By Bruce B. Brugmann

And so in the end Rupert Murdoch wanted the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones more than did the Bancroft family that owned them for more than 100 years.

Yet another sad day for the newspaper business as these crown jewels of journalism slipped into the Maw of Murdoch and the slime of the New York Post, Fox News, the O.J. Simpson autobiography, and Murdoch's sellout ventures in China.

For me, the saddest headline in WSJ history was the top head on the front page of the Aug. 1 edition: "Murdoch Wins His Bid for Dow Jones," with the front page subheads that nailed down the outcome for the world to see: "News Corp.'s Success Follows Delicate Dance Between Suitor, Target" and "Bancroft Family Agrees to $5 Billion Offer After Deal on Fees, A New Owner for Journal."

"City sponsors crafts fair in Golden Gate Park. Wine tasting and needlework." (From Sup. Tom Ammiano's voice mail on Thursday, Aug. 2) B3

"Ed Jew submits ballot measure for free Wifi and tapioca." (On the answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano, Aug. 6, 2007) b3

By Bruce B. Brugmann

And so the headline in the new Editor & Publisher magazine proclaims, "Bronstein Launches New 'Journalism of Action' After Big Cuts." And the lead says that "With its massive newsroom staff cuts essentially complete, the San Francisco Chronicle is embarking on a new approach to coverage that Editor Phil Bronstein likens to that practiced by William Randolph Hearst."

Read the full story below for the juicy stop-the-presses details about the phrase "being bandied around in the Chronicle newsroom since last Thursday."

Impertinent questions for Bronstein and Hearst corporate: Does "journalism of action" mean you will you now start covering the PG&E/City Hall/Raker Act scandal stories? If not, why not? And if not, could you explain which Hearst "journalism of action" tradition you are talking about? Are you talking about the anti-PG&E "journalism of action" tradition in which Hearst supported the federal Raker Act that allowed San Francisco to dam the Hetch Hetchy dam in Yosemite National Park for the city's cheap, public water and power supply? Or are you talking about the pro-PG&E "journalism of action" tradition in which Hearst reversed himself in the late 1920s to support PG&E and oppose public power after getting a handy chunk of capital from a PG&E-controlled bank?

Let me put the question as simply as I can: Does the
new Bronstein policy mean that Hearst will end its longtime "journalism of action" on behalf of PG&E and start some "journalism of action" on behalf of San Francisco residents and businesses? Let us pray.

B3, still annoyed to see from my office window the fumes rising from the Mirant power plant at the bottom of Potrero Hill, courtesy of PG&E and Hearst/Bronstein "journalism of action"

Click here to read full Editor & Publisher article.

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Several folks pointed out to me that the San Francisco Chronicle carried a premature comment on my death, in its Aug. 9th feature "What people say about the designs (of our new towering highrise buildings)."

It quoted Michael S. McGill, the former executive director of the San Francisco Urban Planning & Research Association and former executive director of the Bay Area Forum, 64, now living in Washington, D.C.

Said Gill, "Having left SF at the end of the two-decade war over high-rises, in the early '90s, I am astonished at the apparent public support for 'the tallest high-rise on the West Coast.' How things have changed! Is (San Francisco Bay Guardian publisher) Bruce Brugmann still alive, or is he spinning in his grave?"

Hey, Mike, good to hear from you. Your report of my death is premature and I am happy to report that the Guardian
is still firmly on top of the highrise issue, which I like to call pellmell Manhattanization. We stopped the first highrise boom with Proposition M, the limited growth initiative on commercial highrises and the downtown highrise boom.
But now the issue is highrises with million-dollar condos, ugly, much too high and out of proportion for a compact city and its compact neighborhoods, built not for residents but for people working outside the city and driving out our lower income and middle classes.

You can rest assured, Mike, that we are on the story and fighting them every way we can. And soon you may see the equivalent of a Prop M for highrise condos. Can we count on you to come back and join the battle?

Postscript: "The Devil's Bargain at the Transbay Terminal," a blog by Guardian Executive Editor Tim Redmond, eloquently summarizes the key political point behind the new highrise boom. "Nobody in California wants to pay higher taxes for anything. So the folks at City Hall have decided that the only way we can have a new transit terminal is if we hock a piece of our city and our skyline to fund it. So we take some of the land on the terminal site and let a developer build monstrosity of a highrise on it--and that will bring in the money that we can't get any other way."

Karl Rove can't come to the phone right now. He's on a baby seal hunt. (On Sup. Tom Ammiano's voice mail Tuesday, Aug. l4th). B3

Michael Savage and Ed Jew got married today. Instead of rice, the crowd threw tapioca.

(On the answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano, Friday, Aug. l7th.)

By Bruce B. Brugmann

I confess here and now that I know nothing about sailing or sailing races. In fact, the only thing I know is the joke among sportswriters that the way to cover a sailing race is to station yourself at a bar, overlooking the race, and cover the action from there, because there really isn't any action that you can see from the shore.

However, I decided to see my first sailing race when my grandson, Nicholas Perez, a lean l3-year old from Santa Barbara, and his skipper, Gordon (Gordo) Bagley, of Boulder City, Nevada, entered the Hobie National Championship Race the week of July 30th on the beaches of Alameda. I watched them head out to the start line, with some of the world's top sailors from all over the globe, including Australia, Mexico, Fiji, and of course the U.S.
And then I came back to the city because I simply couldn't spend the day trying to follow the action.

On Friday, Aug. 3, the last day of the five day regatta, the two did the impossible and pulled off one of those once-in-a-lifetime sailing feats that sailors only dream about, as was explained to me later by the sailors.
As you can see from the three photos, Nicky and Gordo port tacked the fleet, which means they threaded the needle between the pin boat and the rest of the fleet of catamarans on port tack, went into the lead, and never gave it up during the race.

Here's what the sailing experts told me: Sailing afficionadas know what a difficult and gutsy move this is. To pull it off during a national championship is nothing short of miraculous. Here is how the miracle worked. A fundamental rule off sailing is that the boats on starboard tack have the right of way. Typically, 99.9 per cent of the sailors will be positioned on the starting line with their boats situated on the starboard tack. Starboard tack means that the wind is coming over the starboard side of the boat.

As you can see in the photos, 49 Hobie catamaran sailboats are on the starboard tack when the starting guns goes off and only one boat, #5l with Nicky and Gordo is on port tack. They are taking a big gamble that they will be able to sneak through a very narrow opening at the left-most end of the starting line without fouling, impaling themselves on or crashing into the rest of the fleet on starboard tack.

If this doesn't work then, well, it's not the good. But if it does work, then it presents one with the advantage of clear, smooth, undisturbed air and good boatspeed right at the start of the race. Good boatspeed is vital for shooting through the starting line into the race course. Conversely, starting with the fleet, all on starboard, where everyone is having to maneuver, being careful not to bump into each other while going relatively slowly, makes for a slower start.

The wind direction and starting line orientation actually favored rthe port tack start, but as you can see, 49 captains and crew thought otherwise for this particular race. After a quick consultation to determine the course of action, they decided to go for it, sailed into the lead, and won the race.

Keep on sailing, NIcky and Gordo. As for me, I am now worn out and will retire to the Connecticut Yankee bar for a Potrero Hill martini. B3

Pictured below are Nicky and Gordo doing the impossible. Click on the continue reading button to see the first person summary that Gordo wrote for the Catamaran Sailing magazine blog.

Nicky and Gordo start the race:

Nicky and Gordo take the lead:

Click below for Gordo's summary.

City Hall code of conduct brings us the Stepford supervisors. Well, thank you for that veto. I needed that!

(From the home answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano.) B3

Halloween scenario: Drag queens vs. swat teams. Is that a baton in your pocket? Or are you just happy to see me?

(On the answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano.) Personal note to Tom: Speak up on your phone recording. We can barely make out what you are saying with your jokes. B3

The original Human Be-In on Jan. 14, l967, was not just a giant hippy party. It had an important political purpose and political consequences and helped mobilize the youth movement against the war in Vietnam

By Bruce B. Brugmann

As a participant in Friday night's Human Be-In, the pre-40th Anniversary "Summer of Love" event on Sept. 2,
I plan to provide a bit of revolutionary poetry/journalism (my phrase) from my old friend and journalism colleague, the late Allen Cohen. Allen was the editor of the Oracle during the Summer of Love in l967 and a major organizer of the Human Be-in in Golden Gate Park.

He also published and pioneered what I considered the most colorful newspaper in the world at that time.
And how he did it was a San Francisco classic. The Oracle was printed by the Howard Quinn Co., at 298 Alabama Street, along with the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the Black Panther paper, the Berkeley Barb, and a host of underground papers and alternative papers of the era.

One night the Oracle staff came in with their flats and asked the pressmen, a rough and tumble crew, if they could get some special color in the paper. The hippies, some in bare feet, wanted this and they wanted that and they were rapidly driving the pressmen crazy. Finally, the pressmen just waved them to the press and said in effect, go ahead, do it your way. So the Oracle hippies went to work and put all kinds of colored dyes in all of the ink wells on the press, with no consideration for what color went where. The result was a rainbow of colors, all kinds, splashed across the front page and every page in the paper. The Oracle was an immediate sensation, on the streets and amongst mainstream newspaper people still tied to the old-fashioned letterpress printing.

Allen was creating a revolution in newspaper printing at the same time he was promoting a cultural and anti-Vietnam war revolution with the politics of the Be-in.
His wife, Ann Cohen, wrote me that "the media this year has left out how the Be-In came to happen and it feels as if it will go down in history as just a big party." So she sent me a piece he did at the time on the politics of the Be-In and a letter, dated Jan. 1, 1967, asking Art Kunkin, editor of the LA Free Press, to publish an announcement
of the Be-In and "help the echoes of this event reverberate throughout the world."

Allen crystalized a key issue of the time: that there was a "philosophical split that was developing in the youth movement. The anti-war and free speech movement in Berkeley thought the hippies were too disengaged and spaced out. Their influence might draw the young away from resistance to the war. The hippies thought the anti-war movement was doomed to endless confrontations with the establishment which would recoil with violence and fascism."

The idea was to have a Be-In, a "powwow," to bring the two poles together and to strengthen the youth movement and bring on the "revolution."

Click on the continue reading link below to see how Allen described it all:

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Literally, as I was polishing up my blog for tonight's Human Be-In,
I got a call from Michael Bowen, a key organizer with Allen Cohen of the original Human Be-In on January 14, l967.
He is now living in a house ten minutes out of Stockholm, Sweden.

Bowen had lots to say about the Be-In and the era but he noted there was one key piece of information that has not been published and remains unknown: the issue of how the hippie group got a permit to put on the event in Golden Gate Park. He told me the story, yet another San Francisco classic, and I asked him to write it up for me and send it to me in time for the event tonight. The teaser: the permit read a "Birthday Party for Mel Belli and friends on the Polo Field in Golden Gate Park."
Here's Bowen's account:

Getting the "Human Be-in" permit.

The original "Human Be-in."

The name.

The poster.

Gonzalez steps down. His last act is to ban same sex cock fighting.

(On the voicemail of Sup. Tom Ammiano). B3

By Bruce B. Brugmann

From time to time, I will pass along articles that I think are particularly timely and cogent.
This week's piece by John Nichols, in the Nation's "Online Beat," gets to the heart of the issue of the Gonzalez and Karl Rove resignations.

He writes, "The essential question with regard to Gonzalez remains the same as the question that Leahy ((Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont) laid down when Rove said he would go. What are these people so desperate to hide.

"The answer is that, just as Gonzalez and Rove served Bush rather than the Constitution, they now seek with their resignations to protect Bush--and Vice President Dick Cheney--from investigations that are necessary to any serious effort to restore the primacy of the founding document in the affairs of the nation." B3

Some pictures of the friends of the famous San Francisco attorney at the Be-In 2007.

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Mel Belli's friends got together last Friday night (Aug.24) for the Human Be-In 2007.

Belli, the famous San Francisco attorney and King of Torts, as he liked to call himself, has been dead for many years but his spirit lives on, at the Be-In and at Sunday's Summer of Love spectacular in Speedway Meadows at Golden Gate Park.

The reason is a most tantalizing and unknown San Francisco story, as I mentioned in a previous blog and as a panelist at the Be-In. The two promoters of the first Be-In, Allen Cohen and Michael Bowen, were desperately trying to get a permit from City Hall for their original Be-In event in l967.

Allen got nowhere when he tried City Hall. So Bowen went to his friend Mel Belli, who sent his secretary over to City Hall. She came back later that afternoon with a permit. The permit was for "a birthday party for Mel Belli and his friends." That was how the Human Be-In of l967, the precursor to the Summer of Love, was held legally on the Polo Field at Golden Gate Park.

And so you can say in an expansive Oraculean way that all the people who come to the Be-Ins and Summer of Love events, and tens of thousands are expected on Sunday, are friends of Mel Belli. He would get a kick out of that. B3

Click on the continue reading link to see some pictures of the Human Be-In 2007, taken by Raymond Van Tassel.
To see more pictures, go to his website at www.RaymondVanTassel.com.

Gay Republicans repeat after me. I'm here. I'm queer. I'm sorry.

(Today's Ammianoliner: on the voicemail of Sup. Tom Ammiano's home telephone.) B3

WiFi bad for diet. City needs fiber. Fiber. Fiber. Fiber. (On the voicemail of Sup. Tom Ammiano) B3

Senator Craig says he doesn't do things like that. And, oh yes, the Bay Bridge isn't closed.

(On the voicemail of Supervisor Tom Ammiano). B3