Now that Apple CEO Steve Jobs has announced he'll take an illness-related leave of absence, the global faithful are asking themselves: Wait a minute; which is it? Is he the all-knowing, all-being master of lightness and dark, as we've been led to believe? Or is he a mere flesh-and-blood mortal?
As it happens, SF Weekly's investigative video team asked this very question a year ago. The answers we obtained may surprise you.
Progressive
As
reported in the New York Times
earlier this month, an ongoing study indicates that some immigrant Latinas from
fiercely anti-abortion cultures will avoid abortion clinics, preferring to end
their pregnancies by self-medicating with pills approved to treat ulcers,
herbal teas, a molasses-like substance known as
Progressive Supervisors banded together last week to elect a compromise-candidate Board President, which raises a crucial question: "Since when have progressives compromised on anything?"
In a town that views compromise as moral weakness (No Justice, No Peace), the fact that progressives were willing to make concessions to the people they hate most - each other - shows how concerned they are about their coalition fracturing, and the lengths to which they will go to hold it together.
As of last week, it seemed to be working: At a host of post-election events, progressive Supes went out of their way to make nice, and several Supes told me they'd already put it behind them.
But this week, there are signs that the wheels are coming off the love train. (That's public transit for 'ya) Reports say that Sophie Maxwell is, in fact, bitter at not getting a single progressive vote despite her fairly strong record of progressive voting; Ross Mirkarimi is said (contrary to what he told me) to be nursing a grudge too; and yesterday the Guardian's comments section lit-up with an online shouting match between Chris Daly, Tim Redmond, and Bruce Brugmann that implies wider schisms to come.
(As an aside, Daly's contention that he and Redmond should keep their disagreements quiet is tactically correct but still hilarious. Does he know Redmond manages a newspaper?)
This may not mean anything: Some degree of blowback was inevitable. Former Board President Aaron Peskin said he thinks all this will die down in a few weeks ... or months, tops. He gave are two reasons: First, it's the nature of these things to pass ("other stuff comes up") and second, there will be tremendous pressures keeping the progressive Supes in lockstep, and not just the severity of a budget situation which sincerely frightens them.
"They were all elected by the same people, by labor and the Democratic party and the tenants," Peskin said. As long as that coalition is walking in mostly the same direction, the pressure on the progressive Supes to march together will be intense. "Ross and John [Avalos] got a lot of kudos from the left, I think the left will coalesce pretty quickly."
Mirkarimi agreed.
"We'll have to work together," Mirkarimi said. "With this situation, we'll just have to. There isn't really a choice."
Fair enough - and for what it's worth, I hope they're right. But in the meantime, here are some fault lines to watch out for:
Not a single San Franciscan managed to crack the Right Wing News blog's list of "20 Most Annoying Liberals of 2008", a group that included Hillary Clinton and Eliot Spitzer but not Gavin Newsom or Cindy Sheehan.
This omission begs one of two conclusions.
Either right-wingers such as Bill O'Reilly are hypocrites, and aren't actually as annoyed by San Franciscans as they let on.
Or, perhaps more hearteningly: While we may not have any residents who count as top-tier annoyances, all of us together, with our hundreds of thousands of irritating little quirks, manage to get the job done.
"Whaddya got?"
To those of us who live in the Bay Area, it's old hat by now - but to my family and friends in the Midwest, it's still baffling.
"Wait, so, these people went to protest the local transit cops shooting somebody, and ended up chanting about Palestine?"
Yep. And it's only getting worse. After last night, even some of us here are asking "What does GREECE have to do with it?"
It's a good question, and it strikes at the heart of modern liberalism: Why the hell can't radicals protest JUST ONE THING at a time?
The inability causes real damage to their issues (all of them): The anti-war movement never took off in much of the country precisely because many Americans (myself included), who would have been happy to march against the war per se, were not interested in marching about the war/Israel/racism/school reform/death penalty/free trade/Free Mumia!
We stayed home, and didn't try to hold our own rallies because we knew that those people would show up and accuse us of not being anti-war enough because we eat meat.
