Bluoz

On June 12, 2009, a memorial ride was held for San Francisco bike messenger Kelly Alexander, who passed away at 27 years old.

A San Francisco civil grand jury report was officially released yesterday. june 29, 2009 and you can read the entire PDF here

Non Profits - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly (PDF)

This is $500 million of San Francisco money, 41% of the entire budget and is currently being debated at the Board of Supervisors. The Grand Jury report is definitely worth a read and is highly recommended for people to read the actual report, rather than any condensed version in the news. Here are just a few highlights from the report

one single comment struck me from a recent SF Weekly article

I don't think people realize just how many people are scamming the system. In 10 years of living in close proximity to the welfare state, I have seen one single workfare person, while seeing hundreds of 20 year olds on social security, exempt from all implied social contracts as described below. This is a huge part of the $500 million San Francisco spends every year on social services. It's far bigger than most people know, and it's rare to see somebody speak out about it, because so many people in San Francisco politics are directly involved in it. It also gives a bad name to those who really are legitimately disabled

But it only works as long as the money keeps rolling in. It only works as long as there are working people left to pay for it

Thanks very much for bringing to light the very serious abuses that occur when people are allowed to have "Psychiatric Service Animals." I am a psychotherapist in a free medical clinic in the Tenderloin and have been asked several times to sign letters that would allow people to have service animals in their city, state or federally-subsidized housing. I make it a policy never to sign these letters I encourage my colleagues to not do so as well. Personally and professionally, I feel the whole idea of "Psychiatric Service Animals," with very few legitimate exceptions, is a load of horse-pukey. Our society is creating, with ADA as the tool, a class of people for whom the rules of our society and our implied social contracts do not apply. It does not help people to exempt them from the rules and laws that apply to everyone else in our society. and in fact it causes them harm.
Frequently, I am asked by people perfectly capable of fulfilling their civic obligations to write letters exempting them from jury duty, work-fare expectations for their General Assistance checks, and standing in lines for services due to alleged disorders such as "social anxiety disorder." One patient frankly admitted that he couldn't to do his General Assistance workfare because he uses speed all day.
By exempting people from reasonable societal expectations and fostering and over-identification with "disability," we professions involved in this do more harm than good. I would go so far as to say it oppresses people even more than they already may be. K. Marcus Hartsfield, MFT
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

local La Honda resident Neil Young performs the Beatles - A Day in the Life at Glastonbury Music Festival, United Kingdom, two days ago, June, 27, 2009...Oh yeah, and some guy named Paul shows up about halfway through

No Sign of Deal to Close Deficit (Businessweek)

just a few days away two days away. The tenderloin might turn into a ghost town, and it might be like when Jerry Garcia died in 1995 and all the deadheads went back to their home state of realityland and got a job

Roughly $3 billion worth of IOUs will be issued in July unless a compromise on closing the deficit is reached quickly. They will be sent to state contractors, college students, welfare recipients, low-income seniors, the disabled and others who depend on or deliver social services.

The other musician who died Thursday

Rest in Peace, Sky Saxon

some of the other wildlife in the Tenderloin

well, this is ironic. While people are protesting the Iranian elections on the steps of San Francisco city hall, California is making headines in Tehran over the budget crisis. And this is being ignored by the local press



How about freeing our own reporters, huh? Me thinks the San Francisco press is too frightened to think about the thousands of ex-welfare recipients roaming the streets

From the Tehran Times

Democrats and Republicans in the legislature's budget conference committee worked through Monday afternoon on a variety of proposals addressing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to close a $24.3 billion budget shortfall, but they failed to find common ground on its most dramatic proposal: eliminating the state's welfare system.

“This meeting is not headed in that direction,” Republican Assemblyman Roger Niello said.

California's revenues are plunging amid recession, rising unemployment and the prolonged housing crisis, and the state is unable to borrow its way out of its immediate financial trouble by issuing debt at low cost because of its budget gap.

It will run out of cash within weeks if it does not balance its books, leaving it little option but to postpone a variety of payments, according to State Controller John Chiang, who estimated last week that California was “less than 50 days away from a meltdown of state government.”

Democrats, who control California's legislature, said their aim is to cut spending, but to maintain a base of government programs, including many for the needy.

Republicans countered that only dramatic cuts will balance California's budget for its next fiscal year, which begins in July.

Some state Assembly Democrats have talked about the possibility of increasing some taxes to raise revenues, but both Schwarzenegger and Republicans said no. Republicans have enough votes to block budgets from passing and have used the power in previous years to delay spending plans from reaching the governor's desk.

In fact, the legislature has missed its constitutional budget deadline for more than 20 years running. It is not unusual for the government of the most populous U.S. state to begin its new fiscal year without a spending plan in place which is one reason why California has the lowest credit rating of any U.S. state.

In most years, California officials have been able to rely on the state's growing economy to fill the state's government's coffers -- even as the bickered over budget plans.

The sooner California has a budget, the sooner it will be able to approach Wall Street to sell short-term debt in the form of revenue anticipation notes to help smooth out its near term finances, according to the state treasurer's office.

museum of analog TV's

price - Free
where - Pretty much all over

South of Market, June 23, 2009. You figure it out



they were like this for over two hours this afternoon, right on the sidewalk

While Iran protests are taking all the news, there was a small protest on Friday, June 19th, on Market near Powell regarding opening up the Amazon rainforest to developers. On June 5th, dozens of people were killed in protests in Peru prompting calls for a UN investigation

a printed sheet of this press release was handed out at the protest

Did you know that San Francisco is the only city in America that will pay you to be a hoe? Don't believe me?. Just listen to a 'homeless' resident of Randy Shaw's Tenderloin Housing Clinic calling his friends back east and telling them to come to San Francisco because panhandling is legal here and that San Francisco is the only city in America that will pay you to be a hoe. Now you know why they keep coming

This is posted in all Tenderloin Housing Clinic city contract buildings for the homeless and calls for more rallies, Thursday, June18th, and Monday, June 22, 2009 at city hall, San Francisco



San Francisco's Industrial Welfare Complex feels threatened. The leisure class gets uppity

Chronicle article

Livin in the Loin

friend of mine made a couple graphs from data statistics at the Congressional Budget Office. This was already graphed in open Salon recently, but with fewer variables from the original statistics, and the graph itself was a tiny jpeg, so we decided to redo it

this new graph is probably more accurate. Actually two graphs, pre-tax, and post-tax income distribution from 1979 to present

in the following two graphs, by definition, the top quintile is those sets of households whose incomes exceed the incomes of at least 80% of households

pre tax




post tax



click through on Flickr to enlarge, or here are the originals

after tax distribution

pre tax distribution

this 3rd graph shows the top .01% earners in red,

after tax



original graph

pre tax



original graph

As reported in the SF Weekly today, the Board of Supervisors is considering using three online news websites for public notices, and paying for them. Fog City Journal, Beyondchron, and the Bay Guardian. What isn't mentioned in the Matt Smith article, is that Fog City Journal and the Bay Guardian are not public financed, but Beyondchron.org is. In Beyondchrons case, they are already receiving money from the city for the entire website operation, to the tune of $13,000 in 2007. Beyondchron is actually part of the existing Tenderloin Housing Clinic contract with the city, so why would the taxpayers need to pay for public service ads, when the city of San Francisco is already paying for the entire website?