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Mirkarimi Fight Puts Burden on Progressive Supervisors - Mar 26
Kony 2012, Does Social Media Oversimplify? - Mar 26
Court of Appeal Affirms Beyond Chron Judgment Against Rita OFlynn - Mar 26
NFLs Bounty Game Is Savage We Get It. Now, About the High Schools - Mar 23
IBT on Reality TV: Boston Union Teams Up With Mark Wahlberg - Mar 23
Anteater CD Release w/Shaken Flesh; James Moore Comes to the Meridian Gallery - Mar 23
Sunset Boulevard Hypnotic!; Centaur Noir Movie - Mar 23
Did Operation Hilarity Contribute to Sheymans Defeat? - Mar 22
Cinequest 22 Wrapup (Part 2) Unfinished Spaces, Eskimal, Dripped, Teatro Svoboda, Somewhere Else, Portrait of a Zombie, Invisible Strings: the Ta - Mar 22
It's Okay that California Republican Party Is Irrelevant - Mar 21
I Heard That: San Francisco Community Women Honored; Marcus Shelbys Tribute to Harriet Tubman ... - Mar 21
Food Trucks Near Schools: School Food Experts Weigh In - Mar 21
Concerts at the Cadillac: Welcome Back, Buds in Concert! - Mar 21
Matt Smith Uses New Job to Attack Tenderloin Housing Clinic - Mar 20
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Mirkarimi Fight Puts Burden on Progressive Supervisors
by Randy Shaw‚
Mar. 26‚ 2012
Ross Mirkarimis plan to fight his ouster at the Board of Supervisors puts a new burden on progressive Supervisors running in tough races this fall. If Supervisors John Avalos, Eric Mar and Christina Olague vote to affirm Mirkarimis ouster, they risk alienating those progressives who still mistakenly see the former District Five Supervisor as a key leader of the citys left. But voting to keep Mirkarimi in office could easily spell defeat for Mar in his moderate district, and could have a similar impact on Avalos. Olagues district includes progressives that have turned against Mirkarimi in recent months, as well as former supporters. For all three supervisors, having to vote on Mirkarimi is a lose-lose situation raising questions as to whether someone really dedicated to building a progressive movement would put their political allies in such a bind.
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Kony 2012, Does Social Media Oversimplify?
by Matthew Kavanagh‚
Mar. 26‚ 2012
From Twitter trending to the front page of the New York Times to public statements by the White House and the Pentagon, the Kony 2012 campaign has shown the power of social media to affect U.S. public debate. But it has also demonstrated the dangers posed by oversimplification in an age when policy is made in the 24-hour news cycle. This has proven especially so on issues concerning Africa where, lacking historical context, over-simplistic media framing can quickly take root and lead to problematic policy solutions.
Created by San Diego-based NGO Invisible Children, Kony 2012 was launched with a 28-minute video, website, and action kit on sale for $30. The video focuses on the story of the long-running conflict in northern Uganda through the frame of 30-something white American filmmaker-turned-activist Jason Russell explaining the issue to his young son.
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Court of Appeal Affirms Beyond Chron Judgment Against Rita OFlynn
by Randy Shaw‚
Mar. 26‚ 2012
The California First District Court of Appeal has unanimously affirmed a trial court judgment in favor of Beyond Chron and its editor, Randy Shaw, in a defamation action brought against both by Rita OFlynn. OFlynns lawsuit involved our reporting of a lawsuit brought by the City and County of San Francisco against OFlynn, who may be best known for her husbands efforts to evict disabled tenant Susan Suval under the state Ellis Act. The appellate courts ruling in OFlynn v. BeyondChron (City and County of San Francisco Super. Ct. No. CGC 10-500580) affirmed the trial courts ruling that OFlynns suit violated Code of Civil Procedure Section 425.16 (the anti-SLAPP statute). The court also affirmed the trial courts award of attorneys fees to Beyond Chron and Shaw, and awarded both defendants attorneys fees and costs on appeal.
NFLs Bounty Game Is Savage We Get It. Now, About the High Schools
by Irvin Muchnick‚
Mar. 23‚ 2012
Dissident sports voices might as well admit that the mainstream media have it about right in their analyses of the penalties handed down by Roger Goodell, the National Football League commissioner, in the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal. The smartest commentators focus on the internal NFL politics: Goodells jockeying for leverage with the owners; Saints coach Sean Paytons more profound sin of flaunting league authority; and when it comes to the overarching concussion crisis, this $10-billion-a-year corporations need to position itself as not blatantly negligent.
Latently negligent? Let the legal mouthpieces slug that one out.
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IBT on Reality TV: Boston Union Teams Up With Mark Wahlberg
by Steve Early‚
Mar. 23‚ 2012
What Kind of Teamster Entourage Will We Meet in "The Town" by Mystic River?
From Jersey Shore to the short-lived All American Muslim to the much glitzier Shahs of Sunset, there seems to be no ethnic community left untouched by the national carny show known as Reality TV. Always dissed or ignored by the mass media and thus hungry for more attention the multi-ethnic enclave of organized labor might have been our last hold out against letting it all hang-out in this shamelessly exhibitionist genre.
But that modest stance is about to change, quite possibly for the worse, on union turf thats very familiar. A&E Television Networks is now filming a pilot called The Teamsters. Forget those flashy Persian immigrants, the scarf-wearing women of Dearborn, or the sacrilegious Italian stallions (and their tacky fillies) who populate the Garden State, this show is zeroing in on a local tribe that I know well, thanks to my great grandfather, who fled potato-less County Leitrim for Beantown more than 160 years ago.
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Anteater CD Release w/Shaken Flesh; James Moore Comes to the Meridian Gallery
by E. "Doc" Smith‚
Mar. 23‚ 2012
Coming up on April 7th, The Jazz School in Berkeley will host "A collective trio", featuring alto saxophonist Jacob Zimmerman, bassist Kim Cass, and drummer Sam Ospovat, otherwise known as "Anteater". Over the past two years the group has developed a unique, cold-blooded and loose approach to a diverse repertoire of rhythmically complex original music. This concert celebrates the release of Anteaters self-titled debut album, which is scheduled to be included as part of NASAs KEO space time-capsule project.
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Sunset Boulevard Hypnotic!; Centaur Noir Movie
by Buzzin' Lee Hartgrave‚
Mar. 23‚ 2012
SUNSET BOULEVARD is a musical with book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton and the glorious sumptuous music is by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The musical of course, is based on the 1950 BILLY WILDER film (Same Title).
Norma Desmond is a faded star of the silent screen era that lives in the past, in a decaying mansion on fabled Sunset Boulevard. A young good-looking young screenwriter Joe Gillis accidentally ends up on her property as he was trying to escape a bill collector. Norma falls for him no make that -- she nails him to the wall so that he cant escape. She finds out that he is a writer and she has written a story that she hopes that a famous director, will ask her to make a comeback to the big screen. But, alas what they really want at the Studio was her vintage car.
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Did Operation Hilarity Contribute to Sheymans Defeat?
by Paul Hogarth‚
Mar. 22‚ 2012
Progressives are reeling from this weeks unexpected defeat of Ilya Sheyman in Illinois 10th Congressional District to conservative Democrat Brad Schneider when polls had given the MoveOn organizer a sizable lead. Progressive groups had poured resources behind Sheyman (with endorsements from Howard Dean and Russ Feingold), and had billed the March 20th primary as a fight for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. So far, its clear the main culprit behind Sheymans defeat was an abysmal voter turnout. But as we scan election results to analyze what went wrong, may I suggest another factor that was at play how many Democrats in this wealthy suburban district voted for Rick Santorum, and therefore could not vote in the Congressional race. For weeks, the blog Daily Kos had urged its liberal readers to vote for Santorum in primaries a fun tactic called Operation Hilarity to keep the GOP bloodbath going. But in a state like Illinois, it may have done serious damage to building a more progressive Democratic Party.
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Cinequest 22 Wrapup (Part 2) Unfinished Spaces, Eskimal, Dripped, Teatro Svoboda, Somewhere Else, Portrait of a Zombie, Invisible Strings: the Ta
by Peter Wong‚
Mar. 22‚ 2012
Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murrays documentary Unfinished Spaces delivers a heartbreaking film about architecture. Cubas National Art Schools project would have been an architectural realization of the Cuban Revolutions ideals. However, despite the efforts of three young revolutionary architects, politics both internal and external prevented the project from being completed. Nahmias and Murrays film traces the decades-long history of a project whose beauty and innovation has survived times passage.
Was the National Art Schools projects fate a metaphor for the Cuban Revolutions fate? The architects grand dreams clashed with the political realities of the embargo of Cuba and the countrys alliance with Russia. Footage of the students performing in the sometimes uncompleted buildings feels like attempts to push the revolutions ideas forward in spite of outside opposition. Interviews with the now elderly architects reveal an impressive fidelity to the project and their willingness to await the worlds appreciation of their ideas.
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It's Okay that California Republican Party Is Irrelevant
by Robert Cruickshank‚
Mar. 21‚ 2012
One would think that in a democracy, the preferences of voters would drive political analysis. If voters abandoned one of the parties in droves to the point where that party became irrelevant, it would be a sign of a healthy political system that was adaptable and flexible to changing public views. If, however, one party became massively unpopular yet still wielded power and influence, that would be the sign of a failing political system - one that did not reflect the views of a democratic people.
In California, we have witnessed the long yet inevitable death of the Republican Party. Driven by a base that hates everything about 21st century California, from its diversity to its social and economic values, California Republicans have made themselves irrelevant by their refusal to abandon that crazy base or their own unpopular ideologies.
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Mar. 20, 2012 -- Matt Smith Uses New Job to Attack Tenderloin Housing Clinic Mar. 20, 2012 -- After Six Months, a Look at What Occupy Wall Street Has Accomplished Mar. 20, 2012 -- And the Chronicles Fetish with Republicans Continues Mar. 19, 2012 -- Tax Measure Compromise a Victory for Progressives: What it Means Mar. 19, 2012 -- Food Trucks Key to San Francisco's Food Diversity & Culture Mar. 19, 2012 -- Occupy! and Make Them Do It Mar. 16, 2012 -- Cinequest 22 Wrapup (Part 1): Abendland, Play, We Are Still Here, Heat Wave, Forgetting the Girl Mar. 16, 2012 -- Keystone Korner: Portrait of a Jazz Club Comes to the JHC Mar. 16, 2012 -- A Bright Room Called Day Brilliant!; Linda Purl Star of Screen/Stage Mar. 15, 2012 -- Matthew Yglesias is Right, the Rent is Too Damn High Mar. 15, 2012 -- The Berkeley Police's Knock at Midnight
