March 26, 2003

The Rec and Park mess

In "Vanishing Meetings" (3/12/03), neighborhood activist Joan Girardot says of Rec and Park procedures, "It makes a travesty of their decision-making process." California First Amendment Coalition general counsel Terry Franke suggests of the Rec and Park Commission that "they don't want to be confused by the facts or tied to them."

People who have not been involved with the Rec and Park Department and Commission usually have trouble understanding how Rec and Park can turn ordinarily reasonable and fair-minded people into raving, single-issue zealots. The answer is simple: Rec and Park decision-making process is a travesty of both rationality and democracy, and they do steadfastly refuse to be confused by any facts whatsoever.

For example, during the entire many-month public process concerning the department's new dog policy, the department never presented a single fact to show that a new policy was necessary or advisable; freely admitted that they had never done a single study to determine what, if any, were the problems with the long-existing policy of voice control and benign neglect; and clearly demonstrated more contempt for public protest and opinion than George Bush.

I can't understand why the Board of Supervisors would want to trust Rec and Park with a single dime of taxpayer money.

David Looman San Francisco

The other TV

Re: Camille T. Taiara's excellent "Spoon-feeding the Press" (3/12/03).

I recently switched from cable to satellite TV and discovered the remarkable news and documentary coverage of the world, very much including Iraq (and opposition to the war) on World Link TV, a nonprofit channel based in San Rafael.

Every night on Mosaic they have a selection of daily news reports in English from a variety of Middle Eastern newscasts, from Iraq to Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority. They also cover the antiwar demonstrations from all over the world. And that's just the beginning (see www.worldlinktv.org).

A few channels down is Newsworld International out of Canada with continuous international news and special reports without the corporate control.

Evan White San Francisco

Blind acceptance?

The article "Spoon-feeding the Press" is to be commended – I wonder how many other news organizations are reporting on this issue (I'm sure we could count them on one hand). I used to complain about the media before 9/11 ... I didn't realize how good we had it back then. It's truly terrifying to see the changes taking shape in this country, but at least the Bay Guardian is still around.

What's truly scary is the blind acceptance which prevails in this country with regard to the credibility and judicious selection of what is presented to us as "news." These are dangerous assumptions that very many people in this country accept without question. If more of us were exposed to the kind of reporting evidenced in the Bay Guardian, there would be a lot more questions being asked, in a much louder voice. Thank you.

Laura Anderson San Francisco

Mon dieu

As long as we're entertaining a boycott of things French, we may as well go the whole nine yards and give early retirement to that Jolly Green Giantess standing out in New York. She looks tired of holding up that torch all of the time, and the climate over there is not exactly toga weather. It would be a mercy since we don't really let her do her job anymore.

Roger Wright San Francisco

Anarchist impotence

As one who helped shut down streets to slow business/disrupt traffic/make people think about the war last Thursday, I read with interest A.C. Thompson's interview with the four black block activists [Life during Wartime, 3/19/03].

A great lesson of the 20th century is, or should be, that life for most modern people is what Eric Fromm called a headlong "escape from freedom." We fear our impotence before overwhelming economic forces, and so gain a (false) security through (ultimately self-destructive) prefabricated roles and compulsive activities. Thompson's interview shows these activists are as desperate as most people on the treadmill of the modern world. In their case, they advise destruction – of a sympathetic city, no less – in the treasured hope that violent, militaristic repression will start a cycle of escalating violence. Then we should all leap under this juggernaut and thereby "save" ourselves.

No serious person will accept that we should try to stop imperialist wars by creating a need for "a military occupation at home" (as Joe said), or that if violence spread to the "working-class neighborhoods" (of their fantasies), that the Black Bloc's ideology(ies) would predominate over, say, the ubiquitous Rush Limbaughs and Michael Savages of AM radio.

God or Whatever help us should these would-be brownshirts ever get any real power.