Ladies, if you've been so ungraciously bumped and ground on the Muni (does the guy who was whacking off while staring intently at us on a late night BART a couple weeks back count?) the San Francisco Police Department wants to hear from you.
On the morning of May 8, a witness saw a male in his early 20's rubbing his pelvis against an unidentified woman on the inbound N-Judah line, according to the police. Later that evening, the witness say the same suspect was spotted on the outbound N-Judah until he got off (no, not that way) at the Powell Street Station.
The suspect was described as Hispanic, approximately 6 feet tall, and 250 pounds, with a mustache and goatee with long cornrows on the side of this head reaching to the collar. He was wearing a black jacket, jeans, and had earrings in both ears.
Police believe he has committed similar sexual batteries that haven't been reported, and want anyone with a similar incident to come forward asap. You can contact public affairs at 553-1651.
San Franciscans have always been an innovative group. Both the slot machine and the Murphy Bed were created by denizens of our city. And a quick perusal of the the Google patent application shows that little has changed. Doing a word search for "San Francisco" turned up a number of inventions that reflect our city's unique and ... erm ... permissive character.
The story is a good one, and it's especially informative on the subject of "sound marks," as in, the "auditory equivalent of a trademark." Ride the Ducks, a tour company owned by Herschend Entertainment, apparently has a sound mark on quacking in conjunction with a duck tour, along with a trademark on the "Wacky Quacker" -- a bill-shaped kazoo. The company is now suing a smaller, locally based duck tour, Bay Quackers -- which uses its own version of a the Wacky Quacker -- for trademark infringement.
The NYT did a pretty good job outlining the conflict (aside from a picture caption wrongly stating that Bay Quackers had been around since 1995, when it actually began operating in 2005), but it failed to mention that this isn't the first duck suit that Ride the Ducks has slapped on a smaller competitor.
Edwin Parada, a Mission-based real estate and mortgage broker who allegedly stole from Spanish-speaking immigrants seeking to buy, sell, or re-finance their homes, has been charged by San Francisco's district attorney with 24 criminal counts, including grand theft and tax evasion.
We wrote a cover story on Paradas' alleged misdealings last year, when police investigators estimated he may have pocketed more than $1 million. The investigation has since rounded up 27 families who claim they were bilked by Parada for more than $2 million. And Supervisor David Campos, whose district includes the Mission, says there are 15 more families that may have been affected but have not yet come forward.
"This is a very smooth, sophisticated operator," Campos said before an event at his office to celebrate the pending trial with some of the alleged victim families Friday afternoon. "He's preying on the undocumented and Spanish-speaking population, who may not know the rules and protections that exist here. There's probably more families that have been affected but haven't come forward because of shame. You feel like you've been duped."
The Goleta City Council has unanimously passed a "temporary" ban on medical Marijuana dispensaries -- while still claiming the city is "voicing support" for medical Marijuana patients.
Those of you who grew up here in the Bay Area may feel a nostalgic tear run down your cheek when you view the above video: A 1970s-era KTVU "Charley and Humphrey" Bits & Pieces short culminating with the message "1,002 stupid things to do: borrowing without asking!" Perhaps Gavin Newsom didn't watch KTVU as a kid.
Now, if Newsom or any other politician can find policies or practices not necessarily of his own devising and employ them to help the people -- who could object? Franklin Roosevelt didn't invent Keynesian economics -- that would be Keynes -- but you could argue it sure helped a lot of people during the Great Depression.
That being said, FDR didn't pass off Keynes' ideas as his own -- or tout them as a key campaign tool. And that is what the mayor's critics have accused him of doing, repeatedly. The most obvious example is Healthy San Francisco. Much has been written here and elsewhere how the city's universal health plan, which Newsom has made a cornerstone of his gubernatorial campaign, was actually created largely through the effort of then-Supervisor Tom Ammiano. In fact, Ammiano, peeved by Newsom's "boasting and overselling" of the plan recently told SF Weekly that the mayor has "tainted" Healthy San Francisco.
Glancing at the agenda for next week's U.S. Conference of Mayors in Providence, R.I., it seems Newsom may have found a new intriguing program conceived and implemented by someone else.
In December of 1995, Zack Phillips was skating down a San Francisco street when a ball rolled into his path. He nonchalantly kicked it back to the soccer players and was struck with an idea that would change the world. Or at least Zack Phillips' world. Well, somewhere between the two.
Phillips -- a former General Electric capital business analyst (who must have been damn good because his bosses let him keep coming into work looking like this) -- took the idea and ran with it. Well, actually he skated with it. Within weeks, he'd organized games of "ZackBall" (later RollerSoccer) among his San Francisco friends. By 1996, he'd spread the sport around the nation and even to Hong Kong and Taiwan (his old job had him traveling a lot). He even inaugurated a worldwide RollerSoccer governing body and inaugurated a World Cup (hey, the U.S. won last year!).
If the notion of fast soccer on skates -- and the possibility of slide tackles at 35 mph -- piques your interest, you're in luck. Phillips and the U.S. National team will be demonstrating their esoteric sport on Sunday, June 7 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Capp and 24th Street parking lot in the Mission.
