Make it pablum (Dineen)
Thank your for J. K. Dineen’s article, Renters Lament Loss
of Services. The addition of ADUs
often results in terrible conditions for existing tenants as the article
mentions from unbearable construction noise and pollution to loss of services
especially during the lockdown. To take storage away is bad enough but laundry
facilities are fundamental to life as a tenant and garage space is often the
reason an apartment is rented in the first place. All of these add up to
terrible pain for tenants especially seniors who have nowhere else to go. To
read that the San Francisco Housing Association and the Housing Action
coalition are siding with big landlords against Supervisor Mandelman’s
legislation is unbelievable. I
don’t think anyone would have a problem with ADUs in buildings with unused
space such as inlaw additions or backyard tiny homes. Supervisor Mandelman’s
legislation is a win – win solution. (yes) 6/17/21
Jaw Dropping
Regarding Willie Brown's latest column "Remake unneeded jails into
homeless shelters", sometimes the best response to jaw dropping
statements is to just repeat them: "start thinking outside the box - and
outside of town as well, turn underused jail space into Navigation
Centers, no objections from the neighbors because there are no
neighbors, offer homeless people a ride, it would all be voluntary but
if they say "no" then the city would say "no" to sleeping on the
streets"? All that's missing is a photo of a hilltop gulag - oh
wait......
Richard Hill
10/8/18
Despicable
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a "despicable human being"? Really, John Diaz? The "credible sexual assault charge" are two complaints of unprotected consensual sex, a minor technical offense under Swedish sexual assault law. The U.S. indictment accuses him of helping Chelsea Manning find a password. He has not been tried and found guilty of anything except evidently, in the press, a despicable tradition unfortunately still with us.
Angelo
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle
recently not only praises the multi story stainless steel sculpture
inspired and named after the ancient Greek masterpiece The Venus Di Milo
that rises in the plaza of Trinity Place, the new sprawling building
complex on Eighth and Mission streets, it lauds the “irrepressible
spirit and idiosyncratic aesthetic sensibility” of its creator, Angelo
Sangiacomo .
The majority of long time renters in this city
have been wounded in one way or another by the predatory landlord Angelo
Sangiacomo and others like him. He and his ilk are the predecessors and
inspiration of today’s gentrification that has thrown thousands of San
Francisco renters onto the streets and resulted in the death of many of
them. Sangiacomo, known as the father of rent control is responsible for
rent control in the first place as he, and other large landlords
realized the undervalued rental market in the city in the 1970’s, bought
up building after building then doubled the rents. Rent control at
first protected the renters of this town but the assault never let up
and has rained down on its victims with broken elevators, backed up
sewers, non existent heat and even evolved into truly monstrous abuses
like endless construction that included covering entire buildings with
scrim that blackened every apartment, and the hiring of thugs to prowl
the hallways and terrorize the inhabitants. The article waxes poetic
over the builder’s vision and refers to Sangiacomo as Angelo over and
over yet only touches on his vicious and parasitic legacy by saying he
had and adversarial relationship with tenant organizations and “didn't
cozy up to politicians".
As far as not cozying up to
politicians, I’m sure the money he contributed to Willie Brown’s
re-election campaign had something to do with the impenetrable wall the
overworked city attorneys came up against that rendered much of San
Francisco’s rent control , like today’s shameless lack of persecution of
illegal Ellis Act evictions, renter protection in name only.
There is an old saying: “History is written by the victors.” It’s not
that hard to see it, especially when it slaps you in the face.
The United States of Palestine
What if a group of illegal immigrants flooded into the United States seventy years ago, established their own country east of the Rocky mountains and threw out most Americans living there? How would you feel if they then colonized the rest of the country west of the Rocky mountains and walled off half of the Americans left in cities where they had no right of free speech, assembly or movement, faced arrest and imprisonment without charge and couldn’t vote for the government that controlled their lives? What would you think if they trapped the other half in a strip of land in Southern California called Los Angeles, malnourished, humiliated and abandoned by the rest of the world? Would you be one of those Americans who’d had enough? Would you want to free yourself from your oppressors even though you had no army, no air force or navy, no tanks or heavy weapons and you faced one of the most powerful militaries in the world who every couple of years blew Los Angeles to pieces killing thousands
of civilians, women and children? Would you want to start a revolution?
Your forefathers did.
(yes)
TPP TP
Regarding your editorial, “Opportunities and perils of a landmark trade deal”, The Trans-Pacific Partnership was written in secret by trans national corporations. The only reason anyone knows what it is really about is through leaks. Most of this “trade agreement” has very little to do with trade and everything to do with setting up a corporate court run by corporate judges where corporations can sue any participating nation with environmental, safety, health, banking , internet or any other regulation that stands in the way of their profits, a corporate coup that over rides any participating nation’s sovereignty. All national treaties, trade or otherwise should be examined thoroughly by congress but the Obama administration wants to pass a secret agreement that would “encompass 800 million people and 40 percent of the world’s economic activity” without any debate. This is not democracy. This is its opposite. And by the way, if “since World War II, free trade has served this nation well”, how is it that our manufacturing base is devastated, our middle class is evaporating, two thirds of us live a paycheck away from bankruptcy and fifty percent of our public school children live in poverty?
Dirty TP
Wow. First an editorial pushing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (Opportunities and perils of a landmark trade deal) and now a second one in less than a week (California’s free trade future) and yet there has been no dissenting opinion published in your letters to the editor. Surely you received some (besides mine).
They Don't Call It Show Art
Sony Pictures has the right to censor The Interview and president Obama has the right to chastise Sony for doing so but the elephant in the room is that the United States government and the Obama administration have continually censored and prosecuted whistle blowers and the reporters involved, and the CIA has been assassinating foreign country’s leaders for decades from Jaime Roldos of Ecuador and Omar Torillos of Panama to Salvador Allende of Chile. And of course there are the many times the CIA tried to assassinate Fidel Castro with everything from poisoned wet suits to exploding cigars. Exploding cigars! Who knows? Maybe Seth Rogen’s film is not just another heartless, brainless Hollywood film making fun of murdering some dictator and endangering the American people in the process, but actually a brilliant satirical comment on this country’s murderous, clandestine history, and maybe Sony’s reaction to the hacker’s threat of violence is not a blatant act of cowardice but an ingenious publicity stunt.
Operation Horse Shit
I can’t tell you how relieved I was to read that “after weeks of quiet deliberation behind closed doors” the Pentagon has come up with a name to inspire the citizenry in its next chapter of endless war. As the bridges, schools and roads crumble around us, congress once again demands the end of Medicare and Social Security, food stamps and unemployment are cut and what freedom we have left is peeled away, at least I’ll know that each Tomahawk missile at over a million bucks apiece launched to destroy a pick up truck in the desert will be worth Operation Inherent Resolve. God bless America.
(yes)
Devolution
San Francisco has edged out New York City as the most expensive city in the country to rent an apartment. Land lords are raking in more money than they could ever have dreamed of yet letters like Mr. Allen Horn’s (The rising cost of rent control, 7/14/15) and others published in Letters to the Editor these last couple of years decry rent control. Unchecked greed like this is as pitiful as it is breathtaking. How we as a species got this far is beyond me.
Monsanto Hagiography
Rather than doing what reporters were once trusted for, in depth investigation that results in real facts and the actual truth, a recent trend by traditional media reporters in newspapers and television offers “both sides of the story”. Thomas Lee’s article “Monsanto Touts GMO Benefits” is sad proof that traditional media is now abandoning even this equal opportunity reporting for out and out blatant corporate propaganda. The main argument against GMOs, the use of herbicides, pesticides and fungicides so pervasive and so poisonous that Rachel Carson is surely spinning in her grave is not even mentioned. Every point in Mr. Lee’s, or should I say Monsanto’s, article has an established scientific rebuttal yet not even one is offered and the mere suggestion that they exist is compared to “wild conspiracy theories” and the hysteria around child vaccinations. This is an astounding example of why Americans are turning away from traditional media in favor of on line information.
On Fashion
I have to admit the Friday, September 9 Open Forum ‘Why S.F.’s stylish are left out in the cold’ was one of the most biting offerings of satire I have read in a long time. Kudos to writer and attorney Lara Bazelon for eviscerating the legions of tech workers who have so changed the city of San Francisco. The breathtakingly blind fashion lament on how to deal with the fickle weather of the City in the face of the thousands of homeless and the thousands more facing eviction was truly inspired. And the coup de grace photo of her gold sandals over black wool socks? Brilliant.
8/28/23
Let Them Eat Cake
One would like to think this country has put the worst of the Gilded Age behind it but J. K. Dineen’s article “Group behind North Bay land buys ID’d as Silicon Valley power players” tosses that wishful thinking in the trash. Perhaps the most disgusting revelation is that when a group of ranchers refused to sell land they’ve worked and owned for generations, the modern day Robber Barons sued them for $510.000,000. Mary Antoinette, eat you heart out.
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