In covering PG&E over the years, Hearst has established a new journalistic maxim: When PG&E spits, Hearst swims!

Scroll down and compare a Hearst pro-public public power editorial of July 25, 1925, and a pro-PG&E editorial of Oct. 13, 2008

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Well, let’s see now. The day before the historic vote on the Clean Energy Initiative (Prop H), under vicious multi-million attack by the Pacific Gas &Electric Company, the Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle continued its campaign of decades to censor and marginalize the underlying PG&E/Raker Act scandal story.

As attentive readers of the Guardian and the Bruce blog know, this is the biggest urban scandal in U.S. history: how PG&E has used its money and muscle to corrupt City Hall and and in effect steal the cheap, clean Hetch Hetchy public power the city produces from its Hetch Hetchy dam in Yosemite National Park in violation of the public power mandates of the federal Raker Act..

Today's Ammianoliner:

The Republican ticket: I see dead people.

(From the home answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano, poised to be Assemblyman Tom Ammiano in Sacramento on Nov. 3, 2008, the night before the presidential election.) B3

The Northern California Indie Bestseller List, as brought to you by IndieBound and NCIBA, for the sales week ended Sunday, November 2, 2008. Based on reporting from the independent booksellers of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association and IndieBound. For an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound.org.

MONEY WINS PRESIDENCY AND 9 OF 10 CONGRESSIONAL RACES IN PRICIEST U.S. ELECTION EVER

WASHINGTON (Nov. 5, 2008) -- The historic election of 2008 re-confirmed one truism about American democracy: Money wins elections.

From the top of the ticket, where Barack Obama declined public financing for the first time since the system's creation and went on to amass a nearly two-to-one monetary advantage over John McCain, to congressional races throughout the nation, the candidate with the most money going into Election Day emerged victorious in nearly every contest.

In 93 percent of House of Representatives races and 94 percent of Senate races that had been decided by mid-day Nov. 5, the candidate who spent the most money ended up winning, according to a post-election analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The findings are based on candidates' spending through Oct. 15, as reported to the Federal Election Commission.

Continuing a trend seen election cycle after election cycle, the biggest spender was victorious in 397 of 426 decided House races and 30 of 32 settled Senate races. On Election Day 2006, top spenders won 94 percent of House races and 73 percent of Senate races. In 2004, 98 percent of House seats went to the biggest spender, as did 88 percent of Senate seats.

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Finally, two days after the election, Andrew S. Ross provided the first Hearst coverage of the Clean Energy Act initiative (Prop H) on the business page of the San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst.

At the bottom of the business page in the right hand corner, Ross wrote one paragraph in his "The Bottom Line" column:

"The combined piling on by business groups, public policy organizations, and newspaper editorials had its intended effect on San Francisco's Prop H. But for those endlessly trying to take over PG&E, the motto will likely hold:
If, on the 20th time you don't succeed, try another 20 times."

Combined piling on? Did not PG&E's victory have anything to do with deploying $l0 million plus and massed muscle? Did it not have anything to do with Hearst's historic role as PG&E's journalistic arm?
I also asked Ross in an email if he could explain, as a featured Hearst business writer, just how clean energy and cheap public power could hurt business? (It doesn't of course hurt business in any of the 2,200 cities in the U.S. that have public power.) Ross did not answer by blogtime.

Meanwhile, Heather Knight did a PG&E victory story in the Wednesday Chronicle (ll/5/2008). It took her eight paragraphs to get to the critical point (PG&E's $l0 million), which she presented as a kind of throwaway afterthought. And she once again retailed PG&E's Big Lies without giving the Yes on H people a real chance to correct them or to correct them herself, which was the Hearst policy in covering the story. For God's sakes, don't correct a PG&E lie. Ever.

Ross and Knight keep thumping away on the number of times the issue has been on the ballot (ll), without mentioning the key issues: the underlying PG&E/Raker scandal. How San Francisco is the only city in the U.S. that is mandated by federal law (the Raker Act) to have a public power system. How the city endangers the entire Hetch Hetchy system by violating the original public power mandates of the act and exposing the system to the tear-down-the dam forces. How clean energy and public power would bring the same advantages to San Francisco that it does for 2,200 other cities in the country: public power that is clean, cheap, reliable, and accountable. How the Clean Energy Act would make San Francisco the world leader in clean and renewable energy and a world class sustainable city. How PG&E and Hearst working in deadly combination defeated ll ballot measures through the years and established the story as the biggest scandal in U.S. history. The Hearst bottom line: this nightmare for PG&E is over, done, those pesky clean energy and public people are gone, we will keep running PG&E greenwashing ads and PG&E greenwashing stories, editorials, and campaign endorsements for the duration. We're moving on in lockstep with PG&E.

This is classic Hearst over the generations. The founder William Randolph Hearst was a key crusader for the Hetch Hetchy dam and public power for decades.
Then he made a shameful deal with a PG&E-controlled bank in t he mid-l920s to get much needed capital. In return, he agreed to reverse his position on Hetch Hetchy and support PG&E. Then he and his papers reversed field and became the major media players in helping PG&E defeat ll ballot measures through the years to buy out PG&E. And forever after the deal, Hearst worked with PG&E to black out and marginalize the scandal story. And today, in this election, Hearst tried its best to help PG&E bury the scandal for good.

Sorry, that won't work any more. The battle goes on. B3, still watching PG&E doing all it can to keep the Potrero Hill/Mirant power plant pumping away and putting out poisonous fumes that I can see from my office window

Click here to read more about the Raker Act, Hearst and public power in San Francisco.

Here is our monthly installment of Joseph E. Stiglitz's Unconventional Economic Wisdom column from the Project Syndicate news series. Stiglitz is a professor of economics at Columbia University, and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, is co-author, with Linda Bilmes, of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict.

The Next Bretton Woods

By Joseph E. Stiglitz

NEW YORK – The world is sinking into a major global slowdown, likely to be the worst in a quarter-century, perhaps since the Great Depression. This crisis was “made in America,” in more than one sense.

America exported its toxic mortgages around the world, in the form of asset-backed securities. America exported its deregulatory free market philosophy, which even its high priest, Alan Greenspan, now admits was a mistake. America exported its culture of corporate irresponsibility – non-transparent stock options, which encourage the bad accounting that has played a role in this debacle, just as it did in the Enron and Worldcom scandals a few years ago. And, finally, America has exported its economic downturn.

The Bush administration has finally come around to doing what every economist urged it to do: put more equity into the banks. But, as always, the devil is in the details, and United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson may have succeeded in subverting even this good idea; he seems to have figured out how to recapitalize the banks in such a way that it may not result in resumption of lending, which would bode poorly for the economy.

Today's Ammianoloner:

Sarah who?

(From the home answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano on Nov. 6, 2008, two days after the historic election."

B3: Note that Sarah Palin's home state of Alaska has voted back Sen.Ted Stevens, a convicted felon. And note that Palin refuses to say whether she voted for him or not.

by Will Durst

As the curtain mercifully falls on the Most Important Election of Your Lifetime, the nation breathes a collective sigh of relief. Or do they? Sure, there were enough Byzantine plot twists and darkly rich comic characters to exhaust Dostoyevsky’s older smarter brother. And I imagine more than a few of you are woke up spent, limp, barely able to grasp your coffee cup and raise it to quivering lips; tertiary casualties of Election Fatigue. But, now that the votes have been tallied and the results buried deep in Almanac City, you’re happier than John McCain in a flag factory. Then, this column… is not for you. This is for the millions of us political junkies who feel emptier than a Chrysler SUV showroom. Whose zest for life has faded like the colors of the posters in a video store window, facing West.

LABOR'S HIGH HOPES

By Dick Meister

Organized labor is rightly claiming a major role in the Nov. 4 victories of President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats ­ and is rightly expecting much in return.

The figures are impressive. One-fifth of all voters were union members or in union households, and fully two-thirds of them supported Obama, a ratio even higher in battleground states.

The AFL-CIO calculates that more than a quarter-million volunteers campaigned among their fellow union members and others, discussing the issues that were of particular importance to working people, drumming up support for Obama and other labor-friendly Democrats and, finally, getting labor voters to the polls on election day.

By Peter Scheer

Although its name did not even appear on the ballot, the California Supreme Court was perhaps the state's biggest loser in Tuesday's historic elections. The voters' narrow approval of Proposition 8 effectively reverses the high court's controversial decision earlier this year, which extended the right to marry to same-sex couples.

The court knew the risks. The statute it declared unconstitutional in In re Marriage Cases was itself the result of a statutory state ballot initiative in 2000. In overturning that assertion of popular will, the court no doubt realized it was setting the stage for a further confrontation in which opponents of gay marriage would try to override the court's decision through the initiative process, this time amending the state constitution.

Critics will say that Chief Justice Ron George's Supreme Court is guilty of overreaching – that, by interceding in a political and cultural struggle, the court has suffered a loss of prestige and
institutional authority. But while it's clear, in hindsight, that the George court miscalculated the depth of opposition to gay marriage in the blue state of California, that does not mean the court's landmark decision in In re Marriage Cases was a mistake.

For one thing, California's gay-marriage battle is not over. Proposition 8 is still subject to challenge under the U.S. Constitution for, among other things, its selective cancellation of a
previously granted substantive right. Although a decision founded in federal law would be subject to review in the U.S. Supreme Court, there is no certainty the federal high court would elect to decide the case – or, if it did, that it would end up sustaining Proposition 8.

Proposition 8 is also subject to challenge under the California Constitution, even though the proposition is itself a constitutional amendment. This is so because, although the voters can, through the initiative process, add language to the constitution, it is the responsibility of the California Supreme Court to interpret new constitutional language – and, where necessary, to reconcile it with other, equally valid yet potentially conflicting, constitutional directives.

In the latter category is the most important aspect of In re Marriage Cases: the George court's decision to analyze legal classifications based on sexual preference under the same rigorous standard of "strict scrutiny" usually reserved for classifications based on race, religion or ethnicity. This portion of the court's decision is not altered by Proposition 8, and it will be front and center in any litigation against Proposition 8 under state law. While the courts can't void Proposition 8 on this basis, applying strict scrutiny to Proposition 8's language is likely to yield a prohibition against gay marriage that is much weaker than the measure's authors and
supporters intended.

But even if the state Supreme Court takes neither of these paths, leaving Proposition 8 intact (at least until a new electoral majority, in another ballot initiative, repeals it), the court is to be applauded for attempting to resolve a pressing social question – whether to allow gays and lesbians to marry – that the other branches of government had proved incapable of addressing.

In this area and others, it falls to the George court to fill a widening governance gap created by a Legislature that is paralyzed by political divisions and a governor who, despite Arnold
Schwarzenegger's forceful personality, has little real power compared with other chief executives. (Imagine a federal government in which the attorney general and other top executive branch officials are not appointed by, or answerable to, the president.)

When elected representatives don't act, the people do, taking the law into their own hands through ballot initiatives, Proposition 8 being only the most recent major example. In this process of direct democracy, an assertive, even activist, Supreme Court is necessary to guard against excesses and to protect the rights of groups disfavored by the majority.

It was in this capacity that the George court, to its credit, issued its decision in In re Marriage Cases, establishing a constitutionally based right to same-sex marriage. Although Proposition 8 is clearly a setback for the court, the damage done to the court's authority, while considerable, will not be permanent.

===
Peter Scheer, a lawyer and journalist, is executive director of the
California First Amendment Coalition, www.cfac.org.

Did you censor your PG&E story? Did your editors censor you? Did Hearst corporate censor you? Why is the Chronicle/Hearst so scared of PG&E?

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Memo to: Andy Ross of the Matier and Ross of the Chronicle's local political column

From: B3

Re: Andy's naming of the Guardian and me as the big losers in the last election

I see that Andy named the Guardian and me the big losers on the City Desk television show (6/11/08) in the Nov. 4 election because of the loss of the Clean Energy Act (Prop H) to PG&E. We were, he said in his election recap, "tilting at windmills" to go up against PG&E and seemingly ready to continue on "tilting at windmills?"

We appreciate the plug. And we're sorry that we can't live up to the standards of PG&E and Hearst. We'll work on it. (Perhaps my recent blogs on how Hearst has for decades worked in lockstep with PG&E to black out or marginalize the PG&E/Raker Act scandal will explain our problem.)

In the meantime, I do have some questions for you and Phil. Why, if the H citizens forced PG&E to spend more than $l0 million on its Big Lie campaign, the largest in San Francisco history, and the campaign got more than 40 per cent of the vote with very little money, and the Guardian and I are such big losers, isn't the H story a big story? And if it is a big story, why did you not run anything in your column about the campaign or the underlying PG&E/Raker Act scandal? Did you censor your own copy? Did your editors censor you? Did Hearst corporate censor you?
Who over there at the Chronicle/Hearst is so scared of PG&E? Why?

More: can you tell me specifically why you didn't bother to correct any of the PG&E lies? And, specifically, just what it is that you find so frightening about clean energy and public power?

Let me add a critical point: even the smarter PG&E officials and campaign people admit privately that the H campaign had good arguments and that it is now just a matter of time before PG&E starts losing, sooner or later. And I think sooner rather than later.

I emailed a version of the above memo to Matier and Ross the day after the City Desk show. They did not respond by blog time late Monday afternoon. I will try again with this blog. B3

Click here to read previous blog, Extra! Hearst tries to bury the clean energy act

The Guardian supported Cindy Sheehan for Congress in San Francisco. B3

president@us.gov

November 11, 2008

George Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave
Washington, DC

Dear George,

I am writing this to you on the fifth Veteran's Day I have mourned the death of my son, Casey Sheehan. Casey was a soldier in the Army. You killed my oldest son with your lies and greed for Empire. Casey never became a Veteran because he came home in one of those pesky flag draped coffins that your mother doesn't want to bother her "pretty mind" with.

During that other illegal and immoral war that you and your VP, Dick, had the good sense to dodge, your mother never had to go through one second of worry for your safety, did she? You were too busy doing your drugs and going AWOL to bother her "pretty mind" about that. What galls me the most when I think about my brave and honorable son's needless and untimely death, is that you were so cowardly and worthless when you were his age and you had the nerve to condemn thousands of our children to death or disability with your lies.

Guardian editorial in Wednesday edition (ll/12/08):

By Dick Meister

In marking the 40th anniversary of the student strike at San Francisco State College this year, don't overlook the faculty strike that broke out in early 1969, not long after the student strike began. The eight-week-long walkout led by the American Federation of Teachers was one of the longest and most bitter teacher strikes in California history.

Although the faculty members called their strike to seek firmer rights, lesser teaching loads and other improved working conditions for themselves, they also demanded that the college negotiate an agreement with the student strikers and otherwise resolve student grievances.

Richard Reineccius says "Don't mourn, renovate the Harding" theater and save this historic landmark

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Well, hopefully this isn't the last stand for the Harding Theater in the Western Addition. But I wanted to use the line that we used for years in the passionate and unending battle to save the Goodman Building off of Van Ness Ave.

The battle was lost to save the original building but there was a complicated deal done in which the people in the Goodman Building ended up in the Thick Description Theater Building at 1695 l8th st. on Potrero Hill.
The theater is the lineal descendant of the old Julian theater, one of the city's finest and most avant garde neighborhood theaters founded by Richard Reineccius and Doug Giebel.

It most fitting that Richard is now a leader in the fight to save the Harding theater. Here's his call to arms on a hearing for the latest proposal to demolish the building at a hearing on Thursday (11/13/08) before the city planning commission.

A FULL HEARING FOR THE HARDING

by Richard Reineccius

The SF City Planning Commission will this week hear the latest proposal for demolishing much of an historic theater at 616 Divisadero Street, erecting a multi-story apartment building plus retail space on the premises. The hearing will be on Thursday afternoon 11/13, Room 400 City hall. (www.sfgov.org/planning)

The Harding Theater in SF's once artistically vibrant and stylish Western Addition hasn't seen audiences for live performances or films in a number of years, but is an excellent candidate for saving, not only as an arts space but as a development catalyst for the neighborhood. While not currently listed as a historic landmark, it in fact is one, being the last intact theater remaining in the city designed by the famous Reid Brothers firm (Fairmont Hotel, Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, SF's Roosevelt and Castro Theaters, Byron Hot Springs Spa Hotel, more)

In the breathless prose of press agent Lee Houskeeper (who operates as if he is in search of Walter Winchell and Herb Caen) comes the announcement of the 8 cent martini for the centennial celebration of John's Grill. John's is the home of Dashiell Hammett, the Hammett booth where he sat to eat his chops and baked potato, a Maltese Falcon museum, and a l50 pound lead bronze statue of the Maltese Falcon that Hammett made famous in his book and movie.

B3 note: there is a rumor of a two martini limit on the 8 cent martini but Lee will not verify.

San Francisco Expected To Come To a Halt Friday
Forget Saturday Newspaper And Other Vital Services
Not Since the 1906 Earthquake Has Our City Been More Threatened

Famed Newspaper & Cop Hangout To Pour 8 Cent Drinks To All Thirsty San Franciscans

San Francisco -- The Centennial of Historic John's Grill will be celebrated on November 13 and 14, 2008. On Thursday, November 13, the media are invited to cover a series of invitation-only events. The public will be invited to turn out and toast the beloved landmark restaurant on Friday, November 14. Vintage automobiles will arrive, and scores of colorfully costumed San Franciscans will disembark to the strains of Sousa bands and belly up to John's bar for 8-cent Martini's and free appetizers. Celebrity watchers will not be disappointed.

Historic John's Grill was the one of the first restaurants to rebuild out of the rubble and ashes of San Francisco's Great 1906 Earthquake & Fire.

Historic John's Grill is the 27th "Literary Landmark" in the United States. Just off Union Square, John's Grill was made famous internationally by Dashiell Hammett's 1927 "Maltese Falcon" mystery novel (later a classic Humphrey Bogart movie): "Sam Spade went to John's Grill, asked the waiter to hurry his order of chops, baked potato, sliced tomatoes and was smoking a cigarette with his coffee when...” was written by Hammett, who ate at John's while working next door in the Flood Building as a Pinkerton agent.

Detectives, politicians, reporters and celebrities have been coming to John's Grill for the past century. Their pictures adorn the walls above their tables and you never know whom you might see at John's Grill. Be sure to visit the Grill's Hammett museum located on the third floor and see the 150-pound lead filled bronze statue of the famous Maltese Falcon.

B3 note:

This is an encouraging note from Josh Silver, the executive director of the Free Press, an especially effective national media reform organization. Read carefully and help keep the push Obama to fulfill his campaign promises to use real media reform to help transform democracy. We have not had such good news and campaign promises since John Kennedy became president and soon started the famous Tucson case aimed at breaking up the proliferating joint operating agreements (JOAs) of that era, including the soon to come Ex/Chron/JOA in San Francisco.

Note the first argument for media reform: the media don't cover it. Let me know if you see any major stories or editorials anywhere in the mainstream media outlining the Obama positions on media reform or the points that the Free Press is making. Check its website regularly to follow what the media is blacking out and what the public needs to know about media reform transforming democracy.

FREE PRESS: reform media. transform democracy.

Now that the reality of an Obama presidency is sinking in, I want to give you a sense of what it means for the future of the media.

In a nutshell, if the new president lives up to his campaign promises, we are poised to see an unprecedented transformation of U.S. media.

Unlike George W. Bush, the president-elect is a strong supporter of Net Neutrality and universal, affordable Internet access. He is opposed to further consolidation of media ownership, and he is a friend to public broadcasting. Obama's election represents a sea change in leadership that allows us to go from playing defense to offense. These are exciting times.

HARDING THEATER -- LIGHTS UP ON NEXT ACT
Richard Reineccius

The SF Planning Commission came through 7-0 for a full Environmental Impact Review on the Harding Theater on Thursday 11/13!

Commissioners almost universally criticized the staff recommendation for a "negative declaration" for the need for environmental review, and agreed with neighbors of the Divisadero building that there had been almost no public input.

No date was set for the beginning of hearings on the Harding, and staff said it would likely involve a hired consultant.

Community leaders who spoke included Joe Landini, Jim Bracken, Sheila Devitt, David Tornheim and more than a dozen others from the Western Addition/Panhandle/Haight neighborhoods, arguing that The Harding as a functioning arts venue will greatly enliven the Divisadero business strip, as the renovated Brava Theater Center has done for The Mission's 24th Street.

Attorney Arthur Levy as the pro bono attorney for Friends of 1800, a non-profit preservation organization, had made the effective formal appeal on the basis that historic buildings being considered for major alterations must receive a full EIR under California law.

Prominent theater professionals and historic preservationists voiced concerns at the two hour hearing - including directors and advocates from Theater Bay Area, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Brava Theater, Magic Theater, Metro Theatre Center Foundation, the Garage Theater and The Independent nightclub.

---
Richard Reineccius was a founder of the SF Neighborhood Arts Program, and a long time advocate for arts facilities in communities. He, his ex-wife Brenda Berlin, and Doug Giebel founded the progressive Julian Theatre, performing in The Mission District and Potrero Hill from the 1960s to mid-90s.

From Cindy Sheehan

The Revolution Will not be Reported!

Or Funded by Corporate Interests!

Dear Friend/Supporter,

It has been 10 days since the election and Cindy for Congress is still going strong.

I am going to start a radio show on Green 960 AM beginning November 29th at 11:30am. The brilliant part of my show is that I will be on right after Corporate Democrat, Gavin Newsom (mayor of SF). My new show is called: Cindy Sheehan's Soap Box and we will have an amazing guest to interview each week and I will sound off on different topics: war/peace; politics; human rights; international relations; foreign policy; etc. My show will have a global/local scope to it and will also be a call to action. Also, on every show, I will answer a couple of the hundreds of emails we get every week. We will pod cast the show from our website.

The reason we are undertaking this new show, is that the corporate media (locally and nationally) wrote me off and put a blockade on coverage even before we began our campaign. When there was coverage, the writer would opine that either: a) wouldn't get on the ballot as an independent; b) not even beat the Republican; c) not even get 10 percent. Well, friend, I a) got on the ballot (which took 10,198 signatures); b) beat the Republican by a lot and c) got almost 17% of the vote. We did far better than anyone who has ever run against Pelosi in the past and that was with very, very little media coverage. Some election night coverage only reported the stats from Nancy Pelosi and the Republican, leaving me out entirely!

So far, (still counting) we have over 45,000 votes! With your help, we were able to mount a very serious campaign that was fueled by our very progressive platform and the support of thousands of people all over the country. Thank you so much for believing in peace, accountability and true progressive values!

We are already organizing for 2010 and have kept a skeletal staff and our office to do this and we are starting a PAC (political action committee) to be able to sustain our campaign until we come out even stronger than before in 2010. We also have some campaign debt to pay off.

I truly believe with the foundation that we have built and the growing disasters that our confronting our country, (facilitated by the "leadership" of Nancy Pelosi), we have an excellent chance of taking her seat in 2010 and finally giving San Francisco a true progressive Congressional Rep. Finally, we will also be working with progressive political activists around the nation to mount challenges to every Congressperson that does not effectively represent the interests of "We the People," and not the corporate pirates.

Love & Peace

Cindy Sheehan

By Bruce B. Brugmann

(Scroll down for the full SPJ awards program, press release on the winners, and Tom Honig on "The Vanishing Journalist")

The Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists held an inspired and inspiring Excellence in Journalism awards program last Thursday night at the Yank Sing restaurant in San Francisco.

The room was full of reporters and editors who have been laid off or merged out, and many others fearful of being laid off or merged out. This point was made eloquently by Bruce Newman, who won the criticism award for his movie reviews in the San Jose Mercury News, and announced in his acceptance remarks that his position of movie critic had been eliminated five weeks ago.

Yet, despite the problems of the media and the economy, the award winners and their work this year were extraordinarily worthy. The program was excellent. The food was good. And Ricardo Sandoval, the incoming SPJ president, and Linda Jue, the outgoing SPJ president, and many of the award accepters made the crucial point: that the worse the news is, the more SPJ and good journalism are needed.

And so SPJ chose this year to give its premier award, the Journalist of the Year award, to "The Vanishing Journalist." And they chose Tom Honig, the distinguished former editor of the Santa Cruz Sentinel, to accept the award. Honig was the classic California community journalist:he started on the old Palo Alto Times in sports, then to the Sentinel in l972, to the cops and courts beat to reporter for eight years, to assistant city editor and then to city editor, copy desk chief, managing editor in l99l, and then editor in l992.

He left the Sentinel on the last day of November, 2007. His exit was illustrative: His Singleton/Media News publisher had told him he would have to lay off at least three more editorial staffers from the newsroom, after previous cuts had reduced the newsroom from a high of 43 in 2005 to 30 last year. The Sentinel's accountant pointedly told Honig that if he left, that would save three positions. So Honig made the ultimate sacrifice and laid himself off. (He is now in a new career, as an account executive in Armanasco Public Relations in Monterey.)

"The people that run newspapers today--describe them how you will--might understand finance and they understand budgets," Honig said. "They do, after all, understand that news organizations are in trouble. What they don't understand is that the indiscriminate budget cuts are only hastening their own demise. You know what? You need good reporters and editors. You just do...

"It's us-- the journalists--who carry with us the knowledge and integrity that money simply cannot buy. We carry on because we know the power of questioning authority, questioning those even that we agree with --and giving those we disagree with a fair airing of their views. The talking heads on television and radio can't do that."

Here are Honig's complete remarks:

by Tom Honig

I'm accepting this award on behalf of the hundreds – thousands – of veteran reporters, photographers and editors that have helped and inspired me over the years. We're honoring the vanishing journalist tonight, and I do want to say a few words on his and her behalf.

I'd have to say that the most noteworthy thing about my career is how unnoteworthy it really has been. Some reporters go to war zones. Others call the White House their beat. But for most of us – it's the school board. The library board. The fire that leaves a family homeless. We are the people who get it done, day in and day out – giving people the opportunity to understand their own community.

I'm truly honored that I would be asked to accept this award on behalf of all those who have come and gone before me. I once looked at my decision to spend my career in a small town – Santa Cruz, California – as something to be slightly embarrassed about. I now think of it only with pride.

I think of the writing advice I got from editors older than I who taught me strategies to get out of my own way and let the story tell itself.

When you work at a community paper, you don't need focus groups and readership studies. People talk to you in the super market. Actually, they bitch at you in the super market. Or at the gym. Or when you're out grabbing a sandwich at the deli. You do an investigation into misspent funds in a small town and you get a good story, but you also get a tearful phone call from a city manager who' a really nice guy but who knows he fouled up. You do the story anyway, but you feel bad and later you keep running into him and you hope he's doing OK.

But you do your job, and some days you don't think much about it. But when it's all over, you take some time, look back and realize that you've been part of something very special. You did good journalism. You did what the best investigative journalism does – reveal the truth to those who may or may not want to hear it.

The public doesn't often understand the value of their local newspaper – even as they rely upon what's there. I'm partial to local newspapers. The kind of journalism we achieved over the years in Santa Cruz I would stack up against any of the big boys. And being right there as part of the community … we knew about credibility long before the think tanks started doing their studies.

The people that run newspapers today – describe them how you will -- might understand finance and they understand budgets. They do, after all, understand that news organizations are in financial trouble. What they don't understand is that the indiscriminate budget cuts are only hastening their own demise. You know what? You need good reporters and editors. You just do.

Many of you are embarking on new ventures, on new forms of digital and online journalism as traditional outlets start to disappear. Some of you are launching these ventures on your own. We have Knight News Challenges and we have startups and we have incredible energy from those just embarking on their careers. That's all to the good. It's us – the journalists – who carry with us the knowledge and the integrity that money simply cannot buy. We carry on because we know the power of questioning authority, questioning those even that we agree with – and giving those with whom we disagree a fair airing of their views. The talking heads on television and radio don't and can't do that.

It's the story – in whatever form it takes – that's king. It's the truth that we seek. As we move forward, we won't have the old support system around us, the older, wiser editors who have seen 'em come and seen 'em go. We won't have the structure that has carried us forward all these years. It's breaking down, and it's not our fault.

I couldn't be more encouraged by the energy and the values of young journalists. But I'm also encouraged by others – those, like me, who are certified vanishing journalists who are still around, still available to help, still thinking that there's good work to be done.

We still know a few things. We know about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. We know the value of explaining a society to itself without fear or favor. Those are values we can't afford to lose. Dean Singleton can try to take it all away so he can make up for his poor business decisions and cover his huge debt. We can't let him.

Again. I accept this award on behalf of all the great journalists I've known and learned from. It's truly an honor to be the one accepting on their behalf, and I thank you very much.

By Bruce B. Brugmann

(Scroll down for the Guardian editorial in Wednesday's edition (ll/19/08), "Fighting Newsom's mid-year budget cuts")

Once again, the Guardian is editorializing about the problems of the structural city budget deficit, which of course will be worse because of the economy and because of Mayor Newsom's moves for mid-year cuts aimed at our lame duck Board of Supervisors.

And once again, the Guardian raises the issue, as we have since our first PG&E/Raker Act scandal story in l969, that the city is losing tens of millions a year by allowing PG&E to control its cheap Hetch Hetchy power and instead forcing the city's residents and businesses to buy PG&E's expensive private power. (See Guardian stories and Bruce blogs for details.) And it is most annoying that Newsom and his hired gun, Eric Jaye, worked so hard to defeat the Clean Energy Act (H), when public power would be the biggest potential source of new revenue for the city. Jaye conveniently advises Newsom and runs his campaign for governor at the same time he consults for PG&E and ran PG&E's campaign against H. Neat.

More: it also annoying that the San Francisco Labor Council allowed PG&E to hold labor hostage in this campaign and in effect allowed PG&E to drum home the charge, without labor counter, that city workers are so dumb, so incompetent, and so lazy that they can't run an electricity system. This posture puts city workers and their unions at a disadvantage when the budget axe starts falling.

The Guardian editorial: "Fighting Newsom's mid-year cuts"

I remember Harvey

Bruce B. Brugmann

Toward the end of the supervisorial campaign in 1973, I got an intercom call from Nancy Destefanis, our advertising representative handling political ads. Hey, she said, I got a guy here by the name of Harvey Milk who is running for supervisor and I think you ought to talk to him.
Milk? I replied. How can anybody run for supervisor with the name of Milk?
Nancy laughed and said that wasn't his big problem, it was that he was running as an openly gay candidate, but he had strong progressive positions and potential. Nancy, a former organizer for Cesar Chavez' farm workers, was tough and savvy, and I always took her advice seriously. “Send him in,” I said.

By Bruce B. Brugmann

(Scroll down for information on the rally and on a consumer survey on PG&E's late payment policy

The Pacific Gas & Electric Company really does screw residents and businesses on a systematic basis, as Guardian readers and Clean Energy Act (H) supporters know.
For example, the utility often imposes deposits for late payments on residents. For businesses, it often forces a late paying company to buy a bond. For businesses that late pay, PG&E is quick to notify Dun & Bradstreet, the business credit rating service, making it more difficult for the company to qualify for credit. To make matters worse, there is no realistic way for residents or businesses to get help or complain about PG&E's late payment policies or any of its other abusive policies. On guard!

So it is good to see the The Utility Reform Network (TURN) call PG&E out on the late payment issue and sponsor a rally against PG&E's late payment deposit policy at noon Thursday (ll/20/08) at the corner of Fremont and Market Sts. in San Francisco. Here is TURN's press release on the rally and its survey on late payment deposits.

Why penalize customers who are struggling to pay their bills during an
economic crisis?

STAND UP! SPEAK OUT!
Fight for our rights to affordable utility services!
Rally for a Suspension of Late Payment Deposits!

Thursday, November 20, 2008
12:00pm
Corner of Fremont & Market St
San Francisco, Ca 94105

Directions by public transportation: MUNI Bus Lines-F, 38, 7, 14, 21, 6, 71 Metro Lines- J, K, L, N, M, T exit at Embarcadero station

For more information please contact Lotchana at 415.987.4375 or
lsourivong@turn.org

Sponsored by TURN (The Utility Reform Network)

PG&E Customer Survey: Deposits

Have you ever been asked for a deposit because you have paid your bill
late?
Yes No

Are you doing your best to make regular payments?
Yes No

Is your electric/gas service still on?
Yes No

Have you had the same residential billing address and account name for
the past year?
Yes No

Do you have a copy of your bill that shows the deposit charge? Yes No

If you answered YES to all the questions and want the deposit refunded,
please contact Lotchana at 415-987-4375 or lsourivong@turn.org.

Maybe we contact you, if we have further questions?
(Mailing address: 711 Van Ness Ave. Ste. 350, SF, CA 94102)

Name:_____________________________________

Address:___________________________________

Phone or Email:________________________________

Here is an installment from Jeffrey D. Sachs' monthly commentary: Economics and Justice available exclusively on the Project Syndicate news series. Jeffrey D. Sachs is Professor of Economics and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is also a Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals.

A Sustainable Recovery

by Jeffrey D. Sachs

NEW YORK – The global recession now underway is the result not only of a financial panic, but also of more basic uncertainty about the future direction of the world economy. Consumers are pulling back from home and automobile purchases not only because they have suffered a blow to their wealth with declining stock prices and housing values, but also because they don’t know where to turn. Should they risk buying a new car when gasoline prices might soar again? Will they be able to put food on the table after this year’s terrifying rise in food prices?

Decisions about business investment are even starker. Businesses are reluctant to invest at a time when consumer demand is plummeting and they face unprecedented risk penalties on their borrowing costs. They are also facing huge uncertainties. What kinds of power plants will be acceptable in the future? Will they be allowed to emit carbon dioxide as in the past? Can the United States still afford a suburban lifestyle, with sprawling homes in far-flung communities that require long-distance automobile commutes?

By Dick Meister

The media coverage of the anniversary of the Milk/Moscone killings and hoopla over the new movie "Milk" reminded me of a TV news report I did from Milk's Castro Street camera shop 0n Sept. 17, 1974. It was part of one of the nightly half-hour TV newscasts on "Newsroom of the Streets" that we reporters on "Newsroom" did on a public access channel from various Bay Area locations during our strike against KQED from September '74 through January '75. As often was the case with "Newsroom" stories, it was on an issue generally ignored by the commercial media -- in this instance, employment discrimination against gays.

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Columnist Robert Scheer, writing in a Nov. l9th Chronicle op ed, pointed out that former Clinton Treasury
Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers "deserve a great deal of the blame for the radical deregulation of the financial industry that has derailed the world economy." He said that they should be kept at a safe distance from our nation's leadership.

He also noted that Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, had served under both Rubin and Summers and was a candidate for the Obama Treasury Secretary.

On Friday, Nov. 2l, the Obama camp leaked the word that Summers was expected to be director of the National Economic Council in the White House, the president's principal economic adviser and policy coordinator, and that Geithner was the likely nomination for Treasury Secretary.
Meanwhile, Heard on the Street column in Saturday's Wall Street Journal noted that Geithner "in the past espoused many of the views championed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in terms of a hands-off approach to market regulation." Obama is expected to announce his economic team at a press conference on Monday.

In short, the deregulation virus, and the carriers of the deregulation virus in the Clinton administration, are alive and well and thriving in the emerging Obama presidency. Where are the progressive economists from the Joseph Stiglitz/James Gailbraith/Paul Krugman wing of the Democratic Party? After all, the deregulators have been proven to be disastrously wrong about the economic crisis. And the warnings of the progressive economists have been proven to be on target. And their New Deal-type prescriptions are what are needed. Again, this will require that the progressives put strong and unending pressure on the emerging Obama administration, who will be getting pressure from the financial lobbyists pressuring to keep the bailouts coming without proper regulation or requirements. B3

Click here to read Robert Scheer's timely and prescient Chronicle column: .

Today's Ammianoliner:

Prop 8 backlash causes Mormon Tabernacle Temple to become Mormon Tabernacle Trio.

(From the telephone answering machine in the home of Sup. Tom Ammiano on Monday, Nov. 24, 2008)

Welcome back,Tom. You need to be on the cutting edge and in fighting trim from now on if you are going to tackle those hard-charging lobbyists up in Sacramento. B3

This article by Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prizing winning economist and professor of economics at Columbia University in New York City, is one of the best I've seen on what went wrong with the economy and what can be done about it by the Obama team. It appeared in the November Vanity Fair magazine, shortly before the election.
His monthly column will appear in the Bruce blog. B3

The past as prologue? Lining up for food and water, Louisville, Kentucky, 1937. By Margaret Bourke-White/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.

Reversal of Fortune

Describing how ideology, special-interest pressure, populist politics, and sheer incompetence have left the U.S. economy on life support, the author puts forth a clear, commonsense plan to reverse the Bush-era follies and regain America’s economic sanity.

by Joseph E. Stiglitz November 2008

When the American economy enters a downturn, you often hear the experts debating whether it is likely to be V-shaped (short and sharp) or U-shaped (longer but milder). Today, the American economy may be entering a downturn that is best described as L-shaped. It is in a very low place indeed, and likely to remain there for some time to come.

Virtually all the indicators look grim. Inflation is running at an annual rate of nearly 6 percent, its highest level in 17 years. Unemployment stands at 6 percent; there has been no net job growth in the private sector for almost a year. Housing prices have fallen faster than at any time in memory—in Florida and California, by 30 percent or more. Banks are reporting record losses, only months after their executives walked off with record bonuses as their reward. President Bush inherited a $128 billion budget surplus from Bill Clinton; this year the federal government announced the second-largest budget deficit ever reported. During the eight years of the Bush administration, the national debt has increased by more than 65 percent, to nearly $10 trillion (to which the debts of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae should now be added, according to the Congressional Budget Office). Meanwhile, we are saddled with the cost of two wars. The price tag for the one in Iraq alone will, by my estimate, ultimately exceed $3 trillion.

Click here to continue reading Joseph E. Stiglitz's article published in the November 2008 issue of Vanity Fair.

Guardian editorial for Wednesday paper (11/26/2008):

The water board can shut down the Mirant power plant at the bottom of Potrero Hill. The city could then come back with a peaker plan that environmentalists can accept or find a way to accept CAL-ISO's mandates without new fossil fuel generation. That sounds like an excellent outcome to us.

Iraq Veterans Against War to Occupy Union Square (SF) on FRIDAY

* THIS PRESS RELEASE IS BEING SENT BY THE WORLD CAN'T WAIT AS A COURTESY TO THE IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR; Please contact IVAW with inquiries

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, From Iraq Veterans Against the War, www.ivaw.org Tuesday, November 25, 2008 Press Contact: Eddie Falcon, Iraq Vets Against the War: (714) 381-9825 eddiefalcon400@hotmail.com

*Iraq Veterans Against the War to Occupy Union Square*
*Street Theater Showing the Brutal and Unjust Consequences of Occupying a Foreign Country*

What: Operation First Casualty (OFC), San Francisco

When: FRIDAY, November 28
11am-2pm

Where: Union Square (Start; "Round-Ups") – 11am sharp
Moscone Center (Mock Interrogations)
Powell St. Turnaround (Die-In)
U.N. Plaza Fountain *(PRESS CONFERENCE)- 1pm *
*PHOTO OPS

Here is a column by M. J. Akbar from Project Syndicate's The World in Words series. Akbar, a former member of India's parliament and advisor to the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was the founding editor of The Asian Age and is an Asia Society Associate Fellow.

India’s Agony

By M.J. Akbar

MUMBAI – In most cities of South Asia, hidden beneath the grime and neglect of extreme poverty, there exists a little Somalia waiting to burst out and infect the body politic. This netherworld, patrolled and nourished by criminals who operate a vast black-market economy, has bred, in Mumbai, a community that has utter contempt for the state, because it knows that its survival depends on corrupting the police. Like underground magma, that underworld has now burst into the streets of Mumbai.

By Bruce B. Brugmann

For sometime now, I have been asking the question, how much more damage can Bush do before he heads back to clear brush at his ranch in Crawford.

The damage notices are coming almost daily. For example, today (11/28/08)a story in the Los Angeles Times (on how a $200 billion lending plan hurts students and consumers on predatory, usurious loans) and an editorial in the New York Times (on the stripping of a key provision in the Clean Air Act will harm clean air) makes the point yet again in 96 point tempo bold. Get Bush and his cadre out and start the campaign of damage reversal and control. And get the congressional investigations going allegro furioso.

Click here to read Amit R. Paley's Friday November 28 article in the L.A. Times, Private student loan rescues opposed: A $200-billion federal consumer-lending plan shouldn’t benefit private providers of student loans, several groups tell Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Click here to read the Friday November 28 editorial in the New York Times, A Clean Air Rule to Keep.

Today's Ammianoliner:

Ammiano to leave oval office. Refuses to pardon Ed Jew.

(From the telephone answering machine in the home of Sup. Tom Ammiano on Friday, Nov. 28, 2008. Wednesday Nov 26 was Amminano's last day as San Francisco Supervisor. He is moving on to the State Assembly.)