Disinfo Rehab

San Francisco's politics are driven in large part by anectdotal stories, so why not add another one to this "sit/lie" silliness that's made its way to the ballot. Because the Upper Haight sucks (sorry, but it does, it hasn't been cool for decades) we're now going to have well-funded antagonism for the next few months. And, as in the past, it may result in some "law" passed, but like the aggressive panhandling law, and other such things, it probably won't do a damn thing.

On to the anecdote. This morning I was awoken by some loud shouty people outside my window. At first I thoguht it was the loud, shouty guys who've been fixing up some of the units in our building, but after a few minutes I realized it wasn't them. Instead 3 homeless guys decided to sit on some boxes and get drunk on cheap liquor. Now if they weren't making any noise, and not making a mess, I don't think anyone would have necessarily noticed. But no, these jerks were making noise, going through the recycle bins and being jerks.

What tore it for me (aside from the fact I got very little sleep last night thanks to some jerks who decided to rev up their cars and drag race down our block at 3am) was when of them decided to use one of the nice planter boxes on our street that neighbors had built to make the street nicer, as a toilet. So, I called the Taraval Station (this was not a 911-worthy call) and told them what was up. (I later learned several others did as well)

Within 5 minutes, the SFPD was on the scene, and told them to scram, and they did. Now, apparently according to the brainiacs downtown, the police have "no power" in this situation. Sorry to burst bubbles, but in this case, the pack of jerks scattered like rats within 2 minutes of the officer's arrival. So that makes swiss cheese out of that straw man (see how I combined metaphors improperly there?)

Now, before the liberals get all in my face about being mean to the homeless, let me say this: If these three had simply been sitting and talking quietly on one of our benches and treating the neighborhood with respect, no one would have cared, or even noticed.

In fact many people walking through use our benches and enjoy our planters (not as toilets but as planters), and that's fine. But when they literally shit on something people worked hard to make the place nicer, and show no respect at 8am for everyone by shouting and drinking, they are being jerks, so therefore they are treated as jerks.

Too often San Francisco defines compromise and respect as "do what the shrillest, extremist voices say, and don't you dare oppose them 'or else.'" That is not respect or compromise, that is the dictatorship of the shrill. Until we learn the difference, we will always have this choose-up-sider BS legislation proposed, when in fact if people simply acted like adults, instead of constantly babied children, we would all get along better in a dense urban city.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By now, the big story the Los Angeles Times "broke" about the excessively high salaries in tiny Bell, CA has been the outrage heard 'round the world, and the fallout has begun, complete with resignations, recriminations, investigations and more. Politicians of all stripes are seeking to make a name for themselves going after these goofuses. While it's righteous and harmonious that these looters get some punishment, let's not all pat the LA Times on the back for it's alleged "investigative reporting.

Why? Simple - this is not a new story in Bell, or any of the little towns outside of Los Angeles, many of which have faced similar corruption scandals in the past. In fact, I wrote about these corrupt little burgs seven years ago when neighboring communities were mired in similar scandals (and yes, at the time Bell was paying people bazillions of dollars in "perks" while city services starved).

In my old blog post from an old blog long since dead, I detailed why: many of these towns have a disenfranchised electorate that either can't vote, or simply don't, no one covers these towns and their myriad of contracts and payments and whatnots so there's no transparency to said local governments, and frankly the LA Times has "reported" on this on occasion, but doesn't really care either. A huff and puff editorial in 2003 rings hollow when you consider that Bell's shenanigans were going on -and the Times did nothing in the ensuing years to keep the heat on local governments like it claimed was a good idea.

So while everyone at the LA Times is high fiving each other and reveling in the attention just remember - this is nothing new, this has been happening for ages, and will continue to happen until something changes. It'd be nice to think the Times would be the innovator in finding a way to connect these residents with their local government and inform them so they'd stop voting for these idiots, but between Sam Zell and the overall cluelessness of the newspaper "industry," I'm not holding out for any miracles.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 6:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Breaking News! Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier, fresh off a failed bid for Insurance Commissioner, fought in court and "won" a victory today - her name can appear on the ballot after all, despite term limits, to run for re-election as Supervisor after all.

At least, that's the headlines. Take a closer look and you'll see why this is a Pyrrich political victory, SF-style.

See, while Her Supervisorness was off either not running for re-election or for Insurance Commissinoer or whatever, Other Candidates decided to run. And unlike the joke candidates Sup. Alioto-Pier faced in the past as an incumbent, these candidates are very credible, and very competitive.

Janet Reilly has the endorsement of pretty much everyone on the political scene, somehow managing to get the support of both progressives and "moderate" Democrats, and endorsements from both Aaron Peskin and Mayor Newsom. (Go research when the last time those two agreed on anything, much less the wide variety of politicians and community leaders from all sides did).

Mark Farrell is also a very credible candidate, having raised a lot of money early in the race, hiring a crack campaign team, and who has been running for this office for some time now. He is also a credible candidate, like Mrs. Reilly.

In every campaign where Sup. Alioto-Pier has faced Credible Candidates, she has lost each time. She may have the incumbency badge, but this late in the game it's hard to see much of either Reilly or Farrell's supporters peeling off to support someone who as recently as a few months ago was running for another office.

Congratulations, Supervisor. Now let's see how things shake out when our Supervisorial elections aren't simply rubber stamps for incumbents.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Quite a bit of news media was represented from the major network affliates, and KPIX blogger Beth Spotswood was there, as was Jim of SF Citizen, Bay City News/SF Appeal, and a documentary film crew based in Hawaii.

Needless to say it was a bit of a circus, and the N Judah almost ran over a few people who were rubbernecking in their cars or who were spilling out of the sidewalk. I took some photos, which you can see here.

Here's a few random thoughts on today's events, in no particular order:

- Jim at SF Citizen (who posted his post in record time, I might note) raises the question - why aren't they protesting at the Bay Guardian or other print publications that also feature adult-oriented advertising. I asked this to one of the organizers, who basically said that Craigslist was a "multinational corporation" and the excuse that they couldn't "fight in more places than one at a time." I hear that - no one criticized Martin Luther KIng Jr. of only having the Bus Strike in one city and not more at the same time, but then again, this is the age of the Internet, and it's foolish for anyone to ignore the fact that if one eliminated craigslist.org's ads, they'd simply move to another site or back to print - but not be eliminated.

It is also foolish to ignore the fact that there are plenty of calls to attack craigslist coming from other entities that would eagerly take the cash for said ads. The fact that protesters had an online competitor of craigslist.org speaking there was a bit much. They might as well have invited eBay to jump in too. (Meg Whitman oversaw an expansion of eBay's adult sales so I guess she couldn't have shown up. That and the whole lawsuit thing.)

-I've met Craig Newmark and I think he means well. I've seen him take a lot of unneeded crap from people (Chronicle employee, you know who you are), and Craiglist did wonders for me personally when I needed to rent a place to live, or sell furniture online without it costing me a fortune. On the day I launched the N Judah Chronicles, he posted a cool post that helped generate initial interest, and the fact is if Craigslist wanted to, it could have been 100x as big as it is now and make literally billions, but chose another route.

That said, I think craigslist.org's handling of the bad publicity, and the legitimate public policy questions raised by many has been poor. Like almost every other tech-based business, there seems to be the sense that because it's not a traditional Industrial Age business, somehow it's immune from those that would wish it to be burnt to the ground (both in the print world and elsewhere). It's similar to the folks at Facebook.com and other tech companies that ignore those in power that have sway over little things like "antitrust laws," "privacy" and the like.

If I was in the kind of trouble these guys are in ("Craigslist Killer?" Really? WTF??) I'd hire a company like Barbary Coast Consulting or Dezenhall Resources to better defend the company - not paint over the craiglist.org sign.

-I dislike immensely the idea of human trafficking and I've read enough about how organized crime operates to know this is a problem. We have also had a serious problem with this in the Outer Sunset where cartel-run operations have busted for some time now. I don't like the idea that the Outer Sunset, because of its relative calmness and "remoteness" (Remote? In a city of 49 square miles? Really?) is being targeted by cartels for the prostitution business and the drug businesses. The fact that people are being hurt and killed in these situations is sickening too.

That said, we have had tough laws on the books for years, and that hasn't stopped anything - it just pushes things into the shadows, ironically giving organized crime even more power than it already has (drug war anyone?). California is likely to legalize marijuana this fall (!) and there have been suggestions that legalizing, regulating and taxing (and punishing like hell those that break said laws) it would have an effect on organized crime profits. (i.e. like the drug cartels growing marijuana out here).

Could something like this work and create a safer, regulated, less crime dominated situation for consenting adults? I'm nowhere near an expert on said matters, but outright bans, and big penalties for those who do this haven't eliminated the problem. Is there some other way? Regulating personal behavior can go too far - watch the opening credits of Milk for an example.

People of the Internet, you tell me.

That's all. I'm sure I've said plenty to irritate everyone on all sides of the issue. I'm happy to post constructive critques, but namecalling and insults will be deleted. Flame on.

PS: Debunking the Disinfo Here: This blogger claimed (or at least implied) that the Mercury Insurance sign at the location of Craiglist HQ was designed to "hide" Craigslist.

This is a mistake.

Craigslist.org has always only occupied the street level portion of this property. The upper stories have always been other businesses. There is in fact an actual Mercury Insurance agent at this location. Prior to that it was something else. Just sayin'!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)