San Francisco Looking Up

Walking around downtown San Francisco, looking up is a good thing to do.  Looking street level one's eyes encounters too many people who are doing poorly.  There were many interesting faces and bodies, people I wanted to talk to.  I wanted to find out how things got this way with them.  But I don't feel comfortable taking pictures of people who are down and out unless they give permission.  So, I spent a lot of time looking up.

Una Pizza Napoletana

Back in December I got this message from a Juneau friend who heard we were going to be in San Francisco:

while in SF, I also couldn't recommend this place more
highly: http://www.unapizza.com/sf/menu.html We ate at his place when he
was in NYC and it was the best pizza I ever had, including at Pizzeria
Bianco in Phoenix, AZ (2nd best).

I found out about where it was Thursday evening, and Friday night we ended up not far away and I recommended we go.  Thanks Paul.  It was wonderful pizza - light and tasty.

Georgia O'Keeffe Caught With Porn and Other Mr. Fish Creations

Yes, Anon, we're in San Francisco where my son and his wife live.  Among many things Friday, we found ourselves in E6 Gallery on Market and Gough.  The work cuts right down to the painful truth. 

Even with the reflections on the glass (sorry). 

The Gallery website has this:

ROBERT BERMAN GALLERY is pleased to present the original drawings and unique multiples of Dwayne Booth aka Mr. Fish - political cartoonist and author of GO FISH (how to win contempt and influence people.)

In the appendix of his book, Mr. Fish dissects the journalistic responsibility he faces as a cartoonist to make it make sense. It being his raw emotional output in response to a given stimuli (government, society, et al) manifesting itself via pen on paper without regard to the cleverly pointed punchline that will accompany and ultimately define it. In his inaugural gallery show, he eschews that responsibility; the political cartoons hanging vulnerably on the walls in their original illustrated state, stripped of any captioning and absolute clarity. If the objective of a political cartoonist is to speak clearly than the goal of this exhibition is to express freely. The drawings are a celebration of the technical mastery and unbridled emotional truth of Dwayne Booth – the Clark Kent to Superman’s Mr. Fish.

 I remember the conversation that caused the lightbulb to go on and I suddenly understood the underlying symbolism of Georgia O'Keeffe's flowers. 

[You can double click to enlarge these images.]

These pieces were all for sale.

Tim Sullivan was monitoring the gallery when we were there and gave me permission to take pictures for the blog. 



This work is so deliciously wicked, it hurts.

If you go to Mr. Fish's website, you can see that I missed him in LA AND San Francisco.  You can also see a lot more examples of his work there. 

Where Are We Now?

This should be pretty easy to figure out.  I did skip posting the picture of the Prius taxi cab because it had the name of the city. 

Been busy, will get more up before too long. 

Pier Review 2 - Amazing Surf

I posted about the Venice Pier a little over a year ago.  Tuesday I checked it out again.  The day was sunnier, but not as clear.  But the surf below was big and bad.


The waves were not curving, but simply crashing down like a waterfall.

There are surfers (black spots) above and below this wall of water.

 This pier is much less flashy than the Santa Monica pier.  The surf pictures in this post were taken off the left side.

UPDATE:  Here are more waves from Venice Pier with my better camera.  And finally Rafael catching a great white shark from the end of Venice Pier.

"to be a blessing to every person he puts in our path"

The Los Angeles Times Sunday edition had an article entitled "The religious right bankrolls Santorum."

"The faith component that Rick and I share is that we know that we're here to be a channel of God's love to others, his hands and feet in a hurting world, and to be a blessing to every person he puts in our path"

This is from Foster Friess, "a retired mutual fund executive based in Wyoming, [who] gave $300,000 to the superPAC in 2011 . . . He contributed at least $250,000 more in the last month. . . "  Some of the Fox videos on his website identify him in the title as "Billionaire Foster Friess."


What does one have to believe to say he's a channel of God's love?  To say he's here "to be a blessing to every person he puts in our path?"

How is Santorum a blessing to GLBT folks?  How's he a blessing to a woman whose health is threatened without an abortion?

I try to make such questions more than rhetorical.  Santorum and Friess might say something like, "I'm trying to save them from themselves, show them the error of their ways so they may find everlasting peace in heaven."

What sort of view of the world must one have to take that sort of position?  I can think of a few:
1.  Certainty that one is right.
2.  True and unwavering belief in one's interpretation of the bible.
(The first two can easily go hand in hand.)
3.  A Machiavellian cunning that allows one to use people's faith in God to manipulate them with words from their holy book.

I'm sure there are more possibilities.  I'm eager to hear them.

It's possibile that  Friess and Santorum really believe that they channel God's word.  And people on the other side of the religio/political spectrum feel they are as right about their positions as these two.

Who is Foster Friess? 

The website that bears his names lists a few "key issues":

Government

Promoting the principles of limited government and exposing the burdens of excessive regulation that stifle American ingenuity, creativity, and enterprise

If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 33

You can see Hamilton's words in context here. He appeared to be exasperated with people opposed to clauses in the proposed constitution giving Congress power to

"to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers by that Constitution vested in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof"; and the second clause of the sixth article declares, "that the Constitution and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, and the treaties made by their authority shall be the supreme law of the land, any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

Hamilton, of course, argued for a strong federal government.   From the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Though fully conscious that monarchy in America was impossible, he wished to obtain the next best solution in an aristocratic, strongly centralized, coercive, but representative union, with devices to give weight to the influence of class and property.^[8]

Most of the key issues listed on the site - education, climate change, health care - can be solved, the site says, via the free market.  Immigration needs the borders protected - they don't mention the private sector, but neither is government mentioned for this one.  Helping Peaceful Muslims is another of the key issues. (Think Progress says Friess has funded a number of Islamophobic organizations.)  Nothing about the economy.  But there is a final one:

Enduring Values

Combating the negativity in our culture with uplifting, inspiring stories reminding us of the best American principles

As the great political philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to America’s own Founding Fathers have observed, democracy very quickly turns to tyranny when the people are not generally virtuous. To defend our system of ordered liberty, we must always be vigilant, and we must always strive to strengthen our culture, or our free society will be overtaken by government.

(At left) George Washington at prayer.

How did the Friess funded Red, White, and Blue Super Pact add to combating negativity in the Florida Republican primary and the last three caucuses?

I searched his website for "Koch" but nothing was found.

Alternet reports a Koch brothers conference in Palm Springs two weeks ago where the whole  550 room  Esmerelda Renaissance was rented for the private event and connects Friess with the Koch brothers:

A private plane owned by wealthy mutual fund manager Foster Friess flew to the area the morning of the conference, and left the day it ended. Friess is a social conservative who has gained headlines recently for his massive backing of a super-PAC supporting Rick Santorum. He has also attended the Koch meeting in the past.

 The Foster Friess website also has a video of Friess accepting the Paul Weyrich Award.

The award honors Paul Weyrich, who, according to Wikipedia, was a co-founder, with Coors funding, of the Heritage Foundation and the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress which,

was among the first grassroots organizations to raise funds extensively through direct mail campaigns. It also was one of the first organizations to tap into evangelical Christian churches as places to recruit and cultivate activists and support for social conservative causes. In 1977, Weyrich co-founded Christian Voice with Robert Grant. Two years later, with Jerry Falwell, he founded the Moral Majority. Weyrich coined the phrase "Moral Majority".^[8]

And

Over the next two decades, Weyrich founded, co-founded, or held prominent roles in a number of other notable conservative organizations. Among them, he was founder of the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization of state legislators [and heavily funded by the Koch brothers]; a co-founder of the Council for National Policy, a strategy-formulating organization for social conservatives; co-publisher of the magazine Conservative Digest; and national chairman of Coalitions for America, an association of conservative activist organizations. The CSFC, reorganized into the Free Congress Foundation, also remained active.

Weyrich died in 2008, but Friess is alive and active.

Aside:  From the moment I saw the name Foster Friess, I couldn't help think about an ice cream cone.  So when I finished writing this I googled Foster Freeze.  And sure enough, there was the company that was around my California childhood all along.  And it's still around, one not far from my mom's place.  So I got on my bike to add a photo to this post.

Birding Puzzles - Caspian, Royal, or Elegant Tern?

It was crowded at the beach Monday even though it was grey.  Identifying gulls drives me crazy.  There are so many that look alike, and the juveniles change each year too.

I did notice that these had 3 dots on the ends of their black wings and yellow beaks with black tips and bit of orange.  The legs are greyish/pink.  (I'm only looking at the mature birds now.)  So there are several gulls that come close - Western gulls seem to have the black on the bill as juveniles and the orange as adults.  Maybe these are moving from one to the other.

But then I saw these guys.

I'd seen them before, but couldn't remember what they were called.  I thought of Bonaparte - but they have more rounded black heads.  Emperor?  When I got home I saw the name - Elegant Gulls.  But there were two other, very similar, terns.

From Sibley's Field Guide To Birds of Western North America  (click to enlarge)  Check the heads.

One's black clear across.  The other two had white foreheads. The book shows the whiter forehead from August to February and the blacker forehead from March to August.  It's mid-February now, so they could be changing. In any case that would seem to eliminate the Caspian Terns.   Now look at them compared to the gull.

The gull (in front) is much bigger, and the Elegant Terns are the smallest of the three terns.  Now look at them flying.

The wingtips of the Royals in the book seem to be darker than the Elegants.  I'm guessing these are Elegants.  (And last time I found one like this here, my birder friends said it was an Elegant.  So I'm hoping Dianne will check and confirm.)

Old Post, New Movie Explain Why Tar Sands and Keystone Are Big Problems

In April 2009 I posted a video of Eriel Tchekwie Deranger who was in Anchorage for the Indigenous People's Global Summit on Climate Change.  She spoke eloquently about the huge environmental damage caused by the tar sands oil development in her homeland in Alberta.  This has gotten a lot more attention lately - especially when the Republicans forced President Obama to make a decision on the Keystone Pipeline in Canada by making it a condition of passing the year end jobs bill and then Obama called their bluff and put it off for a year.


Maz wrote a comment today on that post saying he'd just finished the mixing of a new movie that highlights Eriel and her message.  Below is the trailer for the documentary "Elemental."  There are three stories told - one is Eriel's.




Elemental - Trailer from Goproject Films on Vimeo.


In the past I might have said "coincidentally" here.  But I think there is so much happening on the environmental front that it isn't coincidence.  This could happen every day.  I got this far with this post last night and was leaving it for today.  And then I got this email about impending legislation which sneaks an approval of the Keystone Pipeline into a transportation bill.  Here's a letter about it and the Citizens Climate Lobby is urging people to contact their Senators.

The Senate could vote as early as tomorrow on a plan to greenlight construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Despite President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline a few weeks ago, Republicans in Congress are once again engaging in hostage-taking. Senator John Hoeven (R-ND) is trying to attach a measure to the transportation bill that would force approval of Keystone XL.

Tragically, some moderate Democrats appear to be playing along - so this bill could have enough votes to pass.

No evaluation process. No National Interest Determination. No new route identified through Nebraska.

To demonstrate a massive, urgent, grassroots backlash, our friends at 350 have organized a 24-hour petition drive to the Senate. Nearly three dozen groups are emailing their members right now, and 350's Bill McKibben will announce the effort tonight on the Colbert Report.

Help us get 500,000 signatures in 24 hours against Keystone XL. Click here to automatically sign this petition to the Senate.

Republicans and some Democrats in Congress are so owned by Big Oil, that they are willing to bypass the pipeline review process designed to protect Americans from its very real danger.

Our grassroots pressure forced President Obama to reject the pipeline when Republicans tried to force a decision in 60 days. He said it wasn't enough time for the thorough evaluation process we need.

Republicans are claiming that incomplete process was enough. But just last week the State Department Inspector General released a report finding a lack of technical and scientific expertise at the State Department to evaluate the impacts of the pipeline.¹ So clearly, this pipeline hasn't been adequately evaluated.

We need to show the Senate the huge opposition to Keystone XL. Click here to automatically sign this petition to the Senate.

Our Congress should be in the business of acting in America's interest. Instead, their business appears to be Big Oil's business.

Please help make a big statement today to remind our Senators who they really work for, and show huge opposition to this ill-conceived, disastrous pipeline. And please share it widely so we make as large an impact as possible over the next 24 hours, and Bill McKibben has a large number of signatures to announce tonight on the Colbert Report.

Not convinced?  At least look at Eriel's original video posted two years ago to hear how the Tar Sands are affecting her people.   It should make people think about this project and what sorts of environmental oversight is needed. 

Conspicuous Conservation or Why Did You Buy Your Prius?

We heard an old (July 2011) Freakonomics podcast on KPPC this morning that raised a subject I've thought about when writing about biking.  Conspicuous Conservation - or people being 'green' because it's cool and wanting to be seen being cool.  It's also described as signaling theory - what we do to look good.

I think about this every time I write about biking.  Will people think I'm being a biking snob because I mention biking somewhere or even linger on the topic during a post?  I try to avoid being judgmental and I try to show understanding that biking isn't for everyone or every time, that there are legitimate reasons to drive, and weaning isn't easy.  But I'm sure some think I'm being holier than thou. 

The show focuses on Prius owners.  A pair of economics doctoral students, Allison and Steve Sexton (they're twins), have written a paper on this and take part in the podcast. 

They observed that of all the hybrid cars, the Toyota Prius looks significantly different from other Toyotas (and all other cars) whereas the other hybrid cars are hard to distinguish from the non-hybrid models.  But the Prius is by far the best selling hybrid.  Are people buying them because they stand out more?  Are they buying Priuses because it signals their conservation ethic? 

They compared Prius and Honda Civic hybrid sales and determined whether there were more sales in Democratic or Republican census blocks.  They found significantly more Priuses in Democratic areas and no statistical difference in Prius sales compared to the Honda Civic hybrid in Republican areas.  Using this, they decided that Conspicuous Conservation explains, in part, why people choose to buy a Prius.  They reason that the only real distinction between the Prius and the Honda is the Prius' distinctive look.  Cost and mileage and reliability, they say, are all relatively similar.  And you get better signaling advantage in areas where people value conservation than where people aren't favorably disposed to environmentalists. 

There's even a clip from South Park which apparently noticed this trend much earlier.  The kids realize that having a Pruis-like car is alienating them from their more conservative neighbors and the Dad says, "And that's why we're moving to San Francisco." 

An Toyota knew about signaling according to the Toyota PR person on the podcast who says that the key instruction to the Prius designers was that the car should look different. 

I'm sure this has something to do with why there are more Priuses than other hybrids.  All movements attract some people who join because it confers on them some imagined status or other symbolic benefits.  We see it very clearly in what kids wear high school. 

But there are also people who do things because it's the right thing for them and not because they want to be cool, or in other cases, just different.  A factor I didn't hear on the show is the proselytizing reason for such signalling - trying to make the odd seem more normal because so many people are doing it.  Driving a Prius - because they are so conspicuous - points out to others how many people are, in fact, driving more energy efficient vehicles.  And might cause others to 'convert.'  Hiding that by buying a car that blends in doesn't get that message across. 

You can listen to the podcast and decide for yourself.

And my posting about biking is consciously intended to remind folks that biking is doable in a lot more situations than most people think.  But, if it comes across as conspicuous conservation, then so be it.  But the point is to make people think:  I could take the bike instead of the car for this.  And maybe the point of driving a Prius is to make people think:  That guy is getting twice the gas mileage I'm getting.  

Enjoying Venice Beach

I could watch the guys (that's all I saw today) at the Venice Skateboard Plaza all day, but it was breezy today so we went over to board walk to mingle with the flow of tourists and locals.




I ran down to the beach yesterday morning hoping to see some of the big waves that were predicted.  They were bigger and rougher than normal, but not huge.  Maybe 5 or 6 feet.





This fisherman was all decked out in what liked new gear.  As I left this spot to see the surfers better, I tried to talk to him, but it appeared he didn't speak English.

The pelicans were patrolling the beach side of the waves too. 


I watched the surfers for a while and got some video that was more surf than surfers.  So I decided to switch back to still.

How I wish I'd kept the video on. This guy zigged and zagged at the front of the crest from left to right and then just a bit after this shot the wave curled over him. He came out after that ride. He wasn't going to get anything better than that. He told me when he was in the curl he got a bit concerned because he didn't know how deep it w

We biked back this afternoon, but there was a pretty stiff breeze. Plenty of folks were taking advantage of it.

I only saw this guy with the surfboard walking the kite along the beach.  Didn't see him with it in the water.

For this picture, I took the camera off manual and used the built in beach setting.

And on this one I photo-shopped in a close-up of the sand.  This is looking north to the Santa Monica mountains. 

Then we biked over to the skate board plaza. This guy was really good, but I didn't catch him in the air.  I'm assuming not too many people bang their heads or they'd start requiring helmets.  Most (like the guy in the first picture above) weren't wearing them.

Then we joined the crowd on the Venice boardwalk.  This is a wall above the shops along the boardwalk. 

And if you need more than oxygen . . .

The doctor was in here.  Or at least this man in a white lab coat.

  Ice cream will do for this guy.