Labor activist urges “innovation” in workers' rights organizing

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Even as renowned labor activist Bill Fletcher Jr. geared up for a talk last Thursday to describe the dire situation he believes the labor movement is facing, local organizers had victories to celebrate.

Fletcher joined organizers from the Filipino Community Center, OUR Walmart, PODER and POWER for a March 7 forum hosted by San Francisco Jobs With Justice, called “Labor at the Crossroads.”Read more »

Calvin Trillin: Hacker unearths paintings by George W. Bush

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To new artist George Bush (junior),

We welcome you  Greetings. Salaam.

We're eager to see your depiction

Of nukes stashed away by Saddam.

Calvin Trillin: Deadline Poet: The Nation 3/4/2013)

 

Nurses still waiting for CPMC to fully embrace San Francisco

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Labor and community activists cheered this week's news of a much-improved deal between the city and California Pacific Medical Center to build two new hospitals in San Francisco, and there are hopeful signs that frosty local relations with this sometimes-stubborn corporate behemoth may improve. But they also say they are withholding full support for the deal until CPMC reaches a contract agreement with the California Nurses Association.Read more »

Workers underpaid by firms renovating fancy mid-Market offices

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Union members from San Francisco Carpenters Local 22 were distributing flyers outside a developer’s Bush Street headquarters this week, upset that the company hired contractors who don’t pay union scale wages. "Hurting workers!" The bright orange flyers screamed. "Shame on them!"Read more »

How to get hot this week: sexy events

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I was paging through my neon-orange-and-yellow copy of Tristan Taormino's Feminist Porn Book and generally feeling good about International Women's Day when I discovered that gah! I totally spaced and missed out on a really important porn happening that is sweeping the country: handsome wackjob Craig Gross' "Porn Kills" tour!

The comely Gross has been motoring about visiting the country's third tier cities in -- yes! -- a hearse, enlisting pro-Jesus spoken word poets and Christian video artists who love frosted flakes to spread the word that porn is threatening the collapse of our families. In a hip way, with skulls and stuff.

Read more »

Flip on the Night Light: free show alert

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We've been hearing a lot about the Night Light thanks to its hosting of quality local shows; in the past year there have been performances by Warm Soda, Burnt Ones, Religious Girls, Jaberi and Deutsch, and the like. This Saturday, to celebrate 12 months of life, the bar-venue is hosting a free party, and there'll be eight bands, seven DJs, and three comedians to check out throughout the night. Yes, all free. Read more »

Condo conversion compromise in the works despite Realtors' resistance

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[UPDATED BELOW] Negotiations between tenant advocates and real estate interests (including the political advocacy group Plan C) over the controversial condo lottery bypass legislation haven't gone well or found common ground. But sources tell the Guardian that Sup. Read more »

Chinese Historical Society celebrates golden anniversary as neighborhood's memory bank

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In 1963 a publicist, an art collector, an actor, a newspaper publisher, and a dentist joined forces to form San Francisco's Chinese Historical Society of America. The group's mission was simple: to preserve and document Chinese culture in the US. Now celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, it has the same goal it always has had with one major difference: a museum to house the fruits of its labor. Read more »

Land of (nearly) 10,000 new movies

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Literally something for everyone this week: pregnant women, environmentalists, Mumia supporters, World War II buffs, Latin American history buffs, Abbas Kiarostami fan club members, German and French-film devotees, and anyone who's ever dreamed of going over the rainbow (in 3D). I hope you don't sleep much because this weekend is jammed up with new flicks.

Read more »

On the Om Front: Guys Wanted in the Yoga Room

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I teach a weekly employee yoga class at a hospital where my students are all women. Every week, a young man peers curiously into the classroom. I asked him once if he’d like to join us, and he said, “Yes, but what would my friends say? Yoga is for girls.”

This odd societal notion that yoga is an emasculating, status-reducing activity is bad enough. But to make matters worse, people like William J. Broad, the so-called New York Times science writer, have publically espoused that yoga is actually harmful to men. Why? Because, he says, men have a tendency to push themselves too hard, and their bigger muscles are more injury prone.

Wait … what?

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Chocolate, symbolism, polka dots at this weekend’s quilt show

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The San Francisco Quilters Guild’s biennial show is back and ready to prove needle arts are alive and kicking – and not just in grandma's eyes. The exhibit will cozy up the Concourse Exhibition Center this Sat/9 and Sun/10 with a display of over 400 quilts. Read more »

#OpenData just got a teeny bit more open

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We were disheartened when, after submitting some fairly innocuous questions to the Mayor’s Chief Innovation Officer, Jay Nath, we received zero answers. By the time the Guardian’s annual Freedom of Information issue hit stands yesterday, we were still out in the cold. (Shameless plug: Pick up a print edition of this week’s paper for our flow chart on how to file Sunshine requests, designed by our illustrious Art Director Brooke Robertson.)Read more »

The Performant: Whose story?

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Sifting through the past at The SF History Expo

If history is a tale written by the victors, one wonders who San Francisco’s victors are. A chimeral concept as much as a destination, represented by a Phoenix rising from its own destruction, San Francisco has been lauded as a land of opportunity and “the city that knows how,” and detracted as “ingrown (and) self-obsessed,” a “golden handcuff,” and a “Babylon-by-the-Bay” ever since it surfaced in the national consciousness. A city where eccentrics are celebrated, “family values” extend beyond heteronormativity, and the very real threat of natural disaster colors the mundane with an idealized wash of importance. Read more »

Oakland's JVP counters AIPAC's push to exempt aid to Israel from sequestration cuts

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Ahead of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's three-day policy conference in Washington DC, Oakland-based Jewish Voice for Peace and Avaaz.org blanketed the DC Metro with provocative anti-AIPAC posters. The $100,000 marketing campaign features images of young Jews with the words: “AIPAC does not speak for me. Most Jewish Americans are pro-peace. Read more »

SF approaches 1 million residents

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So the Association of Bay Area Governments, which plays an outsized role in local planning by making all sorts of projections, based on whatever economists and demographers use to make projections, that are supposed to guide how cities in the region make land-use decisions, says San Francisco should be prepared to see its population grow to 964,000 people by 2035.If you figure that's only an estimate, and probably off by at least five percent, we could be talking about a millio Read more »