LEFT SIDE ART

Weenie of the week

Sup. Gerardo Sandoval

Sure, the 49ers suck. And yes, we understand why a supervisor who is notorious for bearing grudges had a beef with the team brass. But Sandoval's recent resolution to bag on the Niners and adopt the Seattle Seahawks as the city's official Super Bowl team was so ridiculous that it rates our first Weenie of the Week award. Go Steelers!

RIGHT SIDE ART

Sandip Roy and Sandy Close toast those gathered Jan. 26 for the New California Media Awards, which have been dubbed the "ethnic Pulitzers" for honoring voices from diverse points of view. It was the seventh and final NCM Awards banquet, given that the organization Close founded recently became New American Media. A complete list of the award winners is available online.

news.newamericamedia.org/news

$20 million question

While the cops are essentially throwing up their hands when it comes to solving homicides, San Francisco supervisor Chris Daly has some ideas for curbing the city's surging murder rate. He is pushing a measure for the June ballot that would pour $20 million annually into violence-prevention programs. Additionally, the charter amendment, which is still kicking around committee but could come up for a vote later this month, would bolster local efforts to assist crime victims and create a council of community folks and public officials who'd draft a long-range plan for minimizing violence. "I think it's a significant investment by the city, but we're not talking about breaking the bank," said Daly, whose legislative salvo was inspired in part by hood activist Sharen Hewitt. (A.C. Thompson)

Sacre bleu

Daly has long been on the top of the political hit list kept by downtown power brokers, so he's likely to have some well-funded challengers thrown at him this fall. One of the first to enter the fray is Jordanna Thigpen, an attorney who sits on the Small Business Commission. She recently got some help in her quest from the San Francisco Sentinel Web site, which also has a history of battling Daly.

Or maybe it wasn't help at all.

The Web site devoted its Jan. 26 spread to an opinion piece by Thigpen titled "Don't Be Afraid to Ask for Help." Her tone is sweet, if a tad condescending, as her narrative meanders past the poll-tested "best practices" tropes that Newsom loves to flog and off on her recent trip to gay Paris, a "dream city" where the "streets are spotless" and the trains run on time. But don't think she's some kinda Francophile or something.

"France isn't perfect – for one thing it's not a democracy, and there is seething and unresolved racial discord which the government would apparently prefer to overlook. And it has earned its standard of living, smugly rumored to [be] the best in the world, by stealth arms sales and war-profiteering."

Yeah, fuck the war-mongering French and their king! (Steven T. Jones)

www.sanfranciscosentinel.com

Odd choice?

It's easy to see why pro-choicers might feel defensive these days. Samuel Alito is headed for one of those high-backed Supreme Court chairs, and on Jan. 21 San Francisco was treated to its second annual "Walk for Life," where opponents of reproductive choice overwhelmed counter-protesters out to defend legal abortion.

Still, the reaction to antiabortion posters recently placed in BART trains and stations by Oakland's Roman Catholic diocese has been a bit, well, outsize.

First the ads prompted complaints to BART. Then there was a rash of graffiti and vandalization. And most recently, on Jan. 25, the Democratic County Central Committee approved a resolution that was an obvious reaction to the posters. It urges the BART board to "establish a policy that advertising must be accurate."

We agree the posters are frustrating. They imply, inaccurately, that abortion is available nine months into pregnancy and even after a fetus is "partially born." (The term "partial birth" was invented by opponents of abortion and has no basis in medicine).

But liberals have traditionally defended free speech – even if they've disagree with the content. Nazis marching in Skokie, Ill., anyone?

As we wait to see how the BART board reacts to the uproar, we can't help thinking that somewhere a group of right wingers is having a good laugh at the San Franciscans fighting a few hundred subway posters – while they take over the courts and legislatures. (Tali Woodward)

The cluelessness chronicles

Facts. Who the hell needs 'em? All they do is get in the way of uninformed blabbery and speculation. And we're sure our friends at the San Francisco Chronicle agree with us on this front.

After all, not one, but two Chron reporters went on national TV Jan. 25 to talk about the murder of Bayview resident Sean Keel – and neither one had even an elementary grasp of the issues, as CNN host Nancy Grace quickly found out. The clueless Chronistas in question were TV critic Tim Goodman, who'd penned an impassioned, semicoherent rant – er, column – encouraging the cable news nets to look into Keel's slaying, and metro desk reporter Simone Sebastian, who'd covered the killing for the paper. Check the transcript:

GRACE Could you tell me about the crime rate? Are you familiar with the stats on the crime rates there in San Francisco?

GOODMAN I'm not, no.

GRACE What about it, Simone? Crime rate up or down?

SEBASTIAN It's hard to say, Nancy. I don't usually cover the crime rates in San Francisco. But they're definitely an issue and particularly in this neighborhood, the Bayview neighborhood.

GRACE Well, I happen to have some stats right in front of me.

And then Grace proceeded to tell the alleged journalists what they could've learned from a 60-second search of their own paper's Web archives: "This last year, 2005, [was] one of the bloodiest in the last decade in San Francisco." (ACT)

One toke over the line

A medical cannabis patient with a rare form of adrenal cancer who was arrested by San Francisco police officers and federal agents after landing at San Francisco International Airport Jan. 26 says he's gravely ill and being denied medical treatment in a Placer County jail.

Steve Kubby, coauthor of Proposition 215, California's medical cannabis bill, was arrested at the airport after several years ago fleeing to Canada to avoid prosecution on drug charges. Kubby has used cannabis for 30 years to regulate his body's production of adrenaline and fears he will die in jail without it.

"They need to keep a record of his blood pressure, but this is not being vigorously followed," said Dr. Todd Mikuriya, Kubby's local physician. "He could suffer a stroke or a heat attack that could lead to his being dead or gravely disabled."

Kubby, who is scheduled to appear in court in Placer County this week, is being permitted to use Marinol, a synthetic form of cannabis. But supporters say Kubby has told them he's gravely ill and not being well cared for in jail. Sheriff Edward Bonner, who runs the Placer County Jail, did not return calls for comment.

SF supervisor Ross Mirkarimi told Kubby's supporters via e-mail that he is investigating why SFPD officers assisted in arresting Kubby, who had an agreement to turn himself in to Placer County officials this week and face the outstanding charges against him. (Ann Harrison)

Contrasting conferences

A pair of high-profile international conferences last week divided the Bay Area's opinion shapers – one group seeking fundamental social change, the other a way to maintain control over the economic system.

The 30th annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, drew the likes of Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson, Web-service entrepreneur Paul Sagan, and San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom. They joined at least seven heads of state, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Bill Gates, the presidents of Harvard and Yale, John Kerry, and at least two US governors, three crown princes.

But while a few of the Bay Area's elite went to Davos, Bay Area progressive activists headed south last week to Caracas, Venezuela, for the World Social Forum, scheduled (intentionally) to conflict with Davos.

"I went because I think it's the one place, once a year, we can connect with like-minded people," said Global Exchange's Medea Benjamin. Benjamin said she goes because she can learn about new social movements, problems in need of solutions, and "campaigns to make the world better."

Benjamin said an amazing 90 Bay Area activists went, including contingents from Media Alliance and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, as well as individuals like Ethics Commissioner Eileen Hansen.

Some political observers, such as San Francisco State University professor Rich DeLeon, wanted to know why Newsom chose Davos over Caracas. "A lot of San Franciscans on the progressive side would be happy if Newsom showed as much curiosity about Venezuela as Davos," DeLeon said.

Venezuela has become a rallying point for the left since Hugo Chavez was elected to the presidency of the oil-rich country in 1998. In April 2002 the country's pro-American business interests (with at least tacit approval from the Bush administration) staged a coup d'état, and Chavez was ousted. Forty-eight hours later, after mass street demonstrations, Chavez returned to power.

Since then, other leftists have come to power in Latin American countries that were once under the thumb of the United States, including Evo Morales, who was last week sworn in as Bolivia's first indigenous leader, and former political prisoner and socialist Michelle Bachelet, who this month was elected Chile's first female president.

So Venezuela is leading a gentle progressive revolution in the western hemisphere. "It's a place where billions of dollars of oil money is being used to teach people to read and write," Benjamin said.

Chavez gave an hour-long closing speech in the city's Polihedro Stadium to what delegates estimated was at least 50,000 people. The next day Benjamin went to the presidential palace with her Code Pink cofounder Jodie Evans, antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, and Sheehan's sister for a two-hour sit-down with Chavez.

The talk, she said, ranged from the war in Iraq to global warming. While Venezuela produces three million barrels of oil a day, Benjamin said 60 percent of its electricity comes from hydropower.

"They're changing all their lightbulbs to energy-efficient fluorescents," Benjamin said. "They're really taking the environment and energy seriously."

By contrast, in Davos, Royal Dutch Shell head Jeroen van der Veer said that the market and existing energy companies will be able to handle energy problems. "There is no reason for pessimism," he declared.

Newsom (who was named a "Young Global Leader" at Davos last year) distinguished the views of San Franciscans from the policies of the Bush administration and talked about entering into an agreement with 130 other mayors to reduce carbon emissions at the city level, according to official WEF reports.

But the World Social Forum in Caracas, said SF State professor DeLeon, is the sort of place where left-leaning San Franciscans should feel right at home, and where San Francisco, DeLeon said, "should consider sending an official delegation." (Joe Dignan)