Florence

This morning we arrived in Florence around 9 a.m. We were on our train from Prague from abou 5 p.m. until almost midnight, when we switched in the Munich train station. That, so far, has been the most surreal of our experiences in Europe. On the train to Munich, I had been stretched out on some empty seats sleeping. Nathan woke me up when we pulled into Munich and we quickly gathered our things and detrained and learned out Florence train was on the other side of the station. As we quickly hauled our bags across the station, we were passed on all sides by streaming masses of young German Frauen und Herren in traditional German dress and lederhosen. Oktoberfest was supposed to have ended the day before; my theory is that the festival stays open an extra day for those who worked it, and the Bier drinking goes on ... I was half asleep through all this and kind of disoriented. I pulled out my little camera to try to capture at least one of these groups of crazy bier drinkers, but it was temporarily not working. So I'll never know if it was all just a dream...

From Munich we were in a car with a set of bunk beds, so we slept (surprisingly well) on our way to Florence. We took a cab from the train station to our hotel and were lucky to find our room ready, we checked in and showered and then set off to explore for the day. I was starving, and luckily we found a place that sold big, delicious slices of pizza for 2.50 Euros. In our wanderings we saw more African guys selling knock-off handbags and sunglasses than just about anything else. Well, except tourists, of course. My guidebook says Florence has about 320,000 residents and 9 million visitors per year. We passed over the 'gold bridge', which houses dozens of jewelry sellers. Shopping appears to be the favorite past time here. The tourist guide brochures even advertise guided, all-day shopping tours. I think maybe you can get some good deals here, if you're so inclined; designer jeans that would probably cost about $150 at Nordstrom are about 50 euros here.

On our way back to the hotel, Nathan commented that the city seemed dead outside of the tourist center. That was around 2 p.m. After resting at the hotel and venturing back out around6, we realized that we had been seeing the long lunch break; at 6 things were happening. So I guess the ideal schedule is : mornings at a musuem, than lunch, then a nap from 2-4, then shopping, then dinner!

Florence is very walkable, and our hotel is outside the city center, which I think is beneficial in that it shows us a more authentic Florence neighborhood as we walk back from meals, sightseeing and such. It is absolutely a lovely city.

Tonight we ate at a terrific restaurant that was recommended in the guidebook. I tried tripe, which is supposed to be a Florentine specialty. It was ok. I think Nathan's veal was better.

Tomorrow we hope to get up early and go to one of the famous museums before the que gets too long.

Prague

Sunday morning we left
our hotel in Berlin after eating a quick breakfast so we could get to the
Hauptbanhof (train station) for our 7:42 train. It arrived on time, of
course, and we took our seats and settled in for the four-and-a-half
hour trip. We napped some at the beginning, read our books, and looked
at the scenery. The part of Germany that we went through was quite
flat, and Berlin quickly gave way to farmland. No sprawl like in the
U.S. After the Czech Repub. border it started getting quite
mountainous. We even saw terrain that reminded us of Yosemite, as the
train tracks followed a river with sheer rock cliffs jutting up from
the banks.

Our train happened to arrived in the smaller of the Prague train
stations. We decided to take a cab to our hotel, since we didn't have
any idea how to do public transit here (we only took one cab in
Berlin, to the hotel this morning, because the buses weren't running
frequently enough that early on Sunday--only about $15 for the cab
ride). We were quickly spied by a cab driver who offered to take us to
our hotel for 500 Crowns -- about $30! I didn't realize the exchange
rate and that we should have bargained with the cabbie. Oh well. Now
we know.

Lunch was at a restaurant near our hotel. It was an Italian place, but
we had some Czech sausages in addition to our salads. The salads were
not quite like anything we knew -- I had tuna and Nathan had fried
calamari. His came in the shape of onion rings on a bed of cucumber,
super-thin-sliced onions, eggs, tomatoes, etc (mine was on the same
bed). It was good, but the beer and sausages were great.

After that we checked into our hotel room. Then we
took a bus down to the main part of the city and walked to the castle,
which is by far the most popular and most celebrated attraction in the
city. It's really a little city unto itself on a hill above Prague.
And it is filled with souvenir shops and restaurants just waiting to
ensnare tourists (most of whom speak English or German). Prague
reminds me of the Fisherman's Wharf area of San Francisco, with it's
throngs of tourists, souvenir shops and signs blaring -- mostly in
English -- things like "best ice cream in Prague" or "oldest pub in
Prague." In spite of all that, the castle is amazing. Construction
started in it in the 1300's. It took a couple centuries for it to be
mostly finished, I think. We visited St. Vitus (sp?) Cathedral within
the castle. It was crammed with people tilting their heads to take
pictures of the enormous stained glass windows, the towering ceiling
and the colorful light reflected through the glass onto the stone
walls. Nathan said it reminded him of Notre Dame, and I think I heard
someone else there saying the same thing. After that we wandered
through some of the rest of the castle and down through the gardens in
front. Then we walked down the main touristy drag and did a bit of
souvenir shopping. (Prague is known for its crystal and blown glass
items.)

Monday morning we had breakfast in our hotel -- included again, and
pretty similar to our breakfasts in Berlin, but we missed having
orange juice. After that we checked out of our hotel and took the bus
to the main part of Prague. It was a bit of an adventure. First we
couldn't get on the 133, the bus we took last night that took us right
where we wanted to be, because it was too full! So we waited a few
minutes and took the 207, which stopped a little short of where we
wanted to be, so we had to walk an extra half mile or so. The bus was a bit slow because of traffic jams -- a thing unknown in Berlin. The subway
and trams in Prague don't seem to cover a great area. The buses seem
to go just about everywhere, but I don't think we had a great transit
map. The streets are so windy in Prague that I had a very hard time
getting my bearings, and the language is so unfamiliar that it was
hard to remember the names of the streets we were on.

We spent the whole day wandering around the main part of Prague,
stopping here and there to sit and watch the people go by. Prague is
an amazing city, and a bit overwhelming. Walking the cobblestone
streets and alleys between the centuries-old buildings is a unique
experience. This is a day we won't forget; hopefully we'll be able to
come back here some day.

One last thought: Before we came to Prague, we heard lots of talk about how cheap
it is. From what we can tell, that's a bunch of hooey.

German food

Germans make the worlds finest cars. They make the worlds most comfortable shoes. Where they do not excel is in the making of food.

Berliners should be on their knees thanking their Turkish neighbors every day for bringing them flavorful, scrumptious Doner and Kabap. In recent decades thousands of Turks have immigrated to Germany and many have settled in the bustling Kreuzberg neighborhood where we’re staying. You don’t have to walk more than a block from anywhere to find a stand or restaurant selling gyros and kababs. Some are better than others, of course, but they are all good.

I think Berliners must eat at the Turkish joints a lot, as well as at the many Italian places and other ethnic restaurants we saw. Because if they ate anything like the schnitzel I ate last night on a daily basis, we would see a lot more fat people in Berlin (we’ve hardly seen any) – or maybe just fewer people, because they’d all be dying of heart attacks. Schnitzel is breaded pork with cream sauce, and it often comes with French fries (which they call here by their French name, pommes frites). It is quite bland. And no one seems to be interested in serving fresh veggies or anything healthy with it.

That said, the Germans make wonderful breads and pastries. There are backeries on every block, selling rolls, loaves, danishes and big pretzels that are almost crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. There are soft, delicious rolls at our big breakfast every morning, and we can slather them with fruit compotes or make them into little sandwiches with deli turkey and swiss cheese slices.

We can sustain ourselves easily on the big breakfast buffet that’s included in the price of our room, the cheap, yummy and large Turkish gyros and the bakeries – including Dunkin Donuts.

Thoughts on German fashion

This city is mullet-crazy. We see mullets. Lots of mullets. Everywhere. On dudes, on chicks. The other morning we saw a small group of school kids on a field trip and at least two of them had mullets. And at least one of them was on a girl. Yikes!

I’ve noticed a lot of Pumas on German feet. Berliners also seem to like American baseball fashion: I’ve seen Yankees hats, a White Sox jacket and at the market in the Hermmanplatz across from our hotel, tie-dyed Dodgers tees for sale.

Women seem to like wacky boots; lots of embellishments, details, etc. Red boots over white pants seem trendy. I haven’t seen all that many folks wearing Birkenstocks. But, since I love Birkenstocks, I had to check out the Birkenstock store in the central district yesterday. They’re half as much here (since they’re made here!) as they are in the US. So I bought an awesome pair of purple thongs. Super-awesome.

The leggings rage seems to have caught on quick here. I’ve also seen miniskirts over cargo pants. Miniskirts just with regular stockings turn heads.

Another interesting thing I’ve noticed is brightly-colored shoes that match the top. Like bright pink or lime green. Very interesting.

Last day in Berlin

On our last day in Berlin we decided to take a trip outside the city to Potsdamm, where King Frederick the Great built his Schloss Sanssouci, or “palace without worries.” It’s about 40 minutes outside the city, but, as with the city itself, easily accessible via public transit. We spent a little more than two hours there and barely covered half the grounds. And we didn’t even go inside the castle, as this requires the purchase of an 8 Euro tour, which was sold out until three hours after we got there. So we walked around and explored the immense tiered gardens, strolled numerous hidden paths with wondrous statues of people and creatures and structures in the Rococo style -- even a huge obelisk. We toured the grounds of the Fierenkirche (Church of Peace) where King Frederick is buried. And we had a picnic lunch by a pond on a bench in the shade while we watched the tourists and day-trippers stroll by.

Yesterday afternoon we visited the Technikmuseum, a huge museum built on the grounds of an old train station. (As with many modern Berlin buildings, the architecture was impressive.) It houses boats, trains and planes of all eras. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of the exhibit information was translated into English.

Tomorrow morning we will check out of our hotel early and catch a 7:45 train to Prague. Aufwedersehen, Berlin!

More in Berlin

Here's Nathan's email to our family about our day.

Oh, and I'm happy to report that Dunkin Donuts in Berlin is as good as in Chicago!


This morning Kathy and I had another yummy breakfast at our hotel,
> then bought our U-bahn passes for the day. We were up early and the
> museums don't open until 10, so we took a walk and bought some cold
> remedy for Kathy at a drugstore and picked up some diet coke
> (Coca-Cola light here) and beer to drink later at a little grocery
> store. Then we dropped that stuff off at our hotel and took the U8
> line up to the Alexanderplatz U-bahnhof (subway station). We walked
> from there through the park that surrounds the Fernsehsturm, a very
> tall and bizarre-looking TV tower, and continued on to "museum
> island". We went to the Pergamon Museum, where they have giant
> reconstructions of a temple that was originally in the Greek city of
> Pergamon, and also of one of the outer gates of Babylon, the Ishtar
> gate, that was built during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. We
> listened to the very informative audio tour in English, then wandered
> around to some other parts of the museum, including the wing holding
> Helenistic artifacts: statues, columns from temples, etc.
>
> We then walked back to the Alexanderplatz U-bahn station, stopping
> en-route long enough for Kathy to take some pictures of a giant
> fountain containing statuary of Neptune or Poseidon and assorted
> minions, and to get a drink and donut from Dunkin Donuts. Then we
> came back to the vicinity of our hotel, picked up a cheap lunch from a
> doner/pizza place across the street from our hotel (lots of yummy food
> for $4 euros!) and ate it and rested in the room a bit.
>

In Berlin

We got to our hotel around noon yesterday. The window in our room overlooks a plaza that is surrounded by shops and some little take-out and fast-food restaurants. I was amazed
that there was a Dunkin Donuts down the block on the corner -- they
don't have any Dunkin Donuts in the Bay Area, but they do in Berlin. We still haven't tried it, so we'll see if it's as good as back in Chicago. We ate a quick lunch at a little doner stand (think Turkish gyros) down the street. It drizzled on and off all day.

After lunch yesterday we went to Checkpoint Charlie, which has an interesting
little history exhibit about the Wall, Cold War, etc, but is overrun
with people selling silly souvenirs and other touristy garbage. After
a short time there, Nathan got extremely tired, so we sat for a bit
and then took the U-Bahn (subway) back to our hotel. It's really easy
to take the U everywhere; we can see the station entrance from our
room and we've never had to wait more than 5 minutes for a train. And
it goes everywhere we've wanted to go so far, and probably everywhere
we'd want to go.

We got back to our hotel around 5 and immediately went to bed. We
slept almost 12 hours, and hung out in our hotel room until breakfast
time. Breakfast is included with the room and is a buffet, with eggs
one of three ways, lots of tasty bread, cheeses, lunch meats, fruits,
veggies, yogurt, and juice. There were also some...meat loafs? They
were these slices of something that reminded me of these soaps I've
bought called Primal Soaps. The slices are made of something clear
(fat?) and have bits of meat and maybe peppers and maybe olives
suspended in them. I tasted one. Very strange.

We were out of our hotel by 9 a.m. armed with a guidebook and our day
pass for the U-Bahn, purchased at the front desk. We got to the Mitte
(middle) section of Berlin, but only after being delayed by one stop
because of our car being crammed full of kids on some kind of field
trip; we couldn't get to the doors in time! But the next stop was
close enough to our destination, so we got off and walked a bit south
to Unter den Linden (Under the Linden Trees), a main promenade through
central Berlin. This took us to the Brandenburg Gate, which, if you
did a Google Images search, you would recognize from the fall of the
Wall, when the East Germans stood on top of the wall as it was coming
down in front of Brandenburg Gate. It's huge and has an amazing statue
on top.

Then we walked a little further to the Reichstag, which is more than
100 years old and is now one of the main parliament buildings. We took
an elevator to the top (after waiting "only" an hour) to view the city
from the glass cupola, which has at its center a structure that Nathan
thought looked like a device a villain in a Bond movie would use. I
thought it looked like a cousin of the Bean in Millenium Park. After
that we took a boat tour on the Spree River, which is the main river
running through the city. The tour covered the Reichstag, several
other government buildings, the spot where Berlin originated as a
fishing village in the 1300s, the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral,
modeled after St. Peter's in Rome) and Museum Island. This includes
the major museums in Berlin, including the famous Pergamon, which we
plan to hit tomorrow. It's supposed to be amazing!

After the boat tour we walked around for a while looking for a lunch
place. We finally found an authentic-seeming German place where Nathan
ate Currywurst (a sausage with curry sauce on it, also commonly found
on the street for a Euro) and I had some goulash, which the waitress
warmed me was "really hot." I figured the German definition of "really
hot" was different than mine, and I was right. I enjoyed it. The restaurant had the
tables mashed together, so we sat by the open front window and some
businessmen on lunch sat next to us and offered to help us translate
the menu. Most people know English, it seems; we encountered another
friendly volunteer translator on the subway this morning.

It's about 4:30 p.m. and we're at our hotel relaxing for a bit. We
plan to go back out again in a bit and maybe check out Potsdammer
Platz, another big site in the main part of the city.

Here are a few pics!

Gross, yet cool

This is my upper right wisdom tooth, extracted today after it started to chip. Look at how the chipping has started to reveal the black decay of the cavity! Grody. Yet awesome.

Banned book week

Someone sent this to my mothers' club mailing list (um, "A Light in the Attic"?!? What is wrong with people...):

every year, the last week of september is the american library association's banned book week. 2006 marks the 25th anniversary of this event.

BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.

please consider reading a 'banned book' in the coming week (or anytime for that matter!) or read one with your child. at the very least, please just look at the list(s) of books that have been banned or challenged in some capacity. i think you will be suprised (judy blume books? where's waldo? to kill a mockingbird? where did i come from?)

i checked out the RWC public library site, and as far as i can tell, they're not doing anything to promote this.

if you''d like to read more, here are some helpful links:

ALA banned books main page
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bannedbooksweek.htm

ALA explanation of banned/challeneged books
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/challengedbanned/challengedbanned.htm

ALA 100 most challenged books 1990-2000
http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=bbwlinks&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=85714

even more complete list of banned books on wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banned_books

some great quotes on censorship
http://quotes.forbiddenlibrary.com/

"We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."
-- John F. Kennedy

"Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance."
-- Lyndon Baines Johnson, February 11, 1964

"If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed."
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1730

The real question is, what do they sound like?

My star's turned TURQUOISE!!!!

I just got this email from Ebay:

Congratulations! You've achieved a feedback rating of 100! With a Turquoise Star beside your user name, you are an active and well-established member of the eBay community.

We want to thank you for helping make eBay, The World's Online Marketplace™, a safe and vibrant place to trade. Your success is our success. We're cheering you on every day.

We hope you'll download your Turquoise Star Certificate and display it proudly. You've certainly earned it! (You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you don't have it, get it here.)

Again, congratulations on your success, and keep shooting for the stars!


Meg Whitman
President and CEO, eBay Inc.

Um, are you KIDDING me?!? An achievement certificate?!?!?!? Since when did Ebay's marketing become the purview of second graders? What acolossall waste. What were they thinking?!?

Wait 'til Next Year

A documentary on the Cubs' futility premiers on my birthday.

Redneck crime

Note the graf about the hand-painted, aluminum-siding sign.

Is it possible to forget?

If you were older than, say, 8 in Spt. 2001, I don't know how you can not have every image of that day burned onto your brain. I remember hundreds of little details, even from before I heard the news. The perfect blue of the sky as I rode my bike down Foothill Expressway. That second set of rings on my cell phone from my husband in our apartment in Menlo Park. Stopping after a light and taking the cell phone out of the little pouch on the back rack of my new Bianchi. Listening to the message and not believing. The sign-off of that message: "Be careful." Calling friends who had relatives in New York. Looking up at the plane-less sky.

I still feel a twinge of something -- dread? -- every time I see a jet high in the sky. I still have regular nightmares where I see a plane crash.

I know that sad, sick feeling I felt when my husband and I walked past Ground Zero during our trip last spring to see a game at Yankee Stadium. (Why do people pose for pictures in front of those fences?)

Bob is the man.

Yet another of Kathy's blogs.

Screw it

I give up. I can't do it. Maybe Jason is right about the aspartame (sp?) being addictive...

Must...have...pop...

Yesterday was a rough day. I wonder if there's some substance in Diet Pepsi besides caffeine that makes me addicted to it?!? I really don't think it's the caffeine. No headaches yesterday, just a strong desire to drink Diet Pepsi!!!

Another whole day!

Yes, I went another whole day without Diet Pepsi. I didn't have any caffeine of any kind, either! Just a couple diet root beers and some regular lite beers...

It's rough without the DP

I've had some Diet Pepsi (or Diet Coke*) each day this week, but just with lunch. I haven't broken down and bought a 12-pack for the house. At some point this week I will pick a day and make that my dry day.**

*Diet Pepsi is always preferred, but Diet Coke will do in a pinch. If it's from a soda fountain (like today from Una Mas) Diet Coke is almost as good as Diet Pepsi.

**Dry is a bit of misnomer, since I drink more water (another reason to quit) when I'm not drinking pop, and I actually pee more, even though caffeine is supposed to be a diuretic.

Mmm, life-giving pop!

I went ahead and had another diet pop with lunch today. Not having it in the house really helps to reduce the dependency. Perhaps I will make it my goal to go completely without for another day -- tomorrow.

A whole day!

Without Diet Pepsi!

Yes, I made it a whole day without a single sip of Diet Pepsi. Amazing. Today at lunch I had a big fountain drink of it to take the edge off the headache. Overall, I felt quite good today. Not sluggish, not headachy. Yay!

My head hurts.

It's been hurting since late this morning. I'm assuming it's the (lack of) caffeine. I picked up a bottle of something organic called "Honest Tea" at Whole Foods. It says it has half the caffeine of coffee, which isn't much. The taste isn't much, either. I like the Passion tea I got at Starbucks yesterday during my bike ride a lot better.

Anyone got a no/low-cal beverage with caffeine they love that ain't carbonated or coffee-flavored?

Pop

I'm seriously considering giving up Diet Pepsi. For those who know me relatively well, you know that this is a big deal. I am totally addicted to Diet Pepsi. Not necessarily the caffeine, though; I just really, really like it.

What spurred this?
1) We ran out today.
2) This crazy but brave chick inspired me a bit.
3) I was planning on doing so when we go to Europe next month (I figure it's not as ubiquitous there).

So I had two cans this morning before my bike ride, and that's it today. We shall see if I can get through tomorrow -- an entire day!!! -- without DP.

How do you spell blog?

Apparently the word "blog" is not in the Blogger spell-checker's dictionary. (It wants you to replace it with "bloc".)

Neither is blogger.

More mommy stuff

I'm thinking about focusing this blog on mommy issues, or maybe starting a new blog for that purpose (because drastically changing this blog would disappoint so many of you readers).

Any thoughts on that? To start another thread about controversial mom stuff, I read this article in Child today. "How many kids should I have?" The basic gist of the article seems to be: two or three is ideal.

(Any RC moms still reading after my recent post about the club?)

Laird Hamilton

There is no reason for this guy to wear shirts. In fact, it should just flat out not be allowed.

This is the place for crazy extremists to vent!

Someone in my mothers' club forwarded some wacko bs about the "homosexual agenda" to the club list. Someone else got irked and said, among other things, that GW Bush is an idiot. I think was speaking a little quickly there. I think what she meant to say was that he's the worst president in the history of the U.S.

Just to get things started.

Groovy blog by a groovy chick

Regan, Linda and I went shopping on Saturday. I think the equivalent in guy land is playing video games together :-)

My friend wrote a book!

Here she is with her boyfriend/co-author and the book.

We went to college together. She is living every English major's dream.

Our society is truly sick.

As if it weren't hard enough to be a mom, we get these outrageous, schizophrenic messages: If you don't or can't breastfeed, you're a bad mom, but if you're lucky enough to be able to nurse your child, it's gross and we don't want to see it.

They named Dana after him, you know...

Last night I was watching the Dodger game (actually mostly listening to it so I could hear Vin Scully) and this thought occurred to me: "Oh my god. Someday, Vin Scully is going to pass away. Then what? What will life be like in a world without Vin Scully?" I think when that happens the Dodgers should just not be on TV anymore. Or they should, but there should be no commentary. Just silence. Or maybe just jazz music.

He's 78 years old, btw.

Why the White Sox win

I think it's the names. Tonight they have guys in the lineup named Pierzinski, Mackowiak and Podsednik. If the Cubs still had Grudzielanek, they'd be in this thing.

(Yes, I know I've misspelled most, if not all, of these names.)

Operation Rescue on Ann Coulter

"I just wish for a pastor to preach with the unabashed candor of Coulter. It is too bad that Coulter wears a dress, or I’d toss her name in the hat for the consideration of the Pastoral Search Committee."

40,683

That's how many sun-dummed bums watched the team with the third worst record in majors, the team that has scored the least runs of any team in all of baseball lose in a game in the Chicago heat and humidity yesterday.

One less car

Hey, don't forget about my other cool blog!

Movies and TV

Don't see Cars. It is a total waste of time.

Rescue Me is the best show on television. That's right. Sopranos, 24, Lost. Nope. Rescue Me.

If Al Gore were president

Great video! If it weren't so amusing I'd be crying...

So I finally read The DaVinci Code

It was an enjoyable read. And interesting. I guess now I understand why all the Christians are so agitated about it. But maybe it's just because they're worried that it's true.

Um, the what?!?

That's right, the Los Altos Gay Pride Parade. I missed the parade itself, but there was some sort of little gathering afterwards that I saw toward the end of my bike ride.

I like the Queerios.

Also, I'm pretty sure Jesus hated tolerance.

Knife attack in Berlin

If this had happened in the US, the kid would have had a gun and killed lots and lots of people.

Toad has quite a point

An estimated 2 million babies die within their first 24 hours each year worldwide and the United States has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world, according to a new report.

"American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan, and newborn mortality is 2.5 times higher in the United States than in Finland, Iceland or Norway, Save the Children researchers found."

Japan offers free health care services for all pregnant women and babies while only the rich and insured get adequate health care in the United States.

This poses a paradox for conservative types who claim they are pro-life yet don't seem to care about life after it has been born...

True words from the NYT

"Lost" is the sudoku of network television, a brainteaser that puzzles but does not enlighten.

Just got back from Hellinois (to paraphrase Credence)

This photo is not an example of the extreme gentrification that has obfuscated much of what was once the north side of Chicago with Pottery Barns and Gymborees. It is, instead, one of the few things that is more-or-less the same as it was 10 years ago: my old apartment. Changed is the retail establishment on floor one: a nail salon (as opposed to a nail spa) instead of a plumbing fixture store. But the 100-year-old building still looks like it houses folks who don't work at fancy firms downtown or dot-coms in Bucktown. Back when I lived there it was $480 for a spacious, if a bit decrepit, two-bedroom. The condos going up around the corner start at $300k. Ah, real estate.

Biking Redwood City

Check out my new blog. Arthur and I are trying to leave the car in the garage for a whole month!

Weird-o letters to the editor

Check out the WalMart one. Even if you like WalMart, you have to admit that it's pretty weird that they were ringing up her purcahses while -- oh, it just has to be read to be believed.

(The high school parking one is weird, too)

*Nemesis hat-tip*

The least of all evils

Interesting Chron story on Toyota

A good point from Romenesko

Real journalism is difficult and bloggers want no part of it

Philadelphia Inquirer

Jonathan V. Last says bloggers are always saying how easy journalism is,
yet very few of them have ever really practiced it. "Real journalism --
the practice of adding to the store of public knowledge by reporting
news -- is a difficult, thankless, and often unpleasant task. Bloggers
want no part of it. Everyone wants E.J. Dionne's job; no one wants to be
Michael Dobbs. ...Taken as a whole, the Old Media performs an enormous and
valuable function that the New Media is neither able, nor inclined, to
emulate."

Good news!

I'm looking forward to the $5 mark.

Bay Area journalism heads further down the toilet

The Bay Area newspaper landscape could undergo a seismic change if Denver's MediaNews Group purchases from Sacramento's McClatchy Co. the San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Times and two other papers in a $1 billion deal that a published report said might happen this week.

MediaNews, the country's seventh-largest newspaper publisher, owns the Oakland Tribune, Marin Independent Journal and several other local papers. It would immediately become the biggest newspaper operation in the Bay Area if it were to acquire the Mercury News and Contra Costa Times.

...

A MediaNews purchase could face such obstacles as antitrust scrutiny, labor opposition and shareholder inquiries about whether McClatchy got the best price. But experts said a deal would probably overcome those hurdles.

...

Selling the papers to MediaNews would help McClatchy raise more than $2 billion from the sale of the 12 papers. And it would provide MediaNews and its CEO, William Dean Singleton, with a more powerful presence throughout the Bay Area.

Singleton has built a newspaper empire through a strategy of "clustering" -- owning groups of nearby newspapers that can share resources like printing presses and staff, and can offer a larger circulation reach for advertisers.

The Cubs are screwed

I was actually starting to feel the tiniest bit optimistic in spite of myself. And now this. Serves me right.

NYTimes: Billionaire sells Jackie Kennedy's apartment

The $32 mil place was too small, apparently.

I just stumbled on this story on the NYT web site. This quote left me dumbstruck:

Mr. Koch said that his wife is now expecting their third child in June, and Ms. Onassis' former apartment will be too small for their expanded family. "There's just no way we could fit another child in that apartment," he said.

The Fifth Avenue apartment has four bedrooms, two dressing rooms, a staff room, a library, living room, dining room, conservatory, two terraces, three fireplaces, five and a half bathrooms and a wine room, according to a floor plan provided by the broker who will be selling it, Leighton Candler, a senior vice president of the Corcoran Group.

The article doesn't say what the place's square footage is, but it's probably twice that of the biggest house owned by anyone who reads this...

Thank you Harry Taylor

We are screwed

Is anyone who isn't in the oil industry really still doubting global warming?

And, if the Dodger game I have tickets to gets rained out this Saturday, can I sue the Bush Administration?

Daylight Savings Time

This story is a little over the top, but has a point. I identify mainly with its discussion about rising with the sun. When my in-laws took us on a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon two years ago, we rose each day around 5:30 (just as the sky was lightening) and went to bed each night just after the sun went down. It felt so natural, just like it felt natural to walk around on the sandy banks of the Colorado River barefoot. I so wanted to cling to this natural wake-sleep schedule when we got home, but it was impossible. Oh well.

Shameless bating

This is mostly aimed at Nemesis, but others are more than welcome to comment as well.

Over the last year and a half, I have visited the Los Angeles area at least half a dozen times to visit my sister-in-law and her adorable (see pic) little girl (not to mention my best friend from high school). My expectations were not high, given the venomous hatred many of my fellow Bay Area residents harbor for our neighbors to the south. However, I have found the area to be just fine, with lots of culture to be had, in addition to the natural beauty and climate. On the downside, there certainly is a lot of traffic. But there is here, too. Down there, there are freeways that always have bad traffic, but we have places like that up here, too (880, anyone?).

So, L.A.-haters, what is it that makes SoCal so bad? Or is it just some bizarre NorCal inferiority complex?

How to spot a baby conservative

Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative.

GOP is in 'deep funk' over Bush spending

Woo hoo!

Speaking of presidents...

and we're talking fictionally now, who would you vote for?

MacKenzie Allen
Jed Bartlet
Charles Logan
David Palmer

Others?

2008 is just around the corner...

I heard a bit on NPR the other day about Hillary as a presidential candidate. If you had asked me five years ago if I thought a woman would get ellected president in the next 20 years, I would have said "no." Maybe I'm not clued-in on this, or maybe things have changed. Anyway, it looks like this is now a strong possibility.

Thoughts? And who are the other viable candidates starting to emerge?

SF City Hall cracks me up

At the movies...

Saw Brokeback Mountain today. It is not overrated.

By the way, if you are thinking about seeing "Memoiurs of a Geisha," please read the book first. There is no way the movie could be as good (though I haven't seen it). Same applies to "Girl With a Pearl Earring," from a couple years ago, and I have seen that one.

"Mind-boggling" Idol

Yes, it certainly does boggle the mind.

When I saw the title of the graphic "Who's Watching American Idol?", I was really hoping I would just see the word "morons" when I clicked the link.

We are solar!

Last month we had solar panels installed on our roof. So far, the system has generated 1.21 gigawatts! Just kidding. It's 245 kilowatt hours(kWh). Put one way, that's enough electricity to power 10 100-watt lightbulbs for 245 hours. Put another, our house typically uses 900 kWh per month.

Of course, the system will generate much more electricity during the long, cloudless days of summer.

We got our system from REgrid Power, btw.

My favorite show is ending...

But one of my old favorites is coming back!

It makes sense for the West Wing to bow out now. No one was really interested in seeing another president and his staff move in. To me, at least, the characters are the strongest aspect of the show.

Carpool lane (il)logic

A driver of a Prius, which gets about 50 mpg on the freeway, is allowed to drive in the carpool lane by him or herself. A driver of a regular car, which gets, say, 25 mpg, has to have at least one other person in the car besides the driver to get in the high-occupancy vehicle lane. So, wouldn't it stand to reason that a person driving a vehicle that gets, say, 13 mpg have to have at least four people total to drive in the HOV lane?

What a baby!

You'd think he'd have better things to do.

More whining about the "liberal media"

I haven't heard the Righties make suggestions about what the news orgs do about the "bias." As far as I know, editors aren't asking would-be reporters where they stand on gays, guns and abortion; I'm sure we'd be hearing about lawsuits if they were. I have heard it suggested that most reporters are Dems because Repubs generally are interested in more lucrative fields. Perhaps Carlson and other complainers would favor a conscription program forcing Young Republicans to apply for jobs at their local papers that pay $25,000 a year.


Courtesy Romenesko:

Claim: Everyone in journalism is pro-choice, favors gay vows

Daily Nexus

Tucker Carlson and Eric Alterman at a UC-Santa Barbara debate:

CARLSON: "Everybody in journalism is pro-choice, pro-gun control and for
gay marriage. When you only have people [in the media] that all think the
same, you do not have good coverage. You can’t cover America until you
have a newsroom that looks like America … who thinks like America."

ALTERMAN: "If we had a liberal media, then 44 percent of Americans would
not have believed the Sept. 11 bombers were Iraqis. We get an extremely
biased version of the news."

Isn't it ironic

The other day I saw a "W '04" sticker on a Prius.

Shocking!

Campaign volunteers get cushy city jobs? In Chicago? Noooo.....

Walking

There are some bad, bad Republicans in Washington

And yes, of course there are some bad Demos, but at least their leaders aren't being indicted for money-laundering and election fraud. And we already knew the Republicans were big cheaters when it comes to elections.

Weird!

RFK Jr. speaks to Sierra Club in SF

I was fortunate to be at the convention and see this speech in person. This guy's account is a bit gushy, for sure, but it really was an incredible speech. Everyone knows the Bush presidency is terrible for the environment, but even I learned some things from his speech, and it was depressing. The Bush administration's actions are beyond egregious, and it's amazing that the press has been negligent in telling us about it.

Here's another account.

In this essay in Rolling Stone, RFK delineates many of the points he made in Saturday's speech.

Generations of Americans will pay the Republican campaign debt to the energy industry with global instability, depleted national coffers and increased vulnerability to price shocks in the oil market.

They will also pay with reduced prosperity and quality of life at home. Pollution from power plants and traffic smog will continue to skyrocket. Carbon-dioxide emissions will aggravate global warming. Acid rain from Midwestern coal plants has already sterilized half the lakes in the Adirondacks and destroyed the forest cover in the high peaks of the Appalachian range up into Canada. The administration's attacks on science and the law have put something even greater at risk. Americans need to recognize that we are facing not just a threat to our environment but to our values, and to our democracy.

Growing up, I was taught that communism leads to dictatorship and capitalism to democracy. But as we've seen from the the Bush administration, the latter proposition does not always hold. While free markets tend to democratize a society, unfettered capitalism leads invariably to corporate control of government.

America's most visionary leaders have long warned against allowing corporate power to dominate the political landscape. In 1863, in the depths of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln lamented, "I have the Confederacy before me and the bankers behind me, and I fear the bankers most." Franklin Roosevelt echoed that sentiment when he warned that "the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling power."

Today, more than ever, it is critical for American citizens to understand the difference between the free-market capitalism that made our country great and the corporate cronyism that is now corrupting our political process, strangling democracy and devouring our national treasures.

Corporate capitalists do not want free markets, they want dependable profits, and their surest route is to crush competition by controlling government. The rise of fascism across Europe in the 1930s offers many informative lessons on how corporate power can undermine a democracy. In Spain, Germany and Italy, industrialists allied themselves with right-wing leaders who used the provocation of terrorist attacks, continual wars, and invocations of patriotism and homeland security to tame the press, muzzle criticism by opponents and turn government over to corporate control. Those governments tapped industrial executives to run ministries and poured government money into corporate coffers with lucrative contracts to prosecute wars and build infrastructure. They encouraged friendly corporations to swallow media outlets, and they enriched the wealthiest classes, privatized the commons and pared down constitutional rights, creating short-term prosperity through pollution-based profits and constant wars. Benito Mussolini's inside view of this process led him to complain that "fascism should really be called 'corporatism.' "

While the European democracies unraveled into fascism, America confronted the same devastating Depression by reaffirming its democracy. It enacted minimum-wage and Social Security laws to foster a middle class, passed income taxes and anti-trust legislation to limit the power of corporations and the wealthy, and commissioned parks, public lands and museums to create employment and safeguard the commons.

The best way to judge the effectiveness of a democracy is to measure how it allocates the goods of the land: Does the government protect the commonwealth on behalf of all the community members, or does it allow wealth and political clout to steal the commons from the people?

Today, George W. Bush and his court are treating our country as a grab bag for the robber barons, doling out the commons to large polluters. Last year, as the calamitous rollbacks multiplied, the corporate-owned TV networks devoted less than four percent of their news minutes to environmental stories. If they knew the truth, most Americans would share my fury that this president is allowing his corporate cronies to steal America from our children.

More on Keplers

A rally Tuesday night! I would attend, except I haven't been to Kepler's in years. I think it should be saved, but I'm just not a book-buyer. My shelves are already too cluttered. It's the library for me.

Op Ed in NYT

As my husband said when he forwarded me this, "These people have to be removed from office."

August 29, 2005
Destroying the National Parks

Most of us think of America's national parks as everlasting places, parts of the bedrock of how we know our own country. But they are shaped and protected by an underlying body of legislation, which is distilled into a basic policy document that governs their operation. Over time, that document has slowly evolved, but it has always stayed true to the fundamental principle of leaving the parks unimpaired for future generations. That has meant, in part, sacrificing some of the ways we might use the parks today in order to protect them for tomorrow.

Recently, a secret draft revision of the national park system's basic management policy document has been circulating within the Interior Department. It was prepared, without consultation within the National Park Service, by Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary at Interior who once ran the Chamber of Commerce in Cody, Wyo., was a Congressional aide to Dick Cheney and has no park service experience.

Within national park circles, this rewrite of park rules has been met with profound dismay, for it essentially undermines the protected status of the national parks. The document makes it perfectly clear that this rewrite was not prompted by a compelling change in the park system's circumstances. It was prompted by a change in political circumstances - the opportunity to craft a vision of the national parks that suits the Bush administration.

Some of Mr. Hoffman's changes are trivial, although even apparently subtle changes in wording - from "protect" to "conserve," for instance - soften the standard used to judge the environmental effects of park policy.

But there is nothing subtle about the main thrust of this rewrite. It is a frontal attack on the idea of "impairment." According to the act that established the national parks, preventing impairment of park resources - including the landscape, wildlife and such intangibles as the soundscape of Yellowstone, for instance - is the "fundamental purpose." In Mr. Hoffman's world, it is now merely one of the purposes.

Mr. Hoffman's rewrite would open up nearly every park in the nation to off-road vehicles, snowmobiles and Jet Skis. According to his revision, the use of such vehicles would become one of the parks' purposes. To accommodate such activities, he redefines impairment to mean an irreversible impact. To prove that an activity is impairing the parks, under Mr. Hoffman's rules, you would have to prove that it is doing so irreversibly - a very high standard of proof. This would have a genuinely erosive effect on the standards used to protect the national parks.

The pattern prevails throughout this 194-page document - easing the rules that limit how visitors use the parks and toughening the standard of proof needed to block those uses. Behind this pattern, too, there is a fundamental shift in how the parks are regarded. If the laws establishing the national park system were fundamentally forward-looking - if their mission, first and foremost, was protecting the parks for the future - Mr. Hoffman's revisions place a new, unwelcome and unnecessary emphasis on the present, on what he calls "opportunities for visitors to use and enjoy their parks."

There is no question that we go to national parks to use and enjoy them. But part of the enjoyment of being in a place like Yosemite or the Grand Canyon is knowing that no matter how much it changes in the natural processes of time, it will continue to exist substantially unchanged.

There are other issues too. Mr. Hoffman would explicitly allow the sale of religious merchandise, and he removes from the policy document any reference to evolution or evolutionary processes. He does everything possible to strip away a scientific basis for park management. His rules would essentially require park superintendents to subordinate the management of their parks to local and state agendas. He also envisions a much wider range of commercial activity within the parks.

In short, this is not a policy for protecting the parks. It is a policy for destroying them.

The Interior Department has already begun to distance itself from this rewrite, which it kept hidden from park service employees. But what Mr. Hoffman has given us is a road map of what could happen to the parks if Mr. Bush's political appointees are allowed to have their way.

It is clear by now that Mr. Bush has no real intention of living up to his campaign promise to fully finance the national parks. This document offers a vivid picture of the divide between the National Park Service, whose career employees remain committed to the fundamental purpose of leaving the parks unimpaired, and an Interior Department whose political appointees seem willing to alter them beyond recognition, partly in the service of commercial objectives.

Suddenly, many things - like the administration's efforts to force snowmobiles back into Yellowstone - seem very easy to explain.

A Peninsula institution shuts down

From the Mercury News, Aug. 31:

Kepler's abruptly shuts its doors

MENLO PARK BOOKSELLER NEVER RECOVERED FROM ECONOMIC BUST

By the Mercury News

Kepler's, the Menlo Park independent bookstore that drew loyal readers from around the Bay Area for more than 50 years, abruptly closed Wednesday.

The bookstore was a victim of the economic downturn that began four years ago, according to a sign posted on the door. ``As much as we love what we do and would like to continue another 50 years, we simply cannot,'' the sign read.

By noon today, a steady stream of people had wandered over to the building on El Camino Real to read the sign. The reaction was universal: Shock.

``What? What! My soccer magazines! From England!'' said Karan Das-Grande, 10. ``This is the only place I could get them.''

Rita Allison of Menlo Park, who had been buying books at Keplers for more than 30 years, called the store ```a symbol of the community.''

``It's a big jolt,'' she said.

Menlo Park officials had tried to help owner Clark Kepler negotiate a lower rent without success, said city business development manager David Johnson. Johnson said today that Kepler, whose father founded the store, ``invited all his employees in this morning to the location, even those who weren't scheduled to work. They pulled the shades and locked the doors.''

As they left the meeting, employees ``mentioned slow sales and the continuing difficulty competing with discount booksellers,'' Johnson said.

Kepler's celebrated its 50th anniversary in May.

``My dad had a vision of what a bookseller's role in society was,'' said Kepler in a 2004 interview. Roy Kepler determined that his bookstore would be a community place where readers could find a book on any topic.

Especially in recent years, Kepler's had become known as a place for writers. Lauren Bacall, Bill Cosby, Jane Fonda and Jimmy Carter have read at the store.

But the store suffered with the economy's decline beginning in 2001 and with the rise of chain and online bookstores.

A history, from Kepler's 50th anniversary, celebrated this May

A sad day in Menlo Park

Palo Alto Online story on the closing of Keplers

Keplers and the origin of the Dead

Great story from, of all places, ESPN

Rather than simply encourage Americans to take up the bike as a method of recreation and exercise, (President Bush) should actively promote it as an alternative form of transportation. This shouldn't be some throwaway quote he says in response to a reporter's question while on vacation. This should be official national policy.

More reasons for Jesus to be proud of the religious right

a) What kind of dope is this guy on?
b) When did the meek-shall-inherit, peace-on-earth types become the war mongerers?
c) Robertson is 75; maybe he's senile, which makes me feel great about him being a leader of the most influential political movement today.
d) Rumsfeld's comment about how we don't "do that kind of thing" is pretty comical.

Examining "both sides" as journalists and creationism

I find the first few graphs of this column very interesting. It is a significant issue for reporters; one we struggle with regularly. Putting it out there is good for readers so they are better able to intelligently look at a story with "both sides." I noticed this phenomenon recently in a story in a pregnancy magazine about taking antidepressants during pregnancy. The reporter cited lots of studies and experts who believe it's probably ok, and one guy who did a small study and thinks it's bad.

Back-of-the-envelope=$10 billion

Here's a fellow Restore Hetch Hetchy member's take on the PUC meeting, which I attended (much to the delight of RHH supporters, who suddenly had a pregnant mom on their side). I don't agree with his characterization of Ellen Levin (she's just a cog, sent by ambivalent superiors who can't be bothered), but the back-of-the-envelope quote was a defining moment.

The San Francisco PUC Citizens Advisory Committee, foisted on the imperial PUC by the Board of Supervisors, met August 15 to consider a Resolution urging the CAC to recommend that the SF PUC "fully cooperate with" the Governor's review of Hetch Hetchy restoration options, and that the CAC recommend that the SF PUC include an alternative in their Capital Improvements Plan that would explore storing water outside Hetch Hetchy Valley.

Those not present at the meeting missed a great display. The SF PUC representative (Ellen Levin) was bristling with hostility in her very bearing; she introduced herself by saying that she was the 'lucky one' chosen to speak for the agency (implying that people above her found other things to do at that time), and that she was not happy to be there, that she would read a prepared statement, and would not venture to answer questions other than what she was clearly authorized to do. She said, in effect, that the PUC has no intention of cooperating with efforts to restore the Valley. All this was expressed in an imperial manner, exuding disdain. When asked how the PUC arrived at its figure of $9 billion for a Hetch Hetchy Valley restoration, she said that it was probably "a back-of-the-envelope" calculation.

Great show, PUC!!

Questions from the audience directed at the PUC representative included:

1) expressions of hope that the SF PUC and the City & County of San Francisco would see the restoration of Hetch Hetchy as an opportunity to have people all over the State of California and the United States help pay for the $4.3 billion capital improvements costs that are facing water ratepayers in SF and the suburbs in exchange for their cooperation on Hetch Hetchy's restoration, and PUC was asked why the SF PUC isn't availing itself of this opportunity;

2) hope that the SF PUC and the City & County of San Francisco would see the restoration of Hetch Hetchy as an opportunity to have people all over the State of California and the United States help pay for the costs of filtering the water (making it cleaner than it is now in its unfiltered state) in exchange for their cooperation on Hetch Hetchy's restoration, and they were asked why the SF PUC isn't availing itself of this opportunity.

3) asked the SF PUC panelist to provide backgound information about its cost estimates for restoring Hetch Hetchy's (ranging up to $10 billion). RHH estimates the cost to be around $1 billion, and Environmental Defense estimates the cost to be between $0.5 billion and $1.65 billion.

4) asked what would be wrong with using pumps to pump water from the Don Pedro Reservoir (where water from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir could be stored) into the Foothhill Tunnel (which runs underneath the Don Pedro Reservoir) when the current water system already has 23 pump stations (according to the SF Chronicle article of Sept. 2002 by Susan Sward and Chuck Finney, and RHH's technical review of the system that identifes many pump stations).

Still more on Hetch Hetchy

News Hour with Jim Lehrer

and

here's the original expose by the SF Chronicle revealing that San Fran had been using money meant to repair the Hetch Hetchy system (which serves more than 2 million residents outside the city) for city projects:

The San Francisco Chronicle

SEPTEMBER 15, 2002, SUNDAY, FINAL EDITION

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A1

HEADLINE: A CHRONICLE SPECIAL REPORT;

S.F. looted region's water system, diverted millions into city coffers;

Now $3.6 billion sought to repair and expand aging Hetch Hetchy

SOURCE: Chronicle Staff Writers

BYLINE: Susan Sward, Chuck Finnie

BODY:
Copyright 2002 San Francisco Chronicle.

About the series

TODAY Bay Area water system in peril.

MONDAY Public power vision betrayed..

Over the past 20 years, San Francisco officials raided the city's vaunted Hetch Hetchy Water and Power system of hundreds of millions of
dollars, leaving the Bay Area's largest water supply vulnerable to earthquake, drought and decay.

Despite increasingly serious warnings about the need for expansion and seismic upgrades, city officials postponed the costly work and used
profits from Hetch Hetchy's hydropower electricity sales to bankroll city programs and salaries for everything from the Municipal Railway to
health care for the needy.

Today, engineers warn that a significant earthquake could cause widespread damage to the system, ranging from the collapse of Calaveras
Dam in Alameda County to the destruction of a key tunnel that delivers water through the foothills to 2.4 million Bay Area residents,
potentially cutting off most of the system's water supply for 60 days. Now city officials want San Francisco and its suburban water
customers to borrow $3.6 billion to fix the problems - and pay for it by more than doubling water bills.

"The politicians used the Hetchy system as a money machine in the basement of City Hall," said Jim Chappell, president of San Francisco
Planning and Urban Research, a nonprofit civic group. "For decades, there has been gross irresponsibility in the siphoning of funds clearly
needed for Hetchy maintenance."

Since 1979, San Francisco officials have diverted $670 million from the Hetch Hetchy system into the city's general fund, according to city
records. As recently as fiscal year 2001, the city took nearly $30 million from the system.

Rudy Nothenberg, who ran the city's Public Utilities Commission during Mayor Dianne Feinstein's administration, defended the fund transfers,
saying, "There is nothing wrong in my view with using the (Hetch) Hetchy power resource to generate money for the general fund, which
pays for cops, parks and recreation and everything that people hold dear."

The city's diversion of the funds, though legal, exploited a loophole in the City Charter and shirked its obligation to maintain the Hetch
Hetchy aqueduct that the city constructed from Yosemite National Park to the Bay Area during the early 1900s.

The deteriorating condition of the system has prompted a rebellion by Hetch Hetchy's suburban water customers, who have raised the
threat of seeking state control over the repairs if the city -doesn't move speedily on its own.

Fiercest of San Francisco's critics are lawmakers representing those communities where residents and businesses depend solely or in part on
Hetch Hetchy water.

"If we have a major disaster, all the Bay Area will suffer," said Assemblyman Lou Papan, a Millbrae Democrat who represents more than
400,000 Hetch Hetchy customers. "We can no longer afford to put up with the child's play going on in San Francisco. The deterioration rests
on their shoulders."

Today, San Francisco officials say they need $3.6 billion to put the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct back on a sound footing.

This fall San Francisco voters will be asked to approve Proposition A, a $1.6 billion bond measure, to cover the city's share of rebuilding and
expanding the water system over the next 13 years.

To pay for it, San Franciscans' water bills would nearly triple by 2015. Suburban users of the system would raise another $2 billion toward
the project, requiring a more than doubling of their water bills over the same period.

California historian Kevin Starr calls the failure to maintain Hetch Hetchy more than just a matter of dollars and cents.

Recalling the system's creation in the early 1900s - an engineering marvel requiring an act of Congress and the sacrifice of majestic,
3-mile-long Hetch Hetchy Valley - Starr said the system's decline amounts to an abandonment of the public trust.

"For San Francisco to neglect Hetch Hetchy is to neglect the public works project it used to bring itself into metropolitan status," said Starr,
the state librarian.

Dangerous disrepair

Much of the 167-mile Hetch Hetchy aqueduct is more than three-quarters of a century old and vital sections are in dire need of repair:

-- State engineers suspect that Calaveras Dam, located in Alameda County 10 miles northeast of San Jose, is unstable, and have advised
San Francisco to keep the reservoir behind it less than a third full.

For years, water officials have been concerned about the dam's stability - in part because it failed in 1918 during construction and because
the Calaveras Fault runs within a quarter-mile of the dam.

"After it failed, they continued to build the dam on top of the material that had slid into the reservoir," said Ron Delparte of the state
Division of Dam Safety. "We -don't do that anymore."

More than four years ago, the state warned that the dam was in "an extremely high seismic environment" and "its height, reservoir storage
capacity and location create a very high damage potential to life and property."

More than a year ago the state told the city "the stability of the dam would be in question in a major quake," Delparte said. The city agreed
to lower the reservoir to a level considered safe for now.

State officials say that if the 200-foot-high dam failed, its water would cascade along Alameda Creek's path through Sunol, Fremont and
Newark, threatening lives and property.

Tentative plans call for replacing the dam and increasing more than six-fold the total capacity of the 31 billion-gallon reservoir.

-- A 64-year-old reservoir on a hill in the heart of the city's residential Sunset District - known as Sunset Reservoir North Basin - has a
seismically deficient concrete roof. In addition, the dam's northwest corner, at 28th Avenue and Ortega Street, sits on sand that could
liquefy in a major quake. State officials say the reservoir's 89 million gallons could spill out to the west, threatening lives and property.

Four years ago, state dam safety officials told the city to look at the stability of the reservoir's foundation, and now - in 2002 - the city is
preparing to design the repair and finish the work by 2005.

-- Some sections of 75-year-old pipelines carrying Hetch Hetchy water across San Francisco Bay sit on wooden trestles that were
constructed long before modern seismic-strengthening techniques were developed. These pipelines are decaying and are considered very
vulnerable to failure, particularly because they cross the Hayward Fault. The city says a fix -won't be finished until 2013.

-- Meanwhile, the entire waterworks - 21 reservoirs, 25 tanks, two water treatment plants, 23 pump stations, 40 miles of tunnels and 1,470
miles of water mains stretching from Yosemite National Park to North Beach - is so overextended that one vital tunnel bringing water to the
Bay Area has not been shut down for maintenance in decades, city utility officials say.

This tunnel lies between the Hayward and Calaveras faults, and if it were to break in a quake or other catastrophe, that could halt the flow
of more than 85 percent of the system's water to Bay Area customers for 30 to 60 days, city-hired experts have concluded.

-- While deferring system maintenance, city officials have moved slowly to meet water demands created by growth in Hetch Hetchy's
service area.

When Hetch Hetchy was built, San Francisco had about 417,000 residents while Alameda County had 246,000 and San Mateo County
27,000. Today San Francisco has about 770,000 residents, Alameda County 1.4 million and San Mateo County 707,000.

On Hetch Hetchy's list of customers are thousands of businesses crucial to the economy of the Bay Area and the nation - in particular
Silicon Valley's high-tech industry.

With such growth occurring and more to come, critics say San Francisco failed to plan adequately where to get more water. Even with the
revamp, city officials say, the Hetch Hetchy system still would be 10-20 percent short of projected need in a long drought and, without
Proposition A, shortages could be in the 45 percent range.

This state of affairs exists despite the fact that San Francisco has known since 1994 that the Hetch Hetchy system was going to fall short
of customers' demands, according to a state audit.

"The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has been slow to assess and upgrade its water delivery system so it can survive catastrophes
such as earthquakes, floods and fires" and meet future supply demands, auditors said in a 2000 report.

"San Francisco has not been aggressively looking at increasing the system's reliable water supplies to tide its customers through dry years,"
said Nicole Sandkulla of the Bay Area Water Users Association, representing Hetch Hetchy's 29 wholesale customers. "If there is a drought,
we'd all suffer - there's not enough water."

Sandkulla noted that in 1998, Contra Costa County Water District completed construction of the new Los Vaqueros Reservoir in the eastern
part of the county. Another major water development is being pursued by East Bay Municipal Utility District to give the agency Sacramento
River water during drought years.

Where the money went

Within the Hetch Hetchy system, there are two branches - one providing water and another generating hydroelectric power. The City
Charter called for the water and power systems to be merged when completed. When merged, hydroelectric revenues could be declared
surplus if they were not needed to maintain the water and power system. Only then could those revenues be used for other city needs.

But city officials have never declared the systems complete and merged. Thus city officials can declare the hydroelectric profits as surplus
to that branch of the Hetch Hetchy system and then use the revenues for general city needs - even though the system's waterworks are in
desperate need of repairs and improvements.

The city began diverting the hydropower revenues at least as early as the late 1960s. About $25 million in Hetch Hetchy funds went to fund
Muni electrical maintenance work in the following decade, which spanned the mayoral administrations of Joseph Alioto, George Moscone and
Dianne Feinstein.

Since 1979, the earliest year for which the San Francisco Public Utility Commission (SFPUC) officials say they have records, more than $236
million in Hetch Hetchy power revenues were transferred during Feinstein's administration ending in 1987; $95 million during Art Agnos'
four-year administration ending in 1991; more than $104 million during Frank Jordan's administration ending in 1995; and more than $233
million through Willie Brown's administration.

In 1999, Brown began reducing the amount of money the city took in Hetch Hetchy power revenues, believing the city should be weaned
from using those funds, Brown aides said. In the 2002 budget year, there was no transfer.

City Hall politicians who took the Hetch Hetchy money say it went to pay for police, public health and other important services and that it
helped San Francisco stave off municipal budget cuts during lean economic times.

Former Mayors Agnos and Jordan said they approved the transfers only after being assured by their staffs that the moves would not have a
negative effect on the Hetch Hetchy system. Agnos said the transfers in his administration declined over time because of his concern about
the need to protect the system, and Jordan said the city's budget problems forced him to continue transfers.

"I walked into office with a $300 million deficit and was having to consolidate services," Jordan said. "The public was clamoring for health
care for AIDS, social services for the homeless, Muni, affordable housing, the libraries."

Jordan said he toured the Hetch Hetchy system and knew it had long-term infrastructure needs, "but it -wasn't something I could take on
as an immediate priority given what I was dealing with."

Critics say the transfers were done out of expedience by elected officials.

"They milked the cow and chose to ignore an asset when they should have been putting its revenues back in the system to protect all who
depend on it," said Assemblyman Papan, who sponsored legislation this year that sets specific deadlines for the repair of Hetch Hetchy.

Warnings ignored

San Francisco had many warnings of trouble ahead.

In 1987, an SFPUC consultant faulted the agency for failing to perform preventative maintenance on the Hetch Hetchy waterworks, lack of
familiarity with the system's condition and lack of proper planning.

In 1994, Board of Supervisors Budget Analyst Harvey Rose concluded that the SFPUC was not collecting the basic information to set
priorities for what needed to be done to keep Hetch Hetch water flowing.

In 1999, experts hired to examine Hetch Hetchy vulnerabilities forecast enormous failures throughout the system in a severe earthquake.

Mayor Brown's five-member Public Utilities Commission adopted a 13-year capital improvement plan this May to put the waterworks on sound
footing, at a total cost of $3.6 billion, shared between San Francisco and suburban ratepayers according to their proportional use. The $1.6
billion water bond on the November city ballot is to pay San Francisco's share of the project.

San Franciscans, who pay some of the lowest water rates in the Bay Area, would see their monthly bills climb from an average of $14.43 to
$40.85 by 2015; suburban users' bills would go from an average of $32 to $71.

Typically, the suburban users now pay higher rates than San Francisco because their water systems are newer and they are still paying
them off.

The commission's vote on the revamp plan came two years and four months after its staff first began formulating a construction priority list,
which includes seismic strengthening and expansion to increase the system's capacity.

Jim Fabris, head of the San Francisco Association of Realtors and a member of a mayoral task force that evaluated the SFPUC's Hetch
Hetchy improvement plans, says he cannot fathom how the city could have moved so slowly given so many warnings.

"What is mystifying is how many in government knew of the severity of the infrastructure's aging problems for decades" without moving
expeditiously to meet repair and supply expansion concerns, Fabris said. "To not have done so borders on a crime."

Starr, the California historian, sees the city's failure to act expeditiously as indicative of a San Francisco-style arrogance - we built the
Hetch Hetchy system, it's ours and it's magnificent.

"It's this idea San Franciscans have that this -isn't a real city dependent on maintenance but it's a Monte Carlo, an Oz, the Club Med of
American cities," Starr said.

Some of San Francisco's often-desultory approach to care of Hetch Hetchy has to do with politicians' lack of interest in approving
infrastructure projects that will bring them little glory.

Oral Moore, Hetch Hetchy's longtime, respected general manager who retired in 1983, says most routine maintenance and repair should be
paid for year-by-year because that avoids bond measure interest charges.

But, he said, politicians "have budget problems above and beyond Hetch Hetchy and they -don't like to see funds diverted to the water
system from other important city needs."

Dean Coffey, who headed the Hetch Hetchy system from 1979 to 1989, said he pushed for repairs before any transfers of the system's
money over to the general fund, but "there was a tremendous amount of pressure put on the commissioners and staff by City Hall, which
wanted as much revenue out of Hetchy as possible."

Suburban anxiety

While Hetch Hetchy's problems have been well known for years in the relatively small circle of water and power experts, the problem has
been brought into sharp focus only as Hetch Hetchy users outside San Francisco have grown increasingly critical of the system.

Those users include hundreds of high-profile businesses that produce everything from cars to computer chips. Many of these companies
prize the Hetch Hetchy water for its high quality and the relatively small amount of additional treatment it requires before being used in
manufacturing processes.

"Our industries are delighted to have the Hetchy water because it is so soft," said Robin Saunders, director of the city of Santa Clara's
water and sewer system that serves dozens of high-tech firms. "It comes right off the Sierra, which is mostly bedrock granite. It's put in
pipes and comes straight to us so it has a very low mineral content. That makes it ideal for the Silicon Valley industries that have to have
ultra-pure water for their industrial processes."

In the state Capitol, lawmakers representing San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda county customers of the Hetch Hetchy system have won
passage of legislation that creates a mechanism allowing those water users to issue bonds covering their share of the project and sets a
series of deadlines for the project. All are expected to win Gov. Gray Davis' signature.

Ira Ruskin, chairman of the regional water reliability committee for the Bay Area Water Users Association that represents San Francisco's 29
wholesale, suburban customers, says the measures are greatly needed: "There is a human and economic catastrophe waiting to happen.
The very health and well-being of 2.4 million Bay Area residents is at stake.

"We cannot stand by and leave it up to San Francisco to decide when or if they're going to fix the Hetch Hetchy system," said Ruskin, a city
councilman from Redwood City, where Hetch Hetchy is the sole source of water. "The SFPUC's past record shows an inability or
unwillingness . . . to repair the system."

The Legislature's recent involvement in the issue of Hetch Hetchy's upkeep occurs at a time when San Francisco has been losing ground as
a population center and suburbs have been growing.

With the $1.6 billion bond measure on San Francisco's November ballot, the system's 29 customers outside the city will be watching the
outcome intently.

Clearly, the city finds itself in a world far different than the one where its leaders grabbed the Hetch Hetchy water almost a century ago.

"San Francisco's political position is slipping and it can no longer imperially call the shots," said Rich DeLeon, a San Francisco State University
professor who studies and writes about the city's history and politics. "The city has to get its act together and work out water problems on
a regional, cooperative basis.".

Librarian researcher Johnny Miller contributed to this report.

-----------------------------

$670 million

Hetch Hetchy hydropower revenues San Francisco officials used for other city services.

$3.6 billion

Estimated construction and financing costs for rebuilding and expanding the Hetch Hetchy system.

2.4 million

Bay Area residents who use Hetch Hetchy water.

183%

Projected monthly water bill increase for San Francisco water users by 2015.

121%

Projected monthly water bill increase for suburban Hetch Hetchy water users by 2015.

Nov. 5 Prop. A

S.F. voters will be asked to approve a $1.6 billion bond measure to fund repair and expansion of Hetch Hetchy system.

------------------------------

Hetch Hetchy Water and Power: A century in the making

-- Phelan's ploy - In 1901, James D. Phelan files for water rights in Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Valley and at the nearby Lake Eleanor, not
revealing he is the city's mayor. It's the beginning of one of the most notorious water grabs in U.S. history.

-- Battle preparations - Phelan signs water rights over to the city in 1903 in preparation for the decade-long battle to win congressional
approval to flood Hetch Hetchy Valley and use it as a reservoir for San Francisco water and power.

-- Catastrophe - San Francisco's 1906 earthquake and fire gives the city's search for a new water source special urgency, as the private
Spring Valley Water Co.'s water mains break and a three-day firestorm consumes much of the city.

-- Muir's opposition - The Sierra Club sends a 1907 resolution to the secretary of the Interior opposing the flooding of the valley. John Muir,
the famed founder of the club, is among the leaders of the fight to block the flooding.

-- Bond measure - In 1910, San Franciscans vote overwhelmingly for a $45 million bond to fund the Hetch Hetchy project, which will use as
its main source the Tuolumne River, originating in a glacier on the slopes of 13,000-foot Mount Lyell.

-- Key players - Two men who will be crucial to building the Hetch Hetchy system step onto the city's political stage in 1912: James "Sunny
Jim" Rolph Jr. becomes mayor of the 417,000-population city and names M.M. O'Shaughnessy city engineer.

-- Raker Act - O'Shaughnessy and Rolph lobby for passage of the Raker Act, which allows the city to dam the Tuolumne River for water and
power. Barely two decades after creating Yosemite National Park, Congress approves the act in 1913.

-- O'Shaughnessy dies - On Oct. 12, 1934, 12 days before the first Hetch Hetchy water flows into the Bay Area, O'Shaughnessy dies at age
72. The last years were bitter for him as project costs grew increasingly controversial and he was pushed aside politically.

Bond foes - In 2002, several groups, including the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense, oppose the water bond and call on San
Francisco to study the feasibility of restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley to its natural state.

-------------------

"To provide for the little children, men, and women of the 800,000 populationwho swarm the shores of San Francisco Bay is a matter of
much greater importancethan encouraging the few who, in solitary loneliness, will sit on the peak of the Sierrasloafing around the throne of
the God of nature and singing His praise."

James D. Phelan, former San Francisco mayor, in 1913 testimony in Congresson San Francisco's bid for the valley

"This is a large undertaking for a small city the size of San Francisco. The City That Knows How'with courage and determination has
broughtthe project to completion."

M. M. O'Shaughnessy, San Francisco's city engineer who supervised most of the system's construction

"Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water tanks the people's cathedrals and churches,for no holier temple has ever been consecratedby the
heart of man."

John Muir, first Sierra Club president, naturalist and ardent foe of Hetch Hetchy Valley's flooding

-----------------------------

Costs to upgrade Hetch Hetchy

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the city agency that runs the Hetch Hetchy Water and Power system, proposes $3.6 billion in
repairs and upgrades to the waterworks over 13 years. Here is a breakdown of the projected spending:



------------------------SpendingConstruction in 2003 dollars - $2.1 billion Inflation adustment - $500 million Contingency & management
reserve - $400 million Financing costs - $600 million Total - $3.6 billion

-------------------Water bill increasesHetch Hetchy water users would face bill hikes to pay for their share of improvements to parts of the
system that they use. For a typical four-person household, here is a breakdown of the projected increase, which would be phased in
through 2015:.San Francisco-- 2002: $14.43 a month-- 2015: $40.85 a month.Outside San Francisco-- 2002: $32.00 a month-- 2015:
$71.00 a month

------------------------------Hetch Hetchy raidedDespite the regional dependence on Hetch Hetchy for water, San Francisco politicians
turned the system into a cash cow to feed City Hall spending. Amount of money pulled out and transferred into the city general fund by
year, since fiscal year 1979:

-- Total amount since 1979: $670 million-- Cumulative amount adjusted for inflation: $956 million

------------------------

Hetch Hetchy water usersTwenty-nine wholesale customers of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission serve Hetch Hetchy water in
these areas of San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda counties.

.Source: San Francisco Public Utilities CommissionChronicle Graphic

E-mail the writers at ssward@sfchronicle.com and cfinnie@sfchronicle.com.

More Woodward

"He theorized that Hillary Clinton would earn the Democratic nomination in 2008 and would run against Dick Cheney..."

This is a weird prediction. I think, anyway. I also think that Hillary is the slightly less un-electable of the two.

More on Hetch Hetchy

"This was done by people, and it can be undone by people," says Restore Hetch Hetchy's executive director Ron Good.

Woodward

From the interview on "Fresh Air" today:

"The biggest threat is not terrorism, not economic collapse, not war. It's secret government. That will wreck our system."

Bush mishap

Commentary from a cycling mailing list that I'm on:

Improperly equipped (mountain bike on pavement), speeding ahead
without watching for potential obstacles, ignoring the European's
position, resulting in unexpected blood loss, and having a spokesman
decline to discuss him being at fault.

Just like how he runs our country. lol.

"Has the whole world gone CRAZY?

"Am I the only one who gives a sh*t about the rules??" As Walter Sobchak would say.

NASA is shooting things at comets, just to see what happens

And they're naming their devices after cheesy disaster movies.

From their press release:

The Deep Impact spacecraft's 820-pound 'impactor' is scheduled to
smash into the Tempel 1 comet on July 4, Eastern Daylight Time (late
July 3, PDT). Scientists hope to learn more about comets by observing
the resulting cloud of debris following the impact. Scientists believe
the impact will form a crater on the comet.

Ames' Vertical Gun Range is used to simulate the physics and
mechanics of planetary 'impact cratering' and micrometeorite impacts.
For Deep Impact, studies included crater-scaling experiments.

The Vertical Gun has been used to conduct tests related to many other
space missions including Apollo, Mariner 9 to Mars, Mariner 10 to
Venus and numerous others.

Earlier: "It is not appropriate for the U.S. to not be the world's prime space-faring nation."

Schaivo redux

The report generally supported the contention of Schiavo's husband, Michael, accepted by judges in six courts over the years, that she was unaware and incapable of recovering. It also countered arguments by her family, who badly wanted to win custody of Schiavo, that she was responsive and could improve with therapy.

These are dark, dark times

Forty percent of Americans think Bill O'Reilly is a journalist; 27 percent believe Rush Limbaugh is one.

In the poll taken before the Deep Throat revelation, only 30 percent said they considered Bob Woodward a journalist. What the heck did they think he was, a game show host?

As for O'Reilly and Limbaugh...I have pretty much the same thing to say about them as I did about Pat Buchanan last week.

Vote to Restore Hetch Hetchy!

Nearly 100 years ago, the beautiful Hetch Hetchy Valley -- inside Yosemite National Park -- was stolen from the American people by San Francisco for the city's exclusive use of the Valley's water and power. Today the Valley remains under San Francisco's tyranical control.

Vote in the San Francisco Chronicle poll to restore Hetch Hetchy.

Even if you don't live near Yosemite, this valley belongs to YOU and is meant for your recreation, inspiration and enjoyment -- if you are a US citizen -- because it's in a national park.

Over the years, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has selfishly retained control of the Hetch Hetchy Valley and water system, even though millions of people who live outside the city rely on the system for their water; only one-third of the users of Hetch Hetchy water live in San Francisco!

On top of that, San Francisco PUC has collected tax money from the residents of the cities surrounding San Francisco that use the water, and have funneled that money into the city's general fund, instead of using it for the intended purpose of maintaining the Hetch Hetchy system. As a result, the pipes and pumps have fallen into grave disrepair, putting the whole region at risk of a massive water shortage if a large earthquake hits. The cost of fixing the system continues to skyrocket into the several-billion-dollar range.

Still, San Francisco visciously fights against efforts to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley, even though it would result in the water being stored closer to the millions of people who use it, make the system more stable.

A highly local issue

This man hates children.

We already figured this was the case. See his argument againt the modest parcel tax increase here. Nice work, Jack. You helped get the schools screwed.

Here's proof (see fifth item).

My favorite new blog

It's by an "anonymous" person who may or my not live and/or work in or near Mountain View.

Now this is a funny post. It made me laugh, anyway.

God hates fags

A quote from this Chron story about people from Kansas (yes, the state) picketing against gays in Central California: "Strip away their titles, and those churches are all talking about the same big lie," Phelps-Roper said, "that God loves anyone."

Um, maybe I'm mis-remembering what I learned in Sunday School, but isn't the big message of Christianity that God does love everyone?

Let's summarize.

Bush is against stem-cell research, in favor of war and in favor of global warming. He also loves the death penalty. So much for the "culture of life."

Why hasn't this guy been impeached yet? We don't even need Deep Throat to help us this time. We just need the Downing Street Memo and some notes from an aide in a global-warming brief.

Pat Buchanan is...

...oh, why even bother at this point.

Memorial Day is for baseball...

I am getting my money's worth out of the MLB Extra Innings package. I watched parts of the White Sox, Red Sox, Pirates and Reds games, and all of the Cubs-Dodgers game, of course. I had forgotten how phenomenal Vin Scully is. He talks so slowly and melodically, and seemingly never stops. And there's never a wasted word. And sometimes, he even uses those really big, good words that I love. I had to look one up, even! It was "tattersall." I'm guessing that neither Bob Brenly, nor Joe Morgan nor any of the other idiots who call baseball games on TV know what tattersall means. I might start recording the Dodger games just so I can listen to Vin Scully. No inane jokes, no uncorrected errors...ah....