Sorry for the low-tech rerouting, but: 

If you reached this page because of a link to a numbered item that is no longer on my main page, you can get to it by adding "#" and the number -- e.g. "#296," to the end of the URL above.

2/29/04 10:58 p.m. (Link here.)

 I am thirty-five years old and American history is conveniently repeating things I was born too late to see. We seem to be re-entering the early 'sixties. (At least, I hope so. On bad days I think it's the early 'thirties.) We're having bloody invasions on behalf of democracy; officially trumpeted fears of an ideologically tinged foreign menace that are genuine fears yet exploited for phony purposes; more quietly expressed fears for basic freedoms at home; and a public mood of bravado covering unease. Last week the University of California told its students to limit electoral campaigning on campus. And this week -- well, AP tells it best:
 
 

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned and flew into exile Sunday, pressured by a bloody rebellion and the United States. Gunfire crackled as the capital fell into chaos, and U.S. Marines arrived in the country....

 The soundtrack for tonight's news is accordingly brought to you by two artists from last time around: Tom Lehrer, who gave up satire when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, and Phil Ochs, who self-destructed thirty years ago. Lehrer's "Send the Marines" first, for that initial mood of slap-happy glinting irony at bad news, and for when the giddiness wears off, Ochs' "The Marines Have Landed On the Shores of Santo Domingo."

 Yes, I know, Santo Domingo is the other side of that island, but history only parodies itself, it doesn't repeat word for word.

 Tonight the two of us here irresponsibly watched the Oscars, while the world outside went to hell with conspicuous alacrity. Having had '70s childhoods, we got sentimental over "A Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow." Hook, line and sinker, in fact. An irresponsible thing to do under the international circumstances. But when that kind of deliberately foolish hopefulness appeared on the radio for the first time during the Vietnam War, the performers then were also consciously ignoring the gravity of the situation. There being never any really good time to write foolishly hopeful music. That however being no reason to quite give up the practice.

 2/29/04 12:31 a.m. (Link here.)

 Warning: persons not interested in San Francisco politics or the clay feet of Gavin Newsom are advised to skip this posting.

 For the rest of us, be advised that just in time for Super Tuesday, we've got more San Francisco Demopublican astroturf campaigning that smells like Gavin Newsom's political consultant friends though I can't prove who's responsible as of tonight. ("Astroturf" being here intended to denote "fake grassroots.")

 The evidence is a mailer received by mine own self from an organization I've never heard of and can't find on Google called "San Franciscans for a New Direction." The mailer promotes candidates for San Francisco Democratic Party Central Committee who it says endorsed "the Democrat for Mayor" (that would presumably be Mr. Newsom) and attacking four others it says "don't support Democrats" (that would presumably mean that in the mayoral election the four endorsed Matt Gonzalez, who is a member of the Green Party). 

As of today this "San Franciscans for a New Direction" group is not listed as incorporated -- at least, not under that name -- at the California Secretary of State's office. (Here, search for it yourself.) Interestingly, however, it gives its address as "4104 24th St., #406, San Francisco, CA 94114-3615." Interesting because "4104 24th St." in San Francisco is the address of a Mail Boxes Etc. store where the Newsom campaign set up a mailbox to receive campaign contributions and also to receive contributions to the Swearing-In Committee that is now famous for its interesting inadvertantly disclosed financial history. 

To be fair, the Newsom campaign and the "Swearing-In Committee" have used Box 766 there, and the new astroturf group is using Box 406, so I can only speculate that some friend or political supporter or employee of Mr. Newsom's (could it even have been the elusive Sally Smith?) might have decided it would save steps to locate the new astroturf organization close to a mailbox he/she was already renting. 

But on to the mendacities of the mailing itself:

 The endorsers of "the Democrat for Mayor" (i.e. presumably Newsom), it says, are "Democrats Who Support Democrats." Never mind that in the March issue of Harper's, the Index says Newsom himself gave $500 to George Bush in 2000. So that should say "Democrats Who Support Democrats Who Support Republicans."

 Of course, Mr. Newsom is, to his credit, not at the moment in what you would call a lovefest with Mr. Bush over the marriage question. This is a fact the mailer cynically exploits. It leads with an Examiner headline from a few days ago, "Bush v. Newsom," as though Newsom had stood up to the Republicans in the December mayoral election. The which implication would of course be horse hockey. This past December Mr. Newsom talked like a Republican and what he "stood up to" was the progressive wing of his own party. His opponent, Matt Gonzalez, was a Green who talked like a real Democrat and who got most of his support from Democratic Party progressives.

 In this mailer I'm looking at, two of the committee candidates attacked are the only two I was already certain to vote for: Robert Haaland, who is a past Tom Ammiano campaign strategist, a tenant activist, and now president of the powerful Harvey Milk Democratic Club, and Bill Barnes, who is much of the brains behind Supervisor Chris Daly. One of the people the flyer endorses is Burke Strunsky, a local prosecutor who ran against Chris Daly from the right in the 2002 Supes election. 

Whoever is behind this flyer, I think they're on the side that backs landlords against tenants, property values against poor people, and downtown developers against advocates of neighborhood control. And Gavin Newsom is still on that side, no matter how much of a hero he may be about gay marriage.

 Now I want to know who precisely is funding "San Franciscans for a New Direction," why this group is keeping such a very low profile apart from sending out noisy mailers just before an election, and why stealth campaigning through shell organizations is still tolerated in a politically sophisticated town like San Francisco.

 2/28/04 10:09 a.m. (Link here.)

A Further California Goon Alert:

 Why is Pacific Lumber funding a "tough on crime" recall against the Humboldt County DA who just happens to be suing them for lying about environmental damage? 

DA Paul Gallegos has a simple explanation: "The recall costs less than attorneys' fees."

 Something stinks here.

 2/27/04 5:56 p.m. (Link here.)

California Goon Alert:

The same folks who brought you October's California recall election were threatening a recall against state AG Bill Lockyer as of Tuesday unless he agreed to fight gay marriage with a level of energy they found satisfactory. No word if Lockyer's anti-marriage filing today has met their precious personal standards.

So who died and made these fellows kings of California? Who do they think they are? Prison guards?

2/27/04 11:06 a.m. (Link here.)

 Or, for example, what about the Southern Baptists' injunction that a wife must "submit herself graciously" to her husband? Isn't there something unconstitutional, not to mention unhealthy and un-American, about contracts of lifelong servitude?

 This does not sound like mere metaphorical servitude. Here's Dr. Anthony Jordan of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1998: "...And I think the key to it is that you are to submit to a husband in relationship to his servant/leadership. And if a husband loves his wife like Christ loved the Church, then the wife has nothing to worry about." 

Very comforting. What if he doesn't?

 Like I said, I'm just asking.

2/27/04 10:40 a.m. (Link here.)

 I'm just asking:

Those bride-only "love, honor and obey" clauses in traditional wedding vows: are they civil disobedience against the Thirteenth Amendment?

2/26/04 6:18 p.m. (Link here.)

Gavin Newsom may deserve the good press he's getting over gay marriage, but that doesn't mean his supporters deserve a free pass for some questionable campaign financing arrangements. 

Now, for folks who dislike San Francisco inside baseball, here's the short version: the mayor of San Francisco isn't perfect and still hasn't shown he'll do anything genuinely useful for poor people. 

Masochists, read on:

Yesterday a San Francisco city board, the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, said two Ethics Commission officials broke the law when they told staff to destroy an email about some interesting payments by the new mayor's "swearing-in committee." The folks who mistakenly sent the email to the Ethics Commission are, yes, Sutton & Partners, and the Sutton thereof would be, yes, the James Sutton who was Newsom's campaign treasurer. Also the James Sutton who is/was treasurer of the "swearing-in committee." And the James Sutton who is/was "attorney/agent" for this organization called the "California Urban Issues Project" whose stealth campaign tactics I have been following since October. 

Went to City Hall for a hearing this afternoon and there were more TV trucks than usual. From the Chron it looks like Rosie O'Donnell was getting married. That's sweet. 

But when do we get to find out what precisely Mr. Newsom's "swearing-in committee" has been up to?

2/25/04 9:35 p.m. (Link here.)

Henry at alt.books.george-orwell has spotted a good nominee for worst corporate message of the month. It's a T-Shirt for sale from Urban Outfitters with the words, "Voting is for Old People." 

"Pinch of irony" or not, that's disgusting.

(That first link isn't working yet: it's where I think Henry's post will be accessible when Google gets around to picking it up.)

[UPDATE: Ah, several other folks have started objecting to this item. But it could use more attention.]

2/25/04 6:06 p.m. (Link here.)

I had to go look up some property records in San Francisco City Hall. It's the same old place. 

In the rotunda they were setting up for an evening event, but that happens all the time. Nothing much different in the Office of the Assessor/Recorder: three or four vases of flowers on the desks. A lectern for press conferences. A Scandinavian TV crew wandering around. Clerks saying a brisk "Congratulations" and moving on to filling out forms, though, come to think of it, one guy who helped with my inquiry did look more luminously happy than your average record clerk. Long line at the cashier's desk, including some nicely dressed people holding flowers. A couple in line chaffing each other about whether to hyphenate or combine their names. A newlywed insurance man from Oakland joked, "They better legalize divorce soon." 

I paid twelve dollars for four record copies and left. Same as any day, almost. 

Sheesh, three dollars a page. If someone wants to pass a constitutional amendment they can pass one limiting copy costs for public records. Now, that'd be useful.

2/24/04 11:05 p.m. (Link here.)

Weird: as of tonight, the proposed amendment against marriage rights is winning in the USA Today poll but losing at CNN (the latter via The American Street). Goes to show how scientific these things are.

So go vote.

[Update a.m. 2-25: the USA Today poll is still open, and the supporters of the amendment are still winning. Vote!]

2/24/04 9:09 p.m. (Link here.)

Good heavens, don't UC Berkeley administrators keep track of their own institutional history?

This is an excerpt from the letter university administrators delivered to student organizations on September 16, 1964 that precipitated the legendary Free Speech Movement:

"Provisions of the policy of The Regents concerning `Use of University Facilities' will be strictly enforced in all areas designated as property of The Regents... including the 26-foot strip of brick walkway at the campus entrance on Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue..."
...

"Specifically... Section III of the (Regents') policy...prohibits the use of University facilities `for the purpose of soliciting party membership or supporting or opposing particular candidates or propositions in local, state or national elections,' except that Chief Campus Officers `shall establish rules under which candidates for public office (or their designated representatives) may be afforded like opportunity to speak upon the campuses at meetings where the audience is limited to the campus community.'  Similarly, Chief Campus Officers "shall establish rules under which persons supporting or opposing propositions in state or local elections may be afforded like opportunity to speak upon the campuses at meetings where the audience is limited to the campus community...."

"The students felt that lobbying meant that they could spend money directly on political campaigns and ballot measures," Smith said. The new version "is reminding them what the policy is. (The policy) was not to let them try to change the views of the electorate."

Oh, when will they ever learn?
 

2/24/04 6:09 p.m. (Link here.)

I don't know what's gone wrong with my web page, but it suddenly dropped the totals on the visit counter to 400, then equally mysteriously raised them to 1477, and somewhere along the way it deleted everything I had posted yesterday. Don't know why.

Here's a partial reconstruction of yesterday's posts:

----------

I had said a couple of things about Arnold Schwarzenegger's mysterious claim that "civil unrest" could result from the marriages in San Francisco, and whether he was even disappointed that actual public sentiment about gay marriage ranges from cheerfulness to bemusement to indifference.

When I stopped by City Hall yesterday, there were fewer than a dozen demonstrators holding signs, and of them all were in favor of marriage rights or against Schwarzenegger except for the 12 Galaxies man, who was in his own world as usual.

The strangest thing I saw on my walk yesterday was a van with a company logo saying: "Rooter Bong Sewer and Drain Cleaning."

12 Galaxies. Rooter Bong. That's San Francisco weirdness. Marriage is normal.

----------

Also posted yesterday:

The TalkLeft page recalls that February 19 was Remembrance Day, the anniversary of Executive Order 9066, issued Feburary 19, 1942, which ordered the "evacuation" and led to the incarceration of many Japanese-Americans -- U.S.-born, English-speaking citizens as well as noncitizen immigrants -- plus some German and Italian immigrants. The effects went beyond the discomfort of three years in drafty barracks. For example, while the 120,000 incarcerated "evacuees" were not formally dispossessed, many were informally forced to sell property at emergency prices or place it in the hands of hurriedly chosen caretakers, some of whom turned out not to be honest.

Even today, in some parts of California, there are people who defend the Internment with a painfully angry passion, and there are some people who went through it who will not talk about what happened.

Executive Order 9066 and other wartime measures had strange effects on people who looked or talked like citizens of enemy countries. For example, "enemy alien" restrictions such as curfews were applied to leftist and liberal refugees from Europe such as Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann, who were more energetically opposed to fascism than many U.S. officials had been in the prewar period.

Some of the flavor of those times is available in this annoyingly didactic but informative children's introduction to a play based on Salka Viertel's *The Kindness of Strangers*. The book itself -- currently out of print -- is wonderful but hard to find.
 

2/22/04 1:34 p.m. (Link here.)

"The governor can direct the Highway Patrol. He can direct the next 'Terminator 4' movie if he chooses. But he can't direct the attorney general in the way he's attempted to do."

That would be California AG Bill Lockyer refusing to fight the San Francisco gay marriages -- and forbearing to mention that Mr. Schwarzenegger's expansive idea of his gubernatorial powers might itself be a "risk to civil order." If the people who do understand state government took the Governator seriously, that is.

2/21/04 4:18 p.m. (Link here.)

So this is the Arnold Schwarzenegger who last fall was wishful-thunk into a simulacrum of open-mindedness on lifestyle issues. Why, some of his best friends were gay. Listen to him now, calling the San Francisco marriages "an imminent risk to civil order." 

All persons sharing the remotest quality of queerness who voted for this man should be ashamed of themselves. How in blazes did they reach voting age without knowing the telltales of intolerance?

As for Mr. S. and the others who consider these marriages an act of civil disobedience: no, it's not civil disobedience, for a simple reason: state and federal constitutions are the overriding law of the land. These public officials are conducting same-sex marriages based on legal opinions interpreting applicable constitutional law. The opinions in favor of gay marriage are not frivolous: in the several cases that quickly went to court on this matter, none of the judges has yet chosen to declare San Francisco's actions definitely illegal. 

Or you could look at it this way: when John Ashcroft holds people incommunicado without trial for months and years, and claims to have found loopholes in the Constitution that allow this behavior, is he committing civil disobedience? Should he be arrested for his own illegalities? Well, much as some of us might like to see that man behind bars, the sober fact is that arresting public officials for interpreting the law "wrongly" is no way to run a country. If you arrest every public official whose interpretation of the law is overruled by some authority, there'll be nobody left to run anything. There's a need for flexibility -- for room to test differences of opinion. Even for John Ashcroft, and even for Gavin Newsom.

2/21/04 1:25 a.m. (Link here.)

"Quality of Life Enforcement."

I was just typing up some notes and for once couldn't pass over this phrase as I usually do. It's a common San Francisco police and mayor's-office term for harassing, dispossessing and arresting poor people who infringe on other people's quality of life by living their own lives of imputedly inferior quality in public spaces . Talk about Orwellian.

2/20/04 12:47 p.m. (Link here.)

Asmussen hits it on the nose again: "Weddings of Mass Destruction" discovered; local mullahs called in to suppress them; again we see that the main thing religious zealots can't stand is freedom.

2/20/04 11:55 a.m. (Link here.)

Oakland adds banishment -- and, hence, likely homelessness -- to the state penalties for crimes. Isn't this cruel if not unusual?

2/19/04 11:00 p.m. (Link here.)

The SF Examiner's been bought by a conservative fundamentalist billionaire who gave to the Colorado anti-gay-rights campaign in '92. Investments in oil, energy, communications, rail, sports/entertainment, and media. This could get unpleasantly interesting.

[UPDATE: here's Romenesko's roundup on coverage of the deal. His paraphrase of the Denver Business Journal: "The reclusive billionaire made a rare public statement in 2002, denying Fortune magazine's claim that he was the nation's 'greediest executive.' " 

The name's Philip Anschutz. Wot's an Anschutz?  Sounds like some kind of invasion....]

2/19/04 8:32 p.m. (Link here.)

A federal judge in Minnesota has ordered green cards for 22,000 people who had been granted asylum status but were waiting in legal limbo for a definite grant of permanent residency in the U.S. The case is Ngwanyia v. Ashcroft, and it's cause for celebration in the immigration law community. Further details at the American Immigration Law Foundation, which helped to bring the suit. I heard about this one from folks who enjoyed the language of the decision. Especially part of Footnote 16:

...Defendants limply contend that this statement, which was prepared for this litigation and never apparently communicated to anyone, constitutes the Bureau fo Citizenship and Immigration Services's 'national policy.' In rebuttal, Plaintiffs have provided the Court with affidavits indicating that many district offices are apparently unaware of this stealth policy. All of which raises the age-old question: If a national policy falls in the Office of the Director of the Office of Field Operations, and no one hears it, is it still a national policy?...

2/19/04 1:58 p.m. (Link here.)

I often disagree with Chris Nolan, but she has a thoughtful comment this week on what San Francisco's Mayor Newsom stands to gain from gay marriage.

2/19/04 1:19 p.m. (Link here.)

QUESTION: And the meaning of the word "is" is?

2/19/04 12:24 a.m. (Link here.)

For those keeping score at home on the San Francisco gay marriage litigation, the San Francisco courts have a public online system that offers summaries and occasional full texts of the papers flying around in these two cases. The cases are brought by the "Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund" and by one Randy Thomasson together with the "Campaign for California Families."

It's a finicky interface: Explorer works better than Netscape to view the indexes to court papers. To view whole documents you need either Windows with a free plug-in or, apparently, a newer Macintosh system than mine. 

2/18/04 11:40 p.m. (Link here.)

Oh dear: touchscreen voting approved for 14 California counties.

2/18/04 10:00 p.m. (Link here.)

This company H5 Technologies might be one to watch if you care about cutting-edge uses for big databases. It came to my attention through job ads in the "writing/editing" section of Craigslist that made the work sound interesting but morally complicated. The clients apparently include big law firms processing voluminous discovery files and military intelligence folks processing godknowswhat.

2/18/04 9:40 p.m. (Link here.)

There's a heluva eulogy for the Dean campaign on The American Street.

2/18/04 4:19 p.m. (Link here.)

SF Chron cartoonist Phil Frank follows Silo and Roy, the gay chinstrap penguins of the Central Park Zoo, on an epic cab ride to San Francisco. Two strips so far in what I hope is a continuing series. See here and here.  [UPDATE: and here. P.S. Why do I fear Opus will be getting mixed up in this soon?][Yep, right on cue.]

2/18/04 3:58 p.m. (Link here.)

Heard Bush on the radio saying "the people, not the courts," should make decisions about marriage. As though the cheering crowds at San Francisco City Hall and all the passing drivers honking in support weren't people too. Nah, we're not people in San Francisco, we're degenerates. (But we're still allowed to vote.)

The fundamentalist righties of assorted faiths should get through their heads that there is a moral system at work in San Francisco. It is a system that values individual consent, and that is precisely where fundamentalists have a moral blind spot of their own.

To fundamentalists and authoritarians, it's all about approval from above, whether the "above" is a god, a father, a cop, a boss, or a judge. But to San Franciscans, at least on the downtown side of our hills, the worship of authority for its own sake is a kinky attitude best reserved for the privacy of consenting adults' bedrooms. When full-grown, apparently sober preachers and legislators howl out god-bothered man-on-dogma Thou Shalt Nots in public, it's beyond embarrassing, it's dangerous.

There are, of course, a fair number of fundamentalists and authoritarians in our general area, as in any other. But really, there is a bit more than usual in San Francisco of a genuinely freedom-loving moral system.

To, I suppose, some authoritarians, a heterosexual rape in a fraternity house would be less shocking than a loving gay marriage because the marriage offends their religious teachings, while the rape is merely a conventional exaggeration of approved sexuality.

Rape -- whether by "friends" or strangers -- shocks San Franciscans. We allow no "boys will be boys" excuses for sexual or other coercion and we become prudish about people who do. We are similarly shocked at social values that would impose "shotgun weddings" on unloving couples, or force pregnant teenagers to bear children to term against their will, or blame rape victims for their attackers' crimes. Domestic violence shocks San Franciscans. We do not accept the notion that a man can give orders to his wife. "Love, honor, and obey" sounds to me like a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.  But we, too, believe that a couple pledged to each other should keep that pledge. Not because a formal rule requires it, but because a broken promise is a betrayal.

Obscenity is, in other words, in the eye of the beholder. To us, it's obscene to thwart love while tolerating coercion. 

Aw, go look up Lenny Bruce. He didn't live to see this Valentine's Day, but he said most of this stuff already.

Now, as I've said many times, San Francisco's tolerant attitude on lifestyle questions coexists with cheerful willingness to punish poverty as a crime of status. Which goes to show that this is not a perfect or even always a pleasant place. But we do get some things right.

2/17/04 6:47 p.m. (Link here.)

California Democratic Rep. George Miller is giving a nice push to a meme that deserves more public attention: the notion that low-wage employers are welfare hogs because they force their underpaid staff to depend on public services. 

His new report is called "Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay For Wal-Mart." It says a Wal-Mart with 200 employees would cost surrounding taxpayers more than $400,000 in public services for underpaid workers.

There's a summary and a snotty Wal-Mart response in the SF Chron. Miller's own site has a press release and links to the full report.

2/16/04 2:30 p.m. (Link here.)

San Francisco cartoonist Don Asmussen started out several years ago by deserving his name but he has since done a lot of growing up. What started as scattershot outrageousness is now a nicely sharpened political wit. Today, for example, he explores George Bush's faith in "Job Creationism." Enjoy.

Meanwhile, it's rainy, windy, and cold in San Francisco -- classic hypothermia weather -- and hundreds of couples stood in line outside City Hall through the night. Haven't gone and looked today, but per the Chron, the line is still there. Apparently the idea is to tie as many knots as possible ahead of Tuesday morning's injunction hearing.

2/15/04 6:50 p.m. (Link here.)

In the Washington Monthly, Richard Florida says a security-obsessed United States, run by proponents of old "extractive industries" like oil and steel, is not only attracting fewer educated, creative immigrants, it's suffering an actual brain drain. 

...The graduate students I have taught at several major universities -- Ohio State, Harvard, MIT, Carnegie Mellon -- have always been among the first to point out the benefits of studying and doing research in the United States. But their impressions have changed dramatically over the past year. They now complain of being hounded by the immigration agencies as potential threats to security, and that America is abandoning its standing as an open society. Many are thinking of leaving for foreign schools, and they tell me that their friends and colleagues back home are no longer interested in coming to the United States for their education but are actively seeking out universities in Canada, Europe, and elsewhere. 

He doesn't add the historical context, which is perhaps obvious: Hollywood itself became a creative powerhouse with the help of brilliant Europeans who emigrated because they no longer felt safe or free to work in their home countries. 

If now emigre Americans are making movies in New Zealand, is something wrong here? 

2/15/04 2:38 p.m. (Link here.)

On reflection, my comments yesterday about same-sex marriage were uncharitable, mainly because from here (San Francisco, near Folsom Street), the gay marriage thing can look like just a nice incremental step that had to be taken at some point, and was taken at this particular moment for reasons related to local politics. 

This, however, leaves out the reaction of the rest of the United States if not the world. Whatever his other faults, Mr. Newsom is taking on a huge burden of litigation and public pressure in defense of a good cause. Which is a decision I shouldn't trivialize.

(Very) full coverage in the SF Chron here.

2/14/04 12:31 p.m. (Link here.)

Sweet photos from scores of couples lining up for gay weddings in the  SF Chron Valentine's Day edition.

The more practical side of me now begins to wonder if San Francisco's slacking tourism industry might just get a bit of revival from Vegas-style wedding tourism. I've wondered already if Gavin Newsom is trying to make up for an omission at his inauguration ceremony that some perceived as a snub to the gay community. And also, snarkily, whether wedding bells might at some point ring for the perfect-haired Mr. Newsom and the newly single Magic Earring Ken.

But seriously, it does take courage to do this. It newly exposes the city to antigay panic. In San Francisco that is a risk not taken lightly.

San Francisco officials took another gutsy stand yesterday, this one less noticed: City Attorney Dennis Herrera -- formally my opposing counsel in several small cases, but a good man -- is refusing to release San Francisco General Hospital records to the Justice Department, which has been demanding the files of "partial-birth" abortion patients at hospitals all around the country.

2/14/04 11:56 a.m. (Link here.)

Just to be clear, the Nixon Tapes transcripts I've cited below have been available on library shelves for years -- it's just the searchable online availability that's fun to discover -- along with, of course, the exciting new political background we have to read them against. The easiest way to get at the comments on Kerry from Nixon, Haldeman, Colson, et al. is probably this SSA Google search, especially as it has an option to view the files in HTML without first downloading the RTF versions. Again, be sure and take those characters' claims about Kerry with a shaker of salt and the Boston Globe article cited below.

Reminds me of yet another Doonesbury cartoon from the days when these things first came to light. Mark and Rev. Sloan are chatting near bucolic Walden Puddle:
 

- Were you ever involved in the anti-war movement, Rev?
-- Of course!
- Well, I don't know about you, but my whole attitude towards my protest days has been changed by Watergate. I stopped demonstrating because I didn't think the government was in the least bit responsive. But now it comes out that the demonstrators prompted the White House to react with infiltrators, investigations, burglaries, 'enemy' lists and bugging teams! All that time we thought our efforts were so ineffectual, we were in fact driving the administration to the brink of absolute and total paranoia!! My, it's gratifying!
-- Isn't it, though!

Was just quoting to Joel the part in the Boston Globe story on Kerry with Colson's vicious 1971 memo: "Destroy the young demagogue before he becomes another Ralph Nader." J observes, "That's just what they'd like him to do now." 

2/13/04 4:12 p.m. (Link here.)

The Social Security Administration's history pages are offering selected recordings and transcripts from the Nixon tapes, including quite a few conversations that have nothing to do with Social Security. These include many transcripts from the period of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War demonstration in April 1971, which John Kerry helped to lead. (Here's a sample of Kerry's congressional testimony that same week.) Go to the bottom of the directory and browse the files beginning with "trn," especially those in the 480's, which is where Nixon and Haldeman get to fretting about how to counter the veterans and whether it would help to have the VFW and American Legion bring in a thousand "good, clean-cut kids" to perform some unspecified but zestfully contemplated function [UPDATE: OK, to be fair, it says "come here and demonstrate in support of the President".] John Kerry is mentioned -- amid conniptions -- at least in trn487-1 and trn488-6. Maybe others, I haven't read them all. The transcript files, including the ones at these last three links, are in Microsoft Word RTF format which means downloading and reopening in a separate window, but they're worth the minor hassle.

[UPDATE: This Google search brings up the Nixon materials at SSA that mention Kerry.]

[MORE: Here is Kerry's response to one of the several slanders in this material.

More from Sidney Blumenthal on the smear attempts picking right up where they left off. And more from him on same in yesterday's Salon.

And this is more correction/context/commentary from the Boston Globe last summer.]

2/13/04 12:25 a.m. (Link here.)

Latest from Carnegie-Mellon University PR: 

Roboceptionist Valerie is a "woman" with lots of attitude and many stories to tell. Professionally attired, she sits in a specially designed reception booth in the lobby of Newell-Simon Hall on the university campus, turning her brilliant blue gaze on everyone who passes by. Her sensors alert her to the presence of people and she offers assistance and directions to the lost or confused. If you ask the right questions, she'll tell you about her life, her psychiatrist, her aspirations to be a lounge singer and how much she hates to date vacuum cleaners. 

2/12/04 12:02 p.m. (Link here.)

Only Little People Pay Taxes Dept.

The GAO makes a tradition of bureaucratic understatement, especially in report titles. Even highly critical reports often carrry titles like: "Some progress shown but management controls could use improvement." Today there's a GAO report with this title:

Some DOD Contractors Abuse the Federal Tax System with Little Consequence.

What GAO Found

DOD and IRS records showed that over 27,000 contractors owed about $3 billion in unpaid taxes as of September 30, 2002. DOD has not fully implemented provisions of the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 that would assist IRS in levying up to 15 percent of each contract payment to offset a DOD contractor's federal tax debt. We estimate that DOD could have collected at least $100 million in fiscal year 2002 had it and IRS fully utilized the levy process authorized by the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997....

I don't somehow think that if defense contractors were made to pay their own tax debts they'd be agonizing at their boardroom tables over whether to buy the baby formula or pay the electric bill.

Main study here, one-page "highlights" summary here. Related congressional testimony here, highlights of same here. All are PDF files.

[UPDATE: NPR Marketplace had this story s'afternoon. Good.]

[NOTHER UPDATE: I needn't have bothered with this one: it's been picked up all over.]

2/11/04 9:36 p.m. (Link here.)

Selected '72-'73 Doonesburyparodies of Richard Nixon and Ron Ziegler, continued:
 

"- Mr. Nixon, without meaning to pry, I am most curious as to how you've managed to deal with the press during this nasty period...
-- Leonid, I'd be happy to show you... Ziegler!
--- Yessir, Mr. Nixon?
-- Ron, answer this question: 'Ron, will the President testify before the Senate committee?'
--- To be responsive at this time, though I will simply say that, as I said - and therefore this is a repeat of what I said previously - that which I am unable to offer in response is based on information available to make no such statement!
- Very impressive!
-- Well, we like him.."

"... [Assembled press corps:] Mr. President!! Mr. President!!
- Yes, Mr. Rather!
-- Sir, could you comment on the latest Harris poll, which indicates a continued erosion of the faith of the American people in your personal integrity?
- Mr. Rather, as quick on the draw as this President is with candor and full disclosure, the American people -- the overwhelming majority of which, I might add, as you ladies and gentlemen, and, let me just say, our friends at CBS know!
-- Um... Yessir, but...
--- [Nother reporter:] Sit down, Rather! Don't be piggy!
- Next question.
[Assembled press corps:] Mr. President!! Mr. President!!"
 

"... - In sum, then, the information available to me at this time does correspond to my knowledge at the time of my previous statement.
-- That was beautiful, Ron.
- Any other questions?
-- Yes, I have one, Ron.
- Yes, Mr. Sidey?
-- Ron, sometimes I imagine you must get up in the morning, look in the mirror before you've shaven, and think to yourself, 'Ron, you're about to begin another day of evasion and deceit.' Here's my question, Ron: What do you do after you've come to such a realization?
- I shave."

"- In response to your question, Mr. Osborne, I can only repeat that we have put Watergate completely behind us.
-- Ron, do you mean Watergate no longer exists?
- For the purposes of these press briefings, it does not!
--Amazing.. Watergate has vanished.. Just like that! How do you do it, Ron?
---I'll bet he uses mirrors."

"- Mr. President, I'm beginning to think perhaps it might be better if we were more compliant in providing materials to the House committee...
-- Jim! how can you suggest that?! I thought you were interested in protecting the Presidency!
- Well, I still am, sir, but ..
--Jim, it is not me I'm thinking of, it's a matter of setting precedent! What about future Presidents?!
- Oh, I imagine they'll muddle through somehow, sir...
-- Don't be cute, Jim."

"- Ron, for just once in your life, will you give us a straight, truthful answer?!
-- Dan, I've told you before -- for me to be honest would cripple the principle of confidentiality..
- What?!
-- Dan, it's not just me as press secretary I'm thinking of..
Who else are you thinking of, Ron?
- Future press secretaries! You see, Dan...
-- [thought squiggles] I don't want to hear this."

and eventually,
 

"...- Jerry, you've got to try to understand -- for me to apologize would simply be inappropriate! It would set a precedent that would compromise the office of the former Presidency!
-- [thought squiggles] Huh?
- You see, it's not me I'm thinking of, Jer -- it's future former Presidents!"

2/11/04 8:25 p.m. (Link here.)

The Doonesbury Chronicles, a strip from somewhere in 1973:

"- Ron, does the President have any comment on the most recent disclosures in the Watergate case?

-- NO! Watergate! Watergate! What is the matter with you guys?! What is this senseless orgy of recrimination week after week?! I've already said all that I'm going to! So why don't you stop wasting both our time and ask me questions I can deal with?

- Ron, what color shirt is the President wearing today?

-- That's better. Blue."

2/11/04 7:43 p.m. (Link here.)

Feh:

...As with everything about the Bush presidency, its re-election campaign seems to exist at two levels. There's the public campaign, in which a moderate, visionary president comes up with inclusionary programs -- pro-Mars, pro-Mexican -- to broaden his base of support. And there are the more niche campaigns, hidden in the shadows, in which the campaign stirs its right-wing supporters to action by appealing to their baser instincts. And there's evidence of national Republican efforts to perfect longstanding voter-intimidation programs directed at blacks and Hispanics....

In my high school calculus class we thought the textbook had a disturbing tendency not to answer our questions. It would say "the proof is left as an exercise," or "see page 307," and page 307, guess what, wouldn't answer the question. We called it "proof by omission."

Probably that's an OK way to teach calculus. In retrospect, we probably learned more because we weren't spoon-fed all the answers.

Here's the thing, though: proof by omission is OK when you're challenging students to use their powers of deduction to reach a conclusion that can be logically deduced. It's not OK when you're the White House press secretary and people want specific information.

Still, every Republican press secretary since Richard Nixon's man Ron Ziegler has answered tough questions by pretending to have already answered them. (Yeah, probably some Democrats too, but not so memorably.)

Here, for example:
 

Q Coming back to John's question real briefly. One of the questions that remain after the release of the documents yesterday involves the President's physical in 1972. Are you guys talking about what happened there and why he didn't take -- 

MR. McCLELLAN: I think this was all addressed previously. I think that, again, this goes to show that some are not interested in the facts of whether or not he served; they're interested in trolling for trash and using this issue for partisan political gain. 

Q What was the answer previous to this? 

 MR. McCLELLAN: What's the question? 

 Q On the question of --

MR. McCLELLAN: See, I mean, there are some that want us to engage in gutter politics. I'm not going to engage in gutter politics. I'm going to focus on what we're doing -- 

Q But you were suggesting you'd answered the question previously. 

MR. McCLELLAN: -- to address the priorities for the American people. We went through this in 1994, I believe again in '98, 2000. Now some are trying to bring it up again in 2004. 

Q Scott, can I ask, in 2004, just again, why did the President miss his physical? 

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry? 

 Q Why did the President miss his physical? 

 MR. McCLELLAN: Are you talking about when he -- whether or not he -- I put out a response to that question yesterday, about whether or not he was rated by his commanders as a pilot. 

Q Can I just ask you today, in 2004 -- 

MR. McCLELLAN: No. 

Q -- why he missed his physical? 

MR. McCLELLAN: Elisabeth, there are some that -- again, this is a question of whether or not he served. That question has been answered through the documents that were released yesterday, and released previously.

Q I just want to hear from the White House Press Secretary -- 

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not -- no, there are some -- Elisabeth, we've already addressed this issue. I'm not going to engage in gutter politics. I'm going to focus on what we're doing to make the world safer, to make the world a better place, and to make America more prosperous. If others want to engage in gutter politics, that's their choice. But I think that -- 

Q How is asking that question engaging in gutter politics? 

MR. McCLELLAN: But I think the American people -- I think the American people deserve better. 

Q Scott, how does that engage in gutter politics if I ask that question? 

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, we've been through these issues. I wasn't accusing you. I'm accusing some -- (Laughter.) But, you see, we went through -- 

Q -- the answer to that question today?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, we went through these -- no, we went -- we've already addressed this issue. We went through it previously. We went through it four years ago, for sure. 

Except that maybe our powers of deduction do have a role to play here after all. Maybe Mr. McClellan is being a good calculus teacher and leaving us to work out the answer as an exercise.

2/10/04 6:47 p.m. (Link here.)

About the college Guild chapter's membership records: there's a reason the feds in Iowa couldn't ask for those. It's NAACP v. Alabama, 377 U.S. 288 (1964). Now I want to know what kind of idiot has a nice-paying job with our Department of Justice and yet hasn't heard of that case.

2/10/04 3:03 p.m. (Link here.)

Finally:

Iowa subpoenas dropped (via Daily Kos)

Andrew Sullivan comes to his senses (via lotsa people)

O'Reilly agrees there were no WMDs, saying, "I am not pleased about it at all and I think all Americans should be concerned about this." (via Kos again and I forget who else)

A majority of the American public have "some doubts and reservations" about trusting George Bush. (Ratings otherwise phrased, as reported elsewhere on the site, are however, still hovering above 50%. Not far above.)

The White House press corps gives McClellan a good grilling over Bush's service record (via Atrios). 

If this keeps up we may get our country back.

2/9/04 4:21 p.m. (Link here.)

This just in: Big Red may or may not be a Harvard type, but he's been proposed as a mascot for the University of Nebraska. That's a long way from home for a sea creature, but then it's probably good money, what with the endorsement deals and all, and we don't really know what unemployment is like around the Gumdrop Seamount. Might be tempting. Maybe the big guy could find a little oral-arm-pied-a-terre in that Ogallala Aquifer.

2/9/04 2:40 p.m. (Link here.)

For persons dissatisfied with Kerry, Edwards, Dean, Clark, et al., there's good news from that research team at Moss Landing. Marine biologists George Matsumoto and Kevin Raskoff, those two fine successors of Doc Ricketts, have pulled another possible candidate out of Monterey Bay

You may remember their earlier discovery: Big Red, the four- to seven-armed jellyfish unsuccessfully promoted by this space for Governor of California.

Now meet Stellamedusa ventana, also known as Bumpy. Where Big Red's crimson color suggested not only Republicanism but Harvard or Stanford associations, the new discovery is blue and white. Yes, apparently, a Yalie, and possibly a Democrat. Hence, just maybe, Presidential material.

It's unlikely this marine invertebrate will turn out to be a Skull and Bones man. Still, to look so much like a football scarf at The Game, this poor little lamb must have detoured through New Haven somewhere between its two usual haunts, which are the deep waters off central California, and the Sea of Cortez down behind the Baja peninsula. A funny itinerary maybe, but then, as we know, the Bushes did transplant themselves from Maine to Texas and send their boy to school in Connecticut. As we also know, it doesn't matter what young Stellamedusa learned at Yale or if he/she/it was a "legacy" admission. Our friend Bumpy can likely handle Very Hungry Caterpillars just fine, and that's enough. The important things about Yale for a future president are the connections and the diploma, not the education: thinking is a delegable task.

But is Bumpy a Democrat? Well, if, say, Senator Hollings counts as a Democrat despite a lifetime ADA rating of 51, I guess Bumpy can be a Democrat too. And of course there's the blue and white factor, which does color-coordinate with the whole "blue state" thing. Also says here the critter has "a healthy appetite, it seems, for other jellies." Yep, definitely a Democrat. We all know Democrats devour their own.

As for electability: Bumpy is another find from deep waters, so as before we have a candidate who's good under pressure. Bumpy is only four inches across -- nothing like the massive presence of yard-wide Big Red -- but in the presidential race, brawn isn't the issue it was in last fall's California election. Best yet, Bumpy has a big mouth but can't yawp off message.

So if you want to throw your vote away, do consider throwing it to Bumpy. Heck, he/she/it might even win. After all, stranger things have happened.

[UPDATE: Oops, I see I picked the wrong Senator to criticize in this of all contexts: on further Googling it seems Sen. Hollings is a special champion of ocean exploration.]

2/9/04 1:12 p.m. (Link here.)

Some other people's worries about the Democratic nomination, and some of my own (in comments) are over at Bad Attitudes today. I'll vote Democratic this year for all the many obvious reasons. But I'm praying, please, this year, don't let the Democratic Party sell out its left again. It's getting like the old story of Charlie Brown running to kick the football and Lucy yanking it away at the last moment.

I'll vote Democratic this year. I know that now. If the French left could vote for Chirac, I can vote for Kerry. He's not so bad as they go. But I worry.

2/8/04 8:35 p.m. (Link here.)

Fox Laugh-Out-Loud Sunday Night dramatizes guilt by association:

Oliver Beene, "hero" of eponymous knowing 1950s-retro comedy, spills soup on his shirt. Other children believe he has vomited on himself. His last two friends announce to him from a distance, "Don't take this personally, but being seen with you damages our own fragile social standing." Against, no less, the background of a museum field trip on the theme of natural selection.

Almost funny, if it weren't so painful, as a commentary on life among children. Creepily close to the truth as a commentary on free speech in the great state of Iowa. Welcome to 1950s retro-life. Unless, of course, we've learned something in the generations that have grown up comparatively free since the inquisitors and fearmongers last came out from under their rocks.

First they come for the immigrants. Then the pacifists and the activists and the civil rights lawyers and the members of faith-based organizations who not only feed the poor but ask why the poor are hungry. Then who?

Incidentally, I am a former member of the National Lawyers Guild and I am proud to have continuing friendships with Guild members.

Your turn: who are your friends?

2/8/04 2:58 p.m. (Linkhere.)

Daily Kos has further links on the the inquisition vs. the Iowa activists. The excuse for all this hoopla may be that a Grinnell College librarian went limp at a protest and was accused of assaulting an officer. Yes, folks, librarians are the greatest danger our nation faces. They encourage free thought, they lend out almanacs, and every once in a while they go limp. Heaven forfend.

2/7/04 7:54 p.m. (Link here.)

Iowa federal judge upholds record-gathering and grand jury subpoenas for antiwar activists and the National Lawyers Guild. This is another notch worse than the contempt for the Bill of Rights we've already seen. Don't let this happen quietly. Don't let this kind of inquisition become normal. It is not normal. Or American.

2/6/04 3:57 p.m. (Link here.)

I don't want to get in the habit of repeating items aired on national weblogs, but these comments by Senator Grassley are jaw-dropping:

"Obviously, he'll be caught between now and the election," Grassley said Monday when
asked if he's disappointed that Osama bin Laden hasn't been killed or captured.

"I think they're on his trail now in a way they haven't been all year," Grassley said. "It will happen because we will be able to divert more resources [to hunting down bin Laden]."...

a) An ass?

b) A cynic?

c) Politically attuned to an administration that fails to distinguish between running a campaign and governing a country?

d) Alluding to something he knows and we don't?

or

e) All of the above?

Or what?

One thing we know already: if the Bush people do make an "October Surprise" capture of Osama, they and Senator Grassley will have uncomfortable questions to answer about the convenience of their timing, and the result may not be the wild popularity they want.

Americans may learn slowly, but we're not stupid. 

2/6/04 1:52 p.m. (Link here.)

I'm glad to see a sympathetic SF Chronicle feature on Pastor Evan Prosser, his wife April, and their Homeless Church. I hope it cushions them a little from the anti-homeless persecutions of the Bayview Station police.

In the five or six years I've known people on the southeast waterfront, the Prossers have -- to my own occasional frustration -- kept scrupulously clear of all activism, trying to live quietly and without contention, and avoiding anything remotely resembling politics. 

What the Chronicle reporters may not know is that on the Prossers' part this approach has required turning the other cheek to repeated police harassment of themselves and of the people who receive their hospitality. On one occasion I understand the police disrupted a memorial service they were conducting in a park. I know this only because local campers told me: the Prossers themselves are too gentle to ever mention such events to a lawyer, let alone a journalist.

Once again, where's the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives when we need it?

2/6/04 1:33 a.m. (Link here.)

If Michael Jackson bankrolled a recall campaign against the DA who dared to prosecute him, folks in the outside world just might say there was something rotten in California. So when the Pacific Lumber Corporation pumps money into a recall campaign against Humboldt County DA Paul Gallegos, why isn't the outside world howling away about obstruction of justice? I mean, I'm just asking. :

2/5/04 5:25 p.m. (Link here.)

Via Texeira: Gallup has Kerry able to beat Bush nationally, and shows Democrats caring much more intensely about voting than they did four years ago. There's hope.

2/4/04 4:36 p.m. (Link here.)

Via UsualSuspects: the Bay Guardian's Savannah Blackwell offers a profile on San Francisco political attorney James Sutton, lately of the Newsom campaign, the anti-panhandling measure Prop. M, and the "California Urban Issues Project." No surprise to learn he's had close associations with the Republican Party.

2/4/04 2:00 p.m. (Link here.)

Only In the San Francisco Bay Area:

The Sexual Minority Alliance of Alameda County, which serves gay and lesbian youth, moved out of its Telegraph Avenue office last fall after complaining that people smoked marijuana outside nearby pot clubs. 

2/3/04 7:57 p.m. (Link here.)

Campaign 2004, from the perspective of the valuable Siskind immigration law newsletter: none of it looks good for immigrants.

2/2/04 1:02 p.m. (Link here.)

Every once in a while, snippets of other worlds within the United States turn up in Federal Register announcements. Here's another:

...The purpose of the program is to: 
(1) Improve the local economic conditions by determining the possible
impact of environmental contamination from Formerly Used Defense Sites 
(FUDS) on the local resources by assessing the pathways of exposure to 
contaminants from FUDS, with a special emphasis on the impact of these
contaminants on subsistence-related food supplies;...

2/2/04 1:52 p.m. (Link here.)

This Santa Cruz Sentinel stuff is only a little worse than the general run of editorializing, but it's bad enough to creep me out.

...The best news lately for those providing homeless services is a new program supported by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The program is known as the Homeless Management Information System, and its goal is to discover more about the homeless problem and then work with regional officials to come up with some solutions....

2/1/04 1:45 p.m. (Link here.)

Honestly, I leave the world news alone for a couple days and everything goes berserk. 

Southern and central California have been hit by avocado rustlers ahead of the corn-chip-intensive Super Bowl.

Amnesty International says Cisco Systems, Microsoft and other major computer companies have provided technology that helps the Chinese government catch dissident Internet activists. As the London Observerexplains, Cisco has answered such accusations in the past by stooping to the "that's not my department" defense:

Cisco Systems, which has also been named in the Amnesty report, has in the past denied that it tailors products for the Chinese market and has said: 'If the government of China wants to monitor the internet, that's their business. We are politically neutral.'...

..."He told him that he was sorry, but he wasn't going to be able to present (his report) because he had reached a conclusion and therefore was biased"...

S'morning Doonesbury has Rummy's number, Non Sequitur is taking off Rush Limbaugh, and Prince Valiant is denouncing loyalty oaths.
 

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