All right, TTFN. But remember, We’ll Always Never Have Paris.
IRL, Paris, France is friends with just about everybody. The list of partner cities:
2012: San Francisco 2011: Dakar 2011: Sao Paulo, signed an amendment to the Cooperation Agreement of 2004 2011: Yerevan 2011: Rio de Janeiro 2011: Ramallah, signed a pact of friendship and cooperation inauguration, the Garden of Nations, a bust by French sculptor Emile-Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929), including Ramallah to Paris 2010: Doha 2010: Tel Aviv-Jaffa 2009: Istanbul 2009: Quebec 2009: San Francisco 2009: Rio de Janeiro 2009: Quebec 2009: Jericho 2009: Istanbul 2007: Phnom Penh 2006: Montreal 2006: Cairo 2006: Beirut 2005: Copenhagen 2004: Tunis 2004: Sao Paulo 2004: Rabat 2004: Casablanca 2003 St. Petersburg 2003: Quebec 2003: Algiers 2002: Geneva 2001: Porto Alegre (joint statement) 2001: London 2000: Madrid 2000: Athens 2000 (updated in 2004): Washington 1999: Warsaw 1999: OVA (Arab Towns Organization) 1999: Mexico 1999: Buenos Aires 1999: Amman 1998: Sydney 1998: Sofia 1998: Lisbon 1998: Yerevan 1997: Tbilisi 1997, Santiago 1997: St. Petersburg 1997: Riyadh 1997: Prague 1997: Beijing 1996: San Francisco 1996: Quebec 1996: Chicago 1995: Jakarta 1993: Beirut 1992: Moscow 1991: Seoul 1987: Sanaa 1987: Berlin 1987: Amman 1985: Cairo 1982: Tokyo 1958: Kyoto 1956: Rome (Twin Exclusive)
And in other news, George P. Shultz was a Nixon and Reagan appointee, not a Carter appointee. (You’d be amazed how many people think (or say) he’s a Carter appointee.)
Anywho, ever more deets, including a visit to Le Twitter HQ in the corrupt Twitterloin:
“From September 25 to 28, the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, is visiting San Francisco to strengthen ties and cooperation between the two cities.
The mayor of Paris has a full agenda for his stay in California. After a welcome reception at the Consulate of France in San Francisco, he visited two companies Parisoma and Twitter. 27 in the morning, he will go to Parisoma a common workspace, exchange and support for entrepreneurs. Created by the French Stéphane Distinguin, Parisoma accompanied nearly 300 start-up since its inception in 2007.
Bertrand Delanoë must also discover the new headquarters of Twitter in the SoMa district, the famous social network of micro-blogging, along with its CEO Jack Dorsey. With New York, Paris is the city with the most subscribers to his Twitter account, and this year the City of Light became the first in the world to exhibit his tweets in the public space, the place Châtelet.
Paris delegation has always aimed to encourage more trade with San Francisco, mainly on economic and technological. Several meetings with the mayor of this city, Edwin Lee, are well planned and Bertrand Delanoë is expected to sign a memorandum with him, in line with those of 2006 and 2009 to facilitate cooperation. This will be an opportunity to discuss joint projects twinned towns and to consider connections between the research teams.”
WiFi has not replaced these pay phones, not yet anyway.
Hey, remember that State of the City address from that former Mayor / Willie Brown appointee, you know, the one who promised free WiFi for the entire 415?
I do. It was like six years ago. (Hey, how’s that working out? Not well, last time I checked.)
Anywho, we now have a new Mayor / Willie Brown appointee, you know, the one who promised that Twitter would pay for Twitterloin-area WiFi, you know, instead of paying its fair share of taxes.
(Hey, how’s that working out? Nothing so far.)
Anywho, in anticipation, out go the famous pay phones at the corner of 6th and Market:
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Nowadays if you want to make a phone call and you don’t have a cellie, you’ll have to buy a stolen iPhone the next block over.
And maybe, just maybe, we’ll get fee citywide WiFi from the next Mayor / Willie Brown appointee, perhaps around 2020.
“Among those reportedly interested in the District 5 seat are Julian Davis, president of the board of Booker T. Washington Community Service Center; Gabriel Haaland, political director of SEIU Local 1021; Phil Ginsburg, Recreation and Park Department Director; and Michael O’Connor, the co-owner of the Independent Music Hall. Breed, who directs the African American Cultural Center on Fulton Street, has expressed interest in the position. She has a large segment of the Black activist community behind her, pushing Mayor Lee to appoint her as supervisor. “London is a woman who is definitely qualified to sit in that seat,” said Bridgette LeBlanc, with Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA). ’She is a native San Franciscan who was raised and works in the community. She is a leader who is electable, and she can build bridges.’”
4. She is the choice of Willie Brown and as a matter of fact, about four years ago, Willie the Sorting Hat actually tried to place London into the Assembly(!), or into the Tri-Wizard Tournament or somewhere. That seemed a stretch at the time, but appointing LB as Supe doesn’t seem a stretch at all right here and right now.
5. She is a 2008 “graduate” of Emerge California, which encourages women to run for elective office. And when I say “encourages,” I mean pressures. (Signing up for Emerge** is kind of like saying that you plan on running for office (or higher office) sooner rather than later.) Anyway, the questions Mayor Ed Lee’s people would have for London concern her commitment for becoming and maintaining her position as Supervisor, right? So, London, if not now, when?
6. She is the Worst Case Scenario for San Francisco’s progressives, IMO. She would be a train wreck for them, actually. So as far as Ed Lee’s political faction is concerned, picking anybody else would be an unnecessary risk.
*Which means I’ve figured this out on my own, unlike say, a year and a half ago when I got a phone call telling me the game plan about how Mark Farrell was going to win in District 2, which he did.
**And pay your money, but, srsly, it’s a pretty sweet deal, if you’re a woman planning on running for office soon, and if you’re not a Repub or a Green, and if you’re fortunate enough to get picked.
“I feel confident I am as viable as anyone else in this race.”
Disagree, respectfully. An incumbent Mayor losing is like a once-every-couple-decades kind of thing, right? Incumbents have huge built-in advantages, of course.
It’s not TBC’s job to spin for any particular candidate, is it?
“And so, you have The Bay Citizen which is an insert newspaper for the New York Times…”
Is that an insult? Is it meant to be? I can’t tell. But I can tell you that one look at its payroll will reveal that it’s a major bay area media entity.
“…and they threw a poll. An initiative like that is about marginalizing me. It’s about telling people that I can’t win.”
Wow. The whole exercise with USF and spending $10k on independent polling was about marginalizing Bevan Dufty? Really? (Maybe I’m not reading this right.)
The Bay Citizen called me “a Zombie” and didn’t even spell my name right in the story.
“Zombie candidate,” IIRC. Some people (such as myself, for one) have issues with how RCV and public financing relate to each other under the current rules, of course.
Per the video, Bevan thinks that people don’t have any idea that Rose Pak was the first Chinese American reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle? I think they do and I’m not sure how this bears on the CS. (You know, some people want to take steps to improve the 30 Stockton corridor like right now, instead of after a decade of delays and cost overruns. Is that racist to want to improve things now? How is it that “transit justice” can only be satisfied by the current horrible, horribly expensive, Bridge-to-Nowhere Central Subway scheme? I’m baffled.)
Bevan says that “90% of the Central Subway will be paid by the federal government?” This seems impossible to me. Is this in writing? Does it include past and future overruns?
Bevan says that the CS has to come before any other major project, such as putting rails in on Geary. But he doesn’t say why.
Bevan says that we would lose in excess of $100,000,000 if we pull the plug now. I thought it was closer to $200,000,000 myself but of course bad transit decisions cost money. The question is what should we do at this point. (I think we’d all be better off taking a new tack by simply paying back the Feds.)
I don’t know, if anybody wants to go line-by-line on today’s updated critique from Save MUNI, be my guest. (To be honest, I don’t know how anybody can defend the station placement decisions, the car-length decision, the let’s stop at southern Chinatown decision, among others. The CS is a politics-first, transit-last project, IMO.
(And oh, BTW, there’s a pool going on right now around town about what position Bevan will be appointed to and when. FYI.)
[UPDATE: Welcome, BigTent visitors! But play nice - please retract your claws when you and your nannies venture away from your online ghetto and onto the Civilized Internet.]
Would Whistler’s Mother have “qualified” to spend $75 to become a “member” of the “exclusive” Yahoo-Groupsish Golden Gate Mothers Group? Sadly no, as she was one of those “older mothers.” Check out the membership criteria, below.
What are the criteria for membership?
You must be a woman who lives in San Francisco and is expecting a child or has at least one child younger than 5 years old. Our organization is intended solely to support mothers and to explore the issues that arise in motherhood.
What does it cost and how is the money spent?
Both our initial and renewal fees are $75 for membership for one year. This covers the administrative and operating expenses of our group including various programs such as educational events, kids activities, social events, Just For Moms events, playgroups, newsletter and more. Any credit card charges made to GGMG will be listed on your statement as “BigTent”.
Can I pay by check?
Our primary method of collecting membership fees is through BigTent. Because our approval process and newsletter distribution relies heavily on BigTent, we are not able to process any membership fees through paper check. Alternatively, membership fees can be collected though the gift membership process. Information can be found at www.ggmg.org/giftmembership.html.
The Examiner’s Will Reisman is all over the story of how people were getting nanny parking permit advice at the website of the Golden Gate Mothers Group. Check it:
(Well, you read that and you think isn’t Cheryl Brinkman another one of those Gavin Newsom lackeys /appointees? And isn’t the board of the SFMTA part of the problem itself? And isn’t the residential parking permit system a stupid, NIMBYish idea as well? That’s what you might think.)
Anyway, let’s say you want a parking permit now, without jumping through hoops. You and your baby need the 411 on “going around the system” like right now, baby. Well here it is, right here.
What’s that? “Object not found.” Somebody must have took down the adviceful webpage. How wude!
Oh, wait a second, here’s something they had up a few days back:
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Couldn’t locate all the techniques the mommies discussed, but enjoy a sampler:
“I was able to get one by first talking with our pediatrician about whether he’d be willing to sign an affidavit that our nannies would be providing “medical care”. Since our healthy 3 month old son wouldn’t be able to survive on his own without care, I think that the doctor justified it in his own mind and said that he’d be willing to sign it. (You have to get a permit for a specific car, so you can’t just have an extra permit.)”
“We just had our pediatrician sign the medical caregiver form and were able to get a parking permit for our nanny with no questions asked.”
“We went through this same exact problem when we lived in the city a year ago. So what I ended up doing was this, when we it came time to renew our parking permits, we did and it came in the mail and using Windex* or 409 ( I can’t remember which) we sprayed it on the permit and wiped away the black marker with our license plate number and wrote in our nannies. It worked out perfectly. I drove to work so I didn’t need a permit during the day. There was a period of 6 weeks that I didn’t know what I was going to do, so I got her a temporary permit ( you can get them for 6 or 8 weeks or something like that) I think it’s a visitors permit. You have to go into the parking office but it worked out fine. Obviously wiping the number off the permit isn’t on the up and up, but we didn’t feel we had any other choice.”
And oh! I have another one. Help your nanny by getting your doctor to sign off on a DMV handicapped placard application! (Doctors will do this for you because there’s no downside for them – you see, no physician has ever been disciplined in the slightest for improperly authorizing a DMV handicapped placard during the entire history of the state of California. That’s why getting a placard is a can of corn. Anyway, if I were a nanny, I’d appreciate a blue placard more than some stupid parking sticker that only works in certain areas…)
The moderation on this group is horrible. If you try to ask what exactly the 75.00 is used for, your account gets shut down and suspended.
So let’s see $75.00 x 4000 members, plus all the advertising revenue 80K, where does all that money go? That’s a half a million dollars people have paid to have the privildge to post questions about a babies but rash?
No thanks, there are many other mothers groups out there. Bernal Heights parents group, Mission moms, Glen park, all on Yahoo for free.”
*Hey, where’s the Windex, Honey? I don’t know, ask the nanny. What, where the Hell is she – is she circling the block again? That’s it, we’re moving to Marin…”
“PRESIDENT OBAMA NAMES THREE TO PRESIDIO TRUST’S BOARD. APPOINTEES BRING EXPERIENCE, LOVE OF PARK
“Presidio of San Francisco (August 9, 2010) – President Barack Obama has appointed two prominent Bay Area business leaders and a longtime parks advocate to the Presidio Trust Board of Directors. David H. Grubb, William R. Hambrecht, and Charlene Harvey will replace outgoing board members T. Robert Burke, Nancy Connor and Curtis Feeny, all of whose terms have expired.
