Goldman's Burger King

Once upon a time, I was an unsophisticated kid who joined the military to see the world. I ate at places like Burger King. When I was stationed in Northern California, I discovered an amazing Burger King in the Presidio of San Francisco. Back then, the Presidio was a military base. While visiting San Francisco, I even stayed in the Presidio's visitors quarters once, and went to a concert at the Cow Palace. As active duty military, you could stay in military lodging at other bases.

The Burger King in the Presidio was amazing because it had a wall of glass windows and was on a hill overlooking the San Francisco Bay, with a stunning view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Most restaurants with that kind of view charge top dollar for a meal. But the Burger King in the Presidio served those on lower budgets, including a large population of military who were serving their country. There are very few places in the world where a guy on an enlisted budget could eat with a view like that.

Fast forward to the future. The Presidio is now becoming a national park, presumedly open to the general population. What's become of that Burger King, where a simple guy serving his country could get an inexpensive meal with a stunning view? It is now the office of Richard N. Goldman, and the Richard & Rhoda Goldman Fund, some of the wealthiest people in the city. As if to say, the "Burger King crowd isn't welcome here," a new high-end restaurant has sprung up nearby -- higher prices without even the benefit of a view (since the Goldmans got the view).

This is not to say that the Goldmans aren't doing wonderful things with their money, things in the public interest. But this is to say that someone who could afford to have their office anywhere, has taken something away FOR THEIR PRIVATE USE, something formerly enjoyed by those who serve their country in the armed forces.

You could blame it on the Reagan Administration for setting up the policy that the Presidio had to generate enough money to pay for its own upkeep. You could argue that Lucas is doing the same thing, when Letterman Hospital (a friend of mine spent quite a bit of time there before he died) was converted to an animation studio. But there are other military hospitals. And the Goldmans AREN'T conservatives, they're just wealthy recipients of Reagan's policies -- which makes it all the more annoying that a supposedly civic-minded group has taken the very best for themselves.

You could even argue that the Goldmans deserve that perch, after all they did to help make Crissy Field a beautiful park that thousands of people enjoy. But my point is that they have the money and probably other properties that have equal views of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. And if they are truly the civic-minded people that their money seems to buy, you'd think they could give up that spot for the people it formerly served; the people on low budgets who serve their country; possibly with their lives. God forbid we should let any uncultured militaristic conservatives into the Presidio, why, we just managed to get rid of them !

Parking spaces shaken, not stirred

Like a James Bond movie, a white van pulled up. Four men wearing immaculate white jackets bolted out, running up the street, while another man in a white jacket revved the engine of a new Mercedes, ready to peel out. There were no machine guns. This was a professional version of a game many San Franciscans play when having visitors.

When you reach a certain level of affluence in the city, you decide that paying for parking is worth it. No longer will you spend half an hour every evening jockeying for a parking space on the street.

But if you have visitors, they have to go through the parking ritual. Unless -- you pull your car out of its safely assigned space, and use it to hold a public space near your house for your friends' car.

Enter the professionals. I had seen them in Pacific Heights before, but didn't realize they were a highly coordinated, crack team of athletes. Soiree Valet -- they have a van full of drivers. If you're having a party and don't want to piss off your neighbors, you have them park your visitors' cars a block or two away. They shuffle the fleet of cars to keep spaces available for incoming visitors. Or maybe a visitor finds a parking space, and calls the van to pick them up. At any rate, if you live in Pacific Heights, you don't worry about visitors having parking spaces; you hire professionals.

Homeless insanity

Yesterday, I walked by a woman who seemed to be homeless, but had five separate carts of belongings, including two suitcases and three 2-wheel grocery carts. She would pull two carts up the sidewalk, come back and get two more, and then come back and get the last one.

I passed her, and went into the public library. About 1/2 hour later, I came back out, and there was the woman, still moving her carts up the sidewalk. She had gained about 100 yards in 1/2 hour. Where she was going, who knows.

Bowling in Altoona

well isn't this an odd coincidence... Obama's bowling fiasco happened in Altoona, PA, which oddly enough, is where my ex-father-in-law was from and where his ashes are buried (thanks to my credit card).

On a memorable trip, I actually visited Altoona. My ex-father-in-law's father showed me the little gun he always carries with him, "Probably not so good for killing somebody, but you could bust a kneecap with it if you needed to." I was shown various knives and guns, the old man's pride, and later, the obligatory side-trip to "Horseshoe Curve" ...well, here's Horseshoe Curve in wikipedia -- so important to national security that it was guarded by Union Troops, and later there was an attempted sabotage by Nazis ?!

Five miles west of Altoona. Huh. Wonder if Obama made the obligatory pilgramage to Horseshoe Curve? Wonder if anyone showed him their gun collection? After his remarks at an SF fundraiser, surely he must have had his ear bent by someone about their gun collection!

Safeway - ConAgra Foods

Interesting flyer in the mail from Safeway (fine print says ConAgra).

"Your recipe for a balanced life," with ads for PAM cooking spray oil, egg beaters (artificial eggs), and Hunt's tomatoes. Are these all ConAgra brands? I dunno, what I was trying to find was what's in PAM cooking oil. Is it really healthy? Well, the amusing thing is that the "serving size" - "one spray" is so small, that it doesn't have to list itself as containing fat ?! Who uses just one spray?

There are now numerous varieties of PAM -- olive oil, and some other types of oil, but the original PAM ingredients isn't listed in an obvious place on their site. BUT THEY NEVER ACTUALLY CLAIM IT'S HEALTHY !

Inside: "Balanced Living Starts Here -- Eat Well. Get Active. Live Right." Huh. Doesn't say "eat healthy" it says "eat well." Because who wants that diet crap? Let's have... (picture) "Begin your day with balance and our Fresh Vegetable Omelet" made with PAM cooking oil, egg beaters, and Hunts canned tomatoes.

Not healthy living, "Balanced Living." Brought to you by ConAgra processed and chemically manipulated wonder-foods! Hey, I'm sure the people there believe they're performing a great service to humanity; why, the convenience of spray-can oil lets you use less; less fat in your food, right? Egg beaters; not evil eggs. Never mind that you're generating a lot of packaging trash with that PAM can, and you could just put oil in your own spritz bottle, and do you need eggs every day so badly you'll eat the fake ones instead of the real ones less often? It's the Safeway lifestyle. How do you market "healthy" and still manage to maintain the profit margin of chemically processed products?

Blind Poop

While walking home after dark one evening, I spotted a figure a block ahead on the sidewalk. The person seemed to be loitering about, which unnerved me a bit, and I debated moving to the other side of the street, but forged on.

Turns out it was a woman walking her dog, and the loitering was because the dog was in the midst of decorating the sidewalk. As I got closer, I realized the woman was blind, and this was a guide dog. The woman could tell by the dog's actions that it was squatting for a dump. I started thinking, hmmm... wonder how or if she's going to clean up after this dog ??

Since the dog was in a harness, the woman could tell exactly where the back end was. I watched as she carefully put a plastic bag over her hand, reached down, and felt along the sidewalk until she located the steaming pile. Wow. I was impressed, and all the more disgusted that sighted individuals can't perform that simple act.

Holocaust Didn't Happen ?

One can't really accuse animal rights activists of being logical. They recently had an incredible opportunity to engage the public in an extended discourse, but instead chose to threaten institutions, as if holding their fingers in their ears and yelling "the holocaust doesn't exist," would make it go away.

The venue was an "art" exhibit to be shown on Chestnut Street, where the "artist" video taped loops of animals being killed with a sledgehammer. These were mostly animals that are slaughtered by the thousands on a daily basis for food. An animal rights activist might describe this as mass murder, a holocaust, if you will, and at the extremes, some of them are willing to risk jail for their efforts to put an end to this killing.

More mainstream animal rights activists devote large sums of money to distribute gross pictures of animals being slaughtered. Some of the more obnoxious activists hang out in front of retail stores, where they're unwanted, and harass customers about the retailer's policy towards selling fur items.

But here was a perfect venue, an "art" exhibit *designed* to provoke controversy and dialogue. It would have been ideal for animal rights activists to post themselves outside the exhibit and convince viewers that vegetarianism is the way to go. Who wouldn't consider it, after watching loops of animals being killed with a sledgehammer? It would have been even better if the animals were eviscerated and eaten on film -- people need to see where their food comes from.

But the animal rights activists didn't see it this way. They only saw the horror, and felt they needed to stop it -- even if it was not as disgusting as their own literature, and provided a wonderful venue for reaching a new audience of potential recruits. The animal slaughter continues every day, but people shouldn't be allowed to see it -- unless it's in an animal rights brochure?!

So the show was cancelled. There was no dialogue, other than animal rights activists strangely not wanting people to see that animals get killed, and to realize that's how meat gets on their table. They called it "disgusting," and "not art." Though they may be right on both accounts, to remove it and prevent the dialogue is like removing all references to the holocaust because it was disgusting. Isn't the larger objective to make everyone more aware?

Olympic Torch Chasing

San Francisco has invented a new Olympic event: Torch Chasing.

My plan for the day was to do laundry. I didn't pay much attention to the three helicopters and sirens, thinking the torch was on the other side of the hill. A call from my ex-girlfriend alerted me that the torch was headed into my neighborhood. Driven off course by protestors, the torch was meandering through the city trying to look dignified while being chased by helicopter gnats in the sky and army ant squadrons of protestors on the ground.

OK, I've got a load of laundry going, I'll walk to the corner and take a peek. I saw five police cars, a media vehicle bristling with microphone booms, and there, up on the hill, a crowd of people proceeding westward, with a number of Tibetan flags and banners waving. Ah, the procession. I began following the crowd, realizing I had joined the new impromptu Olympic event.

I walked far enough to see a herd of flashing emergency vehicles off in the distance, with the helicopters hovering above, and an ABC camera crew to my left. Never saw the torch. I thought I should alert the media that San Francisco had invented a new Olympic event: Torch Chasing. The camera-ready blonde didn't seem impressed, but she replied matter-of-factly, "Exactly."