Betsey Culp

On the third planet from the sun, the following appeared in the New York Times on September 14:

In some sense, Ms. Palin has become a metaphor for Alaska itself, and as grand a landscape as Alaska is, the current discussion is less about a geographical location than about a state of mind, or states of mind.

Elsewhere, in a parallel universe, a group of men sat around a campfire, tired from riding the range all day. It was a scene familiar to American moviegoers, straight out of “Blazing Saddles.” A fierce wind blew down the prairie, stirring up little eddies of dry dirt. A coyote howled in the distance. Overhead, the stars shone a chilly light. The men shivered and drew closer to the fire. One of them spoke.

“Did you ever hear the story of how John McWayne rescued Sarah Paleface? It’s a true story. I heard it from McWayne himself. It was a cold night like this, and he was heading for camp after a hard day of Royal Mountie work. He was feeling kinda low, because he’d only captured three outlaws from sun-up to sun-down, far from the round dozen he usually sent off to the hoosegow.

“Because he was feeling kinda low, he wasn’t watching where he was going. He just let his horse take itself along the trail toward camp. Royal Mountie McWayne rode along, lost in thought, remembering the long-gone days when a man’s derring-do counted for something.

“Suddenly, from the other side of a row of bushes, he heard a voice. A woman’s voice.

“‘Help! Somebody help me!’ the voice said.

” McWayne sat up tall in his saddle and looked around. His sharp eyes were unable to pierce the dark. He turned his horse in the direction of the voice and rode slowly off the trail.

“‘Who’s there?’ he called softly, not wanting to stir up trouble if trouble was waiting beyond the bushes.

“‘Help!’ the voice said again. “It is I, Sarah Paleface.’

“Sarah Paleface! The fairest female in all the West! And she needed his help.

“McWayne squeezed past the bushes and found himself next to a train track. How could he have forgotten that the B&B Railroad had completed the line only the day before? The first train was due to roll through in just a few minutes.

“‘Sarah Paleface!’ he called. ‘I’ll help you. Where are you?’

“‘Down here.’

“Her sweet melodious voice was faint and fearful. What had happened to her? He looked down and saw, nearly under his horse’s feet, the lovely features of Sarah Paleface, peering up at him from a cocoon of white rope. She was tied firmly to the tracks.

“‘Who has done this dastardly deed to you?’ he shouted, as he leaped to the ground. ‘Never fear! John McWayne is here!’

“‘It was those dreadful B&B men,’ she sobbed. ‘They thought they could have their way with me because I’m just a home-loving girl from the West. But they soon found out that big-city bullies are no match for small-town virtue.’

“McWayne pulled out his trusty Bowie knife, shiny from years of use, and began to cut through the stout bonds holding her immobile. Sarah Paleface gazed up at him, her dark eyes filled with gratitude. The rope was thick. Precious minutes passed as he worked to free her.

“From far off in the distance came the faint whistle of a locomotive. McWayne doubled his efforts.

“The whistle grew louder. He could hear the roar of the engine as well. Sarah Paleface said nothing. She continued to look up at him calmly, her face showing the faith she placed in him.

“The train rounded a nearby bend and headed toward the figures on the track. McWayne worked his knife faster. And faster.

“With one last swipe, he cut through the bonds and pulled her loose. They tumbled backward into the bushes as the train roared past, showering them with heat and gravel. They were safe.

“Sarah Paleface sat up and brushed her wayward hair back from her forehead. ‘You saved my life,’ she said softly. And then she reached one soft pink hand, pulled his grizzled face toward her, and gently kissed his check.

“‘I can never properly thank you,’ she added. ‘But if you take me home, my father will reward you handsomely.’

“As John McWayne helped her to his waiting horse, he smiled. ‘Aw shucks, ma’am,’ he said. ‘It was the least I could do.

“Now ain’t that the greatest story?” the voice continued. “And don’t it make you proud to be a man of the West?”

The men around the campfire shuffled in their seats. Finally, one of them spoke up. “Ya know, boss, that ain’t quite the way I heard it. The way I heard it was like this… it wasn’t Sarah Paleface who was tied up on the railroad tracks. It was Royal Mountie McWayne. It was Sarah Paleface who saved his life.”

But that’s just one woman’s opinion. Thanks for reading.

[As always, click on a thumbnail image to see it more clearly.]

A headline in today’s San Francisco Chronicle reads

Shooting victim dies — another Mission fatality

That makes seven in the past three weeks.

Did you cringe when SFPD chief Heather Fong laid out the position of the police, and presumably of the City, at a press conference on September 5?

The violence in the Mission is unacceptable. People involved in gang and drug activity have no regard for the community.

Chronicle editorial writer Caille Millner did:

Right now, the ever-escalating chain of homicides that this city has suffered over the last several years proves that they simply don’t, and won’t — until it affects their own neighborhoods. Until then, they’ll be content to pawn the violence off on “gangs.” Until then, they’ll be content to believe that the neighborhoods where violence is happening is just what happens there — because people of color live there, because lower-income people live there, because because because.

Never mind that this part of the Mission has everything that generally helps to deter crime — tight-knit residents, supportive family units, locally owned businesses with a strong stake in the community.

Millner, a Mission resident, is angry. And despairing:

So the alternative is for San Franciscans to start living the way that many people in Oakland already do — with bars on the doors and a gun in the bedside table.

The center of the announced war zone is 24th Street between Mission and the freeway, where several of the recent shootings occurred. Until a few weeks ago, the street provided a lively, friendly focus for the entire neighborhood. It’s lined with small markets and shops that spill out onto the sidewalk. Inexpensive Latin American restaurants offer a haven to residents who live in crowded apartments nearby. There are a few nods to the area’s recent moves toward gentrification — several cafes have moved in, as well as a fitness center — but they maintain a quiet profile. On a sunny day, it’s a pleasure to walk there.

The street used to bustle in the evening as well, when daytime visitors were joined by a young, slightly trendier population.

Used to.

I came out of the 24th & Mission BART station last night and found that I’d entered a ghost town. As I walked along 24th to Bryant, I joined maybe 20 other pedestrians. Five were Asian women, most likely heading toward Mission from work at a late-closing nail salon. At least another five were plain-clothes cops. You can do the math. I had about a dozen blocks to walk, and it was very very lonely.

It felt like a scene from a science fiction film. The corridor was well lit, and the murals on walls and storefront shutters added accents of rich color to the night. A few cars drove by. One vibrated noisily, its bass amp turned way up. I saw one SFPD black & white. And a couple of lean lanky skateboarders, enjoying the traffic-free street. But in general, the street was silent. Inhospitable. Unfriendly. Barren.

Like a city depopulated by a neutron bomb.

Caille Millner may be right. But the disturbing question is, who drove the people from the street?

But that’s just one woman’s opinion. Thanks for reading.

Hey, guys! John McCain really did a number on you when he selected Sarah Palin as his running mate. And he’s been jerking your chains ever since. Why did you let John McCain jerk your chain last week? There’s been a whole lotta jerkin’ goin’ on. And y’all did a cute little dance in response, jumping up and down, back and forth.

I assume that Palin, like many other VP candidates, was chosen to act as party pit bull, leveling attacks at the opposition that might be considered unseemly coming out of the mouth of someone headed directly to the Oval Office. If so, she did a good job, and she did it with a certain kind of folksy panache. That’s what candidates are supposed to do.

But others saw her performance differently.

New York Times columnist Judith Warner’s chain was jerked in one direction:

Palin sounded, at times, like she was speaking a foreign language as she gave voice to the beautifully crafted words that had been prepared for her on Wednesday night.

But that wasn’t held against her. Thanks to the level of general esteem that greeted her ascent to the podium, it seems we’ve all got to celebrate the fact that America’s Hottest Governor (Princess of the Fur Rendezvous 1983, Miss Wasilla 1984) could speak at all.

Could there be a more thoroughgoing humiliation for America’s women?

Snap. Tammy Bruce was jerked in the other direction. Humiliation? Not at all, she wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle. Far from it.

For Democrats, she offers something even more compelling — a chance to vote for a someone who is her own woman, and who represents a party that, while we don’t agree on all the issues, at least respects women enough to take them seriously.

Whether we have a D, R or an “i for independent” after our names, women share a different life experience from men, and we bring that difference to the choices we make and the decisions we come to. Having a woman in the White House, and not as The Spouse, is a change whose time has come, despite the fact that some Democratic Party leaders have decided otherwise. But with the Palin nomination, maybe they’ll realize it’s not up to them any longer.

Clinton voters, in particular, have received a political wake-up call they never expected.

Snap again. In Salon, Joe Conason was yanked over to Judith Warner’s side:

It is hard to think of a more cynical and contemptuous political act this year than John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate. Having served as governor of Alaska for less than two years — and as mayor of a small town before that — her qualifications for national office are minimal.

Palin is the epitome of tokenism, exactly what conservative Republicans have always claimed to scorn, until today, as the politics of quotas and political correctness. Even Rush Limbaugh is a feminazi now (at least until Election Day).

But if Palin’s résumé is limited, to put it politely, she possesses the only two qualities that McCain now seems to consider essential: She is a right-wing religious ideologue with female gender characteristics. Suddenly that is all anyone needs to qualify as a potential commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military.

It’s stories that jerk chains. And storytelling was out in full force last week.  Joan Walsh, writing in Salon, noticed it:

By the time Palin took the stage, she no longer seemed like an Alaskan Annie Oakley, a gun-toting, hockey mom biker-gal; she’d become pioneer victim girl, Pauline tied to the train tracks by mean Democrats and the liberal media. But Palin shook off the victim mantle by coming out swinging, first blasting “the pollsters and the pundits” for writing off McCain last year, then tearing into Barack Obama with glee, teeth bared like a Rudy Giuliani in heels.

A doctored photo in my email summed it up: Sarah Palin wearing an American-flag bikini and a big smile, stands beside a swimming pool, cradling a rifle.

In the past week, the world has turned the old Women’s Studies slogan on its head. The political has become the personal. Issues have become anecdotes. The war in Iraq was transformed into a woman’s oldest son, about to head into battle. Teenaged pregnancies turned into a photogenic 17 year old. Birth defects emerged as a beautiful five-month-old boy. Gun control was reduced to moose hunting. And so on. The technique worked well for Ronald Reagan. And it’s equally effective today.

It’s time to flip it back and resume the political debate. The only trouble is that the venerable slogan doesn’t want to stay upright. Sometimes the easiest way to talk about policies is in metaphorical terms. But people can always change the metaphors and thus reframe the discussion.

Take, for example, the most obvious feature of the GOP’s Palin lovefest, the sanctification of motherhood. We can point to the reasoned arguments of NARAL and Planned Parenthood. Or we can pull out a well-worn copy of The Handmaid’s Tale and begin reading:

A shape, red with white wings around the face, a shape like mine, a nondescript woman in red carrying a basket, comes along the brick sidewalk towards me. She reaches me and we peer at each other’s faces, looking down the white tunnels of cloth that enclose us. She is the right one.

“Blessed be the fruit,” she says to me, the accepted greeting among us.

“May the Lord open,” I answer, the accepted response.

But that’s just one woman’s opinion. Thanks for reading.

If you’re a traditionalist, you’ll pack away your white clothes on Monday night: as Labor Day comes to an end, so does summer. If you’re more of a traditionalist, you’ll head to the beach or a park for the last picnic of the season. But if you’re the biggest traditionalist of them all, you’ll march in a parade, carrying a banner or sign supporting organized labor.

We’ve done it as a nation since 1894. But labor commentator Dick Meister reminds us that — as in many other areas — San Francisco did it first. Says Meister:

It was on Feb. 21, 1868. Brass bands blared, flags, banners and torchlights waved high as more than 31000 union members marched proudly through the city’s downtown streets, led by shipyard workers and carpenters and men from dozens of other construction trades.

The marchers called it a jollification. The occasion was the passage of a state-wide law mandating an eight-hour work day. San Francisco had already passed its own law the previous December, covering all city employees. But even the city government had been dragging its heels compared to the private sector. Ever since the end of the Civil War, San Francisco trade unionists, always a feisty group, had been bringing an end to the customary ten-hour day in one field after another, using an astonishingly simple method. Workers’ organizations announced that after a certain date their members would work no more than eight hours a day, and that all subsequent contracts must include a clause to that effect. In an era marked by vigorous strikes, employers listened. As early as June 2, 1867, the Morning Call said,

The eight-hour system is more in vogue in this city than in any other part of the world, although there are no laws to enforce it.

And so, late in February of 1868, after the state had followed their lead, thousands of San Francisco workers marched down Market Street. Chris Carlsson notes in Shaping San Francisco that

they marched in order by when they began working 8-hour days: ship caulkers (Dec. 1865), shipwrights (Dec. 1865), ship joiners (Jan. 1866), ship painters (Mar. 1866), plasterers (Aug. 1866), bricklayers (Feb. 1867), Laborer’s Protective Benevolent Association (Feb. 1867), stone masons (Mar. 1867), stonecutters and marble polishers (May 1867), lathers (May 1867), riggers (June 1867), metal roofers (June 1867), house painters (June 1867), plumbers and gas fitters (July 1867), and the machinists, ironworkers, brass finishers, and their apprentices, not then working eight hours.

Carlsson adds that the new work standards didn’t last long. Employers understandably opposed the idea. The American economy tanked in the turbulent period following the Civil War, and thousands of unemployed workers in other parts of the country hopped on the new transcontinental railroad, seeking jobs in the Far West. At the same time, the vast workforce that had built the railroad found itself out of a job. The eight-hour day became a fuzzy memory.

But also a dream to pursue. The issue refused to die, either in San Francisco or in the rest of the country. In time, city after city and then state after state passed eight-hour-day laws. It wasn’t until 1938, however, that the federal government followed suit, and its law arrived laden with exceptions.

And now? Now we seem to have gone full circle. In an article published last year in the Nation, Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon point out that the practices of forced overtime and nonstandard shifts have made the issue moot.

One of labor’s greatest twentieth-century achievements — the eight-hour day and forty-hour week — is rapidly becoming a thing of the past for millions of people, with neither the AFL-CIO nor “labor-friendly” Democrats doing much about it.

The press has dutifully detailed its demise. According to today’s San Francisco Chronicle, the latest entry in the funeral procession is the University of California:

The annual overtime pay throughout the 10-campus UC system rose by 12.4 percent to a total of $135 million. It was shared among 49,218 employees, according to an analysis of UC’s $8.9 billion annual payroll.

It’s not that employers necessarily want to return to the days of the sweat shop. Early and Gordon say,

Extra pay for overtime hours — whether legally mandated or privately negotiated — was not intended to fatten weekly paychecks. It was supposed to be a financial penalty, encouraging employers to expand their workforce rather than rely on overtime to meet production needs.

But expanding the workforce means paying more for health insurance. Kim Moody and Simone Sagovac have published a pamphlet called “Time Out: The Case for a Shorter Work Week,” which explains,

When job-based benefits like health insurance began to bulk up labor costs, premium pay ceased to be a deterrent to overtime. It became cheaper for employers to schedule overtime than hire new workers

That’s one reason why the AFL-CIO has been throwing itself into a national health insurance campaign. But unlike the prosperous mid-1860s, when labor organizations could dictate terms, today’s workers are at the mercy of their employers unless government intercedes. In their party platform, the Democrats say that they are on the side of the workers:

Democrats are committed to an economic policy that produces good jobs with good pay and benefits. That is why we support the right to organize. We know that when unions are allowed to do their job of making sure that workers get their fair share, they pull people out of poverty and create a stronger middle class. We will strengthen the ability of workers to organize unions and fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. We will restore pro-worker voices to the National Labor Relations Board and the National Mediation Board and we support overturning the NLRB’s and NMB’s many harmful decisions that undermine the collective bargaining rights of millions of workers.

If they win the White House and the Senate, and if they remember who put them there, the old labor song might again become a reality:

Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest,
Eight hours for what we will.

Now that would be a real occasion for jollification!

Thanks for reading. I’m outta here.

The future of newspapers is a much-discussed topic these days. Print papers are struggling financially. Readership is down, and so is advertising, because people have found less expensive options on the Internet.

The situation is dire, but understandable: the Internet has injected new, unforeseen elements. Ultimately, it will manage to work itself out and news-gathering will adapt to the new technology.

Maybe.

But newspapers also face another, perhaps more disturbing element, one that is harder to understand. “The media” in general and print papers in particular have acquired a very bad rep. People don’t trust them. People don’t like them. They don’t like the papers’ content. They don’t even like having the papers around.

Am I overreacting? Take a look at this call to arms, published by the Municipal Art Society of New York:

The streets of New York City are littered with filthy, poorly maintained and decrepit newsracks that are both eyesores and potentially hazardous to New Yorkers.

Paris, London, Berlin and Amsterdam don’t tolerate this scourge on their streets, and Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami Beach, Houston and San Francisco have cracked down on the newsrack blight too. But New York City continues to tolerate it, and we think this is outrageous!

So we asked for your help in ridding our streets of these nasty newsracks.

As a beginning step, the society mounted an OUTRAGE! Nasty Newsracks photo competition. It posted the winning entry on its website on November 17, 2007.

The photo was judged to be the winner because it shows multiple violations of the City’s ordinances regulating newsracks: the newsracks are less than 15 feet away from a fire hydrant and all within a bus-stop zone; the bus is forced to discharge passengers outside of the bus-stop to avoid depositing them amid the racks; and the newsracks are dirty and unkempt, with one being used as a trash receptacle, and the glass door of another having been smashed in.

The proposed solution — a proper regulatory ordinance.

I’m puzzled. The six offending newsracks — yes, six, a well-established group, not a couple of mavericks — are violating an ordinance that is already in effect. Why has New York City not cited and removed them? They are “dirty and unkempt, with one being used as a trash receptacle.” As any newspaper owner knows, graffiti and vandalism are the bane of any city paper’s existence. Yet the victims are the ones who are punished, not the perpetrators.

The prize-winning photo shows a row of brightly colored boxes, a cheerful mixture of red and yellow and orange. They could have been related to the newsracks I described in the Flier nearly ten years ago, when San Francisco first sought to eradicate the journalistic scourge that was infecting its own streets:

They were a handsome lot as they paraded down the street: there was Weekly in cheerful red, yellow-coated Chron, Ex in white, Guardian in dapper black, and many others, each in its own special color. They had been on the street for many years, and the [Flier’s] little newsrack loved to listen to their stories. Murders, earthquakes, fires, celebrations — these old-timers had seen them all.

I wonder what the members of the Municipal Art Society would say if they saw the result of our crackdown. In accord with its contract with the city, Clear Channel has provided street corner after street corner with dark green monoliths. They are generally graffiti-free. But they are also generally half-empty. The bustling array of publications that once cluttered our sidewalks has decamped, making the sponsor’s original name — Clear Channel Adshel — truly appropriate. These are simply shells for ads.

But the program is booming. According to the Department of Public Works, it’s getting ready to expand, so that the city’s outer neighborhoods may share in the cleansing that has graced the downtown area. According to the Chronicle, to take this next step, DPW is planning to hire

news-rack program managers, sidewalk inspectors and engineers — additional city personnel needed to expand the program.

And those publishers who are still in the program are going to see their annual fees doubled, from $30 to $60 per box, beginning in September in order to pay for the added city employees. John Geluardi noted recently,

The fee increase poses a significant financial hit for your ever-humble SF Weekly.

And a person doesn’t need lessons in algebra to realize that such an increase can devastate smaller papers.

My 1998 Flier column is a funny children’s story, but it ends sadly. Not, I hope, presciently. Soon, it says, the Supes Finance Committee will approve the newsrack ordinance, and then the full board will follow suit.

Then the party could begin. Without the pretty red and yellow and gray newsracks. And maybe without their papers.

——————

In today’s Other Voices, the publisher of the Houston Tribune, Sharon Lauder, offers a look at how another city is wrestling with the same problem.

Thanks for reading. I’m outta here.

[As always, click on a thumbnail image to see it more clearly.]

On the third planet from the sun, the following appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on July 13:

The green thumbs were covered with brown dirt Saturday at San Francisco’s Civic Center when 150 people who like to eat their vegetables planted an updated version of a World War II victory garden.

Elsewhere, in a parallel universe, a young queen was just finishing her morning toilette. She absent-mindedly scratched her head and removed two or three lice before picking up the sleekly pomaded wig that was her trademark. She smoothed a few stray wisps of  hair and settled it on her head. A quick glance in the mirror, a few minor adjustments, and she was ready to begin the day.

She turned to address the assembled courtiers.

“I’m bored. Let’s find something new to do today. What shall we do?”

Her words dropped into a deep and uncomfortable silence, as each of the assembled guests held back, hoping that someone else would throw out the first suggestion, which was almost always rejected.

“Well,” she repeated, “what shall we do today?”

Her eyebrows lifted into high arches as she looked around the room. A balding soldier sat in one corner, examining his fingernails. A young, well-dressed lady-in-waiting coughed gently into her handkerchief.

“Mr. Orr,” the queen said sharply. “Do you have a plan?”

The gentleman in question rose to his feet and bowed gracefully.

“I was thinking, Your Majesty, that we might arrange a painting party and decorate some of the apartments being constructed for the deserving poor. Psychologists have discovered that bright, cheerful surroundings are most effective in turning wayward paupers away from the streets.”

The queen pouted. “Not poor people again! Mr. Orr, we did that last week!”

Orr sidled toward the overstuffed cushion he had just vacated. His face was the color of a ripe eggplant.

“Well?” The queen snapped her fingers. “Are you all sleeping? Lady Kaye, what are your thoughts?”

A lean, dark-haired woman curtseyed deeply, her elbows jutting out at right angles above her waist as she endeavored to keep her balance.

“My lady,” she stammered, “perhaps you would care to organize a parade. It’s been many months since the last one” — she caught herself and gulped loudly — “and I’m sure the public has forgotten how you hid the route at the last minute. Today is too windy to carry torches, but a procession of handsome athletes carrying baseball bats would surely stir the populace.”

The queen drew herself up to her full height and pigeoned out her bosom.

“How dare you mention the last parade! Even the sight of the dowager queen showing off her toothpick legs in running shorts could not pacify those disappointed spectators.”

“Come, come,” she went on. “I will not sit idly today. We must do something, something visible, so that our loyal subjects will not forget our presence.”

At that very moment, the door opened and an old woman burst into the room. She wore a broad hat and a flowing magician’s cloak. Brandishing a rough staff half again as tall as she was, she swept up to the dais where the queen stood.

“Your majesty.”

The queen responded. “Biddy Babbling Brook.”

The newcomer pointed the leafy tip of her staff toward the queen and crumpled into a heap at her feet. Two pages rushed to her side and helped her rise.

“Your Majesty,” the old woman began again. “I have come to ask for your assistance in a grave matter facing our country. In this time of economic turmoil, many citizens go to bed hungry. I beseech you to follow the example of your ancestors and set aside a little plot of land to grow food that will ease their hardship.”

“I grow food? The queen had a shocked look on her face. “Would that involve digging in the dirt?”

“Only symbolically, my lady. You would have at your disposal a whole army of gardeners willing to get dirt under their fingernails for the good of the country. All you need to do is turn over the first shovelful of soil, using, of course, a dainty silver trowel especially designed to fit your tiny hands.”

The old woman stared at the queen, who was beginning to waver.

“Farms are messy, ugly places, crawling with unpleasant creatures and laid out in boring straight lines, Biddy Brook. I would not want to look at that every day.”

“May I suggest, Your Majesty, that you employ your finest landscape architects to create a new design. There is no requirement that gardens be arranged in close, parallel rows. I’m sure they could devise something else — a web of circles, perhaps.”

“But gardens take a long time to mature. I could not stand to wait. And I would find it distasteful to stare at bare dirt while the seeds were sprouting.”

“Then command that only large seedlings be planted. An instant garden is an exceedingly happy concept.”

The queen clapped her hands

“I will do it. Direct my stewards to begin preparations in the park just outside my window. And surround it with a sturdy fence so that thieving passersby cannot invade the space.” She thought a minute. “A sturdy fence, but a pretty one.”

The old woman bowed.

“I’ll deliver your orders immediately. But I do think, ma’am, that you might dispense with the fence entirely, in favor of a low, more welcoming wall. You could still control access by a few strategically placed gates. With a veggie patrol at night, that should suffice.”

The queen opened her arms wide.

“I can see it now,” she said, “hills of beans and corn and squash, surrounded by happy singing children. Soon all the world will know that I am truly the Green Queen.”

The courtiers bowed and murmured, “The Green Queen!”

The old woman slipped out the door. Once in the hall, she grinned and raised a triumphant fist. “Let a hundred flowers bloom,” she said, “and a hundred gardens prosper.”

Thanks for reading. I’m outta here till Friday.

(Warning: Contains a spoiler.)

Once upon a time, in the not-too-distant future, the material world overwhelmed the physical world. In other words, there was so much garbage on earth that it crowded out the people.

Human beings, being human and therefore somewhat intelligent, realized the spot they were in and took off for outer space, leaving a corps of robots to clean up the mess they had made. For several centuries, the bots labored, gathering up debris, compacting it into cubes, and piling them neatly. Over time, the mechanical workers began to fall apart, until only one remained. He took good care of himself. He recharged his solar panels as needed and replaced worn out parts with salvaged ones. Day in and day out, this little Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class continued at his appointed task, with only a single cockroach for company.

But Wall-E was a robot. He didn’t need company. At least, he didn’t at first. As the years went by, however, Wall-E began to change. Seeking shelter from the elements — for survival, not comfort, of course — he created a home for himself. He began to collect odd little artifacts — a light bulb, a doll, a slew of cigarette lighters. He found an old tape of “Hello, Dolly!” and divised a way to screen it. He watched that movie again and again, drawn especially to the singing and the poignant moment when the hero and the heroine join hands. He began to develop a personality.

Wall-E might have continued like this indefinitely, bringing home his treasures, watching his movie, meticulously piling his cubes of trash into rectangular patterns. But one day the city where he lived received a visitor. A lovely, white, ovoid Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator. Eve.

Wall-E, poor lonely Wall-E, immediately fell in love with Eve. He followed her everywhere.  He plied her with presents. He watched over her. But she was a young robot, without his transformative experience. She felt nothing. She was on a mission, assigned to discover whether there was plant life on earth.

It turned out that there was.

Eve dutifully took the tiny plant Wall-E gave her and returned to her space station, followed by her knight in rusty armor. There, in the midst of self-sufficient robots and humans gone flabby from years of weightlessness, he did his best to protect her from harm. Eventually, her precious cargo caught the attention of the ship’s captain, who realized that it was time to return to earth and restore the planet to its former glory.

And so they did. And everyone lived happily for a while, if not forever after.

It’s a good yarn. Pixar made it into a captivating animated film. But like its hero, the film has taken on a life of its own. In Sunday’s New York Times, Frank Rich said,

Mr. McCain should be required to see “Wall-E” to learn just how far adrift he is from an America whose economic fears cannot be remedied by his flip-flop embrace of the Bush tax cuts (for the wealthy) and his sham gas-tax holiday (for everyone else). Mr. Obama should see it to be reminded of just how bold his vision of change had been before he settled into a front-runner’s complacency. Americans should see it to appreciate just how much things are out of joint on an Independence Day when a cartoon robot evokes America’s patriotic ideals with more conviction than either of the men who would be president.

Jessica Jensen, writing in the Huffington Post, said,

The movie is an inspirational environmental call to action, and yet there is no mention of how or where people can learn to cut carbon emissions, save water, reduce their trash production, etc. Why didn’t Pixar put up a simple screen with “ten recommendations for loving planet Earth” at the end of the film — or a link to a site with educational information? It pains me that MILLIONS of people will see this movie and learn nothing about what they can do to save the planet!

On the other hand, Shannen Coffen, writing in the National Review Online, thought the film’s “call to action” went too far. He called the movie “Godforsaken dreck”:

From the first moment of the film, my kids were bombarded with leftist propaganda about the evils of mankind.

Meanwhile, Patrick J. Ford argued in the American Conservative that the movie’s message was actually conservative:

The real tragedy of these callous conservative critics (say that three times fast) is that they are missing the real lessons of the movie, ones I found immediately attractive to a traditional conservative. In the film, it becomes clear that mass consumerism is not just the product of big business, but of big business wedded with big government. In fact, the two are indistinguishable in WALL-E’s future. The government unilaterally provided it’s citizens with everything they needed, and this lack of variety led to Earth’s downfall.

Oh my! In the face of all these heavy hitters, what’s a poor, self-respecting robot to do? He didn’t know he was a political talking point. All he wanted to do was to get the girl.

When my son was little, we went to see the movie “E.T.” I have no great fondness for Steven Spielberg. In fact, my animosity toward his films is a family joke. As we walked out of the theater, I began expounding on the distasteful decisions he’d made in this one. My son listened to the lecture for about a minute before he interrupted: “Mom, it’s just a movie.”

So is “Wall-E.”

This is not to say that we can’t — or shouldn’t — find underlying meaning in movies or other works of art. The possibility of layered interpretations is what distinguishes valuable works from the pedestrian. But during the past few years, we’ve become Johnny One Note, and that note is politics. Johnny sang loud and long during the recent presidential campaign, where candidates trying to express genuine concern for genuine issues found themselves reduced to sound bites and horse-race handicapping. He continues to sing out every time anyone mentions the very serious problems facing Americans — health care, the economy, global warming.

His song drowns out the sounds of reality. It deafens us to what should be a siren’s call, ineluctably drawing us closer to the things we value most — our bodies, our communities, and our natural environment. “Couldn’t hear the brass; couldn’t hear the drum.” All we can hear is Johnny, blowing his political horn.

In contrast, “Wall-E” is nearly a silent film. There’s very little standing between the viewer and the life-and-death situations that the robots find themselves in. Yes, “Wall-E” is just a movie. And Wall-E is just a robot. But even though he is made of metal, not flesh and blood, his anguish — and joy — sings to anyone who listens. It’s up to us to pull the plug on Johnny and so we can hear his song.

Thanks for reading. I’m outta here till next Tuesday.

Sumer is icumen in, the old song says. And quite a summer it promises to be.

In addition to the usual games at City Hall, there will be June weddings, lots of them, led off by the remarriage of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, this time in a court-sanctioned ceremony.

In the beginning, there were two women. They founded a social club called the Daughters of Bilitis because they wanted a place to hang out with their friends and dance… with each other. They started a magazine called The Ladder to let women like them know that they were not alone.

In case you missed the excitement that these women started more than fifty years ago, it’s good to remember that in 1955, gay bars were illegal. It was even against the law in some places for women to wear men’s trousers. In the eyes of Joseph McCarthy and his fear-mongering minions, homosexuals were as subversive as card-carrying Communists. In San Francisco four years later, City Assessor Russell Wolden, running for mayor, announced that the Daughters of Bilitis

is a matter of grave concern to every parent. It exposes teen-agers to possible contact and contamination in a city overrun by deviates.

And all because a couple of women were determined to create their own space.

A simple act. A beginning.

On the cultural front, the city’s cup is running over with exciting, “world-class” events this summer. Frida Kahlo has taken up residence at SFMOMA. Dale Chihuly, whose glowing glassworks have been welcoming visitors to the de Young and the Legion of Honor since the beginning of May, will have a full-fledged exhibition at the de Young. The Legion of Honor hosts a group of women Impressionists — Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzales, and Marie Bracquemond.

But the new Contemporary Jewish Museum got a head start on all of them by opening last weekend. The media, here and elsewhere have focused on the building, Daniel Libeskind’s imaginative tweaking of the old PG&E power station on Mission, and only touched in passing on the art displayed inside. Talk about judging a book by the cover! It’s a strange and wonderful building — how often do you see a cube poised on one pointy corner? But don’t they realize it’s a museum we’re talking about? Museums are usually containers for exhibits, not just interesting shells.

What’s inside?

All sorts of good stuff — William Steig’s drawings, assorted explorations in sound, photographs of Bay Area Jews — but especially a collection of art, old and new, gathered under the rubric “In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis.”

You remember Genesis: “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth,” and so on for seven days. A very short section at the beginning of the Torah; a very short section at the beginning of the Bible. But its meaning has fascinated scholars and artists since the beginning of time. And the new exhibition is no exception.

There are old drawings by people like William Blake and Marc Chagall, new installations that include electronic media and oral testimonies. Perhaps most stunning is a room designed by Mierle Laderman Ukeles, which re-creates the Kabbalist creation story of Tikkun Olam, or “Repairing the World.”

In the process of creating the world, the story goes, God made vessels of light and poured a divine substance into them, but the vessels shattered, sending out little sparks that lodged in matter everywhere. The world has been fragmented ever since. Every time a person takes a material object — a desk, a wrench, a floor mop — and uses it for a good purpose, the trapped sparks are freed and reunited.

Ukeles has lined the sides of the room with strings of two-sided mirrors, which catch and reflect the light —- one side to illuminate an individual’s path and the other to “capture the sacred images of Others.” But these mirrors will not hang there forever. She offers a trade: on specified days — the first is July 31 — visitors intending to perform a good deed may exchange their signed promise for a mirror. Then, Ukeles says,

This flow of light, COVENANT, and personal Tikkun into the world will transform the artwork…

By joining me in this journey, your light will be known within here, and then, through your Tikkun action, it will radiate out in the world.

To Mierle Laderman Ukeles, the idea of using service to transform the material world into art is nothing new. In 1969, when she was pregnant, she watched her own body changing at the same time that the social and political worlds around her were being transformed. She felt frustrated by

the image of the “housewife” as someone locked into an irretrievable system of dependency.

She wrote “Maintenance Art — Proposal for an Exhibition,” in which she reframed housework — the “maintenance art” —

as a means to the survival of personal freedom, art and all other social institutions. In other words, maintenance art was a necessary part of the human condition. Through this approach to the problem, Ukeles began to extend the references in her work outside of a purely feminist content in order to reveal the conditions of work, and the stereotypes handed to maintenance workers on all levels, whether in public, private, or corporate enterprises.

The manifesto turned into action in 1973, in an early bit of performance art, when

she washed the floor of the Hartford Art Museum during regular public visiting hours, surrounded by sculpture and painting, as well as its entrance way (Hartford Wash: Washing, Tracks, Maintenance: Inside and Hartford Wash: Washing, Tracks, Maintenance: Outside). After all, as an artist, the museum was her home away from home. To it she brought her performance art inside and outside — whether as wife and mother or as maintenance worker, ignored as service workers usually are.

It’s only natural that, for the past 30 years, she has been artist-in-residence for the New York City Department of Sanitation. In 1983, she covered a garbage truck with a tempered glass mirror, perhaps anticipating the mirrors she hung in San Francisco.

The reflecting truck is a metaphor for the interrelationship between “us” whose images get caught in the mirror and “those” who collect our garbage.

Now she’s offering us dozens of mirrors to “repair the world.”

And all because a woman was determined to create her own space.

A simple act. A beginning.

Thanks for reading. I’m outta here.

As the dust begins to settle from Tuesday’s elections, here and in Montana and South Dakota, a few blurry shapes are becoming visible through the murk of campaign ads and media hype.

The Chronicle’s Bill Whalen seems to have been the only person to notice that we — the State of California — shot ourselves in the foot when we changed the date of our presidential primary from June 3 to February 5. If we’d left well enough alone, we coulda been a contender.

At the risk of over-romanticizing, the Democratic Party scenario would have played out something like this: On the 40th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s storied win here, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton would have come to California in similar dire straits as RFK: a New York senator/presidential underdog long on family legacy but short on delegates, desperately in need of a win to force a favorable outcome at the national convention.

Like Kennedy, Clinton would have forged a coalition of working-class whites and Latinos (RFK had Cesar Chavez as an ally; Clinton has Cesar L. Chavez, his grandson, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in her TV ads). Ironically, Clinton would have slammed her main nemesis, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, much the same way as Kennedy was attacked by his rivals: too young, too brash, too liberal. In the end, she likely would have prevailed – in numbers superior to Kennedy’s (RFK won with 46.3 percent of the vote in 1968; Clinton racked up 51.1 percent in February). Maybe it wouldn’t have cost Obama the nomination, but it sure would have been fun.

When will Californians learn that they should insist on doing things their way instead of trying to follow the rest of the country? Batting clean-up is always more exciting.

In the election we did have, it was the fight over Propositions F and G that was most exciting, at least if the number of mailers sent and dollars spent is any indication. The contenders entered the ring wrapped in layer upon layer of controversy. At heart, of course, they were fighting for the future of Hunters Point. But even though Prop G won on Tuesday, the election was only the first round. This fight won’t truly be settled until the area is built out. Until a slew of issues and a passel of nitty gritty details are worked out, we won’t truly know who won the prize — Lennar or the people of Hunters Point.

One issue that will undoubtedly remain in Round Two is the question of a new stadium for the 49ers. That stadium is beginning to feel like the Flying Dutchman, forever wandering from here to there, with never a place to call home. Maybe it’s time to let it sail off into the sunset. That’s not just my opinion. Ray Ratto, who is far more involved in the pro football world than I am,

knew that the stadium was pure bait-and-switch.

And why did we know that? Because this is the new world of stadium construction, in which ballparks are placed in the middle of grander urban projects (ballpark “villages”) that miraculously come under the control of the owners of the team getting the stadium. That’s why, as one example, the Giants want the development across the cove from the ballpark. It’s Real Estate 101 for the mega-acquisitive.

But these projects are only myths, Ratto adds. And these days, they’re not very helpful ones:

the economy says they are stupid ideas, period. And stupider now than ever.

Lennar’s plans to build thousands of new homes. The 49ers hopes for a new stadium. These were the most visible issues in the Prop F and G fight. But if you read the literature carefully, you discover that there was another theme as well.

Mayor Gavin Newsom explains, in Lennar-sponsored mailer:

Real work on transforming the Hunters Point Shipyard began when Senator Feinstein was mayor. A plan that has been through literally hundreds of meetings and thousands of hours of communitiy input is coming before you as Proposition G.

Community leaders from the Bayview and around the City have spent years to craft the best plan possible.

Then Supervisor Chris Daly came along. With no public input, no community meetings in the Bayview, and no real plans — Supervisor Daly put Proposition F on the ballot.

Another Lennar-sponsored mailer says:

Prop F is a false promise from Chris Daly.

The San Francisco Women’s Political Committee (which mysteriously requires a user name and password to enter its website) says the same thing in almost exactly the same words:

Proposition F is just another false promise to the Bayview. Sponsored by Chris Daly and placed on the ballot without a single public hearing, Prop F overturns ten years of community planning for jobs, parks and housing.

So does the “Official San Francisco Democratic Party Recommendations for the June 3rd Primary Election”:

Proposition F is just anther false promise to the Bayview. Sponsored by Chris Daly and placed on the ballot without a single public hearing, Prop F overturns ten years of community planning for jobs, parks and housing.

Gets a little monotonous, doesn’t it?

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

It turns out that Lennar and the mayor may have won in the Prop G / Prop F fight but, as the Chronicle noted, another prize was also up for grabs on Tuesday — the composition of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee.

A little-known but highly influential San Francisco political group is about to add some big-name local politicians to its ranks after voters on Tuesday elected three members of the Board of Supervisors to the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee and handed control of the body to the city’s left-leaning progressive forces.

The three supes —Aaron Peskin, Jake McGoldrick, and yes, Chris Daly — are members of the progressive Board of 2000, which turned San Francisco politics upside down. They will be termed out in November. But they obviously don’t intend to ride off into the sunset.

On the contrary. Their move to the DCCC suggests that they intend to strengthen the role of the Democratic Party in city politics, to take it beyond the fundraising and education of political newcomers that have occupied it in recent years. Peskin told the Chronicle,

from time to time you now see the party pass a policy resolution that appears on the mayor’s or supervisors’ desks. You’ll probably see more of that.

And the progressives are sending out a message that they intend to direct those resolutions. That pesky Chris Daly managed to do a successful end-run around Prop G.

Newsom, who unsuccessfully pitted some of his staffers against Peskin, McGoldrick, and Daly, described the battle for the DCCC,

It’s about power and positioning and I think that’s self-evident.

Of course, it is. That’s what politics is all about. And I think that’s self-evident.

Stay tuned for Round Two.

Thanks for reading. I’m outta here till next Friday.

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Tune in to Arthur Bruzzone’s Unscripted this week to hear my not-always-sane-and-sensible opinions on everything under the sun. (Channel 11 in San Francisco. Friday, 8:00 p.m. Sunday, 8:00 p.m. On demand after that at SFunscripted.com.)

When I was growing up, my father had a career in mind for me.

Let me put this in context. My father was weird. He also traveled a lot. And he enjoyed the company of attractive women who tended to his creature comforts.

He wanted me to be a stewardess.

He never understood why I didn’t want to be. And I never had the heart to explain it to him. But when I see articles like the one in today’s Chronicle, I remember my father’s dreams for his daughter.

The Chronicle jubilantly reported that even though the American economy is gasping, San Francisco has been attracting record numbers of visitors who are happy to spend big bucks in its shops and restaurants and hotels — $8.2 billion of them. The weak dollar plays a part — more than 10 percent of these tourists are from overseas — but most of these people have traveled here from other parts of the United States.

Joe D’Alessandro, president and CEO of the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau, recited what has become a familiar mantra in recent years:

Tourism continues to be San Francisco’s most vital industry.

The city knows how to sell itself. D’Alessandro added,

Thanks to (Mayor) Gavin Newsom and (City Attorney) Dennis Herrera (who argued in favor of same-sex marriage rights) and the California Supreme Court making sure that San Francisco will become the wedding capital of the nation — for everybody.

The Visitors Bureau is doing its bit, by spending “$1000,000 on marketing to gay, lesbian and transgender tourists.”

That’s on top of the $1.1 million that it spends (out of a $15 million marketing budget) on its “Taste S.F.” campaign, designed to remind the world that San Francisco is a “foodie destination.”

Food and romance. Can you say, “Coffee, tea, or milk?”

Now take a look at a description of the entire Bay Area — not simply the City by the Bay — found in a recent report called “Sustaining the Bay Area’s Competitiveness in a Globalizing World,” prepared by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute:

The Bay Area has a productive economy that draws on the talents of a well-educated workforce in one of the most dynamic urban centers in the world. World-class research universities, a vibrant technology and venture capital community in Silicon Valley, and the financial and commercial strengths of the region’s cities combine with the area’s natural beauty and mild climate to form an attractive environment for developing people, businesses, and industries. Bay Area universities receive a substantial share of the United States’ research funds, and the students educated in these schools often go on to develop successful companies that help build industries in biotechnology, software, Internet services and other sectors. In addition to the region’s traditional strengths in these sectors, opportunities are growing in digital media, nanotechnology, and clean energy technologies.

I realize that in times of economic turbulence, we should be grateful for any boost we can get. But tourists come and go. A well-educated and well-appreciated workforce goes on forever.

It’s partly a matter of image management. But only partly. It’s also a matter of how we see ourselves. Tell me truthfully, which place would you prefer to live in — one with yummy food or a productive economy? A theme park or a world-class city?

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On a different note, the nice people at WordPress are very unhappy. It seems that they have spent hours developing a blogging program that allows readers to insert comments easily. But they’re being ignored. Instead, the readers of my columns send their comments to me by email. These readers are witty and insightful, and so are their comments, but their brilliance remains under the bushel of my Inbox, unappreciated by the rest of the world. Maybe they’re shy.

It’s very simple. All they have to do is log in at the bottom of a column, place their cursor in the little box, and type away. People might even respond. And then we’d have more wit and insight, blazing like fireworks, setting the cyber-sky on fire.

Thanks for reading. I’m outta here till Tuesday.