I mean, really. Lots of explosions, noise and whatnot. Saw all the promos at Comic Con last July but now it’s finally happening…tack on BSG at 10pm on SciFi (or for me, iTunes) and there’s really no reason to go out of the house..
A lot of folks around town are talking about the city’s budget problems, and the prospects of a special election and whether it’d fly or not. While the City deals with its headaches, the MTA and MUNI are dealing with similar misery.
There’s a multitude of bad laws that deny people the right to determine what they want to do or not do locally (so much for local control of local government), but putting all that aside, I don’t see how anything put on the ballot for a “June Election” would succeed.
First, while the board voted to call out the situation as an “emergency” to get the ball rolling to have the actual election, there is nothing in writing, ready to go to the voters as of now. So that means we’ve got at least a few weeks, maybe a month before we’ll have some sort of tax thing, probably written in a hurry, that’ll be approved by the board and go through all the legal wrangling by early March.
Ok, now the fun begins. We have some sort of thing or things to “vote on” but guess what? No money raised, no campaign committee ready to go, nothing. And we’re in the beginning of March. That means that now, the group of Good People, trying to do whatever, have at best two and a half months to pass a major tax measure on the ballot, during terrible economic times, and when recent history has shown how hard it is to pass these things in the first place.
This is just asking for a fail. Let’s look at recent history:
-To get the SF General Hospital Bond passed (2008’s Measure A) took a tremendous amount of hard work by a committed team of experts, a lot of coalition building over a long period of time, and more, to win the supermajority needed to pass. And that was a huge bond for something most people like (i.e. most people are not likely to want to blow up the hospital).
-To get the MUNI Reform Measure passed (2007’s Measure A) took a significant amount of serious negotiations over many months before we finally got something worthy of the ballot. It eventually passed, but it had well-funded opposition and it took a hard working team to get it passed.
See where this is going? Without building up a solid coalition of support, and a campaign that can fight a tough fight with a solid organization, all this talk will just result in failure.
If you believe that some sort of new tax source is necessary to save the city, you might want to consider holding off a little bit and have a chance of winning, instead of the usual “put something on the ballot and hope it passes” strategy.
This is sad news..it seems Bob Wilkins, former host of Creature Features and Captain Cosmic on KTVU died this week. If you were around in the Bay Area in the 1960’s and 1970s, no doubt you remember Bob’s programs and his unique personality he brought to Bay Area TV. This was back when local TV stations weren’t all owned by chains, and produced original local programming (instead of gutting all local content and all local news like they do now).
Being a nerd growing up, I of course watched Captain Cosmic, who broadcast Japanese monster TV shows and old 1930s serials like “Flash Gordon” and had a Decoder Card. I even got a chance to meet him as a kid and got a signed picture as well. (I’m so glad nerd stuff like this is mainstream – it sure wasn’t back in 1978). My biggest regret is missing an event at the Parkway Theater several years ago where he brought Robot 2T2 out of retirement and hosted a Halloween event in costume!
So in honor of Bob and his work over the years, here’s some videos. RIP Bob.
UPDATE: Friday’s LA Times has more on this story….
Which “dog poo” policy left behind by the Bush Adminstration will give the incoming Obama Administration the biggest short-term hit? War? Economy? Terrorism? Maybe.
If I had to bet, I’d put my money on the federal government’s bungling conversion to Digital Television (DTV) broadcasts less than a month after Obama’s inauguration. In typical Bush Administration fashion, they managed to craft a plan that combines the worst qualities of Big Government and Big Business, and has resulted in billions of dollars wasted, and a public that’s going to have a nasty surprise when they try to watch television on Feburary 17th. President Elect Obama has wisely asked Congress to extend the deadline to try and put a bandage on this wound, but Congress, in typical fashion, never seem to feel the need to act on anything that would beneft, you know, us (but they sure got it in gear to hand over billions to the banking industry, which has proceeded to sit on our money).
On paper this made some sense: DTV converter boxes, which you’ll need to continue to receive over the air TV, tend to cost between $50-$75. Give everyone a $40 coupon, and you cut the price to an average of $20. People go online (!), get a coupon, and use it within a 3 month window (otherwise it expires). People can go to any retailer and buy a box, and plug it into their TV.
For someone like me, who is aware of these things, it worked fine. I can now get more channels and I don’t pay a monthly fee to the villains of Comcast or AT&T. However, for a lot of folks, especially those who aren’t online or haven’t read up on the details of the program, it hasn’t gone as well. Cable TV of course is happy to tell you all will be well if you just buy cable TV – and make it seem like you MUST buy cable to watch television.
Recent reports indicate that most people are at best confused as to what is happening with DTV (thanks in part to deceptive ads for cable and satellite service). The program to subsidize DTV boxes is running out of money, thanks to both poor accounting procedures, and the fact that people are picking up the coupons to buy a DTV box, but aren’t using them on time. Now, the feds have a growing waiting list right at the time when the program needs to gear up for the final rush.
It’s pretty clear what is going to happen on Februrary 17th – a large number of people are going to realize they can’t watch TV anymore and they’re going to take it out on President Obama and Congress, even though it was the outgoing administration that came up with this hybrid policy of FAIL. Worse, the federales will have failed the people on one of its most basic of duties – managing the public airwaves for the public good.
It is in the national interest to have broadcast services that do not require hundreds of dollars in monthly “fees”, and to have broadcast services that can operate in an emergency. Not everyone wants or can afford pricey cable or satellite tv, and some of us just don’t like ’em, period.
By inventing a new way to loot the public good for the benefit of the few, the Bush crew is laughing all the way to the bank, and it’s at your expense.
PS: Here’s a short and easy list of what to do, or not do, as the case may be for TV, per many requests:
-If you already have cable TV, you don’t need to do anything, just keep paying Comcast the bill.
-If you have purchased a TV with a tuner (be it a standard TV or HDTV) in the last few years, it most likely has a digital TV tuner built in. Check the manual and see if it has an “ATSC” tuner built in. (Be aware that many HDTV sets are really just glorified monitors, with NO tuner at all!)
-Also note – you don’t need an expensive High Definition TV to watch digital television. Your normal tv can see the picture (with a converter or with a digital tuner built in) – just not at as high a resolution as that pricey HD one. Just as you could watch color broadcasts on a black and white tv, and so on.
-If you have an older TV, you’ll need a DTV converter box, which attaches to the back of the old TV. You can find them at most electronics stores, like Radio Shack.
If you can get your hands on a $40 coupon from the federal government, it should cost you around $20. They’re not too hard to set up (it’s like setting up a video game console), and they are all pretty much the same. I got one from Zenith and it works fine.
The various acronyms and the like get confusing (i.e. DTV vs. HDTV), but just remember – you do not need to buy a High Definition TV to watch Digital TV. You can watch DTV on any old tv you can hook up that converter box to. And if you have cable, you need not do anything but keep on paying the bill!
Kind of a strange way to start the new year, but I was just reading in the Blog Herald that the free blog hosting service Journalspace.com is dead. You can read more at what’s left of the site here.
Journalspace wasn’t the best blog service – it was often behind the times, techonology and feature-wise, but it had a niche. It was where I started trying out “blogging” 6 years ago (and virtually all the posts from that site are now here). I also test-marketed a number of ideas for blogs, one of which ended up migrating to this server and became the successful “N Judah Chronicles.”
I hadn’t checked in on the site in a while, but back in 2003-2004, it was a fun little place where I got my start and learned through trial and error what makes a blog readable, etc. so it is sad to hear it just sorta got killed off in a flash.
At the same time, it’s a great lesson for anyone doing anything online – back up your stuff offline, no matter what services you use. You never know when an Act of God (or OS) might frak up your day.
One of the most misunderstood parts of Campaign 2008, be it the Obama for President campaign, or a down ballot race, has been the power of social networking and one-to-one marketing in political decision making. Plenty of consultants and the like know buzzwords like “social networking,” “Facebook,” and so on, but many still don’t quite understand what we’re really talking about here.
While the Internet and Web 2.0 have brought about new, fast, easy ways for people to talk to each other, in the end it has been the power of friends and neighbors talking to people they know, who have emerged as the “king makers” in elections. This is nothing new – the only difference is that today, it’s much easier and quicker to get people to engage each other and do the kind of one-to-one marketing and grassroots organizing that was possible in the past – but with a significant time/money/staff cost.
A case study could be how I chose to support David Chiu for Supervisor in District 3. Now, normally I would either a) not care or b) not necessarily support someone that’s being pushed by the fatwa issuing Bay Guardian and Chris Daly.
But because I heard about David’s campaign from people I know and whose judgment I trust, such as my friend Stan (the quizmaster at the Blackthorn’s trivia Mondays), and my friend Anna at Metblogs (who lives in the district), their opinions mattered more to me in the end than what some ad said or what Chris Daly’s shifty junk mail says.
Now, think for a moment about this year’s campaign season, which has seen a blizzard of junk mail and TV ads from various groups all wanting to influence local elections. Few of them, however, regardless of political side, really mobilized a one-to-one communications plan, or did old-school organizing to beat back the “big money”.
Case in point: The Realtors! They have been noted for their flashy spending on tv ads and mail. Ironically, the biggest weapon they had in their arsenal went virtually unused – the many Realtors who have blogs, email lists of their customers and business contacts and so on. A campaign to organize these Realtors, and transform take someone people trust – their Realtor – and turn them into an evangelist for the issues and candidates the Realtors as a group care about, went largely unused.
Had they borrowed a page from the UFW/Old School Organizing handbook, and utilized Today’s Technology, they could have been the stealth army that would have taken everyone by surprise. There’s been some interesting analyses of the Obama campaign and all note the importance of technology.
However, without millions of Americans getting involved, being organized, and talking to their friends about who they supported for President, all the gadgets in the world wouldn’t have made a difference.
Ironically in a digital era, it’s the kind of old-fashioned organizing at the grassroots level that will have the most impact now, and in the future.
Progressives in town seem to think a grassroots campaign has to be an underfunded mess of people running around in circles, gossiping and dropping dead-tree lit on people’s doorsteps. Others seem to think the only way to win is with big TV ads and lots of mail.
Neither side gets it – in an era of high tech, going back to what politics used to be – the door to door organizing and listening to voters (as well as talking with them) is what will win in the future. The only difference is now there are many new tools to make this easier and more efficient. UPDATE: Today, the Chronicle had an interesting story about how blogging can help Realtors get more clients and develop a relationship with their customers.
Hmm. How about that!
As you cast your ballots for the myriad of local ballot measures, candidates for Supervisor, and so on, you should be aware of how the votes are being counted for school board and college board races.
While candidates for supervisor are using the so-called “ranked choice voting” scheme, candidates for the school and college boards are not covered by RCV/WTF. Instead, all candidates run city-wide, for a specific number of seats. The top vote getters then get to take office. So in the case of the SF Board of Education (k-12 schools), there are 4 seats, and the voter picks 4 candidates to fill those seats.
There is, however, a danger in doing so – by voting for 4 candidates, you could inadvertently undercut one of your choices, since your 4 votes go into the pile, and get counted. If you really want to help someone out, you’re better off voting for only 1 or 2 candidates, because, in a weird twist of counting, your votes will have more of an impact.
So, while there are many fine candidates for office, I cast one vote for Rachel Norton because she’s a parent, she’s really nice, and she has some good ideas for making schools better for students. By doing so, I’m not undercutting my vote with votes for the other candidates.
The same applies to college board candidates – if there’s someone you really really like, just vote for them and let the chips fall where they may.
By the way, this is how we used to elect supervisors, and in general it’s a dumb way to do so. No one can target specfic incumbents for defeat, and you have this mass of candidates all running against each other.
The hippies usually propose some district system, but in a small city of less than 800,000 people that’s not always such a great idea. A compromise, one that works in cities like Seattle, is to have “numbered” seats. That way the candidates all file for specific seats on a board or city council, and voters know who is running against each other. Seattle does pretty good with this – maybe it’s time we applied this fix to city-wide boards and make it clearer to voters who is running against whom.
I can’t make this stuff up…apparently GOP Senator John McCain was a featured speaker at a (gasp!) ACORN organized rally with (gasp!) unions and (double gasp!) IMMIGRANT’S RIGHTS people! ZOMG!
I did not believe it until I saw this:
Then this:
and this:
Note to McCain campaign: when living in glass houses (all seven of them), ya might not wanna throw ACORNS….
Disclaimer: I do some work for No on H.
It seems no good deed goes unpunished. Sunday, the Yes on H ran the strangest attack rally yet, calling anyone who opposes Prop. H a “liar.” And yet, in promoting the rally, which was both pro-Prop. H and against Prop. 8, the ban on same-sex marriages, it seems the pro-H people engaged in a bit of lying of their own.
First, they put out press releases claiming that the Alice B. Toklas Democratic club was participating in the rally. Not true, according to sources at the Toklas Democratic Club, who declined to particpate formally as a group.
But second, they seemed to omit the fact that PG&E, one of the sponsors of the No on H campaign has given a significant donation to the No on 8 campaign, as have many large corporations (Apple and Google being some of the most notable).
Now here’s where the tortured logic begins. It seems that giving to No on 8 is not “good enough” for the angry partisans supporting Prop. H, which frankly I don’t understand. The No on 8 campaign needed help. Many large companies decided to stand up and give significant donations to fight Prop. 8. To me, that sounds like a good thing.
Now, obviously, when it comes to any issue, be it Prop. H, what search engine to use, or what computer to buy, there is going to be a diversity of opinion within the LGBT community. That’s fine. What’s not fine is seeing Prop. H engage tell lies about it, and condemn a corporation that is now the target of a boycott campaign for standing up against Prop. 8 and make the suggestion that PG&E is for Prop. 8.
That’s the worst kind of lie, especialy when we see the hateful actions of folks on the other side.
