Sunday Streets making sanctuary cities for the rich?

“One time I was in Stanford and I seen this guy get his head run over.  He was walking around all alive with his brains hanging out, and we were all like, ‘Man!’  Really, it’s true.”  So said the painter of George’s BBQ on 24th and Capp in San Francisco this morning.

Today I embarked on another outreach campaign for Sunday Streets in the Mission.  SS is a city-wide campaign to encourage people to get outside and enjoy their neighborhoods as they’ve never seen them before — without cars!  It’s also a way to bridge neighborhoods and to encourage visiting communities that one would otherwise never encounter.  This year, Sunday Streets took it to the Embarcadero, the Bayview, and now it’s in the Mission (with future events along the Great Hwy).

This classic idea of building better cities has come with some opposition.  Critics say that Sunday Streets is gentrifying the Mission and the Bayview even more by showcasing the vibrant neighborhoods as novel places to live, which encourages rent gouging and yuppie shopping — just compare Philz $3 lattes to Jelly Donuts $1.25 Hazelnut brew….

But haven’t the Mission and the Bayview already been changing?  Don’t programs like SS support local businesses and give the communities better reputations in the public sphere?  And don’t car-free zones encourage safe play?  I know I don’t want to end up like that dude from Stanford….

I Feel Cream

My girl Peaches is on the move again.  Her new album “I Feel Cream” is coming to North America on May 5.  Snap!

Fafi Comics

A snipette of the upcoming comic, via TBA

TrashBagAesthetics caught up with Fafi to talk about her upcoming project.  She’s droppin a comic featuring the Fafinettes in 2010!

San Francisco Back in the Day

Just found this amazing website holding old news paper articles from San Francisco in its earliest days.  Enjoy!

http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/index0.html

Van Jonesin’

Van Jones

The Green Collar Economy

The SF Chronicle is reporting today that the U.S. is indeed in a recession.  At the same time, the Big 3 Auto Makers are asking for a bailout only a month or so after the banking bailout.  It seems that throwing money at the problem will only keep the system afloat until the next big solution is found.

Luckily, it is.  Van Jones is the author of The Green Collar Economy.  He is a co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, CA; and he has a clear understanding of turning our failing economy into a comprehensive green economy that also offers opportunities for the disadvantaged.

The dude is genius.

Lately the EcoStudents at SF State have been talking about diversifying the club and doing some outreach projects to do some collaborations with other groups on campus.  A week before break we went next door to the Students of Color and met with their director.  This is where the idea of doing a book-signing came up.  And Van Jones is just the person we would both like to have to represent us.

Wind it up!

actually, wind it down!  unh unh.  as of two hours ago, thanksgiving break officially bestowed me, so it’s reflection time on another semester of school.

first a word on budget cuts:  california’s in some major budget deficit.  monies keep getting cut left and right, and of course, schools (and apparently now transportation) are some of the first to go.  last month, the whole student body received emails saying that next semester’s class schedule was being taken off-line because many of the offerings were going to be taken away.  bummer.  it’s unfortunate that this is going on.  Fourty years ago, ‘third world’ students at SF State fought to turn our school into an academic instititution — creating an entire ethnic studies department — and integrating a scholastic curriculum into its once only-vocational standard.  Now nearly the entire asian studies department has dissipated.  It’s sad and it seems like there is not much we can do.  We mismanaged money, and now we’re mismanaging eager minds.

BUT there is some glimmer of happiness because of the already existing opportunities to learn…like i did these past months.  My most striking experience came through a community organizing course I took through the school of social work.  It brought me back to ideas of needing more diversity in the environmental field, and I’m hoping to work on some projects to make that happen.  First, I took a walk next door (that’s right, NEXT DOOR) to the Students of Color just to holla and let em know we’d like to collaborate, or even just invite them to a few ECO parties.  Their director was genuinely excited about it, as am I.  The social work heads really showed me that ECOs have the right ideas in environmental justice.  As I heard in my senior seminar class, “we [upper-middle class educated folk] are doing it for the underprivileged.”  I hear what that means, but I feel that ultimately that just ends up being suppressive.  If WE keep doing the learning, then we’ll just keep doing the helping.  However, collaborating and integrating those heads in our own learning experiences will empower ‘them’ to also “do it for the underprivileged.”  As students, we can facilitate what we learn (cuz let’s face it, environmental studies isn’t that complicated and it applies to ALL of us) in ways that relate to our ‘underprivileged’ homies.  A good friend has exposed to me an Oakland preacher named Van Jones whose got ideas on social justice and green jobs.  I’m planning on reading more about him and hopefully refining more of these ideas of mine.

Social work has also got me doing work on my newly own hood, San Francisco’s Mission District.  I started looking up some stats on the area, and was a bit disappointed at what the U.S. Census Bureau considers the Mission.  Turns out that Bernal Heights and Cesar Chavez to 15th are in the same zip code.  This skews all of the statistics and reflects higher income brackets and job fields.  WHAT?!  You mean that a 5-person family living in a box on 18th and Mission is reflective of a 2-car garage AND a quarter acre of land?  And all those day-laborers (roughly about 40 per day) on Cesar Chavez between Alabama and Florida are in the $150k income bracket?  Not to mention that there are many grocery stores in the hood, but equally as many bars and liquor stores.  Maybe that’s what the beauty of the Mission is, but there AREN’T any bars south of Cesar Chavez — let’s get real here Census Bureau.

I’ve done a lot of bitching rather than reflecting, but perhaps that’s what this was going to end up being anyway.  This past semester has shown that a shovel into the dirt will reveal much more than what the grass ???? (haha).  There’s more to be learned, but at least the doors were reopened.  okay i’ve got to stop this

Last night in San Francisco

We left campus headed for the El Rio to watch the election results.  Somewhere along the way, Winona and I got separated from everyone and were cruising down San Jose when cars broke into wild horn chaos.  People inside their homes were cheering, every window we looked into there was a television on with eyes glued.  We assumed it was the pure joy of the coming success of ‘Obama as president,’ but we didn’t want to get our hopes up.  As we approached Mission St., the cheering and festivities grew louder and much more certain.  We too began yelling — we couldn’t help it.  Every car on Mission had people cheering and smiling “Obama!  Obama!”  We approached El Rio and I turned to someone and asked, “Did Obama win?”  Before getting my answer, I turned and saw Winona in the street with her bicycle in front of 2 cars stopped jumping and smiling!  Obama won.

As we sat in the bar, we watched Obama give his speech and it was truly emotional for everyone around me.  Look at us — eight, nine, who knows how many — students just out of class watching what what our future was going to be on a fuzzy 15″ screen at The Knockout.  I’d look back at our little circle and see eyes filled with relief, hope, admiration, worry, success, and uncertainty.  Every now and then, I’d make eye contact with someone and we’d immediately just start hugging.  Wow.

We left the bar and made our way down Valencia.  There was celebration in the streets.  19th and Valencia had practically shut down.  Bicycles blocked off the intersection and people were just dancing, smiling, and yelling in the streets.  The same over at 16th and Dolores.  We felt it here in the city last night; that our country and lives had changed.  It was…I’ll let one of my received text messages describe it:

“Amazing! Its going to be hard, but we will move to a better future. Yes!”  from Ian Thomas

I need my stunnas, the future looks bright

I decided to start the application process for Teach For America.  This past month I’ve been thinking and rethinking my next year.  I will be graduating from college, and want to move in a productive direction, of course, that’s left me scared out of my wits — “what am I going to do?!”

After doing more course work and traveling, I’ve realized that I want to play a role in development; be it planning, education, or organizing.  Planning in the sense that I want to be the voice that makes sure that local environmental and social impacts are top priority and will remain so for generations and generations to come — making sure that local ecosystems are left unaffected, and that the local people are receiving the full benefits of development without negative externalities.  All of this done in a manner that sustains itself for the long-term and at lowest monetary and social costs.  I also want to play a part in education.  Sharing and facilitating the things that I’ve learned to empower others is one of the greatest rewards I could get from higher education.  And lastly, being that cohesive piece of building partnerships, gathering resources, and gaining trust is such an important role in what I’m going to school for (environmental sustainability and social justice).

Of course each of these things would be at its optimum if it also allows me to pursue my passion of traveling.  I have such a great interest of seeing the rest of the world.  I’ve spent most of my life on the sunny California coast, and a significant amount on the east coast, but there are so many more places I would love to experience; from Centro America, to South America, South East Asia, the Middle East, India, Africa, and on and on.  I must also not forget that seeing the rest of the U.S., i.e. Hawaii and Alaska, and the South would be awesome as well.  By going to these places, I would learn so much from how things are done in different parts of the world, then take those experiences and add them to my mental toolbox so that I could use them with the other “parts” that I have gathered.

Anyway, I started this blog talking about Teach for America.  There is still much I need to learn about the organization, but I love what they stand for:  providing quality education to underprivileged schools around America.  What an awesome opportunity to spread my wings and put this mind to work.

Active and Diverse Urban Lifestyle Enthusiast

Tonight I participated in a ‘cardio go-go’ class.  Really hard being sexy with cheap, shedding boa, sweaty gym clothes, and oh yeah, the whole rest of the gym behind us just staring.  Learned some hot-ass moves though….

Also had the best experience walking back from annie’s.  A dude jumped out from behind a bush on 16th and so. van ness, and scared a scream right out of me, but turns out I scared him just as much because he screamed just as loud and apologized with lots of heart.

I love this city.

Ecological Paper

Starting work on a project that will require paper.  The most important features of the paper will be durability and price, but also as ecologically friendly as possible.  Tree-free and non-chlorined bleached paper is preferred.  I’ve noticed that some paper-products are made from hemp and cotton, although I feel that using recycled materials uses less water in manufacturing than raw hemp or cotton.

There are some codes we need to know about in paper-labeling, they are:

PCF (Process Chlorine-Free) — fiber is recycled and unbleached, or bleached without the use of additional chlorine or chlorine additives

TCF (Totally Chlorine-Free) — indicates virgin fiber (including virgin tree-fiber) that is unbleached, or bleached without the use of additional chlorine or chlorine additives

* In both PCF and TCF, bleaching is done with benign elements.  It is important to note that the recycled material in PCF may have been bleached with chlorine or chlorine derivatives.

ECF (Elemental Chlorine-Free) — virgin or recycled fiber bleached with chlorine dioxide or other chlorine compounds.  Cleaner than gas bleaching, however still creates environmentall hazardous toxins.

PCW (Post-consumer Waste) — material collected from end-users and recycled.  Diverts solid waste from landfills.**

**Fibers can only be recycled about 7 times before needing to add virgin fibers, so look for high PCW proportions.

For the project, I think PCF or TCF will be fine, and of course, a high PCW level.

Source: Ecological Guide to Paper