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Vanishing city

Up against intense market pressure, longtime residents and community projects fade from SF

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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politics

Facebook's Keystone Pipeline connection

05.01.13 - 10:53 am | Tim Redmond |
(2)

When people who don't have a lot of experience in politics suddenly start throwing money around, dumb stuff happens. That's what's going on with Mark Zuckerberg and the ads he's helping pay for that support the Keystone Pipeline.Read more »

pixel_vision

Calling all Latino photogs: Accion Latina wants your work on a wall

05.01.13 - 9:19 am | Caitlin Donohue |
(0)

Somehow in the shiny blitz of new restaurants made out of stainless steel, you may have missed the arrival of the Eric Quezada Center for Politics and Culture right in the thick of the Mission. That'd be a shame -- the space where the Abandoned Planet bookstore stood until 2010 now hosts some of the most vibrant alternative events in the country. Last time I made it through, it was for a poster show of screenprinted calls for immigration justice. A theater group comprised of Filipina caretakers performed, and in the back you could buy homemade butterfly cookies and sangria.

Speaking of the Quezada Center, if you're a Latino photographer, you're in luck -- a local non-profit wants to put your snaps up the gallery walls.   Read more »

politics

Get ready for May Day ruckus and revelry

04.30.13 - 6:55 pm | Rebecca Bowe |
(6)

May 1 marks International Workers Day, so naturally Bay Area activists are gearing up for a host of marches, rallies, and celebrations. The weather forecast predicts sunny skies with a high of 78 degrees – expect them to come out in droves. Here’s your rundown of May Day festivities. Read more »

politics

Hearing on event security as SFPD pushes police state

04.30.13 - 4:11 pm | Steven T. Jones |
(17)

Just a few weeks ago, Sup. Scott Wiener, civil libertarians, and I were raising concerns here about the SFPD unilaterally expanding its video surveillance reach. Then came the bombings at the Boston Marathon, which the SFPD used to seriously up the ante in the police state pot, asking for real time video surveillance up and down Market Street and banning backpacks at Bay to Breakers.

Now, I'm not one to stand in the way of reasonable security precautions. But we shouldn't just defer to the SFPD on whatever it says it wants because then we'll have cameras on every corner, spy drones overhead, stop-and-frisk, and an ever-greater portion of our tax dollars going to expand the police state. Because the cops will always want more tools to police us, tools they will always say they need to protect us – it's just in their nature. But it's up to the rest of us to strike the right balance and not lose our heads every time some whack-job resorts to violence.

Read more »

politics

You want scary? We've got an eviction map

04.30.13 - 1:19 pm | Tim Redmond |
(200)

You want to see something frightening on a lovely afternoon? Check out this amazing interactive map of Ellis Act evictions in San Francisco put together by Brian Whitty.Read more »

politics

Bay to Breakers: Go naked, everyone!

04.30.13 - 10:33 am | Tim Redmond |
(15)

I realize security is a serious issue after Boston. And I'm all for public safety. So if the city is going to ban backpacks at Bay to Breakers, (just for runners, or for spectators, too? How can that be enforced?), we might as well take the next logical step:

More naked runners.Read more »

politics

Pride faces backlash from defenders of gay whistleblower

04.30.13 - 9:34 am | Rebecca Bowe |
(23)

In the wake of the debacle unleashed by San Francisco Pride’s announcement that gay whistleblower Bradley Manning would not be grand marshal for this year's Pride Parade after all, a large crowd of protesters assembled outside Pride’s Market Street headquarters April 29 for a hastily organized rally condemning the move. They held signs depicting Manning’s image, and chanted, “Grand marshal, not court martial!”Read more »

pixel_vision

Noodles, street dancers, and more from the Tribeca Film Fesival

04.30.13 - 9:29 am | Kimberly Chun |
(0)

The only-in-Noo Yawk perks of the Tribeca Film Festival? The proximity of theaters like AMC Loews Village 7 to repositories of ramen deliciousity like Momofuku Noodle Bar, a scant two blocks away. You can keep the free ketchup-flavored popcorn distributed by sponsors in front of other theaters. I’ll take Momofuku’s house ramen, which overwhelms with porky goodness (a.k.a. pork belly, pork shoulder) and comes with a soft poached egg and gotta-have-it fish cake, cabbage, and nori.

Momofuku’s mini mason jar of flavorful kimchi also makes an ideal spicy side to such Tribeca talkies as The Broken Circle Breakdown, Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton, and Flex Is Kings. Read more »

politics

The Google-bus elitism

04.29.13 - 6:02 pm | Tim Redmond |
(132)

I've been waiting for the Chron's culture columnist Caille Millner to finally write about something interesting, and I got it April 27 when she stumbled onto the Google Buses. Or rather, the problem with the Google buses.

Thanks to the Chron's silly paywall, you can't read her column online, and since hardly anyone in San Franciso buys the Chronicle anymore, Millner's story won't get the attention it should. So allow me to repeat some of it here:Read more »

politics

Behind the Gay Pride "Manning-gate"

04.29.13 - 5:50 pm | Tim Redmond |
(13)

The whole Bradley Manning-Pride fiasco was such a clusterfuck that we’re starting to wonder whether the people who run the giant parade and festival can count, much less make a decision.

Here, as best as we can tell, is how it went down.Read more »

politics

Michael Mina reaches settlement after overcharging customers at his SF restaurants

04.29.13 - 10:17 am | Steven T. Jones |
(26)

Celebrity Chef Michael Mina and his four San Francisco restaurants – Michael Mina, RN74, Bourbon Steak, and Clock Bar – have agreed to pay $83,617 to their employees to settle charges of overbilling their customers a 4 percent meal surcharge ostensibly intended to cover the company's employee health care obligations.Read more »

politics

Former Pride grand marshal: Manning is LGBT hero, Board action 'height of stupidity'

04.29.13 - 10:16 am | Marke B. |
(59)

"I was one of the 15 former grand marshals on the electoral commission that voted for Bradley Manning," Barry Saiff, former BiNet president, told me over the phone this morning from Washington, DC, about the Bradley Manning Pride grand marshalship controversy. (As one half of a bi-national queer couple, he lives most of the year in the Phillipines with his boyfriend, who is unable to come to the United States due to discriminatory immigration laws.)

To recap: An 'electoral college' of former grand marshals elected the jailed gay (possibly now transgender) whistleblower who provided Wikileaks with a huge dump of raw classified US government info. Someone announced the choice on Friday and the media went nuts. Then the Pride executive director issued this bizarre statement repudiating the decision and rescinding the honor, to the dismay of the electoral college and a huge swath of LGBT locals. A protest at Pride HQ is planned for today, 5pm at 1841 Market, SF.) 

"The list of nominees from the other board members was presented to me in March, and the instant I saw Bradley's name on there I knew it was the right choice. Pride stands for justice, freedom, and an end to discrimination, and I feel Bradley represents all of these things -- as well as complete honesty and bravery. What the Pride board did to repudiate that choice, especially in its official statement -- to not be able to make the distinction between Manning's necessary actions and way the government is denigrating our troops with these illegal and unjust wars -- is the height of stupidity.

"They [the Pride board] are colluding in the giant 'Support Our Troops' hoax that says you must never question the leadership of the military. There is actually no contradiction between supporting our troops as individuals, including our LGBT folks in the armed services, and supporting Bradley Manning and what he did.

Read more »

noise

Live shots: Baby Dee and Little Annie at Amnesia

04.29.13 - 10:10 am | Haley Zaremba |
(0)
Baby Dee on the keys.
Little Annie rocks the mic.
The dynamic duo in action.
Stage presence!
All photos by Haley Zaremba

Baby Dee and Little Annie are a match made in camp heaven. The women, nearing their 60s, may have only been playing for 25 people, but boy did they put on a
show Thu/25 at Amnesia.

The two looked like characters out of a B movie or a dirty New York speakeasy. Annie, a diminutive little creature, looked like a gypsy in a headwrap and heavy eyeliner. Dee towered over her in an '80s-esque leopard print sweater and leggings with a pink tulle skirt. When Baby Dee finally appeared an hour after the show was advertised to begin, she sat down at the piano and called into the microphone, "If anyone sees Little Annie, tell her the show has started."

Read more »

2013 Small Business Awards: Reader's Choice

04.29.13 - 9:53 am |
(0)

In honor of Small Business Week, the Bay Guardian presents its yearly honors for locally-owned enterprise. Businesses that give back, female and minority entrepreneurial leaders, employee-owned companies, and exemplary small business advocates are highlighted.

Once again, our Small Business Reader's Choice Award will be given:

What is your favorite small business in the San Francisco Bay Area?

Cast your vote now!

politics

Oh look, suddenly Pride is interesting

04.28.13 - 9:45 am | Marke B. |
(28)

So. Pride did a thing. After years of being no more politically risky than an bowl of strawberry Jell-O, the Pride committee -- or some kind of mole within the Pride committee, according to SF Pride board president Lisa L. Williams' utterly weird statement about the whole thing -- announced that Bradley Manning (a.k.a. Breanna Manning), jailed and pallid hero of the Wikileaks generation, soon to face court-martialling, was to be a Pride Grand Marshall.

An honor usually reserved for washed up TV actresses who once said the word "gay" on CBS prime time in the '80s and craven politicos with dead eyes and hard hair, the Grand Marshallship has before this stirred up about as much controversy outside the community as the color beige. And yet, on Friday afternoon, the world's head exploded. (The canny queen who leaked the decision sure knew her press cycles -- Wikileaks lives!) When your dad in Detroit calls you almost immediately after the news breaks to ask how you're covering it, you know its grabbing virtual headlines.

Read more »