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So many summertime festivals

Small town salsa, enviro-docs, artisan Jello shots, fun punk: warm weather celebrations abound in 2013. Here's our list

This Week's Paper

Evictions sweep the city. Plus, Björk, Black Watch, a guide to summer's best fairs and festivals, Southside Spirit House, community basketball, and more. Articles Online | Digital Edition

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From the Blogs

Bay Area groups critical of immigration reform proposal

04.18.13 - 9:30 am | Rebecca Bowe |
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Olga Miranda, secretary treasurer of the San Francisco Labor Council and president of SEIU Local 87, did not mince words when sharing her initial reaction to the proposed federal immigration reform bill, which was unveiled April 16 by a bipartisan group of senators.

“If it was myself and our members at the bargaining table, we would walk away,” Miranda said. “This proposal is nothing more than an offense to the community.”Read more »

Solomon: The Orwellian warfare state of carnage and doublethink

04.17.13 - 11:30 pm |
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By Norman Solomon

Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” He writes the Political Culture 2013 column.

After the bombings that killed and maimed so horribly at the Boston Marathon, our country’s politics and mass media are awash in heartfelt compassion -- and reflexive “doublethink,” which George Orwell described as willingness “to forget any fact that has become inconvenient.”

In sync with media outlets across the country, the New York Times put a chilling headline on Wednesday’s front page: “Boston Bombs Were Loaded to Maim, Officials Say.” The story reported that nails and ball bearings were stuffed into pressure cookers, “rigged to shoot sharp bits of shrapnel into anyone within reach of their blast.”

Much less crude and weighing in at 1,000 pounds, CBU-87/B warheads were in the category of “combined effects munitions” when put to use 14 years ago by a bomber named Uncle Sam. The U.S. media coverage was brief and fleeting. Read more »

Is there hope for California?

04.17.13 - 2:34 pm | Tim Redmond |
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Nothing cheers up an old tax-and-spend liberal than word that two major new sources of state revenue -- enough to begin closing the gap in education funding -- are at least on the table in Sacramento.Read more »

The Chron gets the condo deal wrong

04.17.13 - 12:37 pm | Tim Redmond |
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It's kind of a surprise that the Chron actually likes the (possible) condo conversion deal. That paper typically opposes anything that is good for tenants and supports anything that the landlords like. But it's annoying that the editorial writers made it sound as if Sups. Scott Wiener and Mark Farrell engineered this whole thing. You need to get beyond the silly paywall to read the full editorial, so I'll reproduce the key part here:Read more »

Bat for Lashes brings an occult celebration to the Regency Ballroom

04.17.13 - 10:38 am | Laura Kerry |
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There’s an idea in literary theory that co-opts the philosophical notion of the concrete universal. The value of a poem, character, or story, it says, can be determined by the particular balance of how general and specific an entity it represents.

The remarkable thing about the music on the three albums of Bat For Lashes, the moniker of British musician Natasha Khan, is its melding of opposites. The songs simultaneously exist in the realm of the ancient and the new, the weird and the ordinary, and the grand and the intimate. And the even more remarkable thing is that seeing it embodied on the Regency Ballroom stage in front of an audience didn’t compromise these effects; it heightened them. Read more »

Is there such a thing as "green" fracking?

04.17.13 - 9:44 am | Rebecca Bowe |
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Michael Klein is an unlikely oil industry executive. He’s also an unlikely environmental activist. For many years, the affluent San Franciscan was a major donor and chair of the board of the Rainforest Action Network, an environmental organization famous for its aggressive agitation targeting timber giants, coal companies, air polluters, and the dirty energy financiers of Wall Street.

But he's stepped down from that role, and has since helped form a company called Hydrozonix, which might be called a “green” fracking enterprise.Read more »

CEQA change moves faster in SF than Sacto

04.16.13 - 3:45 pm | Tim Redmond |
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So the Guv says he doesn't think he's going to be able to gut CEQA this year. I think he's right: The party he supposedly leads (but doesn't tend to follow him) won't go for it, any more than the party Obama leads will got for cuts to Social Security.Read more »

Goats, unicorns, Snoop Dogg: What to do in SF for 4/20 2013

04.16.13 - 3:11 pm | Caitlin Donohue |
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Hey stoner stereotypes, see ya at Hippie Hill! I jk -- you can do way better on International Stoner Day this year in the Bay. Instead of watching wobbly teenagers inhale from "joints" the size of their lacrosse stick in Golden Gate Park (also avoid Haight Street today like the plague), steer your buzzed bumblings towards these carefully curated events that are sure to be safe, amaaaazing spaces for mature marijuana users.

It's a great day to hit up your fave dispensary, too -- many are offering deals and free joints to patients [e.g., the Castro's Apothecarium, where the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will be holding court all day.] Other year-round best bets for the blazed: the Audium, the brand-new Exploratorium, or your couch. Read more »

Warriors Arena proposal rouses supporters and opponents

04.16.13 - 3:05 pm | Steven T. Jones |
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UPDATED Rival teams have formed in the last week to support and oppose the proposed Warriors Arena at Piers 30-32 as the California Legislature considers a new bill to approve the project, a new design is about to be released, and a trio of San Francisco agencies prepares to hold informational hearings.Read more »

Boston, a day later

04.16.13 - 1:02 pm | Tim Redmond |
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It's hard to know what to say about the Boston Marathon bombings. Except that I don't believe the guy on the roof did it, and I don't believe the government did it to get its hand down our pants, and nobody has any idea if some organized domestic or foreign terrorist group was responsible or if it was a lone nut. Read more »

Heads Up: 7 must-see concerts this week

04.16.13 - 12:49 pm | Emily Savage |
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Macca, Hall and Oates, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails – what is this, 1976, or '99? I kid; the Outside Lands 2013 lineup is again a meaty mix of nostalgic, revived, and shiny new acts. There's the initial punch of a former Beatle slotted alongside NIN, RHCP, plus Jurassic 5, and Willie Nelson, then French synth-pop Phoenix, classic indie darlings Grizzly Bear, the National, Vampire Weekend, and up-and-comers King Tuff, Surfer Blood, the Growlers, along with inspired picks like D'Angelo and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Tickets are on sale Thu/18 here.

While the release of the lineup is exciting news, that fest isn't 'till the end of foggy summer (Aug. 9-11); so focus on the sunny days ahead, the bands that are here now: a reunited King Khan and BBQ Show, the Bay Area debut of both Savages and Lady, plus Night Beats, the 2 Bears, and locals Life Coach and Dreamdate's Anna Hillburg. Read more »

An art benefit -- for the artists

04.16.13 - 10:57 am | Tim Redmond |
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All sorts of political campaigns and causes raise money by asking artists to donate work that can be auctioned off. It's not often that the artists themselves get the benefits.

So Matt Gonzalez -- former supervisor, longtime criminal defense lawyer, and big fan of local arts -- is putting together a different type of fund-raiser. It's an art auction -- to benefit the artists.Read more »

Faux cabs: A tourism industry perspective

04.15.13 - 5:34 pm | Tim Redmond |
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I got a fascinating letter from a person who's worked in the tourism business in San Francisco for many years, and he's very worried about the impact of the faux cabs on the city's biggest industry. Here's his note:Read more »

Proposal would halt condo conversions for ten years

04.15.13 - 3:06 pm | Rebecca Bowe |
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San Francisco Supervisors Norman Yee, Jane Kim and Board President David Chiu gathered with a cluster of tenant advocates at City Hall April 15 to unveil a proposal billed as a more equitable alternative to a highly controversial condominium conversion legislation that’s fueled a months-long battle over affordable housing. Read more »