City Life -- San Francisco Archives
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There are plenty of things in the world more worthy of attention than Harvard President Larry Summer's wondering if some "innate" difference between men and women is responsible for the paucity of women at the upper reaches of the hard sciences.
I was going to let the whole thing pass as yet another tedious example of evolutionary psychology and its misappropriation by another bonehead White Guy but then I got two phone calls. One, asking me if I knew of any women who might serve as "new voices" on a panel discussion on-line politics to break up a conversation among a group of white guys. The second was a call about implicit sexism involved in political organizing and the possibility of organizing a panel discussion on that topic. Then Carly Fiorina got fired. Rather unceremoniously. And I noticed that the list of her potential replacements is mostly white men.
Continue reading "Oh. Him."Thu 08:00 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Shy, quiet Phil Bronstein – he edits The San Francisco Chronicle – has been popping up on TV lately here in San Francisco in a series of ads devoted to telling area residents how much they need The Chron.
My favorite is where Phil suggests that a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley would read The Chron to find out about a start-up in Novato. If you need a demonstration how little folks in Old San Francisco, (which is really The Chron's core readership of 300,000 home-delivered newspapers), understand what's happening around them, this is it. Venture capitalist don't look for start-ups; start-ups search – night and day, under rocks and stones, through hell and half of Georgia – for venture capitalist. And they use the Internet, and gossip and connections and VentureWire, not the paper.
The sardonic fun and opportunity for cheap shots and smart cracks doesn't stop there. In this week's AdWeek Phil gives an interview about the ads and his career. Ya gotta read it all the way to the self-serving end where he describes himself as "Middle-aged. Curious. Naive." How would others describe him? "Amusing. Passionate. Shy," says Phil.
Really. I am not making this up. Shy. Phil. Now that's amusing. And, you know, you didn't read it in the Chron, now did you?
Link courtesy of Romenesko.
Tue 10:43 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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The attempt to create a media/gossip culture in San Francisco that’s more sophisticated that what we’ve got and still informative never stops. The latest entry is Sfist, and well, I see trouble already.
The site – which is giving out a pronunciation guide, always a bad, bad sign for a name brand – “esss-effff-ist” will sound, to some of you kids, a little more like a sex act than a web site. Their coverage of the Folsom Street Fair – gets your chaps on, gentlemen! – should be er, up close and personal, no?
Continue reading "Copying Cats"Tue 01:18 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Our annual rite of summer is upon us: The Gay Pride Parade.
This year’s theme for the boys and girls, the boys who wanna be grrrrls and the girls who wanna be bois (and pretty much everyone in between) to shimmy, shake and sashay and strut down Market Street: Superheroes: Out 4 Justice.
I love this town. You can do anything. This year, the 34th, should be a barn-burner what with all those married people hanging around.
But let me clue all you out-of-towners in on a secret about the parade: It is, consistently, the day on which it’s warm and sunny – no fog, no wind. And we all love that.
Fri 11:03 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Here’s a good illustration of the difference between San Francisco’s two cultures. It’s also a good example of why the Chronicle remains out of touch with an increasingly important segment of its readers.
Chron feature writer Sam Whiting asks danah boyd, a UC doctoral student, girl around the 'net and vet of big-time digital culture petri dish MIT, about ‘blogger off-line behavior. He gets – he thinks – this response.
“Even the most obsessive ridiculous bloggers meet in meet-space multiple times a year in conferences,” boyd is quoted as saying.
Sam, that’s not what she said. It’s M-E-A-T space. As in blood and guts, carbon-based life form, the expression coined (I think) by Marvin Minsky to describe his body, which he refers to as a “meat machine.” Meatspace is the place where breathing living creatures breath on each other, as opposed to the on-line place where they can only type or, if they’re involved with Paris Hilton, post their video accomplishments.
The fabulous Brad DeLong has uses M-E-A-Tspace properly here, Sam. Read it.
Sun 12:51 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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A few weeks ago, Chron writer John King did a smart essay on Carey McWilliam’s “California: The Great Exception,” a book – to the frustration of all reading – King said was out of print.
There outta be a law against tricks like that. But, sadly, we’ve all done it.
All hope is not lost, however. King goofed. And in his Thanksgiving column, King notes that “The Great Exception” is available from the University of California Press. It has an extra special treat: A forward by former San Franciscan Lewis Lapham.
Mon 12:49 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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A few weeks ago, SF Weekly columnist Matt Smith reminded me that I’ve become an old fart since I didn’t really appreciate – I still don’t – San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly’s political theatrics.
But I really like hacker theatrics: Those little punks going around raiding computer systems, hiding box cutters in planes and calling the cops, the guy who got the phone numbers and social security numbers of the NYTimes OpEd contributors, John Gilmore’s “suspected terrorist” silent protest. It makes me laugh. It makes me think.
The LATimes Joe Mennes did a little write-up about hacker politics earlier this week so I started thinking a little more about being an old fart. And well, as much as it pains me, I decided that Smith is right. When it comes to minor stuff, I like peace and quiet.
And, compared to my civil rights, airplane security, and the entertaining idea that the New York Times sent Arial Sharon a 1099 tax form for his 750-word essay, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission really is pretty minor (yes, I know I’ll think differently when I can’t flush the toilet after an earthquake but, hey, call me high-minded). All politics may be local. But not all local politics -- even here in San Francisco -- is life or death. Not any more. Thank God.
So maybe that’s what a lot people who like to think of themselves as hip have been struggling with during this city election: the stuff the city has to pay attention to over the next few years is boring, adminstrative slogging. Boring but important stuff. It’s not life or death. It’s not stuff that lends itself to political theatrics. It’s stuff that calls for smart thinking and tough decisions and, well, firing people and saying ‘no’ to your friends and maybe making enemies. But, well, that's what reform is all about and every candidate for mayor agreed with one voice that reform -- change -- is long overdue.
No amount of grandstanding can get around that. So both sides in the campaign that scheduled to end on Dec. 9 have done their level best to “fire up the base,’’ as the political pros like to say. It’s working. There’s a lot of anger out there. That’s why (see next entry) John King’s talking about California as the “great exception” comes at such a timely moment. But the anger being generated in San Francisco over this race – unlike the stuff the hackers are pulling -- doesn’t feel like the kind of anger that gets translated into action that makes you think or, sad to say, makes you laugh.
Thu 05:39 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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There’s a nice treat in today’s Chron. Really.
John King does a nice write up of a book I’m now dying to read, “California: The Great Exception.” It seems to explain a lot about what's going on right now.
King hooks his essay on the book – which is out of print – on the Schwarzenegger inaguaration. But he could – in fact, King knows enough that he should – write about San Francisco city politics and “Exception” author, (real, honest-to-God, not poser boho) radical Carey McWilliams. King’s essay on McWilliams – more! more! you Datebook slackers! – is the kind of thing that stops and makes you think with your morning coffee.
Consider this little bit of context, quoted by King at the end of his piece: “ ‘The gold rush is still on, and everything remains topsy- turvy,’ McWilliams wrote [in 1949]. Nothing has changed since then -- and it likely never will.”
Thu 05:22 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Former Merc reporter Jodi Mardesich has been writing Slate's Diary column for the past week. Her former colleagues, boyfriends and girlfriends here in Silicon Valley noticed. Boy have we.
Calling herself a "raw foodist" Mardesich writes about her adventures at a raw foods school in Puerto Rico. Let's just say that the word "colonic" appears more than once. The never-fat Mardesich also notes that she clocks in at 121 pounds, that her ovaries have stopped working and that's she living off her savings from her six-figure salary as a tech bubble journalist. Oh, yeah, and she sold her house in San Jose.
But that's not the good stuff. The really good stuff are the comments Slate readers have been filing. This is my personal favorite .
Thu 04:08 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Don't answer the phone.
The attack of the robocallers is on. My voice mail may not survive.
Since Thursday, I've gotten 10 calls all urging a vote one way or the other. Meg Levitan and Linda Salton called to tell me to vote for mayoral candidate Gavin Newsom.
Fiona Ma wants me to vote "no" on Prop. H.
Kamala Harris called and told me about that nasty "Willie Brown's girlfriend" flyer (that I didn't receive but read about). Some anonymous mail voice -- very soothing -- called a few hours later to tell me how great Kamala is. Both of them want my vote for her.
Sen. John Burton called to tell me to vote "no" on Prop. M. Someone else dialed the phone and a recorded tape, sounding a lot like a radio ad, told me to vote "yes" on M.
Claudine called -- in person -- to tell me to vote for Angela Alioto. A tape message from Claudia Wolf, the woman who got the that $11.2 million judgment urged the same.
And Susan Leal called to tell me to vote "yes" on I.
I'm exhausted. And I'm not answering the phone.
But I am voting. You should, too.
Tue 11:06 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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In the past month, two lovely people, friends to me and many of you reader-types, passed away.
Journalist and all around good guy, Matt Beer died early this month in Cambodia where he had gone to take a newspaper job. Some of his local press buddies -- Matt worked everywhere -- are gathering this evening at Buzz 9 to raise a glass in his memory. Having known Matt Beer, I can safely predict that the bar will be filled with pretty girls and drunk journalists.
Wendy Marx, wife to entrepreneur and sometimes local politico E. David Ellington died yesterday at Stanford University Hospital.
Wendy was, simply, a lovely woman who had the bad fortune to spend much of her life coping with a terrible disease that destroyed her liver. If knowing her and knowing that she's gone doesn't inspire you to be an organ donor, it should. And I'm sure she'd use this an occasion to remind me to type these very words.
UPDATE: At Matt's wake, Salon writer Katherine Mieskowski, who he once described as beautiful (so, of course, she shows) says I should post the email I got from him just before he died. Here it is:
Continue reading "Obits for the Young"Wed 09:12 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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At the time, it was a fit of dot.com pique. But when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors first had the idea to ban Seqways, they were on to something.
The $5,000 devices are being recalled. Seems they tip over when they run out of juice.
This comes just in time to stop embarrassing people who might not know any better.
Remember what Robin Williams used to say about cocaine? That it was God's way of telling you you had too much money? Well, Segways are the new coke. The two-wheel super-scooters -- the last of the over-hyped Silicon Valley tech bubble production line -- stand in, more and more as visual shorthand for "More Money than Sense."
Fri 04:00 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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The Wall Street Journal's George Anders files a sweet little story on PacBell baseball just in time to remind us that there could be another World Series by the Bay in the works.
The TV sports people were wondering last night how come no one noticed this pending event. Uh, well, the only thing that gets in the ways of baseball in the summer is politics and we've had more than enough of that to go around.
Besides, is it me, or does talk of an A's Giant's series make me think "earthquake weather."
Wed 03:14 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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The San Francisco Police Department is in trouble -- big trouble -- again. Somebody has got to stop these guys. And soon.
If they strip-search women they pull out of cars in the Marina/Cow Hollow area and well-versed protesters who clearly have some media savvy, you got to wonder -- not to hard, even -- how they treat people who are less able to hire lawyers. This keeps up -- and it will, just watch -- Police Chief Alex Fagan is going to make the LAPD look like a bunch of sweet-natured bureaucrats.
Thu 02:39 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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No, it's not that they happily run photos and stories from the New York Times wire service a day, sometimes several days, after they appear in The Times. Well, okay. That's part of it.
It's not that wait to run cultural and feature story about the city -- the city where they live -- until they read them someplace else (someplace like The Times)and feel they're legit. That's part of it, too.
And it's not that they got beat -- rock solid thumped by The NYPost's Page Six and Entertainment Tonight -- on the news that the editor formerly known as Mr. Stone and his movie-star wife were divorcing.
No, The Chron drives you crazy because it prints stories like this piece on the once-glorious Clift Hotel which new owner Ian Schrager has put under the protection of the bankruptcy court. The story's filled with lots of assurances that business will go on as usual. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't.
But here's some stuff to make you think there's a lot more to this story and that a San Francisco landmark hotel is being used to help ease Schager's financial difficulties specifically because it's not in New York. It seems that the too-cool-for-school Schrager's has purchased a controlling interest in The Gramercy Park Hotel, according to The NYTimes. But he's also got over-all financial troubles, according to the UK Independent. (CREDIT UPDATE: Schrager links courtesy of Gawker)
If Schrager is using the once-gloriously old-fashioned quiet and dignified Clift to ease his financial woes, it doesn't bode well for the hotel, a cornerstone of San Francisco's Union Square. It may well be on the block. And, contrary to the Chron's assurances, that's not be business as usual.
Tue 02:22 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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The NYTimes food critic Bill Grimes does a nice review of Jerimiah Tower's new book, California Dish.
Leah Garchik says Tower's in town, staying at the Mark Hopkins. Tower cut quite a figure in San Francisco and, don't worry, the book has lots of stories about Stars, the much missed and much loved City Hall hang-out.
Wed 01:26 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
