The San Francisco Citizen

Gavin Newsom, America’s “most stylin’” mayor, has deservedly gotten lots of national attention for leading the charge against the bottled water industry. Take a look here at a scene from last month in San Francisco - he was somewhere inside this scrum of media and tap water fans. He’s got a tiger by the tail with this popular issue, much to the chagrin of industry giants Coca Cola, Pepsi, and Nestle.

But what started this campaign? It was a conversation a while back the mayor had about his possession of some bottles of Fiji Water. Somebody pointed out a few things about the pros and cons (mostly the cons) of shipping drinking water from the South Pacific to San Francisco. The result is that he is an international leader on this issue.

Fair enough. But now it appears that Fiji Water is leading the campaign FOR bottle water. They’re attacking the anti-bottled water movement at an RSS 2.0-enabled website called FijiGreen. (They’ve just boosted the ad budget so you might be hearing more from them soon.)

First of all: FijiGreen!?! WTF? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Having dispensed with that, check out this blog entry written by ”Fiji Green Gal” where she attempts to debunk the “food miles” myth. As you can see, she’s got her hands full when she doggedly replies to commenters.

You’re on your own after that. It’s up to you to make your own decision about how some people in the Republic of the Fiji Islands might benefit from Fiji Water bottling, about how some chefs just seem to love the stuff, about how they have an SVP working on these issues, etc. You might end up with a nuanced view or you might get so interested you’ll take the TreeHugger Survey.

Add it all up and see how all this compares with turning on the faucet when you’re thirsty or bottling your own tap water for those times when you’re on the go.  

Here’s the backstory about police foot patrols in San Francisco. It’s a touchy issue so things have been a bit hard on the captains who need to implement the program. And here’s the recent 208-page report from Public Safety Strategies Group. It documents “both the positive and negative outcomes of foot patrol implementation.” Now you’re up to speed.

Comes news today from San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Cecilia M. Vega - S.F. Supervisors Blast Police Web Letter:

San Francisco supervisors and police commissioners blasted Police Chief Heather Fong Wednesday for what they said was the premature posting of a letter on her department’s Web site that refuted the findings of a study criticizing the top brass’ implementation of a police foot-patrol program.

You’ll find a copy of the three-page letter here. Oops, maybe not, but that’s where the .pdf used to be, before it went down the memory hole. 

You can see a truncated HTML version here.

Or, click on to see the whole letter after the jump. Please remember that although Heather Fong took issue with data the consultants used to draw their conclusions, “on Wednesday she said she no longer had reservations about the methodology used and that she agreed with many of the findings in the report.” 

Fair enough. O.K., read on.

Foot patrols, like this but without the cars. Western Addition.

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Pretty soon, you’ll be able to fly from SFO to Dubai nonstop on a brand spanking new Boeing 777-200LR. LR stands for longer range, and it can go quite a distance. The aircraft that will take you to Dubai will look a little like this, with the fattest jet engines in the world.

Happy flying!

planegeezer via Flickr

Details after the jump.

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This is no mere ribbon cutting ceremony to open a new $429 million section of freeway approaching the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. Oh no.

The last step to opening this short but vital stretch of superslab involved Governor Schwarzenegger, cowboy boots, sunglasses and a big blow torch.

[Update: or welding torch, or cutting torch (based upon the O2 trigger) - Arnie's tool is an oxy-fuel welder of some kind, as commenter Doc helpfully points out. Arnie's sunglasses actually are sunglasses, but you could say that they were being used as goggles. The light coming from chain didn't seem all that bright compared to arc welding or whatever. FYI]

Enjoy your new freeway, San Francisco!

Higher rez version after the jump.

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Mayor Gavin Newsom could be found listing heavily to port today due to having a little back trouble. How did it happen this time? He thinks it all began a couple weeks ago when he helped his fiance, Women’s Independent Cinema founder Jennifer Siebel move some stuff around.

He gradually managed to right himself over the period of a news conference and he remained chipper throughout. Perhaps he knows that 90% of all back problems take care of themselves over a few weeks or months.

Old ideas about needing bed rest have gone by the wayside - anti-inflammatories (plus lots of water to make things easier on your liver and kidneys) are usually all you need. Drs. Jimmy Connors and Jim Kelly wouldn’t steer you wrong.

Part of this crowd, a large crowd actually, at the San Francisco Ferry Building yesterday was there to get their very own free stainless steel vacuum flask to carry around tap water as an alternative to buying water in plastic bottles.

These were handed out for free:

Doesn’t everyone heart S.F.? How about the tap water you get in S.F. and some sourrounding areas? It comes from the Yosemite area, takes a rest around here, and then comes into your kitchen. It’s the best tap water in the world. So what’s wrong with drinking it instead of Dasani or Aquafina or whatever?

In 2007, Mayor Newsom famously worked on getting municipal workers off of the plastic water bottle. That move generated a little blowback but it also attracted some national interest.

In 2008, attention turns to restaurants routinely offering bottled water to patrons. It didn’t used to be this way, but nowadays it’s the first choice  you have to make at some joints and some diners might feel that they’re being a bit cheap if they don’t spring for the spring water. What the Mayor is doing is using a little moral suasion to affect public behavior for the greater good. It’s not really “greenwashing,” actually. What it is is a perfectly appropriate use of the bully pulpit, as it doesn’t force anybody to do anything and it doesn’t cost the taxpayers any substantial amount of money.

Of course the bottled water industry thinks yesterday’s effort smacks of  totalitarianism.

Stainless steel bottles are available while supplies last at SFPUC Customer Service at 1155 Market Street near Civic Center. Take a pledge to stop buying plastic bottles of water and you can get a nice metal bottle as well. Just drop on by. Who knows, you might get lucky.