Proof of Payment

Yesterday, Urbanities was busted!! No trips to the jail or bail bondsman were involved, just the distinctly unpleasant experience of being cited by the Muniserable Railway’s fare collection police for “failing to display valid fare media.”

What happened was this: I was in the Muni Metro when the fare police came through the car asking passengers to present their proof of payment—a Fast Pass or transfer to show they had paid to enter the system. I opened my wallet and—uh oh, no Fast Pass! I told the fare police that I couldn’t locate my pass and was told in that flat emotionless voice that has come to be associated with police shows: “step out of the car, sir.”

The fare police escorted me out of the streetcar in the Van Ness station, to the sidelong glances and knowing looks of my fellow passsengers. In their eyes I was no longer one of them, I was a fare cheat, a scofflaw. The fare police allowed me to look through my wallet for the pass but as I reconstructed my steps, I realized that my Fast Pass was no longer in my possession:

Flashback to when I entered Muni Metro at Embarcadero Station. What happened was this: I was carrying a large, bulky parcel that needed two hands to carry. I set it down on the fare gate while I inserted my Fast Pass through the slot. I picked up the parcel, but neglected to retrieve the pass after it was ejected by the fare gate. I told my story of woe to the fare police, but if I was expecting to receive sympathy or be let off I was sadly mistaken. But I did have something in my wallet that just might be the ticket: the receipt for the June Fast Pass. Since I had used my Safeway Club Card when I bought the Fast Pass, the receipt even had my name on it! I presented this proof of purchase to the fare police showing that beyond the shadow of a doubt I had purchased a Fast Pass at Safeway at 8:39 PM on May 30, but they weren’t buying it.Only a Fast Pass or transfer would do, not a receipt for a Fast Pass.

They were very nice as they wrote me out a citation. One of them even suggested that I would probably get off since I had the receipt for the pass. They told me the citation would be my “proof of payment” if I was stopped by the fare police again. Then they let me go not only having lost my Fast Pass in the middle of the month (at $45 a pop, not exactly cheap to replace) but having added insult to injury by citing me for it.

Urbanities does not think the fare police were wrong, exactly. The City has lost millions from fare evaders and they were just doing their job, but we respectfully suggest that absent-minded middle-aged white guys who forget their passes are not the culprit here. If they want to stop fare evasion why don’t the fare police go after the teenage boys who jump the fare gates like track stars jumping hurdles? I think they just went after me because I was an easier target.

The fare police told me to call the number on the citation in about a week. I tried it today and it is an automated menu tree. This promises to be fun! More later…

All We Are Saying...

It’s petition-signing season again in San Francisco, when you see people huddled outside supermarkets and subway entrances trying to hustle signatures to get something or someone on the ballot.

Often, it’s something that has nothing whatever to do with city policy, like condemning the war in Iraq. Usually, I just roll my eyes and say “no thanks”. Sometimes I do other things.  But yesterday, I saw a petition that was so surpassingly stupid that it made me laugh out loud. A petition for the City and County of San Francisco to acquire Alcatraz Island from the U.S. Park Service to create a global peace center.

Alcatraz, a former Federal penitentiary and a sacred site for First Nation people, is currently administered by the Department of the Interior. Through a political process, be it an initiative, an act of Congress or direct purchase of the island, we have the means and opportunity to transform Alcatraz island into The Global Peace Center.

The Global Peace Center, based on the geometry of THE HEXAGRAM will feature the Harmonium, an Artainment multi-media center, and The One Earth One People World Cultures and Conference Center will serve as a dramatic and dynamic international showcase…

The Global Peace Center will be magnificently landscaped with botanical gardens, providing a man-made habitat which is peaceful and serene. Sanctuary and ceremonial spaces will be provided. The island will be energy self-sufficient, employing state-of-the-art sustainable solar and wind generated energy systems.

From the signing of The United Nations charter to the present day peace movement, San Francisco, the City of St. Francis, has a storied history as a progressive center for spiritual enlightenment, and an engaged socially conscience populace and business community. In light of these realizations, San Francisco, the “Geneva of the West” and a major center for the rapidly emerging Pacific Rim community of nations, is ideally suited for this majestic and noble project.

The Global Peace Center, a prophetic and sacred vision, will be magnificently landscaped with botanical gardens, providing a man-made habitat which is peaceful and serene. Sanctuary and ceremonial spaces will be provided. The island will be energy self-sufficient, employing state-of-the-art sustainable solar and wind generated energy systems.

The Alcatraz Conversion Project will activate the creative intelligence of the business community, the engineer and the artist. The outcome being a living Peace Mandala whose function will be to “Inspire, Delight, Heal and Enlighten”…

IN SUMMARY: The Global Peace Center signals the completion and beginning of a grand cycle of evolution within our multidimensional universe, and ushers in the long-awaited Golden Age. We look forward with confidence to the perfect realization of this sacred and majestic project and to the time when we all collectively acknowledge ourselves for a job extraordinarily well done… Ah-Ommm

Urbanities wonders if the Global Peace Center folks have ever made a site inspection of their “sacred and majestic project” location.  Certainly there is enough wind on Alcatraz Island for a sustainable wind generated energy system, however this very factor mitigates against the location as a “man-made habitat which is peaceful and serene”.  Constant gale force winds do not make for serenity.  And we wonder where the soil and water will come from for the “magnificently landscaped…botanical gardens” on an island that is mostly barren rock.

It is a profound violation of the Alcatraz’s history as a prison to bulldoze it for someone’s pipe-dream.  Not to mention the unlikelihood of  a city that can’t make the buses run on time or maintain its existing city parks successfully developing and managing a global peace center.  And even if you were in favor of yet another place for spouting high-minded platitudes about lofty ideals, how many million$ of dollar$ would it take to make the global peace center a reality, and where would it come from? Somehow, I don’t think that ticket sales to the Harmonium will cover the cost. Oh, no matter; if we creatively envision the money, it will come. Ah-Ommmm….

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Button up your overcoat,

When the wind grows free,

Take good care of yourself,

You belong to me.

Helen Kane--the original Betty Boop girl sang those words in the 1929 musical "Follow Through"  but they might have been said by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. A Siberian cold front that moved into the State caused the mercury to dip in Sunny Colly-vornia to freezing or below. So, of course the Governator issued a proclamation:

“Northern and Central California will see night time temperatures drop into the teens and low 20s,” said Gov. Schwarzenegger. “Because of the extreme cold, I have directed state government to spring into action to protect our most vulnerable communities. The state has made 11 National Guard armories available and will make additional facilities available, such as fairgrounds, should local governments deem it necessary.”

The proclamation goes on to instruct Californians to "have extra blankets on hand" and "wear a hat".  Thoughtful advice to be sure, but do I need the Governor to instruct me on my bedclothes and headwear?   Even brine shrimp will instinctively move toward a source of light and heat; they don't need bureaucrats to tell them.  This comes on top of Ahhnold's bold proposals for health care and global warming.  It took Nixon to go to China; I guess it takes Ahhnold to institute a social democracy in the United States.  But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.  He did come to this country as a teenager from Europe.  It just goes to show that you can take the boy out of the EU, but you can't take the EU out of the boy.

Thinking About James Kim

For days, the news has been captivated by stories about the James Kim family who went missing in Southern Oregon late last month.

In case you have been under a rock for the past week, the senior editor for CNET and his family was headed back to San Francisco from a Thanksgiving work/pleasure trip to Seattle and Portland when they failed to return.  A massive manhunt ensued and mirabile dictu, his wife Kati and daughters Penelope and Sabine were found December 4 in their Saab station wagon on a Forest Service road between Grants Pass and Gold Beach, Oregon, thanks to a cell phone signal that had been triangulated by a wireless company. But James was not there; on December 2 he had gone off in search of help.  On December 6, his body was found in Big Windy Creek near its confluence with the Rogue River.

The story took many gut-wrenching turns during the week it captured the headlines:  the family’s mysterious disappearance on the Saturday after Thanksgiving after being seen at a Denny’s in Roseburg, Oregon; the heartwarming discovery of Kati Kim and her daughters and the tragic ending when James Kim’s lifeless body was pulled from the creek. 
Perhaps that is why people seemed to bond with the likeable, hip young Korean-American and his family and why people want to defend the decisions he made.

He tried to do the best he could for his family.”  San Francisco Chronicle writer C.W. Nevius

James Kim did nothing wrong. He was trying to save his family. He thought that if he could get to the river, he could make it to the town. Oregon State Police Lieutenant Gregg Hastings

I admire his effort, I truly do. He has a lot of intestinal fortitude. He comes from the city without a lot of outdoors experience, and he was thinking on his feet, he was very meticulous. ... He had a strong will to survive.  Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters

And yet and yet…from the moment he turned off onto Bear Camp Road, James Kim made a cascade of wrong decisions based on bad or incomplete information that imperiled his family and led ultimately to his death.  Taking his family up a narrow, twisting mountain road when ice and snow were in the forecast was the wrong decision.  Heading off on foot into a trackless wilderness wearing tennis shoes without a clear idea of where he was or where he was going was the wrong decision.  But no one will say that.  It’s as if because he was a good person who meant to do the right thing his actions are immune from criticism.  “[I]f it makes you feel better about yourself to criticize him, go ahead” harrumphs C.W. Nevius. “But don’t be surprised if no one wants to hear it.”

I'm not saying this to put myself up or to put him down.  Any one of us might have made the same decisions in his place.  But all the accolades for a brave husband and father who gave his life searching for help are drowning out some important lessons that could be learned from this: smart people do stupid things and bad things happen to good people.

The Bicyclist has No Shorts II

Urbanities never fails to marvel at how the endless self regard bicyclists have blinded them to...well just about everything. So, we were vastly amused that Superior Judge Peter Busch put the kibosh on the ambitious bicycle plan that the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) was foisting on unsuspecting San Franciscans with his ruling on Tuesday, keeping in force the preliminary injunction that was put in place as a result of a lawsuit brought against the plan by the Coalition for Adequate Review, Ninety-Nine Percent and Rob Anderson in June.  The plan has been ordered to have a full, environmental review. 

The judge ruled that the City was trying an end-around of the state-mandated review by approving projects piecemeal. "Such reasoning is akin to trying to avoid review of a timber harvest plan by removing trees one at a time," Busch said.

One would think that having been handed two defeats in six months would cause the bicyclistas to rethink their approach, but no.  Quoth SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum:  "It is ironic that in the midst of Spare the Air season when the Bay Area has made a public commitment to encouraging sustainable forms of transportation for the benefit of the environment, a few individuals are using the state's environmental regulations in an attempt to discourage the most environmentally friendly form of transportation,"

Check out the Supreme Court Building next time you are in DC, Ms. Shahum.  Especially the part where it says "Equal Justice Under Law".  You don't get to wriggle out of a legal requirement simply because you feel you are morally superior and politically powerful enough to force the City to do your will.