Bluoz

Not for those who see it anyway(me), the Caltrain operators, the emergency personnel, and especially the family. It certainly is not something I want to see again, and I'm pretty sure everybody else who saw this, including the San Mateo police, fire, and ambulance, feel the same way

Rest in Peace to the woman who stood in front of the train and waved bye bye today near the Hayward Park Caltrain station

from The Chronicle (all comments removed???) and Examiner

update, the woman was identified as Tammy Lou Sanchez

and if you're thinking of doing it, please call suicide prevention 1-800-273-TALK
I believe Caltrain's own signs on the edges of their stations have 1-800-suicide

Also, here's two articles about how Caltrain itself has been dealing with the issue, problems with the press, walkathons to raise awareness, etc

Shining the light on Caltrain suicides

Is the media contributing to Caltrain suicides?

from taxpayer funded beyondchron

For all of Bruce Brugmann’ s outsized personality, and the changes in the news industry that have put politically alternative weeklies at risk, the Guardian-SF Weekly case involves far more than these two parties. Rather, it has national implications for the future of local journalism.

If a large chain, whether it be Wal-Mart, the Gannet Corp., or the smaller Village Voice Media, can drive competitors out of business by selling ads at below-cost, then local newpapers, radio stations and other media have no future. And this is not a good thing.

No...Actually what has much larger implications for the future of local journalism are quasi propaganda wings forcibly paid for with our tax dollars such as BeyondChron, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tenderloin Housing Clinic. Nothing can compete with BeyondChron and if there's enough of that, all newspapers might go out of business and we might as well just have state controlled media, like in the old Soviet Union. Maybe the SF Weekly and the Bay Guardian should just get out of this messy ad based business and convert to the Randy Shaw model. We could have Trent Rohr and Aaron Peskin as managing editors with a whole flotilla of muni drivers writing about how unbelievably outstanding our Muni system is, and then toss in weekly 'corrective classes' held in the City Hall dungeon basement for those that try to write and and disagree

doesn't anybody out there think it's just a little strange for Randy Shaw to be analyzing ad revenue tactics between two commercial newspapers when he himself has never had to sell an ad in his life because his revenue and pretty much his entire life is paid for from the government teet?

I can choose whether or not to read the SF Weekly or the Bay Guardian. You and I, and everybody else, do NOT have a choice when it comes to Beyondchron, because even if you don't read it, you're still forced to pay for it

even more hypocritical and insulting is the very same newspapers Randy Shaw is criticizing can't even interview THC's own employees because they've been ordered not to and are bound by confidentiality agreements, so these newspapers can't even ask the questions they want to ask about publicly funded institutions

Running an 18 million dollar a year publicly funded institution and refusing to answer basic questions from the press about basic issues such as public safety and financing does far more harm to local journalistic integrity than advertising wars ever will

this comes from Fox news today

wanna bet this would have a profound influence on Tenderloin Housing Clinic?

excerpt> "The intent was to give the police an extra tool to be used against crack houses, drug houses and general public nuisances that are generating an inordinate number of police calls," Tesche said. "At some point, a city can and should start charging for overuse of its police department."

bonus!...see the printout from just one month of police calls

it also generated many responses on Fark

"stupidity tax" has a nice ring to it

here at THC it's not a Hitchcock movie, it's real life



now you can see why THC reps doth protesteth so much about community courts. They're own clients are top of the line, grade A certified nuisance

I'm starting to wonder if this is endemic to Tenderloin Housing Clinic. This also smells like unreported paid lobbying to me, paid for by your taxes

context: a recent meeting about the Mayor's new Community Justice Center

I wasn't at this meeting but this post comes from SF Met blogs

with a choice excerpt (this stuff has got to be taped sometime, and I'll gladly upload an mp3 of it, just to show that the stupefying belligerence is not a figment of our imagination. I've totally heard things like this before)

Tonight that obnoxious role was filled by two employees of Randy Shaw's "SRO Collaborative". These two 20 something know it all guys did the usual "collaborative" mic hogging technique, and took their time lambasting every possible positive outcome that could possibly arise from the CJC.

I immediately knew we were all in trouble and going to get a tantrum like scolding for being there when the first of Shaw's warriors, the chubbier of the two intoned " I really tried to come here with an open mind"... which we all know means exactly the opposite.

They ripped into a litany of cliche'd complaints & asinine analysis of a program that doesn't even exist yet. It didn't take long for the CJC to be called a "War On The Poor" and then the THC employees complained that beer in a bar costs $5 which is apparently way too much. They loudly & belligerently bemoaned & bellowed out loud at their own preconceptions without anyone else allowed to speak but them.

While I may have occasionally agreed with some of his points, and appreciated his passionate beliefs in the THC's vested interests, these paid reps likely did more in actuality to harm their cause than they ever will do to assist people. Amongst the couple dozen people they thoroughly alienated tonight might have been some future allies, and instead of being articulate spokespeople for an under represented population, they only managed to present a disgraceful and arrogant display of ball hogging that any sports fan might find offensive.

Taking from the public speaking school of pointless blowhardiness, the SRO Collaborative duo took a generally quiet room of reasonable neutral adults and within minutes were able to create lifelong enemies, and degenerate the situation into a veritable shouting match. As many people began muttering under their breaths, a few left and others even resorted to telling the two guys to sit down & stop disturbing the proceedings. Shaw's mighty minions eventually sat down, and seemed quite pleased with themselves, while dozens glanced over at them warily as if to wonder what the hell they really were trying to accomplish.


hint > one of the obvious reasons why THC employees would be so arrogant about this is simple. Much of the quality of life 'crimes' would directly affect their own clients

in fact, if evictions were a part of that process, much of their buildings would be empty within a few months, and they can't have that

response from Jeoflin Roh
It disturbs me that the Community Town Hall Forum at Koret Auditorium (Tuesday 15 January) presenting an extraordinary coalition & cooperation of City departments with the effort to build a Community Justice Center that, of all the community folk who spoke there were two, just two who didn’t get it. Instead of adding to the dialog they stood at the microphone and lectured the City leaders on the dais, and everyone in the audience, about how this effort would “criminalize” homelessness.

It particularly disturbs me because these two were representing the Central City SRO Collaborative. I am one of the three people who fought like hell to establish the CCSROC, and I remember, the night before we were actually funded, sitting in the office of Anne Kronenberg, who is a high mucky-muck in DPH, which was to lord over the funding, when she warned me that putting the org in the hands of Randy Shaw of Tenderloin Housing Clinic notoriety was possibly a big mistake. Because he’d turn it into a political arm of his growing empire of “handling” homeless & housing issues, to the tune of millions per year out of the General Fund, just to foster his agenda. And he did.

Keeping homeless homeless is Randy’s business … it maintains the status quo, which maintains the millions coming into his coffers. And through his charms he indoctrinates these young folk, just out of college and with no experience of which they pretend to speak, into fostering his agenda.

If any one of ‘em had actually researched what CJC is trying to do they’d know that it’s about DECRIMINALIZING homelessness, and providing options while keeping offenses off record.

It disturbs me that what was originally meant to be voice of the poor and too often disenfranchised Tenderloin & SoMa SRO residents has reduced to rebutting the very City efforts that would serve the population they pretend to represent. It both disturbs and disgusts me.

Jeoflin Roh

only thing I have to add now is that I keep hearing about this so called 'war on the poor' that Tenderloin Housing Clinic paid reps keep repeating

well, I'm poor, so how come I don't feel like it's a war on me? Could it possibly be that I actually don't cause unnecessary nuisance? Don't crap all over the place, don't smoke crack, don't try to break into my neighbors rooms and steal stuff, don't generally TRY to be an asshole just because it fills up boring days.

Could it possibly be that I try to be aware there are other people on this planet besides myself?...You know, little basic things like that. Things that Tenderloin Housing Clinic can't seem to grasp

Bruce Steinberg passed away December 30, 2007

he was best known as having contributed photos and design for many album covers

he was also an engineer for NASA and his initials are on a Mariner spacecraft still heading out into deep space (Bruce Steinberg blog)

his photos > (http://www.brucesteinberggallery.com/) and a computer whiz

less well known, is that he was a musician too. He played harmonica on It's A Beautiful Day's first and second album with the song Hot Summer Day being the best known. His photo of a seagull is on the back cover of IABD's first album

I never met the guy myself, but alot of people don't know that he actually showed up and played with IABD during their reunion at the Fillmore San Francisco, June 12, 1998. Here is a photo of Bruce backstage



and Bruce is third from left (in the middle) onstage during the show



even less well known, is this show was recorded, not officially, but by myself from the audience ( I sneaked in the recording stuff).

so now I have a little something to remember Bruce by and to contribute for all his many friends and fans who didn't know he was at this show and played with the band. Of course, Hot Summer Day was played, and I have that too, but the best one was the next to last song, called 'Going on Down The Road', in which Bruce has a near free form on his harmonica. The song never was on any album, so not many people have ever heard this, much less Bruce on it

It's A Beautiful Day-Going On Down The Road-6-12-98.mp3

goodbye Bruce, and rest in peace, and may some one out there find that spacecraft one day, and go back and find this stuff

the back cover of IABD's first album > photo, Bruce Steinberg

it was in the news, but not really noticed all that well

The Presidio Trust is currently in a pilot program to decompose the Cosco Busan oil spill using oyster mushrooms, partly donated by Far West Fungi, the same one at the farmers market at the SF Civic Center. The oil is soaked up using mats of donated human hair, then covered with inoculated oyster mushroom spawn which eats the oil

the main problem is that because of the federal bureaucracy treating the spill as a crime scene, the actual Cosco Busan oil isn't being cleaned up (not yet anyway), but rather donated oil to test and see how well it works see this article

San Francisco Chronicle article

photos from a month ago

Matter of Trust (Presidio Trust)



I learned about mycroremediation two years ago from Paul Stamets (Fungi Perfecti) and once emailed him with an idea that maybe Hunters Point would be a good candidate and also areas of the Presido which are currently undergoing toxic cleanup

he seemed to like the idea........