single payer:
"If you're starting from scratch," he says, "then a single-payer system"—a government-managed system like Canada's, which disconnects health insurance from employment—"would probably make sense. But we've got all these legacy systems in place, and managing the transition, as well as adjusting the culture to a different system, would be difficult to pull off. So we may need a system that's not so disruptive that people feel like suddenly what they've known for most of their lives is thrown by the wayside." I think this is a fair position. It's certainly the most realistic position, and one around which there is a growing consensus. States like Massachusetts and California (both under Republican governors) are already experimenting with it. The idea is to make health insurance like car insurance, to phase in making it mandatory for all, with the idea that a broader health system in which illness is treated preventatively is actually cheaper than one in which the uninsured develop catastrophic illnesses and require surgery. Keep in mind, switching to single payer would be essentially eliminating the entire health care industry (companies in the hundreds of billions of dollars and with hundreds of thousands of employees) today and building it from scratch. It isn't realistic on a national level. You run into the same problem of partly of simply not having the votes in the Senate --- if you can't find more than 51 votes to end the Iraq war now, when it's almost political suicide (proven by '06) for Republicans to continue to vote to support it, how will you ever get 60 to move to single payer? There was a great editorial in the New York Times about this move towards something like Obama's plan:
"And if what you care about is which candidate can one-up the others, it is rather disappointing. But if what you care about is whether, after the 2008 election, we'll be in a position to finally stop the health systems' downward spiral, the similarity of the emerging proposals is exactly what's interesting. I don't think you can call it a consensus, but there is nonetheless a road forward being paved and a growing number of people from across the political spectrum are on it — not just presidential candidates, but governors from California to Pennsylvania, unions and businesses like Safeway, ATT and Pepsi.
This is what that road looks like. It is not single-payer. It instead follows the lead of European countries ranging from the Netherlands to Switzerland to Germany that provide universal coverage (and more doctors, hospitals and access to primary care) through multiple private insurers while spending less money than we do. The proposals all define basic benefits that insurers must offer without penalty for pre-existing conditions. They cover not just expensive sickness care, but also preventive care and cost-saving programs to give patients better control of chronic illnesses like diabetes and asthma.
We'd have a choice of competing private plans, and, with Edwards and Obama, a Medicare-like public option, too. An income-related federal subsidy or voucher would help individuals pay for that coverage. And the proposals also embrace what's been called shared responsibility — requiring that individuals buy health insurance (at minimum for their children) and that employers bigger than 10 or 15 employees either provide health benefits or pay into a subsidy fund."
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/opinion/31gawande.html
To my mind, to propose any other plan is to simply propose doing nothing. It's not like Obama doesn't like the idea of a single payer plan, or that he hasn't considered it. It's that he just doesn't think it's feasible to implement it. Now, the major difference between Edwards and Obama on the plan is that Edwards mandates that all individuals buy the plan. Obama feels that the government should stick to putting together the plan, making it affordable, and helping people purchase it --- and only then when after a trial period, there are still significant gaps, would he talk about making it mandatory.
Obviously there is no such thing as a universal health care plan... Even Massachusetts only reaches in theory 97-98 percent. Edwards plan is no different. The idea is to make the gap as small as possible, and to do it by making health care as cheap as possible --- through requiring plans to cover preventative care, through allowing the importation of cheaper prescription drugs (via canada for example), and through subsidizing technology/better record-keeping to reduce medical error and make it more efficient.

John: 5) He seems to have no ability to be exciting in any way. He standsthere saying almost exactly what Hillary Clinton says, biding his timefor when it's clear it's down to the two of them.

Peter: 5) It's not his style to pound the podium. He's a thoughtful guy and has a subdued style. It's not that he can't give a rousing speech: obviously he did in 2004 at the convention.

Obama's background is in community organizing. He's spent his entire career as a civil rights attorney and an urban community organizer. Obviously he cares about the poor and is motivated by ameliorating it. It's what he does. I think, frankly, that Obama is the only candidate in the Democratic field who would have the ability to be a transformational figure in American politics and to produce movement on health care and global warming. Clinton or Edwards would get into office and be immediately stymied by Congress. He is the best public speaker the party has produced in years. He isn't great at televised debates yet --- but in what sense is that skill important exactly? --- especially as it has so little impact on the outcome of a race? He can captivate crowds. He generates enthusiasm. In Illinois, there are countless examples where he led efforts on the hot button issues of the day and broke logjams to produce legislation: he eliminated racial profiling, set up required video-taping of police interrogations of murder suspects, set up death penalty reform, and pushed forward the first campaign finance reform in two decades. With the example of the mandantory video-taping, he produced a bill that the police officer's union opposed and the then-Democratic governor threatened with a veto, and he not only passed it, but he passed it unanimously. When I worked for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, co-workers would drive down to the state capital in Springfield and would come back beaming about a certain young state senator.It is a radical and audacious prospect: To elect a president who has spent his life as a community organizer, civil rights attorney, and constitutional law professor, who has a record on behalf of the poor and in producing consensus, instead of electing one who has spent a couple decades in Congress (and probably has too many enemies in Congress, and is too caught up in old battles, to produce any movement on the things I care about). Anyway, those are some thoughts. See what you think, Peter p.s. If you still need some convincing, I absolutely love Obama's stump speech during the 2006 campaign on behalf of other candidates. My favorite speech of his is here on video: http://home.ourfuture.org/videos/take-back-america-2006/senator-barack-obama.html

THANKS PETER!

The Debates, part II

2007-06-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

Through the magic of Youtube, I watched the debates (search for democratic debates (or debate, not sure) and then on the left side of the screen sort by date added). What a different picture I saw! Speaking abilities and/or good/bad acting skills seem to convey something completely different than mere words. Following are briefer impressions based on the video:

Gravel: Sad, not pathetic. He is so right on most things, and seems so frustrated. No chance, but I feel for him.

Richardson: Frighteningly awful. Talking points only, and could not for one second answer any of the questions.

Dodd: Much better than I had thought. But I will never forget his refusal to accept the reality of blowback while on Bill Maher's show.

Biden: Wow. He was screaming, "While we talk, 50,000 more people are going to die!" about Darfur. Passion. Candor. Not so much with me on every issue like Kucinich, but I like him.

Kucinich: Wonderful. Better than 4 years ago. He will hopefully pull the Democrats with a chance a little to the left.

Clinton: Presidential, but horribly arrogant. Her laughing was grating on my brain. Not quite as evasive as I had thought. She might actually have a chance with the Republicans.

Edwards: Not quite as powerful as I had thought, but he was good. He helped himself. But his attack was dulled by Kucinich's attack. His, "let's get real about this" was almost funny when Kucinich attacked all of them.

Obama: I completely changed my mind on him after seeing him speak. He was not grandiose. He does not have the greatest lines. But dear lord, is he aware of the complexity of the issues. He is actually speaking about reality, rather than spewing feel-good crap like Hillary. He's the smartest one up there (except for maybe Biden) and most importantly, something that came accross again and again: he's practical. He's not going to pander to the right like Clinton. He pushes all the right buttons, to prove to the morons (those that listen only for keywords) that he "supports the troops", that he's religious and that's he's strong on defense, but he is not pandering. I was too blinded by his keyword-dropping while reading the transcripts, that I did not recognize it as only a necessity of the situation.

Gravel, Richardson and Dodd are useless for various reasons. Kucinich is a perfect foil for the front-runners, but he's impractical and he has no chance. I would like to see the other FOUR considered as the front-runners: Biden, Obama, Clinton and Edwards. I think there are two groups, the leaders who know they can't be on the offensive (Clinton and Obama) and the second tier, who have to be on the offensive (Biden and Edwards). I like Biden and Obama far more than their (according to my tier-system) counterparts Clinton and Edwards. I like all of them more than Clinton. I think that in reality only Hillary and Barack have a chance to get the nomination and that Barack has a far better chance of winning against the Republicans than Hillary.

So, as of right now, practically, I want Obama (I know it's a drastic change). Less practically, but with a small chance, I want Biden. And theoretically I want Kucinich.

I still want Gore, but I'm not as depressed about the field of candidates as after reading their statements.

God help us all tonight with the fascist nutjobs spouting their rhetoric on the other side tonight at 4pm pacific time.

The Debates

2007-06-04T09:37:00.000-07:00

First of all, I'd like to state that I did not watch the debates, but I did read every word of the transcript, so I can only comment on what they said and not the important things like Edwards's and Clinton's haircuts, or whether Obama's skin is the correct pigment.

Also, I'd like to state that my statements are all based on impressions left. I may attack someone for something that others said as well, but I am merely going by memory.

Biden - Biden continues to be exception to the mainstream. He's almost like a moderate version of Kucinich. They both somewhat seem to tell the truth. His nearing-on authentic candor about why he voted to continue funding is a little disingenuous, but he certainly has a grasp on issues. His understanding of Darfur and Iran were also impressive. The best part about him, is that he's known to be verbose. That means more nuance. That means more respect for me, the average American.

Clinton - Sickening, in a well done way. She answered no questions. Iran was her only strength. She refused to condemn Bill for "don't ask, don't tell". Peter Pace is an asshole, and should have been fired long before Don Imus. He's obviously not fit to lead our forces' attempts to effect liberal democracy. He's a bigot. Your husband was not perfect Mrs. Clinton! Her attempts to gain the moral high ground with her stand against hypothetical situations was silly. She still said she would assassinate Osama Bin Laden even it killed civilians. What the hell kinda world are we living in? The simplistic fantasy world of Israel? I think she would be perfect against someone like Giuliani though, who also doesn't seem to be able to think in complete, intelligent sentences.

Dodd - Boring. I no longer care. He has no chance and when Bill Maher gave him an opportunity to confirm what Republican Ron Paul said about "the terrorists'" reasons for attacking "us", he still lied through his teeth. He doesn't understand that the lower tier candidates must be exciting, and not just spout the same drivel as the front-runners, which is what he said all night. Oh no, we better not threaten to boycott the Olympics to save hundreds of thousands of women from being raped and men and women from being murdered in Sudan. That would go "too far". Get off the stage.

Edwards - Somehow, he is in many ways inching his way forward as my favorite of the three leaders. First of all, though, he does not get points for admitting he was wrong about the war. He knew it was poltically sound at the time so he did it. He didn't vote due to the intelligence. Everyone knew Bush was a liar then, but they were just scared. Give him no credit over Clinton. I say she wins on the war. He needs to give real health care, a la Kucinich. Kucinich is also more right on the war. HOWEVER. Edwards actually does seem to care about the poor. He brought it up briefly at the end, but of course, there was no time for that. AND Edwards is now my hero for the bumper sticker comment. There is no war on terror. It's an attempt by our president to take away our rights and wage endless war with no goals. He wants complete control, no micromanagement, and when the generals no longer agree with him, he fires them (excuse me, they "quit"). He is attempting to become a despot. Thank you John Edwards. (Hillary really missed an attempt to make this a widely-discussed topic and to debunk the whole fascist myth, but of course, she didn't.) And also, kudos to you for exposing Obama and Clinton for waiting to sneak their vote against funding in at the very end. However, Edwards will likely lose many people for appearing to be "negative". I wish people would realize that negative is wonderful when you speak of the actual issues, in order to clarify differences between candidates. Negative is bad when you lie, distort or moralize.

Gravel - Pathetic. He occasionally says some interesting things, but Kucinich already has the role of the straight-talker. Gravel just sounds like a nut. He's harming Kucinich.

Kucinich - Amazing, as usual. No assassinations. SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Get out of NAFTA. DON'T FUND THE WAR! Too bad people are dumb.

Obama - He has been the real real real real loser of both of these debates. HE SAYS NOTHING! He will not win by copying Clinton, because she is more popular. He will not win with his fake health plan. If they want it they will buy it, he seems to think. Is that what you think on immigration? If they want to be legal, they'll pay 5,000 dollars? You know, just a small fraction of the millions that they've amassed working as a busboy or a dishwasher. You're speech was good. You can play basketball. You really are black. You didn't go to a madrassa. You were apparently a very impressive political figure in the state government of Illinois, but now you don't know what you're doing. YOU VOTED FOR THE WALL BETWEEN HERE AND MEXICO, YOU JERK! You were not in the federal government, so your opposition to war "from the beginning" is irrelevant! You don't get to use that. And to preempt Edwards, you weren't in the Senate to vote against the wall, so don't try to use that one later. I'm sorry to say it, but Obama sucks.

Richardson - I was somewhat rooting for him in an underdog sort of way. He's from my neck-of-the-woods. However, he just seemed to ramble all night and I'm really sick of people constantly saying that their federal plans come from their local plans. New Mexico has one of the lowest populations of any state. The federal government is a completely different animal. Again, as a second-tierer, he needs to speak more clearly. He doesn't have the luxury of evading the issues that Hillary has.

Someone needs to defend poor people (maybe Edwards) and gay people (not impressive Richardson), for god's sake!

All in all, I wish that Richardson, Gravel and Dodd would leave. They are not unique (maybe Richardson can stay, he is good on energy). In the order of overall chance, it would leave, from best chance to worst: Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Biden, Kucinich. Of course, my preference order would be Kucinich, Edwards, Biden, Obama, Clinton. However, as far as ability to beat the Republicans, I would put it in this order Clinton, Edwards, Obama, Biden, Kucinich. So who am I voting for right now?

For chances: Clinton
For reasonable chance but with some integrity: Edwards
For real desire: Kucinich

So, who am I voting for? Al Gore.

Castro and Rostock

2007-06-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

So, Agnieszka, her friend Justyna and I were in the Castro last night, and I went into a Starbucks to use the bathroom. This guy standing in line behind me for the bathroom started a little discussion with me and I have to tell you, that is the most references to the Clueless with Alicia Silverstone I've ever heard in a 5 minute period. Much more entertaining than the man in front who mumblingly told me to avoid having a pinched nerve in your back, because if you do, you might end up crawling around the streets and someone might call the police. But he did have to admit, the policemen were "dears". I didn't actually start either of these discussions.... hehe.

As you might expect, I am quite aware of the violence in Rostock that left 400 policemen and hundreds of protesters injured and led to 150 arrests. Frighteningly, although I don't condone throwing bricks at police officers in any way, I can't condemn the anger that they feel. George Bush is trying to co-opt the conference's once possibly legitimate topic, how to fight climate change, and suggest a weaker platform to be discussed at the end of 2008 (right before he leaves office).

The world is getting angry. Globalization is not just bringing together the leaders and businessmen of the world to profit off the backs of the poor. It's also bringing together the anger or the "tired, poor, huddled masses". I honestly think the situation is getting so dire that there is barely another outlet rather than brutal violence for that level of society. I have the ability to study and at least avoid some of the direct effects. But can any of us honestly tell an uneducated, unemployed worker from Serbia that he should calm down, work hard and wait for the situation to improve? To me, I think Lenin and Mao were just a little premature. Marx's concept of the poor being pushed more and more towards a breaking point seems to be becoming ever more evident.

Pete Seeger - Turn, Turn, Turn

DHL

2007-05-31T12:15:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday, I had one of the most annoying experiences of my life. On Tuesday, I got a notice on the door that I had a package being delivered by DHL (connected sadly to Deutsche Post). They had tried, but as a signature was necessary, they couldn't do it. They would try back again, or I could come pick it up between 5 and 7 at their main warehouse (or whatever).

So, yesterday, I called them and after being rooted around on the money-grubbing, capitalist, automated phone machines, I finally got to talk to a person. She told me that they could deliver it between 5 and 7, but that the drivers carry no cell-phones, so I would have to wait in front of the building, or buzz the driver in. As I don't have "buzz-in" capabilities and I didn't want to wait outside for 2 hours, I told them that I would like to just come pick it up.

I was then told that the office was at 23rd St. and 3rd St. Well, that is in the middle of nowhere, roughly equivalent to 45th Ave. and Thomas (but with absolutely no transportation out there). Then, I realized that the new T-Line goes right out there, and I said, ok, and the woman on the phone said, ok, let me confirm this, and I will be right back. After about a 5 minute wait (this entire conversation is costing me cell-phone minutes, of course), she came back and said, it has been confirmed, and you will receive a phone call within the hour confirming this confirmation. This seemed excessive of course, but I couldn't really be against it. An hour later, I got a voice-mail saying I could come between that time and 6:30 at night.

At 5:15, I left work and got to the T-Line metro station at 5:20. The train (which is supposed to come every 10 minutes, came along at about 5:45 and then, it took us 30 minutes to go 3 stops to the end of the Market Street Tunnel (should be about 3 minutes). Apparently, a train had gotten stuck at Montgomery Station going in the other direction and thousands of people were angrily clogging stations and trains in front of us. Finally at about 6:30, I arrive at DHL (I could have walked faster). I walk out to the edge of civilization (it's a warehouse district right on the bay, and this one is at the very end of it). I walk in and they are about to close. I said, "Why does it say 5-7 on this sheet if you close at 6:30?" The man replied "because our drivers are idiots". They then informed me that my package had been delivered to the doorstep of 999 Bush St. Apt. 206. After fighting through the other 5 people lodging complaints, the original guy tells me, "strange too, they can't just leave alcohol sitting in front of a door. that's illegal" (that's when i realized it was the beer of the month club stuff, and i got excited). So, they got their supervisor, and he said, "what's the problem?" I very clearly said, "First, the driver put an incorrect time down on the slip on my door. Then, I have to fight the phone machine to talk to anyone. Then, I have to buy a metro ticket and suffer through the most annoying ride of my life. Then, I arrive here and your workers flippantly ignore me and tell me that my problem is strange because it's illegal to do such a thing. And now, my package is likely stolen because I live in a large apartment building. What should I do?"

The manager apologized. I believed him. He told me that if the package was not there when I got home, I should call him personally (he gave me his number) and he would attempt to rectify the problem. I found him to be incredibly respectful, aware and intelligent, and I said, thank you, and shook his hand.

When I arrived home, Marty helped me unload the box of beers into the fridge and we drank 2!

The John Coltrane Quartet - Up 'Gainst the Wall

Book of Revelation

2007-05-25T16:44:00.000-07:00

I just read the Book of Revelation, and I must say, I am still not convinced.

Current Music - John Coltrane - My Favorite Things

The Mayor of Castro Street

2007-05-22T11:57:00.000-07:00

From today's Chronicle

Mayor of Castro Street
Editor -- May 22 will be Harvey Milk's 77th birthday. My wife Helen and myself met Harvey in 1973 when he moved into his home at 573 Castro St. and opened his camera shop at 575 Castro with his lover Scott Smith. Harvey, along with many other gays, is responsible for saving this great district. In the few years he had, Harvey did so much for the Castro district. There is not enough space to list all that Harvey did to improve this district. He was a very proud gay, and I never saw gay people holding hands until Harvey and his lover Scott walked down Castro Street. The rest is history.
A couple of weeks after Harvey Milk became supervisor, I went to visit him at his office in City Hall. He was receiving calls from all over the United States from gay persons asking him if it were true that gays would be safe in the Castro district. Harvey said "you will be safe.'' On Harvey's birthday next year, May 22, 2008, a bronze bust of him will be placed in City Hall for people from all over to see.
Everyone who lives or works in the Castro knows that this district is a special place. During the next year, I invite you to see for yourself. Go to the Harvey Milk Library in the Castro and read Randy Shilts' book, "The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life & Times of Harvey Milk." Read and look at all the history about the Castro in Strange de Jim's photo history, "San Francisco's Castro.'' When you visit the Castro, go to the Muni station and walk downstairs, and you will see pictures of Harvey on the wall. Go to 573 Castro and look up, and you will see a mural of Harvey looking out the window. Look at Harvey's old camera shop at 575 Castro and read the plaque on the sidewalk. Thank you, Harvey Milk, for making the Castro a nice place for everyone to enjoy. You will always be the mayor of Castro Street.

Current music: Os Mutantes - Dom Quixote

Immigration

2007-05-21T12:16:00.000-07:00

The Immigration Debate isn't really a debate. It's generally just a contest to prove how nationalistic one can appear. I no longer respect Governor Napolitano after hearing her pander to the right on Late Edition with Wolf Biltzer.

This issue is so clear. Illegal immigration is merely a designation given to an occurrence. This does not reflect it's general merits, just its status under our current laws. Any true immigration reform will restructure the program so that poor people (whose economic status is assured by the neo-liberal policies of the global north and its organizations like the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF) are no longer seen as criminals. The criminals aren't the immigrants and they aren't those who employ foreigners for low wages. The criminals are the Americans who think they deserve better than other humans because they were born within an imaginary line.

There will always be immigration from poorer countries into their richer neighbors. Creation of a guest-worker program is criminal. It is wrong to put limits on how long someone can stay in one place. Someone comes in, works hard, starts a family and poof! they have to go "home". Disgusting. Requiring people to return to their countries of origin to apply for citizenship is criminal. Haitians not being recognized as refugees, while the much healthier, safer and richer Cubans being welcomed with open arms is criminal. Requiring those who are obviously extremely poor to pay $5,000 to be legalized is not only NOT AMNESTY, it's nonsensical, it ignores the root of the problem and is just asking for more "illegal" activity. Who will be able to pay that?

Go watch Karen, a twelve yr. old at Palomino Elementary School who had her broken-arm taped to her chest and fell on it scream in agony, because she is not of a correct status to go to a hospital. "§$& our government. Where on this earth is there a compassionate government that governs a country I can move to? Sadly nowhere. We as a nation are still quite a bit more compassionate than most places. We should fight to keep it that way.

Jon Kyl seems to have surprisingly changed his tune from wanting to put illegals in cages to pushing for a guest-worker program. The problem is, the only real change for him is that 2 years of being in a cage called "poor in America" will now be followed by a forced-removal from the country and placement in a cage called "poor in country other than and poorer than America".

The worst thing is that under this program no one will leave, and in 20 years we'll get an even more ridiculously inhumane bill vilifying the needy from a yet more plutocratic government.

Stop the war on the poor!

Current music: Matisyahu - What I'm Fighting for

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President Barack Hussein Obama II

Princeton!!!!!!!

From my future Senator

Obama/Tusk '08 - Steal your grandmother's ID

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Do not go gentle....

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Like Billie Joe said......

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by Blue Intrigue

Mon Apr 14, 2008 at 03:15:37 PM PDT

From Today's Chronicle

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STOP ROMNEY NOW!

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