The annual Indigenous Peoples Thanksgiving Sunrise Gathering on Alcatraz happens at, yes, sunrise on Thanksgiving. Boats ($14) leave Pier 33 beginning at 4:45 a.m. for the Rock, where attendees will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the occupation of Alcatraz by (what were then called) American Indians.
In a long feature in today’s LA Times about the death of an affluent teenager at an Orinda party where alcohol flowed freely, local parents were stunned to find out “that students from good families and strong schools” commonly attended such parties. Indeed, passing out drunk was such a common occurrence that “teens who passed out at parties often were ignored” (emphasis mine). Yeah — oh, her, she’s always passing out.
In other drunk news, Sen. John Kerry’s filmmaker daughter Alexandra was arrested in L.A. Thursday on a DUI charge, but released after the breathalyzer showed she was under the limit. Kerry’s filmmaker daughter is not to be confused with Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s daughter who is also a filmmaker and also named Alexandra.
The film “Ready, Set, Bag!” (formerly titled “Paper or Plastic?“) will be shown tonight at the Roxie Theatre in a benefit for the San Francisco Food Bank, the city’s non-profit group that helps feed thousands of families every week using groceries and produce donated by stores and growers. The program starts at 7:00 pm.
The film follows the finalists in the National Grocers Association Best Bagger Championship, which is exactly what it sounds like, I guess. Also on the program is a short, Leonardo, by Pixar animator Jim Capobianco.
Speaking of the Food Bank, VISA is doubling donations to the group right now. So go to their website and give ‘em some money. The Food Bank is a great community organization.
This morning, staff, non-tenured faculty and graduate student instructors at University of California campuses begin a three-day strike to protest the imposition of tuition hikes at the public university. Their website is UCstrike.com and you can follow events on twitter using the #ucstrike hashtag.
According to the strikers’ website, tuition increases this decade have meant that the cost of an undergraduate education has tripled since 2000. They lay the blame not only at the national economic crisis but the university’s commitment to over $1 billion in new debt for construction of new facilities, saying the system favors “construction over instruction.”
The strike is timed to coincide with a meeting of UC regents in Los Angeles. The governing borad is expected to approve new fee hikes.
San Franciscans have a choice this Saturday: Apollo or Dionysus?
In Apollo’s corner, publishers and writers from two experimental presses, Sidebrow of San Francisco and Les Figues of Los Angeles, will appear Saturday at 7:30 pm at The Green Arcade, 1680 Market St. at Gough (map). Both presses publish poetry and experimental prose in small, interesting editions. I interviewed Les Figues’ Teresa Carmody a few years ago.
At the same moment, representing Dionysus, Writers with Drinks happens at the Makeout Room on 22nd St. Appearing are Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The Middleman TV series), Mary Robinette Kowal (Scenting The Dark And Other Stories), Kat Richardson (Greywalker), Naomi Quiñonez (Invocation L.A.: Urban Multicultural Poetry), and S. Bear Bergman (Butch Is A Noun).
Last night’s big rig plunge off the Bay Bridge, which happened at 3:30 a.m. when a semi with a load of pears hit the infamous S-curve too fast, was only the latest of more than forty accidents on the suddenly jinxed bridge, the CHP said, as reported by KTVU TV’s website.
The truck hit the curve at 50 m.p.h., which is the speed limit for much of the bridge, but not for the S-curve, a temporary detour installed over the Labor Day weekend as part of the decade-long Bay Bridge earthquake retrofit project. After a big rig crashed on the curve Oct. 14, spilling cargo across four lanes, CalTrans lowered the speed limit on the curve to 35 m.p.h. and installed new signs, but evidently they weren’t enough to draw the attention of a sleepy produce truck driver in the middle of the night.
The driver was killed when the truck went over the guardrail and plunged 200 feet to the ground on the shore of Yerba Buena Island.
Quoted in the SFGate.com story, a CalTrans spokesman blamed the driver, saying the crash was “another example of poor judgment.”
A reel of “raw video” on the KPIX website shows the impact scene before dawn, including a grotesque image of the driver’s severed forearm and hand.
From the Craigslist Rants and Raves section, just today:
Finally:
You humans are so weak, with your stupid rants. You think you so mighty! go fight a rhino or elephant! You all should leave this planet! Go to Saturn!
A liberal think tank, the Urban Land Institute, has issued a report on the cost to working people of living in the Bay Area. The report, Bay Area Burden, examines the impact on working people of high costs of housing and transportation, looks at how proximity to mass transit helps relieve the burden, and asks policymakers to take working people’s needs into account when making land use decisions.
Their website, bayareaburden.org, has a Housing + Transportation Calculator that’s fun to play with.
It’s election day! Who knew? In San Francisco, the only interesting thing on the ballot is Prop. D., the proposal to put giant Times Square-type advertising signs on Market Street in order to “enliven” it.
Are they kidding? Apparently not. Here are some arguments in favor and a Chronicle editorial against. And here is the whole list of issues and candidates running, including City Atty. Dennis Herrera (unopposed).
Go to the SF Dept of Elections for results tonight.
Flickr photo of Times Square by Scott Beale at Laughing Squid.
Tonight’s the annual Dia de los Muertos event in the Mission. Unlike previous years, the procession starts at 24th and Bryant rather than in front of the Mission Cultural Center. The event starts at 7:00 p.m.
Bring pictures of dead loved ones, wear black, feel free to dress in skeletal attire. Kids are welcome.
Just a note to tribal/Burning Man types: leave your freaking bongo drums at home, OK?
Strike at Berkeley, other UC campuses
Taxpayer Ask the taxpayers whether or not we care about your education. We have paid all we are going to pay you.
More than 40 crashes on S-curve of death, CHP says
Joann Landers We were on the bridge a few nights ago. It just didn’t feel right.
Psych! Bridge reopens at 9:00 this morning
name you first…
Bridge still closed through Friday evening commute
Mary Williams Thx so much. Flying in from ny soon. Very helpful
BREAKING: Bay Bridge closed again after repair fails
rdanlord I’m in Jacksonville, FL, and have no concern about this really. But…WTF ALL U SFIANS GONNA DO...
