Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs has died. Media outlets are reporting that Apple announced the 56-year-old tech guru died peacefully today surrounded by his family.
Jobs died a day after Apple released the iPhone 4s and nearly two months after he resigned as CEO of the company.
Apple's Board of Directors released the following statement:
"We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today. Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations thatenrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve. His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts."
When you consider the unsavory elements one encounters on Muni -- seeds, stabbings, sermons, and semen, -- an ad campaign advocating for prostitutes' rights is rather benign.
Local sex worker activists have launched a media campaign aimed to educate the bus-riding populace that sex workers are people, too. After being rejected by Clear Channel, CBS Outdoor, and the San Francisco Arts Commission (the term "sex worker" is not family friendly), the campaign found a place to deliver its message: on the J-Church.
During the month of October, Muni patrons can bone up with some new reading material on their ride home: Illustrated testimonials from Bay Area sex workers.
One of the most tiring elements of living in the Internet age is the increasing use of superlatives -- i.e. "Worst. Meal. EVAR."
So, it is with due consideration that we posit Prop. C backers' new ad claiming "THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE!" between union-busting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and public defender Jeff Adachi is the most disingenuous and loathsome political bit we've seen yet.
Your humble narrator penned a cover story on the substantive and political differences between Propositions C and D -- the "city family" pension measure and the one pushed by Adachi. There are numerous practical reasons for well-read, intellectual people to cast a vote for either measure. But if this ad is what it takes to push you out of the Prop. D camp and into the city family's embrace, sorry -- you are a dolt. This is a deeply stupid ad -- but it's even more noxious because it assumes you, too, are deeply stupid.
Here's the premise:
It's safe to say at this point those once lively Monday evening BART protests are now deemed dead on arrival. But perhaps a new audit of citizen complaints against BART police officers will flare protesters' tempers again.
The transit today agency released an internal review that details the number of complaints against BART police, and how often those complaints are due to unnecessary use of force. According to the report, which was compiled by the agency's Internal Affairs Office, there were 66 "issues of concern" from citizens in 2010. Of those, 41 were investigated as formal citizen complaints. The rest were only considered comments of non-complaint and were not investigated.
Roughly 21 percent of all the formal complaints had to do with use of force issues, including "control hold," handguns being pointed, drawn, or displayed, and "take downs."
Loyal readers of this page -- and, perhaps, no one else -- are familiar with eccentric mayoral candidate Harold Miller. His position statements include impressing Jerry Rice into coaching an expansion football team at Candlestick Park; setting up an 800 number so streetcorner beggars can be impressed into safe houses; and, eye-catchingly, teaching Asians to avert beatings and murders at the hands of black youth by "look[ing] Blacks in the eye as a sign of respect."
Well, where do we sign up? Actually, that's just what Miller wants you to do. As an aspiring write-in candidate, he has until Oct. 25 to submit 20 signatures to the Department of Elections to qualify. Per his home page, should Miller's novel take on San Francisco's plight appeal to you, he will "stop by your home with the petition." This message is translated into 10 different languages, including Hebrew, Arabic, and several that appear to simply be computer gibberish.
Miller doesn't want your money -- so it's fortunate there's no cash requirement for would-be write-in candidates. After all, their names don't appear on the ballot. Yes, it's a good bet that a hefty plurality of San Franciscans have no idea who the mayor is. But the discerning voters, the ones who watch reruns of government meetings on Channel 27 and receive shouts of "NOOOOOOOOORM!" when they wander into City Hall, can ask for a list of write-in candidates at their polling places. Those voting absentee can call the Department of Elections and induce a government employee to read them that list.
This being election season means it's also jobs season. Jobs are on the lips of every politician worth his or her soft money -- from Barack Obama's jobs plan to Mayor Ed Lee's own Wilsonesque 17-point jobs plan (in some ways eerily similar to the 17-point jobs plan offered in June by mayoral opponent City Attorney Dennis Herrera, but we digress).
Jobs are on the agenda this weekend at the Cow Palace, too, where a career fair dedicated to California's most lucrative cash crop will be held.
That's right: it's the first-ever medical marijuana jobs fair, organizers claim.
Medical authorities identified Richard Fowler Jr. as the man who was abruptly shot in the head Monday evening inside his home.
The 28-year-old Fowler was reportedly playing video games inside his house on the 400 block of Franconia Street when he was surprised by the gunman who fired one shot that hit Fowler in the head. His parents were upstairs when the shooting happened.
The suspect, Anthony Wright, 34, was arrested yesterday morning on suspicion of pulling the trigger and firing the shot that killed Fowler.
Last week we told you about the Occupy Wall Street movement spreading all the way to the West Coast, including San Francisco. Near the Financial District, protesters have set up a makeshift home for themselves, equipped with tarps, food, rain gear, and, because it's San Francisco, they're attempting to get solar panels.
The group, called OccupySF, is now asking on people to join them today at noon for a demonstration/march outside the Federal Reserve Bank to protest big banks. Afterward, they will go back to living on Market Street, right above the Embarcadero BART stop. "We are occupying this space 24/7 and indefinitely," the group writes on its website.
