A Flock in the Wind

One of the occasional commenters on this site, Kit Stolz, noted that he couldn't figure out why the new Burning Man sculpture in the Civic Center Plaza was called "Flock." He said that maybe it was more obvious when you saw the piece in person.



I didn't understand the name either, so I wrote to the sculptor, Michael Christian and presumptiously asked him what the title represented or if it was meant to be mysterious.



He wrote back today with the kindest note, and an explanation that veers towards the more "mysterious" interpretation.

"as for the title.....it is intentionally ambiguous being both a noun and a verb. it does have personal meaning but i don't feel its that integral to the piece itself. id say its somewhere between the noun and the verb. someplace between flocking to and being a part of a flock. i also liked the idea of one word describing many. one body or being representing many. i could go on but you get the idea."

I discovered Kit Stolz in the comments section of Lance Mannion's blog where he had written something short, brilliant and filled with original thinking.



So I followed the link to his own blog, called "A Change in the Wind" which you can get to by clicking here.



It's one of my favorite blogs on the internet, combining essays about nature, literature, politics, and ecology in an eminently sane voice which is rare.



He's also a great, adventurous reader who quotes brilliant stuff liberally from all over the world. Do check it out.



And one of the joys of "Flock" is the fact that there are real flocks of birds flying by in Civic Center, framed by puffy white clouds.

Farewell to The Force

The San Francisco Opera's new production of Verdi's "La Forza del Destino" is ending this Saturday, the 27th, and all the bloody flagellants...



...along with the proto-KKK penitents will soon be no more.



The second scene, set at an outdoor tavern in Spain in the mid-1880s, involves the most people, supernumeraries and choristers both onstage and off.



Scores of folk wait in the wings while the ill-starred principals start the miserable chain of events in the first scene that culminates in almost everyone's tragic death four hours later.



Tom Reed, a longtime opera chorister, and a brilliantly funny writer, has written a synopsis of the opera that includes absurdities from the plot and the new production which he entitles "La Forza del Schizophrenia."

Here's his description of the first scene:

Act I Scene 1 - In the household of the Marchese of Calatrava

Leonora has been dating Don Alvaro, but her father, the Marchese, says he's not going to let his daughter marry a lowlife. Alvaro shows up intending to elope with her, and it all goes well, except for one little glitch when he accidentally shoots Leonora's father dead.

Backstage gets a bit spooky waiting for everyone to go on...



...with flagellants in sheer, bloody robes carrying monster crosses around...



...along with penitents in heavy red robes that include long trains to trip over, and red light sabers that are straight out of "Star Wars."



The reaction to the production has been pretty uniform. Everyone loves the young conductor, Nicola Luissoti, and is ambivalent about the strong-voiced principal singers.



The set and costume design has been almost universally hated, with its bizarre anachronisms and deliberate lack of color, two features which seem to be part of outgoing general manager Pamela Rosenberg's Germanic style.



Tom Reed's brilliant fractured fairy tales synopsis continues:

Scene 2 - An inn, Hornacuelos, Spain

On the lam disguised as travelers, Alvaro and Leonora are greeted by the local chorus. By the time Verdi wrote Forza, Italian audiences were getting really good at following his convoluted plots, so this time Verdi decided to trip them up by introducing the concept of multiple personality disorder.

Apparently quite accustomed to multiple personalities, the choristers greet the guests by singing "hello" not once, but dozens of times. Everyone sits down to dinner. Don Carlo is there, but he is no longer Leonora's brother. He is now Pereda, a student searching for the killer of Carlo's father. This might seem odd, but in a town where villagers happily dine on bowls of imaginary soup, anything goes.

Suddenly the fortune teller Preziosilla, who is dressed as a lobster, jumps up on the table and announces that war has broken out. Overjoyed, the townsfolk can't wait to try out their new machine guns - very advanced weaponry for the mid-1800s. The revelry is interrupted by the arrival of pilgrims stumbling blindly across the oddly slanted stage with bags over their heads, dragging huge crosses and light sabers. Under the cover of some gratuitous religious music, choristers collect the disoriented penitents and point the poor souls back to their dressing rooms. The merriment resumes with Pereda telling the story of his entire life. It takes just two minutes. As the villagers pretend to understand whatever it is he's babbling about, Preziosilla begins to suspect that he might be another multiple. Finally the Alcade sends everyone home, touching off another long round of hellos and goodbyes.

To read the entire piece, click here.

Indians, Politicos and Journos

On Monday the 20th, a group of American Indian nonprofits set up shop on a lawn in the Civic Center Plaza.



They were handing out literature and even giving out canvas tote bags from The Friendship House Healing Center.



The Friendship House just opened in April of this year at Valencia and 14th Streets, housing an 80-bed rehab center with an American Indian religious emphasis.



The nonprofit running the place has been around since 1963 and seems to be pretty well connected into the local political structure.



If you go to their website (click here), the pictures of the Grand Opening abounded with politicos like Willie Brown, Jr. and Gavin Newsom, not to mention the Surgeon General of the United States.



There were a few other groups helping with everything from dentistry...



...to AIDS prevention.



The exhibit was set up in conjunction with the first ever San Francisco Native American Heritage Month, with a celebration slated for early in the evening in the City Hall rotunda.



Having worked in the graphics industry for years, I always get a little suspicious when the four-color printing on nonprofit brochures gets a little too fancy.



Still, they seemed to be doing good work.



"Well, you get to hang out on a beautiful day and watch the monster Christmas tree go up in the Plaza," I told a few of the women handing me literature.



"Actually, that's where we were supposed to be," one of the women said. "But we got moved over here to the side. As usual."



I can't even think about American Indians without feeling Tribal Shame for what my white ancestors did.



I also find it interesting that we have Jewish Holocaust museums galore in this country, even though it was essentially a European event, while the United States Holocaust of the Indians goes officially uncommemorated.



Across the street in City Hall, in Room 263 off of the main Board of Supervisors chamber, there was a follow-up hearing on the Grand Prix Bicycle Race.



This was supposedly to determine how the illegal permits were given to close down city streets last Labor Day Weekend for the Race even though the organizers hadn't paid any of their outstanding bills.



So not only were they getting a special deal because of all the money they were supposedly bringing into the city, according to bogus consultants' reports, but they weren't even bothering to pay their bills.



As h. brown told me, "They've made Peskin look like a complete ass."



The two newspapers in town were interesting, both of them trumpeting virtually the same press release/interview with Peter Rangone, who is Gavin Newsom's representative. The Chronicle article started with this:

San Francisco's best-known bike race may have hit a dead end.

The organizer of the annual San Francisco Grand Prix, a pro race that attracted some of the world's best cyclists, said in a written statement Sunday that it will cancel next year's race because of a raucous dispute with City Hall over who should pay for police and other city services required for the event.

"Sadly, it's a no-win situation, and we simply cannot go forward," said David Chauner, director of San Francisco Cycling LLC, which founded and runs the annual race.

The 108-mile race was regarded as one of the country's most challenging because of its length and the city's steep hills. It wound through the heart of the city and drew hundreds of thousands of spectators and more than 100 world-class athletes. Lance Armstrong, seven-time winner of the Tour de France, participated several times in the race before he retired.

City leaders have bickered for years over how much of the race's costs the city should absorb, if any.

Ay, there's the rub. Supervisor Daly calls it "corporate welfare" when a billionaire gets a special deal that nobody else is getting, and he's right.



However, the way it was framed, headlined, etc. in the two San Francisco dailies, you'd have thought Trotsky & Co. had taken over the Board of Supervisors and had spitefully destroyed this beautiful, money-bringing, glamorous, professional bike race because of small-minded leftist politics.



The increasingly odious PJ Corkery of the San Francisco Examiner also put in his two cents:

And this week, it was announced, the Uriah Heeps of City Hall having thrown a wrench of hostility into the spokes, that the Grand Prix bike race, which brings $12 million, lots of excitement and fun, as well as closed streets to the City one weekend a year, won’t be returning to San Francisco next year.

PJ then goes on to talk about the raw deal being given the recently fired Gerald Green, the deeply and essentially corrupt Planning Commission Director under the reign of Willie Brown, Jr. PJ is going mad, I think.



And so is Sean Elsbernd, the supervisor on the left. He's been giving off some serious Dan White vibes lately, which can be translated as the Born and Raised San Franciscan who is filled with amorphous anger over the city being taken over by them (gays, asians, whatever).



However, before all this criticism gets out of hand, let me reprint the bookmark given out by the American Indian group: "Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins."

Bye-Bye to the Blue Butts of Norma

Nothing crystallizes the essential Buddhist truth that all existence is transitory better than being in a theatrical production which has a beginning, middle and end, from rehearsal to the final performance.



And then it's over, never to return, not with the same group of people caught in the same stream of time and place.



San Francisco Opera's production of "Norma" closed tonight, on a Monday, and the house was surprisingly full with a large smattering of standees in the balcony, which is always a good sign.



For the record, the final performance was easily the best. The conductor Sara Jobin and the principal singers were finally going at a crisp pace together, and everyone was in fine voice and holding nothing back.



In my thirty something productions at the opera house as a spear carrier, I've never been in a thong before, and probably never will be again.



To say that this entire experience was amusing is a vast understatement.



I suppose it's time to go on to the next adventure and wade into the stream.

Celebrating the Flock

There was an official dedication of the new Civic Center Plaza sculpture, "Flock" last Thursday the 17th.



The photogenic young mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, was presiding.



He was asking kids what they though the statue was, and it became very Art Linkletter "Kids Say The Darndest Things."



"A dog," said one. "Abstract art," said another.



Newsom gave a speech about how making public art "temporary" seemed to be a solution to the fractious debates over what should go up where that the city has been embroiled in over the last decade.



Larry Harvey, one of the founders of Burning Man, had given almost precisely the same speech some months ago when the David Best pagoda was unveiled in the Hayes Valley Green back in June.



It was interesting that Mr. Harvey's vision for temporary public art everywhere in the city had percolated up to those in power.



The sculptor, Michael Christian, was at the dedication...



...and he looked almost overwhelmed by all the attention.



On Sunday afternoon, there was a picnic scheduled for the Plaza around the sculpture...



...that was being presented by the sponsors, the Black Rock Arts Foundation.



The turnout wasn't very good...



...though the day couldn't have been any more perfect for an outdoor picnic.



Actually, we've had one too many "perfect" days lately in California and an unsettling feeling of "drought" is starting to gain hold in people's brains.

Western Edition

There was an art opening in City Hall this Friday the 18th which is held in District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi's office every month.



The artist this month was Ian Johnson, an interesting 26-year-old originally from Syracuse, New York.



"What does he look like?" I asked one of Mirkarimi's aides.



"He's a tall white guy with a shaved head," I was told.



Ian was out in the hallway beaming with pleasure at his art opening. To get to his website with more of his art, click here.



He works as the art director for a skateboard concern out of the Haight called Western Edition, a play on the name of the nearby ghetto neighborhood called the Western Addition. They also have an interesting website which you can get to by clicking here.



In fact, my favorite pieces at the opening were his great skateboards lined up across the wall.



At most of these monthly affairs, hardly anyone pays any attention to the art but instead engages in political gossip. h. brown, pictured above, had written a deeply unflattering column that morning calling Supervisor Mirkarimi a wuss who was "Gonzalez-lite" and who was being used by the Republican power brokers in town. To read the whole thing, click here.



He was also regaling his companion with a description of how ugly and malignant the new Burning Man sculpture in Civic Center is to his taste. As the old saying goes, there's no accounting for it...taste, that is.

A Gay Marriage Cantata

A professional choral group called "Volti"...



...performed a free program on Wednesday the 16th in San Francisco's City Hall.



The founder and artistic director of the group, Robert Geary, was conducting.



Volti (under various names) has been performing for 27 years. For more information on the group, click here to get to their website.



If you ever go to hear music in the City Hall Rotunda, here's a tip.



The sound goes straight up and sounds much more wonderful the higher you climb in the building.



An older woman sitting next to me on the ground floor mentioned that she absolutely loathed Willie Brown, Jr., the gangsterish ex-mayor of San Francisco.



"However, I am happy that he left us this," she added, sweeping her arm around the gilded, restored, and retrofitted City Hall building.



Plenty of wedding couples and their photographers feel the same way.



The occasion for this public concert was the world premiere of a new a capella choral piece called "No More to Hide: An American Wedding Cantata."



It was written by the composer Alan Fletcher (pictured above) "in honor of the same-sex marriages performed in City Hall," according to the program.



The 20-30 minute piece consisted of three Emily Dickinson poems sandwiching two Walt Whitman poems, and ended with "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God" from the New Testament.



The soloist's part was being sung by the opera/oratorio star, Christine Brandes.



To my utter delight, the composition was challenging and beautiful, not some piece of schlock written for the San Francisco Gay Mens Chorus (I can see the hate mail already).



The chorus was also extraordinary in its musicianship and sound.



There are two more performances in more conducive acoustics this Sunday and Monday with tickets from $8-$20. Sunday at 4PM they'll be at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Berkeley. Monday they'll be performing at 8PM at St. Francis Lutheran Church at 152 Church Street. If you like choral music, check it out.

The Raising of Flock

In Civic Center Plaza, a new piece of public art is being installed.



The sculpture is large and ambitious enough that it's requiring welding torches to put it together.



Looking like Caltrans workers in their bright jackets, a small army of workers...



...is helping the artist, Michael Christian (pictured above)...



...to reinstall "Flock," his masterpiece from the 2001 Burning Man Festival.



The sculpture is 42 feet high...



...and requires a crane for installation.



The sculpture is being installed and paid for by the Black Rock Arts Foundation...



...which could still use a few donations to pay for the installation.



You can get to their website by clicking here.



This is the same group that put up the wonderful David Best temple in the Hayes Valley which is slated to come down next month.



Their brilliant, and quite transformative idea, about public art is to make it temporary.



"Flock" is scheduled to stay in the Plaza for three months directly across from Mayor Newsom's office.



So if somebody hates it, there is the palliative that it's only temporary and will be gone soon enough.



Also adding to the ambience is the Tai-Chi group that meets from 10-10:30 every weekday...



...consisting mostly of nearby office workers.



Plus, there were protestors trying to raise consciousness on the steps of City Hall...



...about the militarization of Bolivia.



By Wednesday, the sculpture was taking its complete shape.



For more info on the sculptor, Michael Christian, click here to get to his website.



Personally, I love the sculpture and watching it being assembled has been great fun.



There is going to be an opening ceremony at 4:30 PM today, Thursday the 17th, at 4:30 PM and everyone is invited to attend.



If you can't make that affair, there is a party/picnic scheduled around the sculpture this Sunday at 1PM. Check it out.

The Betrayal of Supervisor Peskin

On Monday afternoon, November 14th, there was a meeting in the Board of Supervisors Chambers in City Hall of the Government Audit and Oversight Committee.



These are usually fairly dull affairs, but Monday's meeting was incendiary.



The final agenda item was to hear a report from Budget Analyst Harvey Rose's office that was criticizing an "independent" audit by Economic Research Associates. They were supposedly tallying the financial benefits to the tax base of San Francisco by an annual event called the San Francisco Grand Prix bicycle race, which just completed its fifth year over the last Labor Day weekend. However, according to the account by Jo Stanley in the SF Examiner, "the researchers used a survey from the previous year about visitor spending and simply bumped up the amount by 7.5 percent for the passage of time."



During a series of contentious Board of Supervisors meetings this year, legislation was passed that gave the race a financial break in the amount of billable police time, where $1 in police fees were waived for every $2 worth of extra taxes generated.



This legislation emanated from Mayor Newsom's office and was angrily denounced at the time by Supervisor Chris Daly, the leftist firebrand on the board, as "corporate welfare" for a wealthy Republican investment banker named Thomas Weisel who has a fixation on Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France winner who used to headline this event before his retirement.



During questioning of this woman from the Police Department about whether the race organizers had paid the full amount of $336,000 for public services during the 2004 race or the amended $90,000 after the tax abatement, it turned out that that the organizers hadn't paid a single dollar for the 2004 race.



Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin had been the swing vote allowing for the original exemption, and the look on his face when he got this news from the policewoman was devastating. His subsequent outbursts at the policewoman and the cycling group lobbyist were savage, personal and to the point.



Dan Ospinow, the lobbyist for Thomas Weisel, did an amazingly good job of being apologetic and trying to put spin on the situation, but Peskin was having none of it. "I stuck my neck out for you guys when my colleagues had reservations, and you betrayed me," Peskin said. "You've lied to me over and over again. This is disastrous." He also pointed out that it was explicitly illegal for a permit to be issued to any group who hadn't paid the previous year's fees. "Who was responsible for that permit being issued?"



Adding to the disaster for the cycling group, there were only two public commenters on the issue, and both were devastating. This guy was a driver for Gray Line Tours out of Fishermans Wharf and he described how holding the race on Labor Day weekend absolutely destroyed tourist business in the area on what was normally one of their busiest days.



This neighborhood activist from Chinatown talked about how dismissively they were treated by the race organizers when they tried to talk to them about the impact the race would have on their shut-down neighborhood. It seems that the Chinatown tourist business for that day was also destroyed, not to mention the fact that bus service was screwed up for the entire day.



Though Supervisor Peskin really has no one to blame but himself for believing these gangsters, his public outrage was fascinating and sincere. I think he must have read the brilliant h. brown's take on his legacy (or lack of it) in last week's column in the SF Sentinel. Click here to check it out.



Thomas Weisel, the Republican financier, owned Montgomery Securities which financed a lot of the dot-com madness of the 1990s. It was sold for over a billion dollars to NationsBank which then merged with Bank of America which got into a bitch fight with Weisel over the direction of the firm. So in 1998 Weisel started a new firm, Thomas Weisel Partners, which is basically trying to do the same thing. They used Lance Armstrong and pro cycling as their theme (check out the website here). Though the firm lost money last year, they have just announced that they are going public. If they conduct their business as sloppily and with as much greed as their bicycle race, it probably isn't a good idea to invest in them.



Supervisor Daly, whose brilliant aide John Avalos is pictured above, was quite gracious in this moment of vindication, and didn't even say "I told you so!" though he does get close to doing so on his latest blog entry which you can get to by clicking here.



Even Supervisor Michaela Alioto-Pier, whose sickly sweet smile usually masks a knife being thrown at somebody's back, couldn't put a happy face on the situation. "I don't agree with my colleagues that the race should be canceled over this, but really, you've got to pay your bills," she chided.



Hearings on how the permit was given out illegally will be held at next Monday's special meeting of the committee. Peskin is genuinely pissed, so this should be interesting.

Opening the Kanbar Performing Arts Center

The latest cultural institution in the Civic Center area had a grand opening last Friday the 11th.



The San Francisco Girls Chorus had just bought a beautiful old four-story building next door to the biggest Harley-Davidson dealership in San Francisco on Page Street between Franklin and Gough.



Donors and their families were invited to the opening which featured refreshments...



...and local celebrities such as Pamela Rosenberg, the outgoing San Francisco Opera general manager...



...along with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.



The major benefactor in raising the millions of dollars required for the purchase was Maurice Kanbar, a self-made inventor/mogul from Brooklyn who has lived in San Francisco for the last 15 years.



From Wikipedia: "Kanbar created New York's first multiplex cinema, and owns over 36 patents on various consumer and medical products, invented the D-Fuzz-It comb for sweaters, Tangoes Puzzle Game, the Safetyglide hypodermic needle protector, a cryogenic cataract remover, and a new LED stoplight." He also wrote a slim, well-received self-help book called "Secrets from an Inventor's Notebook" that was published a couple of years ago.



In San Francisco, Kanbar started the SKYY Vodka brand which has made him quite rich, and he has been spreading contributions around to various cultural institutions such as NYU's Film and TV program (named after him), the Jewish Community Center's new "Kanbar Recital Hall," the San Francisco Film Festival, and now the San Francisco Girls Chorus.



One of his latest ventures is as a movie mogul, and his Kanbar Entertainment has just finished a digitally animated feature based on the Red Riding Hood story called "Hoodwinked!"



After the ribbon-cutting, everyone went inside for a celebratory concert to a large room that is slated to become a new concert hall.



For the record, the acoustics of the room were quite wonderful for such a high-ceilinged space.



"How come you don't get your own building from rich donors too?" I asked the Executive Director of another musical nonprofit in town.



"Because they've got children involved," she replied, and that may have something to do with it.



In his short, charming speech, Maurice Kanbar called the San Francisco Girls Chorus "little angels" which conveyed a hint of the ancient Maurice Chevalier singing "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" in "Gigi" with that odd twinkle in his eye.



Echoing the "little angels" remark was the concert's star and emcee, the semi-retired mezzo-soprano opera star Frederica von Stade.



She lives in Alameda and has apparently been helping to raise money for the chorus through a host of fundraisers and wealthy friends.



She referred to a story she had told many times at these events where she had been going through the San Francisco Airport one Christmas season feeling very low and she suddenly heard "angels singing, I thought they were real angels, and in my particular mood I thought they were singing just for me." They turned out to be the San Francisco Girls Chorus.



Flicka, as she is known familiarly, was one of the greatest singers of the twentieth-century and she practically owned the tricky, ineffable part of Melisande in Debussy's "Pelleas et Melisande." On top of that, there's not a pompous ounce to her. She's god.



The concert featured Flicka alone and with the chorus, various sections of the San Francisco Girls Chorus, the Contemporary Music Ensemble which rents out space in the building doing Steve Reich's "Clapping," and best of all, a trio of adult female choruses who were mostly alumnae of the Girls Chorus. They were all awesome performers.



The San Francisco Girls Chorus started up in 1978 and seems to be prospering mightily. To find out more about the group, check out their website by clicking here.



I attended the event as a paid videographer, but I invited my friend Rick Gydesen to join me and take some stll photos. All of the great pics in this account are his. Thanks, Rick.

Reverend Cromey's Sidewalk Communion

At the weekly peace vigil in front of the Federal Building on Golden Gate Avenue...



...the retired Episcopalian priest, Reverend Warren Cromey, decided to hold a mass for willing vigil participants on the sidewalk.



The tools of his trade were assembled on a small card table...



...and when he saw me taking a photo, Cromey said, "Don't forget the cross."



The charismatic minister's special mass drew a number of his old parishioners...



...who supplied us with cookies and coffee.



One parishoner wore his old Army uniform.



When asked what kind of uniform it was, he said, "It's an Army dress uniform that was phased out forever in the early 1980s. Actually, it was Elvis' favorite uniform."



There was plenty of media to cover the mass...



...which gave it a street theater feel.



Reverend Cromey is an interesting old leftist who has always seemed to be about twenty years ahead of the wider culture, whether advocating for gay rights in the early 1960s or the plight of the Palestinians in the 1980s.



This is an excerpt from a "gay, lesbian bisexual religion" website where there is a short bio of Cromey as a gay rights pioneer:

"The Rev. Robert Warren Cromey, retired Episcopal priest, was born in 1931, raised in New York City and lived in San Francisco since 1962. Cromey is married and has three daughters and six grandchildren. Even though he is straight, Cromey has been a long-time ally and supporter of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons."

"In March of 1963, Cromey preached a sermon at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco about homosexuals. The Gospel lesson for the day spoke of the Christian concern for the outcasts. He was interviewed on the radio and in the newspapers and suddenly was a "queer lover."

"In December of 1964, several gay groups sponsored a New Year’s Eve costume ball with proceeds to go to the Council. As the guests arrived at the event, police photographers took pictures of the 500 people who were going into the party. Some party-goers, including lawyers representing the sponsors, were arrested. Cromey and the other clergy were outraged. Seven of them called a press conference denouncing the police and their discrimination against gays. Later a judge admonished the police for their actions and all charges were dropped against party-goers and lawyers."

I've seen Cromey a few times at the peace vigil over the last six months but had never seen him with the accoutrements of his trade, so to speak. It was obvious he was a shaman, a witch doctor, a magician, whatever you want to call it. The energy he was channeling during his sidewalk mass was genuinely astonishing.



Last year, Cromey wrote an interesting article on the hijacking of Christianity in the United States by the fundamentalist right:

"How Morality Affects Politics
Not enough religion
Robert Warren Cromey

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

We liberals have denigrated religion so much that Christian conservatives wreaked vengeance in the recent election. I have been a proud member of the ACLU since my university days in the 1950s. I went along with the idea that we should keep prayer out of the public schools and prevent the teaching of the Bible and religion in public high schools and universities under the guise of separation of church and state.

We now have more than two generations of religiously illiterate university graduates. The possibility of teaching high-school and college students critical thinking of the Bible, theology, ethics and religion in general has been lost to millions of students. William F. Buckley Jr. ridiculed Yale for de-emphasizing religion in that Ivy League bastion in his 1951 book, "God and Man at Yale." Yale was founded to train young men for the ministry in the Christian Church. If that school abandoned its religious roots, then secular and state-run schools could safely counter any attempts to teach any form of religion on the university level."

"The Christian conservatives filled the gap with literalistic opinions about what Scripture says, swallowed whole by intelligent but untutored believers. Thoughtful teaching about religion was replaced by teaching that followed a religiously conservative party line -- anti-abortion, anti- homosexual and pro-creationism. The universities blithely went along, making fun of the fundamentalists, but not teaching the students any alternative because they were not interested in the Bible and religion as subjects worthy of their scientific and technological prejudices.

We waged war on teaching and practicing religion in the public schools on the flimsy grounds of separation of church and state and the First Amendment. But there can be no real separation of religion and society. The president, his Cabinet, the Congress and the courts are full of men and women who are members of churches and other religious institutions. Their decisions are influenced in some measure by their religious traditions. The president has made it abundantly clear he feels inspired by his higher power when he makes decisions. Like it or not, a huge number of U.S. citizens say they are members of some religion."

"None of them wishes to have an established church like the state churches of England and Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The Founding Fathers went so far as to say there will be no establishment of religion. But nothing prohibits people from expressing their religious beliefs in public, both personally and politically. Yet liberals have said that there must be a separation of religion and society, that anything religious is construed as establishing religion. Thus, liberals in general are seen as anti-religion, and not just for insisting on separation of church and state.

A further trouble is that the worship of science and technology has replaced religion in the hearts of the intelligentsia. People put their faith in these areas in the hope that they will solve our problems. That is indeed an act of faith, as there can be no evidence that it is true."

"We find it absurd that some people believe in the Biblical story of creation when we smart people know that creation is an evolutionary process. Of course it is. But how many know what the meaning of the creation myth really is? Do we know enough about the Old Testament to understand how this story has influenced literature, art, poetry, music and religion? How many of us liberal intellectuals know about how the Bible as a whole is the basis of Western law as well as Western civilization?

We have a great opportunity ahead of us. We must encourage critical thinking and study of the Bible and religion in schools and universities. Instead of mocking religion, we must make it a source of serious consideration and understanding. Members of religions must support leaders who are intellectually sound and rigorous in their religious teaching. It is time to beef up our understanding of what we are against by being informed about what religion is all about."

Not everyone took communion, but I did, making it My First Communion, and probably my last. Still, it was interesting joining with a larger community in a bonding ritual, particularly while praying for peace.

Politely Disinviting The Blue Angels

I wrote a letter to each of the eleven San Francisco Supervisors asking for their help in politely disinviting the Blue Angels air team from their annual Fleet Week air show over the city.



Taking the letters to City Hall, I passed a display of Day of the Dead posters in the Van Ness lobby...



...set up in front of a huge altar.



Halloween as an adult holiday pretty much started in San Francisco as a gay bacchanalia in the 1960s and 1970s and spread through the larger culture like a virus.



Halloween has been abandoned by the latest generation of mostly gay hipsters and the Mexican Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration is being cultivated instead, which is an interesting development.



My letter to the supervisors read as follows:

"I live a block from City Hall at the corner of Franklin and McAllister Streets, and have done so for over a decade. Living in the Civic Center, I see demonstrations, cultural fairs, protests, wealthy people’s tent parties that go until 2AM, and none of them bother me in the least. As far as I’m concerned, people can do pretty much whatever they want, including having a ski jump, in my back yard or in my front yard. It’s part of what makes living in a city interesting and exciting."

"However, I would like to draw a line. Having U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets fly hundreds of feet away from my living room windows and scaring the crap out of me for four straight days is just not acceptable. I know lots of people who love the Blue Angels and their annual air shows during Fleet Week, and I’ve tried to respect that over the years. This year, though, it just felt wrong."

"As you’re probably aware, we’re facing an imminent energy crisis in the United States so that burning all that oil for an air show strikes me as obscene. We’re also facing an imminent budget crisis, so throwing away money in this manner also strikes me as supremely wasteful. Plus, flying so low in an urban setting is just ridiculously dangerous. There have always been accidents at air shows all over the world, and I’m not sure you’re protecting the safety of San Franciscans by allowing this behavior. Above all, the United States is currently using these jets to drop bombs on civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, which I don’t think is something that the majority of San Franciscans want to be celebrating."

"My supervisor is Chris Daly in District Six, who I like and respect, but this isn’t a simple district issue. It’s citywide and I believe we should have a vote by San Franciscans on whether we want to politely ask the U.S. Navy to stop the annual Blue Angels show. If a majority of San Franciscans would like to continue having them return, that’s fine, but I suspect that I’m not in a small minority in my feeling towards these fighter jets right now.

If you could get back to me with your thoughts on this issue, I would most appreciate it. I have a blog focusing on Civic Center and your responses (or lack or same) will be duly noted. Thank you so much."

The Supervisors' offices are on the second floor of City Hall and are staffed by a few paid assistants...



...and a legion of volunteers, who all have varying degrees of competence. This volunteer in Aaron Peskin's office cheerfully professed ignorance when I asked him a few questions about getting a measure on the ballot, but he was completely charming.



This aide to Supervisor Sandoval was also quite pleasant in taking my letter and answering questions.



The Supervisors' offices are along an L-shaped corridor and they all have different dimensions. Ammiano has the outdoor corner and it's definitely the prize set of digs.



This Amiano aide had quite a bit of interesting information on the Blue Angels issue. "We tried to get something going, but this is one of those issues where people are either violently pro or violently against. It's just like Dogs in Parks. People on both sides get absolutely hysterical, so no Supervisor wants to step into the middle of it."



This aide to Supervisor Dufty was being extraordinarily kind and patient with some constituent on the phone. When I complimented him on his manner, he laughed and said, "it's probably the ex-priest in me coming out."



Each office has its own flavor...



...and its gatekeepers.



Still, it's rather surprising how welcoming and charming the reception is at almost every one of them, whether it's sincere or not.



There was one major exception to that observation, which was the office of Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, the young politico appointed by Mayor Newsom. Instead of clutter and art in the office, it was clean and antiseptic and gave off seriously bad vibes. The aide who came out from the back office also refused to have his photo taken, the only person to do so during this trek through the halls of government. Elsbernd is a strange, sick puppy and none of his colleagues trust him for one second.



The liveliest offices belonged to Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who holds monthly art openings in his office.



He also has some of the best aides in City Hall, including new daddy Boris who was the only one who knew how many signatures were required to get a measure on the ballot.



"Since it wouldn't be a legally binding measure because the airways belong to the federal government, it would be simply an advisory measure which requires 10,000 valid signatures to get on the ballot. Figure you'll need another 3,000 to 5,000 signatures to make sure you have enough valid ones. And I'm all for it. Taking care of a one-month old baby with those jets screaming through the skies was horrible."



At Supervisor McGoldrick's office, there was a pleasant but fairly clueless volunteer who wished me all the luck in the world as I handed him the letter.



One of Supervisor Chris Daly's volunteers, when I told him what the letter was about, said dismissively, "Get in line. At least 150 other people have complained about this before you."



"I want to lead the line, actually," I told him. "I think San Franciscans deserve to have a vote on this issue and since it's mostly symbolic, the wording needs to be simple and good. Instead of being angry and confrontational, I'd like to see a measure that would politely disinvite the Blue Angels for the next ten years." So, dear Civic Center readers, please join me if you would be in support of a vote on next June's ballot. Now that the tide is starting to turn on people like Bush and Schwarzenegger, it seems like an appropriate time.

The New Yorker Mag is Neocon Crap

After spending another morning working for a health insurance company's website, I realized once again that the insurance industry in America, particularly in the health care field, is simply a branch of organized crime. It's called a "protection racket," and the public at large doesn't seem to realize it only because the facade and the workings of these companies is made so deliberately boring and complex. Their entire structures need to be dismantled because we all pay for their parasitic leeching off of the health care system, which is grotesque.



For a little soul-cleansing, I joined the weekly Thursday noon peace vigil in front of the Federal Building with the lovely conglomeration of folks I would call peaceniks. They have been carrying out this vigil since October 2001 when the insane people in the federal government and in the mainstream press decided it was a good idea to bomb the hell out of Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 disaster.



The biggest cheerleaders for war against the Arabic-speaking peoples have been once-trusted organs of journalism such as "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post."



Probably the most sickening example was "The New Yorker" editiorializing in their "Notes and Comments" section a few years ago why we needed to go to war with Iraq, even though they now criticize the handling of its aftermath. Their editor, David Remnick, who wrote that editorial writes a stupid column in "The Talk of the Town" looking at President Bush's "Hell Week" in the current November 7th issue.



Nowhere does he take ANY responsibility for the current state of affairs, or offer any apology for continuing to publish right-wing Jewish idealogues like Nicholas Lemann (the dean of Columbia University's School of Journalism, g-d help them!) and Jeffrey Goldberg, whose breathless reports on the doings of Al-Qaeda and the invasion of Iraq have been as mendacious and damaging as anything the infamous Judith Miller wrote for "The New York Times."



All of these jerks owe their readers an apology, but don't hold your breath waiting for one. I would cancel my "New Yorker" subscription except that it's a gift from a dear friend in Long Island, so I will simply continue to read it for their great art critic Peter Schlejessdahl (I'm sure I've misspelled his name), classical music critic Alex Ross, and the angry, investigative pieces by Seymour Hersh. As for the rest of the magazine, frankly, it's mostly a pile of steaming neocon crap.

Getting Stabbed at Norma

Our fourth performance of Bellini's "Norma" at the San Francisco Opera went well this evening except for Robert O'Connor getting stabbed with a long, sharp stick by a fellow supernumerary, a French space case who doesn't work well with others.



Philippe seems to have his own drummer, which can be dangerous on a dark stage with people running around carrying weapons. That's him on the right hanging onto the ugly "scorched forest" set. I'm the one looking mean on the left and our dead Roman compatriot is bleeding in the middle.



For the record, the two divas singing Norma and Adalgisa, Catherine Naglestad and Irina Mishura respectively, are getting better as the run of nine performances goes on. Right before each show starts, in the hallway off of stage right, you can walk by Norma's dressing room and the two are warming up together with their duets. It sounds too sweet for words, and their duets really are the heart of the opera.

If you're thinking of going, wait until Sara Jobin arrives with the sixth performance. The present conductor, though he looks typecast for the role of handsome Italian conductor, is still taking the music too sluggishly. It will be good to have some youthful energy in the pit.