The San Francisco Chronicle today continued to thump the tub Supervisor Mark Farrell and others wheeled out last week. It's the "San Francisco and its Board of Supervisors screwed up the America's Cup deal because we're an insufferable, NIMBY city that ruins everything" tub.
Well, we are pretty insufferable. And we do often make things ridiculous for business and development in this city. That's a given, so you don't need to understand the dynamics of the since-imploded America's Cup deal to vigorously nod your head and chalk this up as yet another example of San Francisco breaking the camel's back by piling demand after unreasonable demand on a would-be developer.
The Chron is pushing that worldview via a pair of stories -- "Board of Supervisors blew America's Cup deal" and "Collapse of America's Cup piers deal a blow to S.F." It's an argument with enough wind behind it to carry you a great distance. But it's not the only argument. There are other ways of seeing things.
The oh-so-rad Misson's got everything, even pop-up bar "riots" that disappear as quickly as they're reported.
Police responded to the corner of 16th and Albion streets -- hello, Kilowatt -- at 2 a.m. Sunday morning after callers reported a massive bar fight, Bay City News reported yesterday. The wire service even used the word "riot," perhaps mistaking the situation for what will happen when Mission Street Food runs out of confit.
Two callers to 911 reported a giant fracas, with one caller reporting "80 people," and another reporting "200," according to SFPD Officer Albie Esparza, a department spokesman. The calls came in at 1:59 a.m., a few minutes past closing time (if you're on bar-time and not real-time). By the time police arrived five minutes later at 2:04 a.m., there was nothing, Esparza told The Snitch on Monday morning.
If only high-waisted pants would fall from favor so quickly.
Former congressman JD Hayworth hosts the most gentlemanly three hours in conservative talk radio, twinkling warmly over the 9 a.m.-to-noon shift at KSFO 560 with all the fire and fury of the avuncular God up in the stars at the opening of It's a Wonderful Life. He chats up the issues of the day, of course, and purports to be annoyed at liberals, but he only really seems excited when sharing anecdotes about his days in D.C.
This morning Hayworth addressed the controversy over Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a slut. This is interesting because Hayworth -- like many Republican congressmen of the Clinton era -- has over the years considered Limbaugh a friend, and because Hayworth's own show is on in Limbaugh's old KSFO slot. The station booted Limbaugh in January, and he now vents and stammers at NewsTalk 910 at the same time that Hayworth is being agreeable.
So, Hayworth and Rush are now competitors.
By this point, it's clear that Oakland -- or at least the city's mayor, police chief, and business and cranky old man communities -- hates itself some Occupy.
The hating officially enters the criminal justice system today, when three Occupy Oakland protesters will appear in Alameda County Superior Court on charges of felony theft and hate crimes for lobbing gay slurs while allegedly stealing a wallet, according to reports.
Occupy, you can imagine, is none too pleased with what the movement's website calls "false and outrageously inflated charges," and will react at their comrades' 2 p.m. court appearance today with -- what else? -- a protest.
More than 11,000 homeowners across the Bay Area are invited to a two-day home preservation workshop on March 7 and 8. There, Wells Fargo specialists will give participants some ideas as to how they can hang onto their homes.
This morning's magnitude 4 earthquake terrified pets and sleepy folks across the East Bay, but it appears to have done no damages, unless we're counting a brief closure of BART, the interruption of sleep schedules, and-- over the course of a long, helpless, 30 seconds or so of the earth rattling and grinding -- a reminder that we should all take some disaster preparedness course or something soon, so that when the inevitable finally does happen we'll not just be dashing about in our underpants shouting "Shit!"
In short, it felt like God cannonballing into the hills.
While it was categorized as a 4.6 immediately after roiling the very foundations of East Bay civilization, the 5:33 a.m. El Cerrito-centered quake was later ruled a 4.0. El Cerrito and the East Bay, meanwhile, are so fog-thick this morning that San Francisco is impossible to spot. Perhaps San Franciscans should assure East Bay-types that San Francisco is still there, maybe by sending a photo of it holding today's Chronicle.
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As playgrounds go, Jose Coronado on 21st between Folsom and Shotwell streets is something of an outlier: the asphalt tennis and basketball courts are routinely re-purposed by players of bicycle polo.
But other than filling that niche, the park appears suspect to the predictable urban flavors for which that part of the Mission District is known, While children do use the playground, the city-owned recreation center has been closed for the past year or so thanks to budget cuts, and "drunks," "heroin users" and "hookers" frequent the block-long fenced-in area after dark, Yelp users tell us.
Yet neither sportspeople with sticks on bikes nor urban grit are why Coronado is on the minds of Melinda Haag, the U.S. Attorney for Northern California. Haag cites the park as a reason why medical marijuana dispensary Shambhala Healing Center, four blocks away on Mission Street, must close.
