Bay Bridge update - closure hurting San Francisco restaurants

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Closed Bay Bridge  hurts SF

We're entering the third full day of the Bay Bridge closure after the Bay Bridge Cable Collapse disaster and the new World without an open Bay Bridge is hurting San Francisco restaurants according to the manager I talked to.

One person who didn't mind being quoted but without name or his establishment mentioned, said that along the Embarcadero, the walk-in traffic they're used to getting has just dried up. You'd think people would just take BART but "they want their cars", he said, "otherwise they just stayed home.

He's right. After 9 PM some parts of the Embarcadero, especially between AT&T Park and Howard Street seem devoid of humans on the weeknights that the bridge has been closed.

And that's likely to remain the case through next week as CalTrans just announced the Bay Bridge will be closed through the weekend and perhaps on Monday, too.

Again, a 24-hour BART service plan would help ease the economic pain San Francisco's going through.

Oakland parking problem: Noel Pinto, Susan Bergmann's upset with you!

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I got the email below from Susan Bergmann, who's a very upset Oakland small business owner, and especially with Oakland Parking Director Noel Pinto.

Susan Bergmann gave me permission to present the email in full to you and she wants Noel Pinto to see it. (I'm telling you, she's really pissed). I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who's really in a lather about the City of Oakland's "misery industry."

If you have a problem with Oakland parking you want to share with the World, send it to me at zennie@zennie62.com with the words, "please print for your blogs" in the subject heading.

Hi Zennie,


I am engaged in a battle with Noel Pinto, new head of parking. He insists on giving me parking tickets on MacArthur Blvd, in front of my office, for violation of 2 hour parking, despite the fact that I come and go all day long. After 11 months, I finally got my "hearing" yesterday and it was very humorous (if its not your life). I would love to get publicity for what has happened. Eventually, I will prevail in small claims court, because what the city is doing to me is outrageous. But I have to jump through many, many hoops before I can see a real judge.
Here is my story of yesterday's hearing:


My Day in Court


Today, I went to the Parking Bureau in downtown Oakland to fight a series of parking tickets I have received in the past eleven months. One ticket has disappeared from the system, one had a wrong address on it, so I think it will be thrown out. One has not yet been processed. So that left just one of the four.


My first question to the "Administrative Hearing Officer" (Rudy Villegas):


"How is this the same and different from a court?"


Hearing Officer: "It's just the same."


Me: "Is there the presumption of innocence?"


Hearing Officer: "What's that?"


Me: "It means the burden of proof is on the City to prove I violated a law."


Hearing Officer: "Oh, of course not. I have the file from the parking bureau right here, and you have to convince me that you're not guilty."


Me: "Then this is not like a court of law. In court, you are innocent until proven guilty."


Hearing Officer: "Well, not in traffic court. You have to prove that you didn't do it."


It was an inauspicious start. We got to the ticket in question, a violation of the two hour parking limit.


Me: "I came to my office at 11:00 am. I left at 12:00 noon to go to swim team. I returned at 1:30 pm, parking at a different spot. I got a ticket for violating 2 hour parking at 2:00. The total time I was parked was one and a half hours."


Hearing Officer: "It says on the ticket that your car was parked there at 11:43 am. But I don't see that verified."


Me: "I was parked there at 11:43. I'll stipulate to that. I was also parked in front of my office, at a different place, at 2:00 pm. But I was not there for a large part of the time in between."


Hearing Officer: "Well, that doesn't matter. Because the way the system works, they just record whether your car was there or not."


It reminded me of Alice in Wonderland. I would present the facts, and the White Rabbit across the desk from me would sing "La la la la".


At the end of the hearing, the officer asked me, "Why don't you just park someplace else?"


When I was in the bathroom, Mr. Villegas told my husband, "I just took this job to get the money for greens fees {golfing]. I thought it would be easy, no stress. Then, I get cases like today."


When I got home from court, a notice was in the mail saying my latest parking ticket has been sent to a collections agency.


Zennie, I do have other outrageous details, particularly relating to Jean Quan's office (that is the district where my office is located).


Might you be interested in any of these details? If not, any ideas about how to publicize any of this?
Thanks! Keep fighting the good fight.


Susan Bergmann

OSCAR ALERT - Animated Feature Entries Due November 2nd for Academy Awards

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I just received an alert from AMPAS (The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) explaining that filmmakers who want to qualify for the Animated Feature Film category for the 2010 82nd Annual Academy Awards must get their entry forms and supporting information and materials in to AMPAS by Monday (this Monday) November 2nd at 5 PM. The deadline to get your film prints in is November 13th.

If you need more information visit http://www.oscars.org/rules/, and if that's not enough, call Wil Goldenberg via phone at (310) 247-3000, ext. 190, by fax at (310) 247-2600, or by e-mail at wgoldenberg@oscars.org. (He's not in the office today, but there's someone else there who can help you.)

Getting your information in on time for this awards segment is a big deal. Past winners include Finding Nemo in 2003 and WALL-E last year. Both films were by Disney / Pixar, and Pixar's located in Emeryville, just up the road (Oakland's Telegraph Avenue) from me.

Currently, here's the list of possible contenders in this category (they've got to make the deadline) as posted over at AwardsDaily earlier this month:

<i>9
Astro Boy
Battle for Terra
A Christmas Carol
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Coraline
Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Mary and Max
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Planet 51
Ponyo
The Princess and the Frog
Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure
Up</i>

Five of these films will be nominated for the award. One of them may not be my personal favorite Monsters v. Aliens, but then given its box office performance I could be wrong here. Astroboy will not be in the final five as it's just a disappointingly empty story to many, myself included here.

Stay tuned.

Tom Hayes: Has Senator Lieberman jumped the shark?

Shining the light on those who game the system and talk out of both sides of their mouth has given some in Congress fits. D.C. has never liked public attention to focus on influence peddling: the facts about campaign contributions, or how congressional spouses (such as Mrs. Joe Lieberman) earn money from sitting on boards of directors, or working for lobbying firms, etc., never sit well with constituents. But in times of economic crisis the appearance of financial improprieties becomes even more politically dangerous.

In a year when "lobbyist" may replace "liberal" as the dreaded L-word, the wise politician draws no attention to any connections with the corporate shills who infest Congress like a biblical plague. Any elected official whose spouse is paid to represent or advise an unpopular special interest should observe that simple caution even more carefully. Naive voters may not understand that this is simply how business is done in their corrupt capital these days -- so it is best to say nothing and hope that nobody asks too many questions.

~Joe Conason
In bed with Big Pharma
September 2006

What connects the Senator to GlaxoSmithKline, and lobbying firms APCO and Hill & Knowlton? What's the effect of drawing so much attention to the undue influence big insurance companies have via contributions to his campaign and PACs? Will his threatened defection on the public option cost him his precious committee chairmanship?

For-profit insurance is unique to the U.S. health care system. No other developed country has a profit motive warping the payment of health care. Activists have had more influence than predicted, and information flowing from "new media" sites that aren't being influenced by relying on profits from advertisers with an agenda is shining a lot of unwelcome light on influence peddling in D.C.

Will the changes move from health insurance reform to ethics reform?  Remember, both were on Obama's agenda when he was elected a year ago...

Read more...

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, journalist, and political analyst who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.

Gates, Crowley hold new "Beer Summit" In Cambridge Bar - No Obama

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According to WBZTV.com, Harvard Professor Skip Gates and Cambridge police Sergeant James Crowley were seen at the "River Gods" bar at 125 River St in Cambridge, Wednesday night. (Now,you know the owner of River Gods was just jazzed over the appearance of Gates and Crowley.)

President Obama wasn't there this time

If you remember, Sgt. Crowley arrested Professor Gates at his own home in an encounter that launched a new conversation on racism and racial profiling, where I said that Gates was arrested for being an uppity black man:



...and led to the famous first "Beer Summit" with President Obama:



Both Gates and Crowley said they would meet again and create a joint program to work to eliminate racial profiling.

What drinks the two had is not reported as of this writing and they only stayed for a hour (probably left after the buzz of their meeting got hot), but I noticed by the bar's website that they met on River Gods "Primitive Sounds" night, featuring "Roots Rock and Roll, Gospel, and Blues" with "DJ Easy Ed" as the guest. So Gates and Crowley, black and white, meet on a night mixing Rock and Roll and Blues.

For some reason, I don't think that was an accident.

Tom Hayes: CNNMoney.com gets "Cash for Clunkers" wrong

You'd expect an author at CNNMoney.com to understand the relationship between cashflow and business success.  You'd expect an editor to send this article back to re-write either for more research or more objectivity.  Here was the basis of Peter Valdes-Dapena's misguided assessment:

"...majority of sales would have taken place anyway at some time in the last half of 2009, according to Edmunds.com"

So? This isn't news, and it misses the point of the Cash for Clunkers initiative.

Valdes-Dapena and/or his editors may think selling cars sooner rather than later is a valid reason to criticize the program, but as any businessman can tell you: success in business is about cash flow. Any retail operation needs to keep their stock turning over. At a time when the inventory was sitting idle on the lots this program provided a much needed infusion, enabling dealers to pay staff, utilities, creditors, and suppliers.

Did the Cash for Clunkers program solve the economic crisis? Of course not.  Nor was it intended to. The goal was simple: turn over inventory in one segment of the industry - to keep dealerships from failing in huge numbers before the manufacturers could recover. Save some jobs and hopefully avert a catastrophic spread of deterioration in the auto industry that would further delay economic recovery.

The article may fool a person with no entrepreneurial experience, but it reflects either a shallow grasp of money and business or a thinly-veiled attack on the government's attempt to avert a breakdown in the delivery mechanism of an industry it was actively seeking to save - without proposing any alternative that might have been even marginally effective.

The public may think "Cash for Clunkers" was as simple as just selling cars, the author obviously wants to, but the reality is much subtler. Edmunds didn't surprise anybody (except maybe CNNMoney.com staff) with the news that one of the primary effects was to accelerate the decisions and purchases:

In business, my friends, timing is everything.

 
Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, journalist, and political analyst who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.

Jewish afro? "Orgasm-inducing Jewfro?" What?

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Have you ever heard of a "Jewfro?" This question is under the category of "change of pace", which is a good thing if only to keep the mind fresh, but I'm also curious to learn more about it.

My friend Sarah was talking about her new hairdo and made a passing reference to it being a "Jewfro" or "Jew-fro" as she spells it. I stopped her and said "what?" as I thought she made up the term since she and I regularly talk about Jewish culture and traditions. But when she broke out with that term I knew I'd been sheltered too long.

She says a Jewfro is an "an Afro, but particular to Jews." But as a person who has Jewish lines in his ancestry, and had a short Afro when I was young...

Here..

Lars checks out Zennie's Jewfro

I figured I'd had a right to use the term, but I'd never known of it before!

Moreover, I had a lot of fun talking about it with her and my other friends, and realized that we'd gone a little too far in punishing people who make offhand comments that identify an ethnic characteristic.

The Bob Griese Taco Issue was the last straw for me. I got the impression the ESPN analyst would have been skewered if he said the singing group DeBarge used too much Jerri-Curl!

I researched the term Jewfro over at Urbandictionary.com's "Jewfro Section" and found some, shall we say, interesting and in some cases howlingly funny definitions, many that I could not have created if I tried:

1. The Jewish man's afro - by Mia Mar 9, 2005
2. An orgasm-inducing hairstyle worn by people of jewish descent. It consists of curly hair and is often large. Famous wearers of the jewfro: Matt Stone (creator of "South Park") Matt Stone's jewfro not only made me want to give him my virginity,but to also hump my chair. - by Amanda and Thais Oct 29, 2004
3. A curly mop of hair with lots of volume, sported by many a Jewish brother.
Matt Stone doesn't look as cool now he's cropped the jewfro. - by Pete Rakowski Jan 3, 2005
4. A large, round and often boulbus hairstyle found most often within the jewish comunity. It's not a fricken afro, I am not black, it's a "Jewfro" for christs sake. - by Sam Freund Feb 28, 2004 

Matt Stone's orgasm-inducing Jewfro

(A Jewfro's orgasm-inducing?  Ok.  I'm jealous.  I was told to go bald for the same reason!) 

So the video you see has led to an interesting set of comments on YouTube, where I regularly read my comments (I don't read them on other newsite blogs because frankly some of them are written by total stalker nutcases, one of which I'm filing a restraining order against), some of which I'll share:

jimisback - My wife has one. But she is not Jewish or African American. It is natural too.


kenrg - LMAO - You really never heard that before? Goes back at least to the mid-70s.


karakaraman01 - Zennie she right she didn't make it up, Seth Rogen uses that term in most of his movie.


Eurotrash4367 - I heard it said by Adam Sandler in one of his movies.

Ok, so it's real the term and the style. But for all of this, it's shockingly not a Wikipedia definition! At any rate, I'm happy to know we can at least laugh at our ethnic differences and learn they're really ethnic similarities, too. 

But with all of this, I'm remaining bald because a woman friend of mine came up with a song called "I like em Bald!" and sang it for me - to my surprise - at Foley's Pub in San Francisco.  So my look stays!