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SFPD accused of fouling up The family of a 56-year-old woman shot by police at an at-home mental health facility after she threatened a social worker and officers with a knife accused San Francisco police of mishandling a delicate situation.
Fair reveals forgotten farms When San Mateo County fairgoers see 17-year-old Rosalind Castillo's pig, lamb, turkey and chicken exhibit and learn the animals are from San Bruno, they are often confused.
Bucks from bond to boost bayfront From India Basin to Heron's Head Park, San Francisco's waterfront is dotted with islands of open space. Now, a new infusion of cash will help pave the way for more than 13 miles of new trails, which could open the door for a renaissance along the bayfront.
Long-lived hippo dies One of the longest San Francisco Zoo residents was euthanized Wednesday after the African Nile hippo, named Mama Cuddles, grew increasingly weak.
Kudos: Coldwell Banker raises funds for Habitat for Humanity Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage Community Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the real estate brokerage firm, has just launched its 10th annual Habitat for Humanity fundraising campaign for Northern California, dubbed "BIGGIVE."
Surprise! It's a Spare the Air day. Who knew? Not us. The news only just now popped up on 511.org; and to make things extra-confusing, the alert is backdated to mid-June. Apparently they saw this balmy climate coming from a long way off. Thanks, Miss Cleo!
So, avoid running heavy machinery during the day, and try not to breathe too heavily. Unlike past StA days, transit won't be free today or tomorrow, which means the Air Quality Management District's "Leave Your Car At Home" request has all the teeth of a sobbing earthworm. Still, though, do try to take transit on hot days, pretty pretty please with sugar on top.
MUSIC: Make your night an iPod commercial kind of night as !!! uses their signature dance-punk beats to get the ratty-ass kids on their feet. Sugar & Gold and DJ Jay Sonic also add spice to your evening. Also, the Independent's celebrates their 100th show this evening. Congrats, guys!
COMEDY: Every last Wednesday of the month this Mission bar hosts a free comedy night, featuring some of funniest Bay Area comics getting smashed live on stage.
FILM: Hee, hee, hee, haw, haw, haw! Hans Christian Andersen's tale a self-loathing mermaid named Ariel, The Little Mermaid (1989), screens tonight. But it's not the version where she kills herself at the end; it's the one with the Jamaican singing crab.
Tuesday was Hillary Clinton Day at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. The senator and former presidential candidate gave a rousing speech that most pundits agreed accomplished what she had promised to do: leave no doubt that she is fully behind the candidacy of her former rival, Sen. Barack Obama.
Before the speech, all any journalist trolling for stories inside the Pepsi Center wanted to do was figure out any sort of fresh angle on Clinton they could manage, and all any delegate or guest wanted to do was to get inside for a prime viewing spot before she began. Which brings me to my first lesson of Day 2 of the DNC:
Be Careful When You Go to the Bathroom: Being a member of the State Blogger Corps, I have a seat reserved for me on the floor in the District of Columbia's section inside the Pepsi Center. But after taking a quick break outside to grab a soda and use the bathroom about 30 minutes before Clinton's speech was set to begin, I was denied entry to the floor upon my return. The Secret Service had shut down every access door to the delegate seats, apparently because the DNCC had issued far more floor passes than the Pepsi Center could actually handle. One sympathetic door staff employee told me she was sorry, but that the Secret Service and the fire marshal had just chewed her out for letting someone else inside before me. She wasn't supposed to let anyone else in, "no matter who they are."
I wasn't the only one who got stuck in the arena's concourse. Hundreds of frustrated pass holders sprinted from door to door, only to find the same situation at each one. By the time it was clear no one was getting inside, those left out began gathering around the many TV monitors in the hall to pay attention to the speech. There were so many people stuck outside that it was difficult even to get a clear view of the screens.
A couple more lessons after the jump.
Bring Band-Aids: The current number of blisters on my feet from hoofing it all over downtown Denver and the long march daily into the Pepsi Center: Five. The number of times I have wished I could get away with wearing sneakers everyday: Countless.
Look on the Bright Side: The inability to eat anywhere close to three meals a day (Tuesday I had one meal, lunch, and so far on Wednesday approaching 3 p.m. I've subsisted on two bites of bacon and a plate of cheese cubes) could actually just be a brilliant Democratic Party-sponsored weight loss program. Obesity! Diabetes! These are serious issues facing Americans, but at least everyone will leave the DNC looking trim.
Don't Leave Anything Behind: This lesson is directly related to Be Careful When You Go to the Bathroom: because I've been allocated internet access on the floor, my computer power cord was still plugged in next to my seat when I got locked out. As soon as the convention activity is done for the day, all doors become "exit only," meaning my cord was locked inside the Pepsi Center overnight. I ran out of juice at about 9:30 a.m. this morning, and wasn't able to retrieve it until well after noon.
Sure, it's a commercial, and there are those of you we know will be all "boo commerce/capitalism/consumption!" (shouldn't you be at Burning Man, hippie? Aw, we kid!) , but, damn, we still think local ad agency Cutwater did a bang-up job convincing this correspondent that local (for now...) company Levi Strauss & Co will do more to make us beautiful than a full fleet of stylists.
God, why are we being so defensive? This correspondent just thinks it's a neat commercial from two groups of local folks, and wanted to share it with y'all. C'est tout.
Some sad news, folks. Lesbian rights activist Del Martin -- who married her wife Phyllis Lyon at City Hall this past June on the first day that same-sex couples gained the right -- died this morning at a San Francisco hospital. She as 87. (Read more about her legacy and recent passing here.)
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, if you recall, were the first queer couple to get married at City Hall. Mayor Gavin Newsom officiated the ceremony. Martin founded the Daughters of Bilitis, the country's first lesbian advocacy group, back in 1955. 1955, people!
(Oh, and one way to honor Martin's tireless work and lasting activism would be to Stop8.org to find out how you too can stop the ban on same-sex marriage.)
What with all of the not taking synthetic drugs we've been doing as of late, we completely forgot that Labor Day Weekend is almost upon us. Yay! And with that comes that annual gathering of creative types out in the desert called Burning Man. You know, that place where people find themselves and/or commit suicide?
Anyway, to get you all prepared for the big event, we re-present to you SFGate's best post ever. Sure, it's a time that they'd rather forget, but we applaud any publication that espouses the virtues of the ana lifestyle. Leslie Fulbright's blog on doing the master cleanse is a thinspiration bookmark for the ages. See, two years ago Fulbright needed to fit into a pair of, sigh, "glittery gold hot pants" for Burning Man. So, as reason would dictate, she took control of the chaos in her life starved herself doing master cleanse (AKA the lemon cleanse), failing around day five. Read all about it here.
But for more healthy coverage, Steven T. Jones should be live-blogging the chaos this year. Check back at SFBG for more details.
This is our favorite section at Wednesday's Civic Center Farmers Market. It all looks so good! But what they really need are hot, sliced pizza rolls to taste.
What to do with the above Farmers Market fresh Corn Flakes, you ask? Well, you can make them into Rice Krispie treats, using the flakes instead of puffed rice flakes, which was a staple of a former Midwest-raised roommate of ours; use them as coating for french toast; or add them to your next oven-fried chicken dish. Yum.
The California State Assembly passed a bill on Tuesday "that lowers the allowable response time to an oil spill in the San Francisco Bay from from six hours to two hours." Penned by sanity-estranged Sen. Carole Migden, she says that the bill is "necessary to combat the bay's natural tidal action" that spreads oil spills right-quick. And it will, hopefully, prevent tragiceventslikethis from getting even muckier. That's right, muckier. (CBS 5)
During yesterday's Time magazine breakfast forum in Denver -- a panel discussion 7x7-ishly titled "Hot Shots Breakfast" -- our DA Kamala Harris was a featured guest. On a question regarding public safety, here's what she had to say.
"It's not about rehabilitation. It's about public safety...[w]hat Democrats have to do is understand that Republicans have it right" in framing the debate on public safety.
While we appreciate Harris' "blunt" take on crime, we hope she brings this newfangled perspective on crime fighting to the streets of San Francisco upon her return.
In related news, Slate's Mickey Kaus was unimpressed with Mayor Gavin Newsom during the same breakfast, slamming him as "goofily egomaniacal."
Yeah, that seals it. He's the next Governor of California.
Hey, did you give birth at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco between March 10 to Aug. 10? Well, you might want to get tested for TB. See, Kaiser is in the process of contacting 960 new mothers about possible exposure after a part-time postpartum unit employee, who no longer works for the hospital, tested positive for tuberculosis. (Read more about it here.) For more info on getting tested, call Kaiser at 800-464-4000,or visit kp.org/newscenter. (SFGate)
Will you participate in a three-legged rollerblade-tai-chi race, like the silhouettes in the event's logo? Or will you go to one of the amazingly numerous fun activities between Chinatown and Bayview? Here's just a sampling:
- Chinese cultural crafts
- Bouncy house
- Yoga
- Thriller dance
- Bike rentals
- Hula hoop contest
- Dance classes
- Bike tune-up
- Ping-pong
- Environmental display
We're not sure what that last one is. Sounds like it might be exposing yourself at squirrels. Also, don't miss the video about the event, where the newscaster looks a bit puzzled at the end by the footage of rollerskating zombies.
The fun starts Aug 31 from 9am-1pm (which is kind of a shame because 1pm is when we get out of bed on Sundays) and continues Sept 14. Worth getting up early for? Probably.
El Cerrito played host to the most recent restaurant takeover at around 9:45 p.m. last night. Two masked men entered Yuet Foo Seafood Restaurant and stole cash from employees and patrons "before fleeing on foot toward the Richmond Annex neighborhood in Richmond." (SFGate)
Checking out this story on the Co-Co Times, it sounds less like Federally-mandated oppression and more like a (brace yourself) power-drunk rent-a-cop:
...the guard, who works for a private company hired by the Department of Homeland Security, demanded that she leave the building or face arrest... the guard's "loud, unreasonable, aggressive and angry approach to the situation almost caused chaos."
Exciting stuff. But, never fear, the t-shirted woman in question eventually completed her Social Security business, and is now planning a suit against the security company. This time next year, we will still be staring at the screen we're looking at right now, while she sips an umbrella drink. And while we can't help but be supportive of her for the principle of the thing, we can't help but hope our Murderer t gets us tossed out of somewhere with deep pockets really, really soon.
Photo by Pasi Lehtinen
Or rather lucite? That's right, home town hero Hott Lixx Hulahan won the Air Guitar World Championships in Finland last week. For once, a victory on the international stage unmarred by accusations of doping, and underage-ness. Even the NY Times is celebrating. Congrats Hot Lixx!
While we're too busy thinking about jelly beans, balls of crumpled tinfoil, and purple unicorns, maybe you tech geniuses with cars can figure out if this works or not? It seems there's a way to hack the thing, allowing you, the evildoer, to ride for free. According to an anonymous tipster at Slahsdot:
Nate Lawson, a researcher at RootLabs, has found a way to clone the wireless transponders used by the Bay Area FasTrak road toll system. This means you can copy the ID of another driver onto your own device and, as a result, travel for free while others foot the bill. Lawson also raises the interesting point of using the FasTrak system to create false alibis, by overwriting one's own ID onto another driver's device before committing a crime. Luckily, Lawson wasn't sued before he could reveal his research, unlike those pesky MIT students.
Happy hacking, bridge travelers! Do let us know how it works.
Boo! After we posted about "Oliver Clothezoff, visiting from New York" at the Outside Lands festival, the Chronicle went and edited it to read, "A visitor from New York..." (Pft, you guys are no fun.) But Brittney Gilbert has the original if you want to check it out.
MUSIC I: All the over-educated white folks pretend they're down tonight when SoCal native Ice Cube hits the stage. Listen as he croons such solo and N.W.A. favorites as "It Was a Good Day," "Check Yo Self," and "Fuck tha Police". Yay!
MUSIC II: As one of the main members of the Hieroglyphics Imperium Collective, an Oakland "underground rap" outfit, the nasally-voiced Opio is giving his fans a free show at part of the Myspace Release Show series. Souls of Mischief & Hieroglyphics, JC, League 510, Tre Styles, and Lex also perform.
An Amber Alert was issued late this morning for two young sisters "believed to have been taken from their home by their mother, who may be suicidal," according to the Gate. Here are the details:
The girls, 7-year-old Rayna Ramussen and her 4-year-old sister, Lindsey, were taken about 7 a.m. today by their mother, Rachel Lynn Rasmussen, 38, from their home on Trembath Lane in Antioch, said Jimmy Lee, spokesman for the Contra Costa County sheriff's office ... Rasmussen is believed to be driving a 2001 bronze or champagne-colored GMC Yukon with a paper license plate of ALMSAUTO.COM.
If anyone knows anything about these ladies whereabouts, call 911 or the Contra Costa County sheriff's dispatch center at (925) 646-2441
Update: Amber Alert called off. No details about what happened yet. More to come.
Some obnoxious tool lied to photographer Laura Morton regarding his Christian name at last weekend's Outside Lands, but...it's still kind of funny. From the Chronicle:
Oliver Clothezoff, visiting from New York, snaps a photo of his friend while attending the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in Golden Gate Park.
Some "ultra-liberal" site called OpEdNews claims that, while kicking it at the Denver at the Democratic National Convention, fame-hungry Cindy Sheehan "walked in to discover a man working on her phone, screw driver in hand," bugging her phone. Egads! If it's true -- which? come on! -- that's a bit scary. But why Sheehan? Surely her late-night, paranoid exchanges with Chris "Not Since Dan White..." Daly are harmless. Anyway, read more about her alleged privacy rape and her reasons why she's even at the DCN here.
Attention all Eastern SoMa, Mission Bay, and South Park workers: The beloved Ice Cream Man is holding a FREE Ice Cream Social today in South Park at 1:30pm. Ice Cream Man, you see, travels around the world giving away frozen treats while reviewing concert and music festivals. (Ice Cream Man also does lots of special events like movie premiers and art shows., etc.)
What: Free Ice Cream from the Ice Cream Man in South Park Who: Everyone. Tell your cubemates. where: middle of South Park (Third & South Park) When: Tuesday the 26th at 1:30pm Why: Because you're not fat enough
(By DCist's Sommer Mathis, one of the few official bloggers who is attending the DNC as official member of the state blogger corps.)
One day down and three more to go here in Denver at the Democratic National Convention. Below are some of the top moments of Day 1 for DCist (and a couple lowlights for good measure).
Sen. Ted Kennedy's speech, obvs. The expectations going in were that this would be the senator's final public speech -- but Kennedy walked out on stage and continued standing during his entire speech, defying expectations that he would look different, appear to be very weak and need to sit on the stool that had been brought out for him due to his cancer treatment. Several delegates we were near had already started to get teary during the video tribute to Kennedy, so the emotional impact of the incredibly popular senator promising that he would "be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate" packed a real wallop. Kennedy was the hit of the night on the convention floor.
Michelle Obama's speech was a close second. I had to head out of the Pepsi Center while she was still talking, but the entire house was rapt as she described what she and her husband have in common: "He was raised by grandparents who were working class folks just like my parents, and by a single mother who struggled to pay the bills just like we did," she said. Mrs. Obama did a good job convincing the crowd that she is a working mother who can identify with the struggles of ordinary Americans, proving herself a real asset to the campaign.
At a party co-hosted by the Distilled Spirits Council of America and The Hill newspaper, Hill Editor-in-Chief Hugo Gurdon told DCist that he had hired some local band he couldn't remember the name of for the entertainment, largely because he couldn't justify spending $250,000 to hire someone like Tom Petty. That "local band" turned out to Denver's own DeVotchKa, who are certainly in my top 10 favorite bands, if not top five. I happily rocked out after being surprised when strains to "Queen of the Surface Streets" started spilling out of the club.
Not great moments: Getting in and out of the Pepsi Center. I already told you how it took a long time to get inside in the afternoon. Well I made a mistake on my way out and ended up getting myself stuck in the shuttle bus bay and forced to ride one in to downtown Denver, even though that wasn't actually where I had been intending to go. Naturally, traffic was so backed up that the bus ride took three times as long as it should. Hopefully tonight I'll be able to find out which way I have to go to be allowed to walk out of the perimeter and find a taxi.
The food in the Pepsi Center: not good. Basically there's just limited stadium concessions, things like hotdogs and pre-made deli sandwiches. Maybe the fancy big time media outlets are somehow managing to feed their reporters dinner, but I couldn't figure out any other option than to pay $6.50 for a mediocre hot dog. If anyone who's in Denver figured out some way to eat a meal while working last night, let me know!
Much to Mayor Dellums relief -- since this means he won't have to make yet another benign, angry-man speech -- a Hayward Chinese restaurant was targeted last night in the East Bay takeover robber spree. Last night a little after 8 p.m., two suspects brandishing handguns entered the Great River restaurant at 22218 Foothill Blvd, demanding cash and phones from patrons and employees. The suspects are described as "black males who were both wearing black clothing." In related news, Mayor Dellums has asked the community "to step up," to be "the eyes and ears"of the area, and "to observe" what's going on. (Yeah, you're pretty much on your own here, East Bay folk. Sorry.) (CBS 5, SFGate)
Your hot, young, tight freshmen tail arrives this week. Why not try getting into their pants by teaching them how to make this cheap book rack using only a wire hanger! [Daily Clog]
Speaking of Muni-related brilliance, after a 27-Bryant smashed into another vehicle at 23rd and Bryant streets, one passenger was sent to the hospital with "unknown" injuries. The accident happened just a little before 9 a.m. (Anyone see it?) Oh, and the driver of said 27-Bryant will be given a drug test and be "placed on non-driving status" as the powers that be investigate the cause of the crash. (CBS 5)
Not long ago, Leanne asked readers to weigh in on Zipcar vs. City CarShare. The subsequent brand-identification debate was not quite as acrimonious as the typical Mac vs. PC debate, or even the heated Wrangler's vs. Levi's debate we once overheard in the Houston airport.
We're not sure what the above photo means in the context of the car-sharing debate. Are we seeing, as with SF Weekly and the Bay Guardian, a national chain using unfair tactics to crush the local competition? Or does this photo simply show that, again as with SF Weekly and the Bay Guardian, most people don't distinguish between the two companies and even their customers can't always remember which is which?
(By DCist's Sommer Mathis, one of the few official bloggers who is attending the DNC as official member of the state blogger corps.)
DCist is participating in a first of its kind credential program at this year's Democratic National Convention. We're serving as the selected blogger representing the District of Columbia in the DNC State Blogger Corps. Here's how The New York Times described the desirability of our credential:
For bloggers attending the Democratic convention at the Pepsi Center in Denver, two types of credentials are offered. The first is a national credential, which offers the same access granted to members of traditional news media organizations.
The second, more coveted credential is the state blogger credential. It allows one blogger per state to cover the convention alongside its state delegation, with unlimited floor access. Inspired by the strategy of Howard Dean, the D.N.C. chairman, to organize in all 50 states, the state-blogging credential was highly sought after, with as many as 14 blogs vying to represent a single state.So, what does this "coveted" credential actually get you? To start with, a daily floor pass, with unlimited access to wander around the convention floor, take photos, and talk with anyone we please. We also have one seat within the allocated section reserved for the D.C. delegation, and a hard-wired internet hookup right at that seat. I'm typing this from the convention floor as we speak.
