When the ancient Polynesians invented surfing, they often used a paddle to help them navigate. Fast-forward a few millennia, and Stand-Up Paddleboarding, or SUP, finds itself trendy again. Part of its increasing popularity is that standing upright allows surfers to spot waves more easily and thus catch more of them, multiplying the fun factor. Paddling back to the wave becomes less of a strain as well. The ability to cruise along on flat inland water, surveying the sights, is another advantage. Finally, it’s a good core workout. If you’re sold on the idea, schedule an intro SUP lesson, free with board and paddle rental, and you may find yourself riding the waves like a Polynesian king.More
Many of us remember coming home from our elementary schools with freshly glazed pinchpots, cups, or whatever else our young imaginations could conjure up. Saturday mornings at the Randall Museum can bring that memory back, or create a new one for the youngsters. Ceramics make great gifts — especially on Mothers' and Fathers' Day. Hop on board for the Randall's once-weekly class, and for $6 and two weeks to have your work fired and glazed, you'll have all the materials you need.More
December is almost over - the New Year is coming up and everyone is busy drying off from the rain or holiday shopping. Let's take a look at what's happened this month.
A little after midnight on Saturday evening, beneath the florescent lights of North Beach clubs along Broadway's 400 block, an unusual and vicious fight broke out.
San Francisco police spotted the mass of flailing bodies and wild hair, and eventually separated what turned out to be a group of all-female combatants. One had a large gash leaking blood out of her forehead.
Vision-impaired riders Sheron George and Sharricci Fourte-Dancy sued BART in San Francisco federal court several years back in a ADA case claiming the transit system was at fault for not having accessible handrails or color contrast striping. George fell down a set of stairs and was eventually prescribed a wheelchair for her disability. Fourte-Dancy didn't actually fall, but said the lack of striping and "excessively wide handrails almost caused her to fall" at MacArthur station in Oakland. (She did not "almost" sue).
In District Court, the Judge Claudia Wilken in 2006 acknowledged that BART was in compliance with the Department of Transportation (DOT) accessibility rules, yet found that the DOT regulations themselves were "both arbitrary and plainly contrary" to the ADA accessibility guidelines. The judge awarded the plaintiffs $35,000 in damages and mandated BART make changes to improve the accessibility of their stations.
PostedByJoe Eskenazi
on Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 11:35 AM
Joe Eskenazi
Who is man enough to wear this jersey?
Jerry Seinfeld once noted that, due to rampant player turnover, sports fans are "basically rooting for clothing." If so, that's bad news for any would-be fans of the fledgling United Football League's California Redwoods (I christen them "Tree-Huggers").
As revealed last week, the team's first-year duds will be an unimaginative league template prominently featuring Jolly Rancher green and teal (they swear it's "light blue"). You will not buy this jersey. You will not wear this jersey without someone assuming you are employed by the team, lost a bet, or have color-confusion issues.
PostedByJoe Eskenazi
on Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 8:30 AM
Hey, look! It's an 'Everyman!'
In a front-page story this morning on how "palpable" public outrage pushed a settlement in the BART labor situation, the Chronicle quoted all the usual suspects. But it continued to give an awful lot of credence to "Web forums" and the commenters on its Web site as a bellwether of public opinion. In fact, in a blog post preceding this article, reporter Carla Marinucci refers to the paper's Web comments -- on a contentious transit article, no less -- as "our everyman gauge."
Do the reporters at the Chron read the comments on their site? Certainly some well-crafted pearls of wisdom are to be found there -- SFGate is popular and stories frequently rack up hundreds or even thousands of comments. But oftentimes we're reminded of Obi-Wan Kenobi's description of Mos Eisley Spaceport. A noticeable chunk of the comments are right-wing screeds that find novel ways to blame illegal immigrants for many of our nation's ills. Articles involving sanctuary policies, Chris Daly, and, yes, union labor are notorious for this.
It's at this point that we wonder if reporters at the Chron read the Chron. The paper ran a front-page story in May about its Web commenters; the most loquacious man on the SFGate page turned out to be a guy from Dallas who knocked out an average of 16 Web comments a day.
So it would seem you're making a very dicey assumption when you annoint folks worked up enough to write to a newspaper as representative of the population in general (this was true with written letters to the editor back in the day as well; even five or 10 out of a readership of millions could sway an editor). As the Chron story about Web commenters pointed out, comments about contentious issues grow out of hand quickly -- but they sure do drive traffic to the Web site.
PostedByJoe Eskenazi
on Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 7:30 AM
Yonkeltron
Yes, the Wiki Commons photo for 'Ghost Riding the Whip' features an Orthodox Jew 'ghosting' on a golf cart
We don't know golf but we do know this: You can't mention the sport in the same breath as ghost riding the whip without bringing up the subsequent police intervention.
Last week a sextet of Taraval Station cops took a respite from their daily growhouse busts to head to the Harding Park golf course. No, there was no growhouse on the links. Instead, a course manager phoned the police complaining about a trio of duffers zooming about the course on a golf cart, and doin' doughnuts on the well-manicured grass. Hmm. That truly is a good walk spoiled.
PostedByJoe Eskenazi
on Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 6:30 AM
Jim Herd
You saw it: The last two foreign tourists to be bewildered by the Culture Bus (and not get on).
It turns out there are more efficient ways to rob tourists than charge them five times the going rate to ride on the bus. That's what the Municipal Transportation Agency found out via its ill-fated Culture Bus -- which cost $7 at its inception and 10 bucks after the markup. But 10 times zero is still zero (the Culture Bus was boarded by hundreds of riders a day; one MTA survey showed its ridership was only 2.1 percent of the F-Line's).
It turns out, however, that Muni had novel plans for the pristine yellow buses -- carrying actual riders from Point A to Point B. If you saw a Culture Bus rolling through Bernal Heights or other portions of the city where tourists rarely venture over the weekend, your eyes weren't playing tricks on you. Muni spokesman Judson True reports that the yellow buses were tossed right into the mix on regular routes.
PostedByJoe Eskenazi
on Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 12:01 AM
http://everydayphotos.tumblr.com/
'Some people just want to see the world burn.'
As you may have read elsewhere on the Internet, the large and awe-inspiring mural gracing the side of Guerrero Market on 19th and Guerrero was last week defaced by someone who felt the need to add his or her child-like scribbles to a painstakingly rendered work of art.
Sub Pop recording artists 'clipping.' brought their brand of noise-driven experimental hip hop to the closing night of 2016's San Francisco Electronic Music Fest this past Sunday. The packed Brava Theater hosted an initially seated crowd that ended the night jumping and dancing against the front of the stage. The trio performed a set focused on their recently released Sci-Fi Horror concept album, 'Splendor & Misery', then delved into their dancier and more aggressive back catalogue, and recent single 'Wriggle'.
Opening performances included local experimental electronic duo 'Tujurikkuja' and computer music artist 'Madalyn Merkey.'"
