Activism

CRAZY ALERT: Proposed Amendment to Allow Any Asshole to Appeal Any Event

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

This is so fucked I'm just going to let this email we received from Dana Ketcham speak for itself:

I want to alert you to a proposed charter amendment that the Board of Supervisors will be considering in a hearing at 10 am on Friday on the 2nd Floor of City Hall. I apologize for the late notice but I just learned about the hearing.

This amendment would potentially allow any event permit issue by San Francisco Rec and Parks Dept. to be appealed  by any member of the public that opposes the permit. The appeal would go to the Board of Appeals (a lengthy process). This amendment could make it extremely difficult to do events because:

  1. Any permit could be appealed by anyone. Basically every park in this city has at least one vocal neighbor that does not want events at the park. This includes Justin Hermann, Union Square, Golden Gate Park, Dolores and many others.  In addition, there are other park groups who oppose events in parks in general.
  2. There is no time frame on the appeal process so you would have an appeal pending making it impossible to plan for your event. If the Board of Appeals does not hear the appeal, you can proceed with it but it would be uncertain if it would get to your appeal. We know the months of planning that goes into the events.

We believe that all of you do valuable work on a number of types of events ranging from fun events in our parks to fund-raisers for not for profit organizations to cultural celebrations.  These would be curtailed.

As part of the permit process with SFRPD, SFRPD works hard with each of you to be responsive to members of the community and their concerns and ask each of you to do community outreach as part of the permit process to address their concerns. If there are significant issues SFRPD tries to resolve them and if necessary takes the permit to the Recreation and Park Commission.

I urge you or the organizations you represent to appear at this hearing to learn about this proposal and to express your views. The meeting is at 10 am on Friday in the 2nd Floor of City Hall. The best thing is if you can appear in person . If you can not, I urge you to email the members of the Board of Supervisors who are on the Committee that are hearing this appeal. They are:

If this proceeds it will be a ballot initiative on the November ballot. It would also provide the members of the Recreation and Park Commission would be appointed in part by the Board of Supervisors.

TRAGIC: Crackpots SUCCESSFULLY Block Improved Cellphone Service for Dolores Park

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Remember back when we laughed at a completely ludicrous protest of NIMBY neighbors claiming that making cellphones work in the northwest corner of the Mission would hurt the children?  Well, guess what, the protest actually fucking worked.  In spite of the fact there is no scientific proof backing their claims that the celltower would cause you to turn into a swamp monster, T-Mobile backed down and withdrew their permit application.

From known neighborhood troll Gideon Kramer:

As you may know, T-Mobile applied for a permit to install a cell phone tower in the spire of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, 3281 16th St., across from Mission Dolores. Neighbors very concerned about the adverse health effects of radiofrequency microwave emissions from cellphone towers (see www.discoverrealanswers.com/Cell_Towers.shtml if interested in learning more) [ED NOTE: Any site that is called “Discover Real Answers”  or “RON PAUL FORUMS” and ends in .shtml IS NOT TO BE FUCKING TRUSTED], especially in the vicinity of so many schools as we have here in the Mission Dolores neighborhood, protested, and did so successfully.

We just learned that T-Mobile has withdrawn its application. Congratulations to all who made this happen.

Congratulations to all who made this happen.  You're all officially tools.  Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to smoke a parliament, drink Jameson all night, eat fast food, microwave a frozen dinner, call someone on my cellphone without using a headset, sit out in the sun without a shirt on all day, and cover myself in bugspray because I heard it was going to be a really bad year for mosquitos.

Signed,
One of your precious fucking children

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Kill Hipsters & Yuppies

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

I've been seeing a lot of these tags going up around the Mission and Bayview.  Ignoring the fact I've been digging the tags purely as an urban blightform, this is kind of weak.  I mean, yeah, gentrification really sucks.  Pretty sure a genocide of everyone wearing flannel and business casual will solve your problems.

In a possibly related note, there has also been an uptick of MS-13 tags around the hood.  In this example, it is apparent that they have been having a cute laugh lately:

I personally don't have much experience with the MS-13 in the Mission, but I know if East Boston they won't think twice about chasing someone through a gentrified cafe with a machete.  Or lighting a cat on fire and throwing it through a window (via Molotov Cattails).  Pretty sure that would make Union SF residents think twice about going to Haus.

Hippies fuck up my Friday commute home with their misdirected BP protest, resulting in more gas use.

— By Zach Perkins |

SF Weekly reports that KevMo's hippie cyclist cohorts are planning some kind of anti-BP protest party that should start momentarily.  I do like parties and I do like protests against foreign dickwad oil companies, but what I don't like is when you assholes do it at the ARCO station at Divisadero and Fell at 5:30pm on a Friday afternoon.  

The section of Fell between the Octavia off-ramp and Divisadero is the kind of one-way corridor where if just one asshole decides to double-park, it dominos and the entire strip turns from a 5 minute drive into a 20 minute drive.  So fuck you for ruining my Friday and causing hundreds of motorists to spend even more time idling in their cars, burning even more gas.  Also fuck you for taking this out on an individual station owner; because he's totally to blame for BP's irresponsible policies, amirite?  Dick.

Also, here's a New York Times article to explain to you exactly why you're a misinformed dipshit.  I'd gladly do it, but I have to leave work early to deal with this shit storm you've created for me on Fell St.

As Jon Stewart would say, here's your moment of zen:

“We think that area could be put to better use, like a park, community garden or storefront.”

~Janel Sterbentz, event organizer.

 

[UPDATE: 8:00PM, 6/11/10]

I drove by around 6:30pm.  There was a fair turnout who were only partially obstructing the entrance to the station.  Traffic on Fell was noticeably slower, with serious congestion beginning around Steiner. 

Photo courtesy of my shitty cameraphone and the extra traffic that allowed me to take this pic.

Freedom From Porn: Protesting Steve Jobs' Stance on Pornography on the iPad

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

San Franciscans will protest anything: a reader cued us in on the latest protest going on around Apple's WWDC today.  That's right, Freedom From Porn is went around SOMA this morning tagging Apple ads.  So now instead of seeing someone Facebook creeping some girl named Jessica, you now know Steve Jobs likes to share vids of gang bangs.  From their website:

Dear Steve,

You don't want people looking at vaginas on the tablet you named after a feminine hygiene product? Something smells fishy.

Sincerely,

Dudes who like porn

P.S. If you agree that porn is great, you should send your favorite vids to sjobs@apple.com

Dunno about this.  I know it's kind of lame he doesn't allow porn in the app store because Daddy Knows Best, but considering many companies are embracing HTML5, isn't this sort of moot?  Can't we access Adult Friend Finder already?  Wait, does anyone reading this blog know what HTML5 is?  FUCK.

Anyways, here's a safe-for-work video of the protestors in action:

Freedom From Porn from Freedom From Porn on Vimeo.

If the City Really Cared About the Environment / Cleaning Up Dolores Park, They Wouldn't Make You Brown Bag It

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Last night a few of us wanted to get faded walking the length of Divis and decided that was a job properly handled by tallcans.  Of course, the packie was already out of properly sized bags so we had to use fullsize bags.  For fucksake, this is just ridiculous.  Look, I know we're protecting little children who only know Budweiser as “the thing daddy drinks before he hits mommy” and all, but is this really necessary.

  1. People are I am clearly going to drink in public regardless of whatever law you pass.
  2. It's an inexplicably useless waste of paper.
  3. Half the trash tumbleweeds in Dolores Park are brownbags that the recyclers toss to the ground after picking up peoples half-full beers. (Sorry to bring up the EVER PRESSING CONCERN of Dolores Park but this shit is lifeblood)

Anyways, since clearly a blog post isn't going to save the world, I thank you for listening to my rant.

Dodgers Fans Call it NOPA

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Guys, I don't spend too much time up in the Western Addition/NOPA/the Land of the Lost because it requires me to bike up a 4-block gradual incline to get there.  The horror!  I wasn't aware that there was a class war / NorCal-SoCal debate surrounding the proper name of the neighborhood.  Someone care to properly fill me in?

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