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politics

Larkin Street Youth Services employees unionize

06.06.13 - 4:55 pm | Steven T. Jones |
(2)

After a contested organizing effort that raised questions about the tactics and resources being used by management at Larkin Street Youth Services, a nonprofit social service provider funded with government grants, the National Labor Relations Board today tallied the votes, which union sources say was 67-17 in favor of organizing.Read more »

politics

NSA spying extends to Internet companies, reports say

06.06.13 - 3:11 pm | Rebecca Bowe |
(13)

As if a top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand telephone records over to the National Security Agency weren't enough, the UK Guardian is now reporting that the federal government's spying program extends to online communications, through a program granting the NSA "direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US Internet giants." The program is called PRISM, and details about it were provided in Read more »

noise

New NIN sounds like old NIN, and it's coming to Outside Lands

06.06.13 - 2:54 pm | Emily Savage |
(2)

Admit it, there was a time when a Nine Inch Nails album was the hardest music in your CD collection. You slipped your Downward Spiral disc in to drown out -- or perhaps embolden -- the bitter angst seething within. That was likely in the 1990s and you got way more hardcore following elementary school. Read more »

politics

The Chron's token conservative on tech hegemony

06.06.13 - 2:08 pm | Tim Redmond |
(9)

It's always fun when things are so screwy in town that the leading conservative writer at the Chron starts to agree (even just a little) with the crazy commie at this blog.

Debra Saunders is unhappy with the way the Apple store is moving into Union Square. Not because she hates Apple; she's a Republican who loves all business. Not because she wants to save the fountain or thinks the urban design is ugly; she's all for new development.Read more »

pixel_vision

Eat your Oates at the Castro's amazing double-feature tonight

06.06.13 - 12:48 pm | Cheryl Eddy |
(0)

Not even sure if "amazing" is a strong enough word, but the Castro Theatre is screening a pair of cool-ass movies on 35mm tonight. Frankly, I don't think you have anything better to do, because there isn't anything better than a WARREN OATES movie except maybe a WARREN OATES DOUBLE FEATURE.

Kicking things off at 7pm, it's Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). Oates plays a perpetually rumpled bartender whose determination to collect a huge bounty (the prize: see title) leads him into some mighty surreal adventures in Mexico's sinister outback. Co-stars include Kris Kristofferson (in particularly kreepy mode).

Read more »

pixel_vision

Cheap date alert: Get paid to go watch 'Dexter' at a pop-up drive-in

06.06.13 - 12:11 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
(0)

Happy 80th birthday to the drive-in movie theater! We <3 you as much as Danny Zuko. And now that we're on the subject -- and not to be a total commercial or anything -- but this promo deal from ZipCar hyping Dexter via drive-in actually looks like fair compensation for becoming part of a network television hype machine if you have a gore-oriented date on your hands. 

Read more »

politics

NSA spying on Verizon calls is nothing new

06.06.13 - 11:51 am | Rebecca Bowe |
(17)

So, the federal government is spying on millions of Americans. Still. And this time, there’s a document to prove it.

In a momentous scoop by journalist Glenn Greenwald, the UK Guardian has published a top secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order requiring Verizon to turn over all call records to the National Security Agency.Read more »

pixel_vision

The Performant: Sympathetic resonance

06.06.13 - 10:38 am | Nicole Gluckstern |
(1)
Allie Cooper at Decameron. Photo by Nicole Gluckstern
The Decameron amphitheater. Photo by Nicole Gluckstern
Andreas Bennetzen at Decameron. Photo by Nicole Gluckstern
The Decameron's caravan. Photo by Nicole Gluckstern
The edge of Oekolos. Photo by Nicole Gluckstern
Sculpture bot at Decameron. Photo by Nicole Gluckstern
Shannon Gray at Decameron. Photo by Nicole Gluckstern
"Sympathetic Resonance" Photo by Nicole Gluckstern

An evening of good vibrations at the Decameron

While there’s plenty of art created around post-apocalyptic themes, what frequently characterizes it is a sense of bleakness, struggle, and violence. Only rarely does the sheer resilience of the creative spirit get recognized, let alone celebrated by our visionary futurists.Read more »

politics

Today's vexing question

06.06.13 - 10:29 am | Johnny Angel Wendell |
(7)

It's a lovely June day in LA with the gloom burning off and my son graduating elementary school. So, I thought I might leave you with this simple question:

Why do the same people that believe an assault weapons ban is a waste of time because "criminals can always get guns" also believe that an abortion ban will end abortions?

See ya after the ceremonies!

 

politics

Rope a dope the whackaloon

06.06.13 - 9:54 am | Johnny Angel Wendell |
(13)

Susan Rice, the current US ambassador to the United Nations will be the next national security advisor. She replaces the resigning Tom Donilon. Unlike the position she was up for before, to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Rice is an appointee not subject to confirmation hearings or a vote. The job is hers.Read more »

politics

Ron Lanza memorial set for June 15

06.06.13 - 9:33 am | Tim Redmond |
(0)

A memorial for Ron Lanza, the queer impresario who founded Valencia Rose Cafe and Josie's Cabaret and Juice Joint, has been set for Saturday, June 15 at El Rio.

Lanza died of colon cancer April 9.

The memorial starts at 11am and runs to 1pm. It's an open mic; come tell a story. And expect to hear some crazy ones; he had a long and interesting life.

bruce

Solomon: Bradley Manning is guilty of "aiding the enemy"--if the enemy is democracy

06.05.13 - 9:41 pm |
(1)


By Norman Solomon

Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

Of all the charges against Bradley Manning, the most pernicious -- and revealing -- is “aiding the enemy."

A blogger at The New Yorker, Amy Davidson, raised a pair of big questions that now loom over the courtroom at Fort Meade and over the entire country:

*  “Would it aid the enemy, for example, to expose war crimes committed by American forces or lies told by the American government?"

*  “In that case, who is aiding the enemy -- the whistleblower or the perpetrators themselves?”

Read more »

noise

Joey Covington, RIP

06.05.13 - 9:14 pm | Johnny Angel Wendell |
(0)

Joey Covington, former drummer of the Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, was killed in a  car crash in Palm Springs, Tuesday. He was 67.

The Airplane's third drummer (after Skip Spence and Spencer Dryden), Covington replaced Dryden after the Airplane's evolution into a long jam type group was too physically taxing for Dryden.Covington wrote and sang the band's tune "Pretty As You Feel" in 1971. He co-founded Hot Tuna two years earlier with Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen as a bluesy side project that the latter two continue with to this day.

 

noise

Maxwell's, RIP

06.05.13 - 7:55 pm | Johnny Angel Wendell |
(3)


Maxwell's--one of the very first stops on the Indie rock circuit--closes up shop this July. In business since 1978, the Hoboken nightspot has hosted bands all the way from indie mainstays like Yo La Tengo and the Feelies and Husker Du and the Replacements to unlikelies like Blue Oyster Cult. But when their lease ends at the end of July, so do they.Read more »

politics

SFPD responds (weirdly) to allegations of racial disparity

06.05.13 - 4:28 pm | Rebecca Bowe |
(42)

The San Francisco Police Department has issued a head-scratching response to charges of racial disparity in marijuana arrests, possibly in an attempt to defuse controversy over a recent incident that already has some members of the African American community up in arms.Read more »