I washed my dog this morning, clipped his nails and got out the door to go see the vet for his regular check-up. Because I did not have any cash on me, I walked a little further to get coffee, to a place that takes cards.

I go in this place frequently enough. Though the “law” says dogs cannot go into food establishments, both of my closest coffee shops allow them. When I bring the pup in there, I carry him in my hoodie, just to be respectful of others.

Today, I go in and order a mocha and bagel to go. I have my dog on my shoulder.

I’m waiting for my food, when I get the feeling that someone is staring at me. I look around and my eyes land on one of the most foul specimens of human waste I’ve ever seen. Literally, this man is the human version of “Jabba the Hut”. He is a desending pile of tires of fat, rings of flesh telescoping towards the ground. He is shaped like a fleshy soft-serve, ice cream cone. His skin is yellow from jaundice and his eyes are bright red in the lids and whites, showing “Pink Eye” at the very least.

This foul man-pile yells at me from his stench-seat, “The dog goes outside”. I reply, “Are you the owner? I’m not leaving him outside.” I go back to waiting… “It’s the law” says flesh-sore-man, “Are you above the law? I’ll call the Board of Health.”

I grab my stuff to go and say to him loudly, so the whole cafe gets the message, “When you call the Board of Health, tell them you have a full-blown case of the infection known as “Pink Eye”, and that everything you have touched, including that stainless steel spoon someone else will later use, is infected.” I continue, “Tell them the money you gave the cashier, has now been handled by the same people handling the customer’s food. Tell them you have now exposed your infection to everyone in the cafe. Maybe you should think about THAT next time you worry about health codes…”

Do I need to take my 4th Anger Management class? YES.

Is it ridiculous that in San Francisco, an 8 pound, freshly-bathed dog is a health hazard, when in EVERY corner of this city, the average San Franciscan comes upon human fecal matter on every train, door handle, cafe, bathroom they use because this city is swarming with filthy, homeless crackheads?

YES, more than I need Anger Management, YES.

I pick my dog’s crap up, no matter where it lands. EVERY DAY when I walk to work, I dodge SEVERAL piles of human waste. The people who made those piles can go into any establishment they like. But I can’t bring my 8 pound, clean dog on my shoulder to get a coffee to go without having some ridiculous law spouted at me from Jabba the Jaundiced?

The LAW must GO!

Check out the full election results for the City-County of San Francisco here, and for the State of California here. As you’ve probably already heard, with voter turnout of about 28%, Measure G passed with about 61% voting yes; Measure F failed with 62% voting no. (One Chronicle reader thought it lost mostly because Chris Daly endorsed it, which is probably true.)

And happily, Proposition 98 was soundly beaten statewide. It seems that few Californians were fooled by that transparent attempt to screw renters. I lived for years in a mobile home park, and I understand the plight of the owners — they are probably the one group most negatively affected by rent control — but revoking rent control for all renters under all circumstances throughout the entire state was just a blatant grab for money. They need to work out a different approach that would be acceptable to both parties; perhaps that could be accomplished by limiting future proposals to just the tenants and owners of mobile home parks. There must be a way to leave rent control basically in place while granting a bit more flexibility in setting rates to the owners. In other words, a compromise: that seemingly rare animal in modern politics.

This is a series. Earlier ones: Coit Tower, & St. Francis glass elevators

You’re on a slim budget, and have guests in town. What to do? Chinatown, baby! (pedometer link here)

Enter at Bush & Grant, and take the requisite dorky tourist photo of your arm in the Lion’s jaws. Next off: walk up Grant to Sacramento, take a left, and halfway up take a right onto Waverly alley, where most of Joy Luck Club took place. Stop at Uncle’s for some duck-egg joe like Mama makes, or go for the cheapest eggs & hash browns anywhere in town. Walk up Stockton and witness the craziness that is the open produce market hell. Either shop for some gai lan (chinese broccoli) or grab an apricot to munch and freak out your tourist friends by live fish in the open meat & seafood markets near Broadway. Walk over to Pacific and walk up halfway to the large & boisterous Y Ben, for some cheap & greasy dim sum and endless tea. Walk off the grease by heading farther downhill, take a right 2 blocks over to Washington & Walter Lum, where you can checkout some intense Go games. Walk 1/2 block North on Washington, take a right on the alley WentWorth to see mahjong gambling dens, then at Jackson, walk up the hill past Grant 1/2 block to loop back on a parallel alley- Ross- and check out the fortune cookie factory. The guests might need a snack, so get bubble tea at the edge of Chinatown at Grant & Columbus. If they’re still up for more, and resisted the lure of North Beach, walk through the labyrinthine hardware stores on Pacific & Columbus, and puzzle over the funeral items for sale near the doorway. They should be tired and full by then.

This weekend is shaping up to be a great kick off to all this extra daylight we have back! We’ve got the St. Patricks Day Parade if you like watching brightly dressed people stuck in traffic. The parade kicks off at 2nd and Market at 11:30 and travels down to Civic Center Plaza where hilarity, shows and drinking will ensue.

If green really isn’t your color you can head north to the Napa Valley Mustard Festival and try the mustards of the world. I personally haven’t been to this even but a few of my neighbors go every year and give the event two big thumbs up. This one’s a bit pricey though with tickets costing $35 at the door but if you want to avoid the green beer and partygoers this one might be for you. [upcoming]

Always a Bridesmaid and never a Bride? Saturday is also the 10th annual Brides of March which is run by the San Francisco Cacophony Society. All you really need is a wedding dress to participate.

As the sun sets hordes of avid photographers will be heading to 111 Minna for the Flickr Turns 4 party which starts at 6pm and goes till 9pm. [upcoming]

And my personal favorite is the Church of Scientology protest starting at 11am. Grab your Guy Fawkes and Optimus Prime masks and head to the corner of Montgomery and Washington for hours of Rickrolling fun and mayhem and if the cops come you can just run into the St. Patricks Day crowd. More info on the protest.

If you need a primer on why the CoS is being protested Laughing Squid has a very nice comprehensive listing of videos that you should check out when you have an hour or so to kill.

Yesterday, Feb 19th, was the 4 year anniversary of the battle & seizure of 701 Columbus led by General Aaron Peskin and his regiment of Telegraph Hill Dwellers…

Check out Ranger Wayne Zebzda in a prescient 1982 interview under a long gone magnolia tree at this impromptu mock National Park in North Beach…

More on the controversial history of the triangular 4,119 square feet plot adjacent to Washington Square Park, and where it stands today after the jump…
Read more

Recently announced 12th District Democratic Congressional candidate Jackie Speier has been spared a potentially nasty race against State Senator Leland Yee who has announced abandoning his plans to run for Tom Lantos’ current Congressional seat. On last Friday, Yee had even announced his legislation to name the currently under re-construction Devil’s Slide tunnel in honor of popular retiring elected official Tom Lantos…

Said the always willing to pat himself on the back Assistant President pro Tempore of the California State Senate from State Senate District 8 “I am honored to be able to author legislation to officially naming this bypass the Tom Lantos Tunnel at Devil’s Slide.”.

In other news from Yee , the Chinese born former head of the S.F School Board and ex-D-4 supe also released information that it was he personally who notified authorities about Ed Jew’s botched “Quickly” extortion scheme.
Although, it is not exactly true, Yee still felt compelled to tell the story as such. In actuality, after talking to Yee, who did nothing, the owner of the Quickly franchises went to the FBI, and Yee cooperated with the investigation.

Perhaps turning in info on Ed Jew, after being asked, was Yee’s form of repentance to D-4 constituents. Afterall it was Yee who also originally brought Ed Jew into the world of city government as a “community liaison” and “campaign coordinator” back in 1996.

While Yee seems to now want recognition as a Mr. Nice Guy, he has had political setbacks of his own to account for possibly abandoning a Congressional run. These foibles, and a clip of Speier’s candidacy announcement in Foster City’s Leo Ryan Park after the jump…
Read more

Just 24 hours after a troubled 3rd year law student at UC Hastings threatened a suicide leap off the school’s landmark tower, a high ranking diplomat from a “Rogue State”, made a brave appearance in the same potentially contentious academic environment. While not as visually dramatic as the hysterical student with her cellphone in hand being talked down by police negotiators from her 21st floor perch, the ground floor speech by the Syrian Ambassador (and fellow blogger) Imad Moustapha dealt with matters of a far more grave consequence than a student’s bizarrely botched love life.

Mustapha, made an eloquent spokesman for a nation that most Americans can’t fathom, find on a map, and perhaps hear only about when a Fox News correspondent mentions it’s candidacy for the Bush administration’s “Axis of Evil”. Just steps from the plaza named after the United Nations he spoke of some of the inner machinations of that body that left his countrymen a bit more than puzzled.

He spoke of a need for better relations between our two countries, and that the smaller Syria would prefer less bullying & bluster from the current administration. Unlike the reception that awaited Iran’s President Ahmadinejad at Columbia in New York, Imad Moustapaha found a far more colloquial reception at the state’s oldest law school.

He claimed he turned down speaking at the local Commonwealth Club in favor of appearing before law students, as a deference to his life before international diplomacy took him away from his job teaching computer science in Damascus.

Fluent in four languages, co-author of the UN-sponsored “Human Development Report in the Arab World”, Moustapha holds a Phd he earned in the UK, and was Dean of IT at the University of Damascus before accepting his Ambassadorship in 2004. Equally parts charming, witty and defensive of Syria’s political positions, the Ambassador relayed tales of his transistion from simple academic life driven by science to life on the diplomatic frontlines, and his small country’s larger perspective on world events and relationships. He brought to San Francisco his perspectives from 4000 year old Damascus, the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city, and he referred to Cairo and Baghdad as baby cities , since they are only some 1000 years old.

Moustapha, standing under a rotating slide show of his country’s treasures and sites, gave brief introductory statements, but spent most of his hour with the students engaged in Q&A. Unfortunately, not that many questions came down the pipe because some of these were “big” questions, not easily answered in short soundbites when involving complex and sometimes confrontational geo-political issues.

More after the jump…

Read more

While mayoral candidate Grasshopper Kaplan runs around town getting arrested everywhere from Ed Jew’s driveway to back at the Hall of Justice, and generally specializes in creating a nuisance, he’s not the only mayoral candidate who’s discovered they are not welcome wherever they may wish to move about.

It recently became apparent to Hunters Point activist Dr. Ahimsa Sumchai that she too is not on the “A” list, noticeable especially if one steps out of line against the local Democratic Politburo. While her candidacy and convictions are certainly sincere, (clip of last month’s announcement at City Hall below the jump), one has to wonder about her possible naivety.

Sumchai rallying against the Mayor’s redevelopment partners Lennar in a recent SF Bayview newspaper pic

The longtime Health and Environmental Science Editor of the award winning SF Bayview Newspaper was shocked that she was refused admittance to a press conference/photo op Nancy Pelosi was having at the Bayview Child Health Center with Supervisor Sophie Maxwell this week. Do you think Grasshopper Kaplan or even Chris Daly would have been welcomed?

Sumchai seems surprised by the rejection of a Democratic Party machine that in addition to criminal “fundraisers” & dubious “consultants”, includes numerous nepotism ridden relatives of elected representatives. She perhaps has no idea why they would somehow find her an undesirable at one of their incestuous affairs?

Sumchai has long campaigned against Lennar Corp.’s redevelopment of Hunters Point , and is she totally clueless that Lennar’s president of acquisitions was Pelosi’s nephew? Does she not know that when she’s railing against the quality of the local “environment” this might piss off our local “Commission on the Environment” President who just happens to be Paul Pelosi, Jr., Nancy’s Pelosi’s son and Gavin Newsom’s cousin?

The Lennar “land grab” at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is highly inconvenienced by attention getting activists like Sumchai, and why would she expect red carpet treatment at one of their dog & pony shows featuring the pretty darn powerful pork barrelling princess Ms. Pelosi ?(Uh, who do ya think is one of the prime architects of federal land giveaways and previously arranged for The Presidio to be privatized ?).

You can meet and discuss that sort of stuff with Dr. Sumchai at 3rd & Palou this Saturday from 10 am - 12 noon where she’ll be doing a live community radio broadcast and get her account of being barred from a Pelosi Press conference after the jump…
Read more

Working in the Bay Area events field one comes across myriad engagements across all strata of society, in which a week may involve setting up a dunk tank in a parking lot, to getting a Congressman liquored up on single malt Scotch one night at a Pebble Beach charity auction to breaking down the room after a private Pointer Sisters concert at Fort Mason, to setting up a special large scale yoga tent in Golden Gate Park for hundreds of practitioners.

Well, it’s been just one of those weeks, and following last week’s “Summer of Love” reunion this Saturday morning in Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park, the Yoga Jam will indeed begin in earnest at 9 am before the “Power To The Peaceful Festival”. In fact the official merch includes a Power To The Peaceful Yoga Mat ( $150.00) and the Yoga itself will go on long after the live music’s over, continuing into the next morning at no small expense for the organizers who’ve rented tents, mats & whatnot for classes that continue well into Sunday afternoon. There will also be smaller tents set up all over the field for dozens of social justice organizations and local non profit community groups…

Non-Yoga practicing folks can simply check out the live music line up on Saturday Sept 8th for Michael Franti’s annual free 9/11 weekend concert , now in it’s 10th year, which starts circa 11:00 am with The Hot Buttered Rum string band and continues all Saturday afternoon.

Folks appearing on the bill include Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, The Indigo Girls, and DJ Spooky…

The full schedule, and links to participating organizations are after the jump…
Read more

Gifts For Guns ?

With San Francisco’s murder stats adding names weekly often daily this year so far, the city that supposedly “knows how ” has decided to try getting people to respond to a shopping spree invite, rather than the murder spree option.

That’s right folks, this weekend show up at Civic Center, and get a $150 gift card for any semi-automatic, or if ya only have a 12 gauge or 22 caliber rifle, then they’ll throw ya $100 Gift Card…

But if yer packin real heat , an assault rifle, or say a Mac-10 or some sort of Chinese made AK-47…any fully automatic, well you’ll be able to grab $200 worth of shopping pleasure…

details & rules of engagement after the jump…

pic from wikipedia
Read more