I'm a careless reader, so I had false hopes about the "wokeness" (not a bad word in SF) of the people at Calvary Presbyterian Church, who after performing a special music-infused version of Truman Capote's  Christmas Memory" offered desserts, all of which seemed to be vegan!  I saw that word on all the cards and failed to see that it wasn't checked--ever.  

This is the email I sent to Libby and Maxine to describe Eskenazi's interview with Scott Wiener last night, reported in the Mission Local, which left out a few minor details.  

Dear Libby,

I hope your event last night was as engaging as the one I got to go to but that Maxine missed.  (I'm cc'ing her here.)  I took a lot of notes, but I see that Mission Local covered it quite well with the exception of a couple of dramatic moments the reporter left out.  

Here's what the Mission Local article doesn't mention:

I came in with Scott Wiener--maybe because we were on the same BART train--and he went straight to the restroom.  I took your ticket and went straight to a front seat.  

Manny was there and announced that Manny's was a sushi restaurant before it became this place for "civic and artsy" events.  (Maybe you knew that, but I didn't.)

We met Mission Local's "Donor Engagement Leader," and I'm so impressed by Mission Local, particularly Joe Eskenazi, that I'm thinking of making a small monthly donation to Mission Local.  She said "Pay walls don't serve anyone, especially now."  

Scott Wiener mentioned an interview with Tik Tok.  Here's his Tik Tok Ad:  https://www.tiktok.com/@scott_wiener/video/7564070127835106615

Mission Local doesn't mention what he said about Govern Brown's being a great governor but NOT a fan of public subsidies on housing.  Gov. Newsom is.   (Both Eskenazi and Wiener mentioned that it's no longer public housing but social housing because now it's mixed-income.)

Mission Local does mention the fact that Scott Weiner, born in 1987, has never known a House representative other than Nancy Pelosi, which I thought was an interesting and amusing fact.   It reports most of the other things in my notes.  However, it doesn't emphasize what Scott Wiener said about being known for his housing bills but not as much for the bills that are even more numerous involving health care and affordability.  (That affordability is something we need to look into more.)  

He made a strong statement against Israel (as it is now)--even stronger than reported in Mission Local.  He said he would not support an Israel that doesn't stand for democracy and peace.  Not reported:  Joe Eskenazi's response, "When has Israel done that?  Scott Wiener talked about Rabin, who was assassinated by someone incited by Netanyahu. 

Close to the end, a fairly young, attractive Black woman sitting near me said, "I hope you'll let me ask a question because I flew here to ask it."  Scott Weiner agreed, and she said, "We've got to stop these men who pretend to be women from coming into our restrooms and assaulting our women" or something close to that.  She shouted transphobic comments, insisting that transwomen were men threatening women, and several in the audience shouted back "Trans women are women."  Twice or three times she turned to Scott Wiener and said, "I like other things you do, but we've got to protect women."  Wiener said "We've got to protect all women.  Including Trans Women."  Manny, who had spoken at the very beginning about the importance of being civil and accepting people's views that differed, asked her to leave.  Then he sat down on the front row and looked visibly shaken.  I think he's such an idealist that he really feels it when people aren't civil.  

Here's the link for the Mission Local article:  https://missionlocal.org/2025/11/sf-scott-wiener-pelosi-congress/

Thanks again for the ticket.  

 

At first I thought the SF Chronicle's Art and Culture columnist Tony Bravo was wearing a skirt because he has good legs, but these are really inside shorts by Comme des Garcons and the black jacket is Dries Van Noten. These are names I don't know, but I do know pink, which he encouraged us to wear to the Mechanics' Institute for a screening of the 1957 movie FUNNY FACE with Kay Thompson singing "Think Pink" in the first scene. So...The Mechanics' Institute and The SF Chronicle collaborated on this, and in an indirect way, CCSF was linked because Tony Bravo teaches journalism there. His presence and commentary elevated the movie, which has the fashion world barging into the Greenwich book store where the philosophic idealist Jo, played by Audrey Hepburn, works. Jo is shoved outside, and instead of calling 9-1-1, she waits until the fashion mob finishes with the wreckage. When she finally re-enters, the store is in shambles. Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) makes a token effort to re-shelve two or three of the thousands of books strewn across the floor before giving Jo a kiss he decides she needs.  Astonishingly, Jo appears grateful—breaking into Gershwin’s “How Long Has This Been Going On?”-- instead of slapping him and filing charges for aggravated assault.

Here's a story  that is Total SF, connecting a Muni operator with San Francisco transit riders and City College and showing how acts of kindness multiply and make long-lasting difference.

Eunice Lew, a retiree from teaching immigrants at City College of SF, showed me an article about a wonderful Muni driver, Alan Brown, who appeared in a SF Examiner article in 1999. 

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Riding-with-Muni-s-man-from-glad-3238334.php

 Eunice was also mentioned in the article, and when I asked, "Whatever happened to this beloved Muni operator?"  she told me a very touching story I thought would be of interest to you.

With his permission, back in 1999, she recorded his voice as he took people through SF streets and brought the recordings to class at the Chinatown/NorthBeach campus, where she taught both because they were learning the streets with numbers that he called out (34th Avenue, for example) at the same time that they were seeing how friendly and helpful he was, this Black man, who represented a race her students sometimes feared.

A year or so ago, deep in retirement, when she was going through things she needed to discard, she didn't want to throw the cassettes away, so she decided to contact his family so they could have that as part of his legacy.  You'll have to ask her how she found his wife, but she did, and now the wife has the cassettes and, apparently, a way to listen to them and share them with others.  She also told Eunice that he had had cancer back in the days when he was being so welcoming to every one and really making their day.  He died in 2003.  

This must have been before Sam Whiting was writing his wonderful obituaries/Life Tributes to locals because this is all I found after his death:  https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/brown-alan-2656405.php

Later, in response to my questions to Eunice, here's what she wrote:

Stored with Alan's recorded cassettes, there was a letter from Alan thanking me for praising him at a City Hall award ceremony with Mayor Dianne Feinstein.   Going by his return address, I found out that his S.F. home near Stonestown had been sold.  End of the trail -- how can I find him?   I tried searching online with the name of his wife Arlene Brown who I met at the ceremony.  Their daughter has an uncommon name "Niya".   But I didn't get far with "people search" sites.  A friend with better computer skills found an Arlene Brown with Niya in Louisville, Kentucky.  I called the number and sure enough, Niya answered and put her mom on.  Arlene still remembers me.  She was really excited to hear about my plan for shipping her the cassette tapes so Alan's memories will be available for their family history collection.  What a joy that would be for a grandkid to personally experience Grandpa Alan come to life and share the fun  that he brought to so many people.   A different twist on the contemporary "bring your child to work day" -- becoming "bring Grandpa at work home".  

 https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Riding-with-Muni-s-man-from-glad-3238334.php

 

A standing ovation for Betty Traynor, who has been president of SDA (Senior and Disability Action) for 13 years and is now stepping down.  

SDA had its annual fund-raiser, a CommUNITY Celebration on Thursday August 14 from 6 to 8.  

Plot spoiler:  This is the book whose title and author I tried to conjure up today.

I don't remember why this author, whose name I couldn't remember, and book, whose title I couldn't remember came to mind, making me wonder "Whatever became of...?"  Maybe it was because I was working on a eulogy for Dana, whose urged me for years to have a memorial while still alive and bring the fun back in funeral.  It was in the 1980s that she and I took the trip to Oklahoma to search for links to our mother's birth mother.  It was also the 1980s when we had our family reunion with Daddy and I found out the musical "White Christmas" didn't conjure in us both the same sweet memories.  That was the decade I got a part-time teaching job at City College and the decade my first marriage ended.  That was also the decade I had my 40th birthday party and got quite a lot of attention from the Examiner-Chronicle--even on the front page (now framed) along with Reagan and Marcos.  

Whatever happened to...I had my iPhone with me and Googled SF writer of book about the 80s Gornick, getting Vivian Gornick.  After several failed attempts, I started an email to Leah Garchik

Dear Leah~

Thank you for recommending the film "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight."  Because of your enthusiasm, a couple of friends and I saw it before it left the Opera Plaza, and we all loved it.  (It fits in with my favorite film about childhood, "My Life as a Dog.")

I have an unrelated question:  Who was the thirty-ish local writer in the 1980s who wrote a book of essays on being single in the 1980's?  I think her last name was something like Gonnick or Gornick.  I can't remember her first name, but she was definitely not Vivian Gornick.   She also wrote a poem for the SF Chronicle in the style of "The Night Before Christmas," but I think it was about San Francisco and the times. She had a column too for a while.

Any idea?

Thanks again,

Tina

 Now I see the column was "Failing at Living."

 

So...I made it to Udupi Palace on Wednesday night in spite of my carelessness.  They'd made the address super clear--and more than once--in text messages and reminders, but I managed to key in the wrong number and was told to get off at Market and Van Ness and walk 7 minutes.  But it turned out that it was more like a 30 minutes walk to the correct address, so the SF Vistas that I saw were all a blur as I hurried past them.  They were places like Dave Eggers'-founded 826 Valencia Street and City College's Mission Campus.  I've got to go back when being on Valencia isn't an accident.  
 

I don't think this is the kind of community-provided bench the SF Chronicle was talking about today in its article

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/mystery-benches-sidewalks-20418145.php

Yes, there were other articles--many grim, sad, alarming--but this was the one I focused on!  

 

San Francisco is still trying to create safer streets. So far this year four seniors, walking, have been killed by cars, so when I was asked to speak for Senior and Disability Action at a safe-streets-Vision Zero event Supervisor Melgar called at City Hall, of course I mentioned that. I also mentioned the concern many seniors express about not feeling safe on sidewalks because of bicyclists and scooters whizzing by them even though they're supposed to be in bicycle lanes. I related my experience with courteous bicyclists in Golden Gate Park too, and afterwards three bicyclists from the Bicycle Coalition told me that pedestrians often expressed surprise to them too that they were courteous, and they were definitely making an effort to make all cyclists aware of the importance of obeying rules and being courteous. Others who spoke were Supervisor Melgar, former Supervisor Norman Yee, Supervisor Mahmood, Robin Pam, and Jodie Medeiros.

 

 

At the 1906 earthquake commemoration in San Francisco on April 18, Laura Ackley, the author of  San Francisco's Jewel City: The Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915,  distributed handcrafted commemorative garters.   But I don't know what the significance of the 5 is!

 https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/great-highway-park-sunset-dunes-20262237.php

 https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/revolution-naked-woman-sf-20277918.php

In Tony Bravo’s “45-foot-tall nude sculpture in SF sparking controversy,” Rebecca Camacho is quoted as saying “What is disappointing and confusing about this is the city allowing private money to come in and commandeer very public space.”  My visceral response to R-Evolution was very positive, and so is my visceral response to the idea that we could allow private money to come in and help very public space at Hallidie Plaza, where there is no ramp and no working elevator.  (People in wheelchairs had no access to an important press conference held there last year.  I have a picture of them at the bottom of the stairs they couldn't get up.)    And what about the public space where transit needs to go?  Could we use private money to salvage Muni and BART?  Could one of our billionaires make such a generous endowment that we could keep public transportation going on the interest of the endowment?

 

The L-Taraval OWL got me to the R-Evolution statue at 4:27 am, when I hoped to see it illuminated.  But it wasn't.  The yellow-green tint is reflection.  But it was still worth seeing before the April 18th ceremony commemorating the 1906 earthquake.  

Here are two good articles about this statue, the first by Sam Whiting, and the second by Tony Bravo.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sculpture-of-a-naked-woman-lands-sf-waterfront-20257701.php

https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/revolution-naked-woman-sf-20277918.php

 

Transit Riders, founded in 2010 by Dave Snyder, celebrated its 15th anniversary at SOMArts on Brannan Street right next door to Trader Joe's.  

 San Francisco is, according to AARP, the best big city for older Americans (over 50, I think) even though its score is only 66 over 100.  It scored high 84/100 in the health category (not much smoking but access to exercise opportunities and enough health care professionals) and it got 75/100 for transportation, which includes household transportation costs, frequency of local transit, walkability scores, and ADA-accessible transit stations and vehicles.

This past Tuesday, March 4th, when Trump was addressing Congress (and getting applause when he said that Biden didn't need Congress to secure the border-- "The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation, but it turned out that all we really needed was a new president.") there was an action called “Light for our Democracy” as San Francisco’s part of a nationwide organizing effort to honor our democracy and stand up for its best and highest values. (Hey, Congress, why are you applauding Trump's taking over your branch of the government?) It was a peaceful and unified event and space "to affirm our belief in racial, social, economic and environmental justice and taking care of each other."

We had a moment of silence at the time President Trump was scheduled to address Congress. Musician Pete Kronowitt sang to attendees. (See photo above, taken by Art Persyko.

Among the people I saw there were Art Persyko (one of the organizers), Kathe Burick, who led a chant and a body movement, Georges Woyames, Jim Mckinney, Rodger Kent Scott, Susan Solomon, Libby, and Timotha Doane! Here are many more photos:

https://www.dropbox.com/.../AHycZ7xQViD2mmr3h7n7fjQ...

 

On Monday, February 24th, a group of us from Senior and Disability Action once again gave public comment at the meeting of the Capital Planning Committee at City Hall, advocating that some of the money gotten from Prop B be used, as promised, for access at Hallidie Plaza, where Luis (shown in wheelchair yesterday) couldn't get up to a press conference last March because there's no working elevator and no ramp. I showed the fourth photo to the committee members and explained that people who wanted to support the bill to fund regional transportation couldn't access the press conference to show their "Transit is Access" signs!

I told them I'd sent a picture to them in advance, so they could see it on their smart phones. No one looked. Then Sara Greenwald, Joni Eisen, and Elena Engel had sent everyone a document showing all the organizations that had endorsed their climate action and asked for everyone who saw it to raise their hand. No one raised their hand. Discouraging!

This otherwise beautiful city isn't meeting the needs of many of its residence while the very rich have too much more than they need. I know they want us to tax them more so they won't be burdened by all that excess.

I recommend listening to Jim Herlihy's recent podcast "Extreme wealth is the leading social problem of our time."

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/james-herlihy/episodes/Extreme-Wealth---a-leading-social-problem-of-our-time--Author-Sarah-Kerr-discusses-her-new-book-e2vadcv

I

We had learned through 48 Hills that Mayor Lurie was going to present his plan to save public transit At 2:00 pm on February 11, so a lot of us arrived before 2:00 pm to hear what he had to say and to have our say. Apparently Myrna Melgar was the designated speaker among the supervisors to express the importance of public transportation, and she did that well. But when she asked him, "So what is your plan?" it was clear that Mayor Lurie had no plan that we could perceive. He said he'd been in Sacramento the previous day to ask for public funding (for which there's a 30% chance of getting) and there may have to be cuts in service--just what we're trying to avoid. He also said that we needed both a local and a regional measure, which of course we already knew. We wanted to know what his plan was to make them successful. He was gone in 15 minutes, so of course he didn't hear our public comments. It was very disappointing. We gathered together later "in solidarity," but I can't get our group picture to come up!

Anyway, not all was lost. The Board of Supervisors we honored Jason Johnson (better known as Officer JJ) for his "unprecedented work in community as a mentor and as a member of law enforcement. For years he has taken our youth on life-changing trips to Ghana and he has worked to stop violence in community. His positive impact as a 17 year San Francisco police officer is immeasurable," as Supervisor Walton said. Supervisor Mandelman spoke in memory of Robert Cromey, and Supervisor Melgar spoke in memory of F.X. Crowley.

 

One of the things I like most about riding Muni is meeting the people aboard--or even at the bus stop.  

This morning while waiting for the #28 bus, I saw the neighbors though I at first didn't recognize them because they were all wearing masks.  Because they don't speak English at all, they didn't really greet me, but I greeted them without providing an ESL lesson.  Then I noticed a young woman with a very pretty purple tint to her hair in front and complimented her on how well the color matched her coat, which she said was an accident.  We talked, and I found out that she helps a friend who has dementia and also gives out food in the Tenderloin.  

Coming back from Kaiser--my last visit for PT the therapist told me--and a short visit to see the UCSF Women's Center, I mailed two letters,  and when I was crossing--with the light--to the bus stop on Divisadero and Geary, the 38R bus driver/Muni operator closed the doors.  I waved my iPhone at the driver, who opened the door.  I thanked him as I got on, and the man I sat down next to said, "I saw how you flashed your FBI badge and he let  you on."  A man sitting across from us said, "She has a Muni bag.  That's why he let her on."  Then they started talking about Trump.  "Did  you see Time Magazine, showing Trump with a crown?" "I watch CNN first thing in the morning ,and he had the nerve to call Zelensky a dictator."

I said, "He said 'a dictator not elected.'  Since Trump was elected, he thinks it's okay to be a dictator."

The man next to me said, "Don't joke about it because if you do, you won't take it seriously, and we have to take it seriously."

I assured him that I took it very seriously.

When I transferred to the 28 bus, I saw lots of people with suitcases and found out that they were a group from France.  I talked to the man across from me, who told me they were on their way to the airport and had  had  a good time getting around on Muni.  I took their picture with their permission.  

 

About a year ago, I bought a big puffy raincoat sort of like this picture but in a blue color.  People said it looked like a sleeping bag, and it really was too much, so I put it in the trunk of my car and decided to give it to a homeless person on the street.

But I always seemed to be walking or taking the bus when I saw someone who might need it--until this past week, when a guy by the Safeway at Taraval asked me if I could spare some change. 

I looked into my wallet and tried to find the smallest bill.  I found a dollar and gave it to him.  He thanked me and God blessed me the way people on the street so often do.  I felt bad about having tried to give him so little, and then it occurred to me that I could give him the raincoat in the trunk of my car.

"Would you like a coat?" I asked him, this man who was wearing only a sweatshirt and some sweatpants--and fentanyl.

"Yes," he said, and I got the coat out of the trunk of my car and gave it to him.

"It's kind of like a sleeping bag," I told him.

He thanked me again and God blessed me.

Later I wondered whether it would be to cumbersome for him.  Would he wear it at all?  Would he sell it?  Maybe he would find someone sleeping on the street and give it to hm.  

 

This photo is not connected to George's Donuts and Merriment except in irony.

The person holding this box of donuts is protecting themself against COVID but not the empty calories, sugar and fat in donuts!  

Three friends and I were planning a lunch-getting together, and one of them suggested the new West Portal spot George's Donuts and Merriment, which I was also excited about because I love West Portal and like to support new businesses there.  Then I found this article from the SF Chronicle: 

  https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/georges-donuts-hims-trump-donation-20049321.php

I can understand business owners wanting to do business with leaders whose policies they don't support in order to try to change policies, but look at this:

Dudum posted a photo on Tuesday of the Hims & Hers chief operating officer posing at the inaugural festivities with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s controversial pick to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“Our shared commitment with @POTUS, @RobertKennedyJr, and other leaders to address the US obesity epidemic will help millions of Americans with the chronic conditions too many are struggling with,” Dudum wrote on X. 

 Do people committed to ending the US obesity epidemic open cafes specializing in donuts, probably the worst food choice for health because of the high amount of sugar, fat, and empty calories?