Listen up, taggers. Here’s one of the vehicles they send to censor all your public art. This thing must be loaded up with every color of paint imaginable - it’s huge.
Now, wouldn’t it be a score for you to tag this giant rolling canvas - you know, poetic justice and all?
This thing is your white whale – keep an eye out:
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And look what they do with that truck – they paint over your scribblings just as soon as you put them up, leaving only a ”wet paint” sign. Thusly:
Courage.
Never thought I’d see it but, yesterday, this aging Ford Pinto Runabout was being driven on the streets of San Francisco in a non-ironic fashion - as if it were a normal car!
Only In San Francisco. Click to expand – note whitewall tires:
Confer the similar AMC Pacer being driven the normal way, in an ironic fashion, around Lowest Haight near horrible Octavia Boulevard. See the difference?
NB: If this Pacer were a Pinto, the flames would be coming out of the rear wheel well, instead of the front. About which more anon.
Now, Wikipedia says some Pintos were built just across the bay in Richmond(!), CA. See that monstrous building with the solar panels? That was the haunted Ford factory, back in the day. But didn’t this factory close down back in ‘55, 15 years before the Pinto era? Think so.
Anywho, maybe the Pinto wasn’t all that unsafe after all (compared to other cars in its class at the time), despite that Pulitzer-winning Mother Jones magazine bit/press conference back in 1977 and the received wisdom of today. Regardless, flaming “Pinto Madness” inspired the Gene Hackman / Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio film called Class Action- that was the 1991 movie shot in San Francisco that had absolutely, positively nothing to do with any kind of class action lawsuit. Anywho.
Keep on truckin’, yellow Pinto lady!
I finally caught this tiny 1957-or-later Fiat Nuova 500 at rest. It was my white whale but it eludes me no longer.
(Mistakenly thought they called these things Topolinos (little mice), oh well.)
See it parked next to a normal car? Click to expand:
Kimochi (meaning “good feelings,” or “feelings of respect and concern for the older generations“) Inc. is “a non profit organization dedicated to the well-being of seniors in the San Francisco Bay Area.” That’s where the 500 was parked.
Look for this orange cutie when you’re on the Streets of San Francisco. Zoom zoom.
This fellow is going to work on his inline skates down hilly, hilly Haight Street. He’s keeping up with the bikes and leaving everybody else - drivers, MUNI, peds - in the dust.
Horrible, clogged, failed Octavia Boulevard, Bane of Travelers All, is vanquished, if just for a moment.
He’s going for speed:
Click to expand.
Per Yelp’s Cathy H: Yes, the Western Addition’s Margaret Hayward Playground has the nicest public tennis courts in San Francisco. Says Cathy:
“I enjoy playing at the tennis courts on the corner of Laguna and Turk. Granted, kids in the hood ask you for your tennis balls… The court is lit at night! And parking is plenty!”
Just picture yourself there, inside the wind barriers and ‘neath the numerous church crosses.
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See you there!
Get up to speed on the Orwellian Serf’s Emancipation Day here. Today’s protest at the Chinese consulate was relatively small, with about 200 fired-up Tibetans chanting and singing.
Only one lane of Geary Boulevard was shut down to traffic today, as opposed to all four during the last go around: Click to expand:
Fifty years of resistance, 1959-2009:
The horn-honking of solidarity with the protesting crowd from passing traffic was infectious:
A perspective on public relations:
From the Chinese point of view there are perfectly legitimate internal communications (or propaganda, if you prefer) reasons to designate this holiday. It’s a high-profile re-statement of the official Chinese “emancipation” narrative on the annexation of Tibet, an important pillar of legitimacy and a cornerstone of the messaging that is used to this day to justify that annexation to both internal and external audiences. Unfortunately, loaded with unintentional irony as it is, “Serf Emancipation Day” is going to enter foreign ears like a butcher knife coated in rock salt.”
Well rejoice, damn you, March 28 is now officially Serf’s Emancipation Day (農奴解放日 / 农奴解放日). The powers that be in China have blocked the YouTube, possibly to avoid the viewing of this particular video (although there could be a host of non Tibet-related reasons for this YT blockage). For her part, “disgusting” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is still hammering China this month about the Tibetan issue.
More locally, there’ll be a few folks in San Francisco commemorating March 28, but they won’t be in a celebratory mood. San Francisco Team Tibet has a bit of info about what will occur at the San Francisco Chinese Consulate tomorrow.
Hopefully people from one side won’t start hanging themselves off of the consulate 30 feet in the air and people from the other side won’t cut any ropes, you know, the way it went down last year on Laguna Street.
50 Years of Enslavement – March 28
This was the scene today when an extended protest at the Chinese consulate forced the closure of Geary Boulevard to cars. As you can see, the buses were allowed to chug along. (It would seem preferable to close off one block of languid Laguna instead of four blocks of galloping Geary, but oh well.)
Is this what BRT will look like?
The buses really didn’t go any faster without the cars, but oh well.
Oh boy, it’s going to be ON this Friday when 10-day-old DPT Order #3579 gets its first public hearing. Click to expand:
Check it:
“The Director of Parking and Traffic will hold a public hearing on Friday, January 30, 2009, at10:00 AM, in Room 416 (Hearing Room 4), City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, SanFrancisco, CA 94102, to consider the following proposals:
LEFT LANE MUST TURN LEFT – ESTABLISH
Haight Street, eastbound, between Buchanan and Laguna Streets (adds additional eastbound left turn lane to Haight Street to reduce delay to Muni bus service).
TOW-AWAY NO STOPPING ANYTIME – ESTABLISH
Fell Street, south side, from 150 feet to 200 feet east of Masonic Avenue (an additional 50 feet) to lengthen the left turn lane.”
So let’s see here…
Item the First. This will change the intersection of Haight and Laguna so that there’s a left-only lane on downhill Haight at Laguna. Will this help bus lines, such as the 2.5 star rated #71Haight-Noriega electric get onto Laguna faster? That’s the idea, anyway.
What’s the source of the problem - could this congestion be one of the muy malo “radiating effects” of the Octavia Boulevard / Offramp that Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi speaks of?
Signs point to yes.
Looking west at the intersection in question.
Item the Second. Can you see the red curb indicating the tow-away area of the left side of Fell just before Masonic? That’s going to get two or three car lengths longer. Can you handle that, NIMBY? Sure you can.
Looking west at the intersection in question.
So there you have it. Read the notice itself for more stuff in there about:
New Areas for the Residential Permit Parking program (which is, of course a fascist insect that prays upon the lives of the people, I’ll explain that sometime);
A longer-lasting parking/waiting/doing-your-nails-while-you-sit-idling-for-20-minutes-in-the-Honda-or Toyota zone for the Trader Joe’s on (everybody’s favorite whipping boy) Masonic Avenue;
etc.
Whatever happens this Friday, it will be a test of writer Matt Smith’s Hope Change Parking postulate of neighborhood conflict fading away in the Obama era.
See you there!
When they remove your parking spot
how you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
or on the trigger of your gun?
Well there was a report of a Suspicious Package Outside Chinese Consulate at Geary and Laguna so the SFPD sent over some officers and the bomb squad.
The passersby in Japantown favored sending a bomb destroying robot, but this fellow from the bomb squad stepped up, donned a massive helmet, and sauntered on over to the item that tied up traffic all over.
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Just another day for the SFPD…
