Entries Tagged 'Current Events' ↓

Update: Election Results in Parenthesis  182K (45%ish) votes cast in SF (from Usual Suspects), California results from sfgate, from LA Times.

Everybody should vote - AND should spend some time understanding what they are voting on. Like my voter guide last fall, i’m listing my recommendations with links to more info. Do your homework - Official SF Dept of Elections and these local voter guides - SFBG, SPUR, Green Party, SF Chronicle, Usual Suspects. Here’s my recommendations for San Francisco - Endorsements for February 5, 2008:

USA
President, Democrat: Obama (Obama: 52% in SF, 42.4% in CA; Clinton: 44% SF , 51.8% in CA)
President, Republican: McCain (McCain: 53% in SF, 42% in CA; Romney: 22% in SF, 34% in CA)

CALIFORNIA
Proposition 91: No - Gas Tax (No 58%)
Proposition 92: No - Community Colleges (No 57%)
Proposition 93: Yes - Term Limits (No 53%)
Propositions 94–97: NO - Gambling (Yes 56% - all 4 same)

SAN FRANCISCO
Proposition A: YES - Parks Funding Increase (Yes 72%)
Proposition B: No - Police Retirement (Yes 65%)
Proposition C: No - Alcatraz into Peace Center (No 72%)

DETAILS

PRESIDENT

Oh jeez. this is a national issue, with lots of coverage. Here’s a few summary ones: On The Issues, 2008 Election ProCon, Financial view from opensecrets, NYTimes, and as a honorable mention sidenote: GlassBooth, MoveOn, Vote Smart. And everybody has their opinions on the candidates, so here’s mine. For Democrats, i like Obama for his vision, speaking skills, where he stands on many issues, and things he says he will do. But I also like Clinton on many issues. Most importantly, I think she has the experience to get her agenda accomplished. I like McCain alot for a republican. He’s a non-nonsense, tough fighter - wants to end global warming (YAY), fiscal conservative (yay), fix campaign financing (YAY) but also wants to stay in Iraq (Boo). He’s also been around, and will make a good leader. Did i successfully avoid the question? Maybe I should get into politics.

Update: Voted for Obama. Why? well, I think an Obama-McCain battle will be better for Dems. I also feel idealistic, wanting a strong leader and change .. even if he doesn’t have experience. And it seems republicans really hate Clinton, often for personal reasons, which makes me think more would rally for McCain if he was against Clinton in November. However, I learned Obama’s health plan is not as good as Clintons.

Prop 91, transportation funding: Strong NO

Everyone’s voting no on this - shouldn’t even be on the ballot (but legal foo keeps it there). Something about Gas tax.

Prop 92, community college funding: Weak No

In 2004, when the legislature raised student fees to $26 a unit, 305,000 students dropped out. By comparison, the UC system has 180,000 total students. Wow. I guess we better give Community colleges more money. Wait a second .. this does alot more than that, good for community colleges but good for education? And it doesn’t specify source of funds. UC system will prolly lose, as other things from the general fund. Another sounds good, but financially unsound. And with budget issues in sactown .. i say no.

Prop 93, term limits: weak Yes

This one is tricky. Right now elected officials can do 6 years in state assembly (3 2-year terms) and 8 years in the state senate (2 4-year terms) for a total of 14 years. This proposition changes the term limits 2 ways - from 14 years max to 12 years max, but allowing those 12 years to be in either senate or assembly (so can do 6 2-year terms or 3 4-year terms). Some say prop 93 is an attempt to shift power from lobbyists back to elected officials - lobbyists don’t have term limits, and often win over newly elected officials. I never found any statistics that showed how many senators/assemblymen hit that 14 year mark, not sure how that matters. But it will allow incumbants to keep on doing what they’re doing. Specifically, 42 incumbants who are being forced to retire due to term limits, will have more time if prop 93 passes. Some say the real problems still exist, such as gerrymandering, and this does nothing to fix that, making elections more competitive. I’m not a fan of prop 93 per se, However, i say yes cuz i think it sends a message that we want to fix things.

Props 94-97, Native American casinos: Weak No.

Propositions 94, 95, 96 and 97 are basically the same, just different tribes. They seem to help the richest tribes, and not help most of the poor ones. Doesn’t really help out California budget issue, either, altho it does give some money. No clear reason to vote yes.

Prop A, park bond: Strong YES

This bond will give $186 million to new and existing parks in SF. The money spent will be monitored more closely than before, with monthly reports available on the web, hopefully raising the bar for financial accountability in our government. I love parks, and it would take alot for me not to vote for them. I am also fiscally responsible, and even tho this one ain’t perfect, it tries.

Prop B, police retirement: Weak No

SF needs help with its police force, especially since many of them will be retiring soon. This prop allows retiring police officers to defer retirement for 3 years. Financially, its unclear if this is good or bad - retiring officers get paid more than younger ones, but not if you include training. I agree police need help, but this clearly does not solve the problem of police force size, it merely delays the problem. Some suggest having civilians do desk jobs, and put those officers on the streets. Cbanging policy so police focus on violent crime will work. Of course hiring more young officers is beneficial.

Prop C, peace center: Weak No

Having a peace center on alcatraz does sound appealing. But i like history, and i enjoy the alcatraz tour, so losing that does not sound appealing. And since this plan for the peace center is a plan without alot of details, i can not endorse it.

Social Networking is hot right now. Myspace is huge, facebook is growing super-mega fast, and even Google is backing open standards with OpenSocial (tho, not perfect).

Tagging is also a somewhat new (few years old). You can tag photos (flickr), tag websites/blogs (digg, del.icio.us, technorati, furl, etc) .. why not tag friends? Specifically, I have different circles of friends, some friends overlap, and would love to be able to group them more effectively than i can today. Examples

• babysitters
• coworkers
• work project A
• work project B
• lunch friends
• church friends
• hiking friends
• drinking buddies
• college friends
• star trek fans
• DJ/dancing crews

One thing to point out is how this compares to the existing concept of groups on social networking sites. Tagging people with “hiking” is promoting MY view of the world - I get to control who i want to talk to when i want to go hiking. In contrast, a hiking group I join is not my view - I don’t have control on that case. It’s more random, usually controlled by the loudest people (loudest meaning more volume of info and higher frequency), and most likely less personal, therefore a different usage paradigm. But the most important difference is that friends tagged with “hiking” are friends first, hiking people second. Social networking groups are groups first, and may or may not contain friends.

Everybody likes to spend time with friends, so why not change the paradigm to make friends come first?

How would it work? Simple - while looking at profiles on a given social network site, there’s always a section that has “add friend” or “marked as friend”. Around there you could add a tag to that person. Then, on your home page, you could have a friend tag cloud or list of friend tags. You pick a tag and it jumps to a dynamicly created page containing summaries of each person you tagged, with the following options:

• email - easier to manage than creating new email lists all the time
• calendar or event planning - requires them all to use the same calendar system so it can find time when all are free .. not easy
• person summaries, including existing tags (with ability to add/delete here, too), latest posts, pictures, status, …. optionally filtering posts/pics by the current tag (oooo.. advanced)

I’m looking at you, google.

Who doesn’t love Pirates? Matt Mason points out another reason to love them - they are good for markets in the long term. For example, William Fox didn’t want to pay Edison royalties to do movies, so he went out west to what eventually became Hollywood. Today pirates still do illegal activity, but is it really wrong? Read more on the Pirate’s Dilemma.

The New Year has arrived. And with it people pause, look back, look forward, figure out where they want to be and what changes are needed to get there. Well, that’s what I’ve been doing the last two years. Mostly looking back on my career and trying to figure out where i want to be in 5 years. So far nothing has presented itself as the clear winner. But during this time I’ve lived life - traveled, learned, had fun, and did what i wanted to. Here’s what I’ve concluded

1. Spend time thinking about what’s really important to you. Be honest. Write them down. Look at it everyday. Make changes as you need to so it is accurate, but work towards a final list. Revisit only when you have major life changes.
2. Implement it. That is, do things that are directly related to what is on that list. For example, If family is important, do activities with your family (watching TV does not count). If they are not around, make something for them. The point is to consciously spend time on the things that matter.

The steps are simple, but they have definitely improved my life and reduced some of the anxiety I’ve felt about “what do i want to do with my life”. Here is my list, still in flux, and kept concise - note the last one - more of reminder on how to live life, to be applied no matter what i’m doing. Likewise, i can combine things like have fun listening to new music with friends (triple play).

- Friends, Family
- Fun, Music
- Learning, New Experiences
- Exercise, Nature
- Giving Back
- Love, Honesty, and Respect

This is not a “New Years Resolutions” List. This is just a list of what’s important to me. I also made a new years resolution list - some of it is personal, but i’ll quickly list a few things

- Work on patience - especially for those i love.
- Perfection - Be more comfortable with lack of it.
- Start getting paid again (5 year plan)
- Be more Green (see Understanding Green Business, coming soon)
- Spend more time appreciating friends and my blessing (thanks to Otto for reminding me to give thanks)

This was another big year for me. Not as life changing as 2006, but still very significant. The 2 biggest things were traveling around the world for 6 months and getting serious with Shayna Cohen. Most everything else could be lumped into 2 groups - working on my 5-year plan and having fun (and how).

Similar to last year, i like to look at flickr pics to give me a recap on what i did. Starts off with a couple events before my Round The World trip - Dinner and Trivial Pursuit at 126 and My sendoff. Then there’s Round The World 2007, My return, Fred and Megan’s Wedding, Burningman, Moving into 116 San Jose with Shayna, Treasure Island Music Festival, halloween and Brasstax Renegade, Birthdays (Shayna, Eumi, Rick, Carrina, Sarah Bates) and Quality time with the Family over Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Besides all the fun with friends and family covered in those pics, I also spent time looking inward. Organizing and Prioritizing my life. Some of the fruits of this led me down paths such as getting an MBA (postponed for now), Understanding Green Business (lots more on that later) as well as starting my own business, among other things. I also got closer to Shayna. I feel so lucky and blessed to have her in my life. Looking forward, she is moving to Chicago in August to attend grad school. So the big question is .. do i go with her?

Friday we went to see Kooza for Fritz’s Birthday. Kooza is the name for the Cirque du Soleil show here in San Francisco. It was amazing. It’s my third Cirque du Soleil show, not the best, but none were better - they are all awesome in their own way. Music, Lighting, Showmanship, Story (yes, the show sorta had a story), and unbelievable acts. My favorite act was the 2 dudes running in 2 giant metal circles as they spin around like a ferris wheel. I also love the couple dancing while the guy rode a unicycle, as well as the 3 crazy gymnastical girls. But the whole show was awesome and I highly recommend going. They’re in SF till Jan 20 and then San Jose till March 16.

Like last weekend, this was another busy one with friends. Too many parties and events. Even with my cold, I still made it to House of Things party friday night, a little bit of Santacon Saturday, and still had enough energy to help my friend Juan move on Sunday. Last weekend involved Amnesia, Shooting Ranges, more house parties, and Birthday expedition to the Exploratorium.

I also returned my 42″ Panasonic to Costco (after 88 days and no box, no questions asked, cash back, Hurray) and bought Juan’s Sony 40″ Bravia. I did it cuz i wanted a better picture (the panasonic sometimes was off with the colors), but some have complained about a sony backlighting issue. We’ll see.

This weekend, from Friday to Sunday November 9-11 2007, is the Green Festival in SF. As you can guess, its a conference about all things green related - greentech, sustainable business practices, working with your environment, and many other good and wholesome things. They have tons of speakers, millions of booths (ok, not really a million), and lots of cool peeps.

Oh chad, what is this hippy crap? No, seriously - Learn a little bit about the environment you live in. You vote on election day, why not vote with your dollar and make the world a better place? Wow, this kool aid is gooood. Try to check it out.

And its not too late to help out - if you volunteer for a 4.5 hour shift, you get in for free and get prizes. I signed up, so should you!

Chad Volunteer - Friday 12-4:30pm - Box Office Lobby Host
Shayna Volunteer - Saturday 2-6:30p - Gift Center host
Sarah Gill - Saturday 1-6 Green Team

Friday 4pm - Global concerns, local actions
Friday 5pm - Innovation for Sustainability
*Friday 6pm - Bennet Freeman from Calvert - Investing Green
*Friday 7pm - Deepak Chopra

*Sat 2pm - Marisa Handler (brasstax friend)
Sat 3pm - Lessig - Green culture (using technology)
Sat 5pm - Mark Anielski - Economics of Happiness
Sat 6pm - Riane Eisler - Real wealth of nations

*Sunday 12pm - Marie Kerpan - Green Careers
Sunday 3pm - Chris Daly - Sustainable SF
Sunday 3pm - Fair Trade
Sunday 4pm - Derfel and Fenster - Sustainable Business

Update: Elections Results added in parenthesis
From sfgov - 35% voter turnout: 150,000 of 420,000 registered SF voters

Everybody should vote - AND should spend some time understanding what they are voting on. Do your homework - Official SF Dept of Elections (my sample ballot) and with these voter guides - False Profit, SFBG, SPUR, Green Party, SF Chronicle, Usual Suspects.

Here’s my recommendations for San Francisco:

Mayor: Newsom will win by a landslide, so have fun - Chicken John (Newsom got 74%)
Sheriff: Michael Hennessey (74% for Hennessey)
A - Yes - Muni reform (Yes 55%)
B - Yes — Commisioner Hold-over (71% Yes)
C - No — Ballot reform (68% Yes)
D - No — library (74% Yes)
E - Yes - Mayor MUST meet with Supervisors - (51% No)
F - No — Airport Police - (51% Yes)
G - No — GG Park Stables - (55% Yes)
H - NO — Parking - (No 67%)
I - Yes - Local small business - (59% Yes)
J - Yes - Wifi - (62% Yes)
K - —– Street Ads - (62% Yes)

A - Muni reform - Yes

Muni has got problems, so you might want to vote no on this, but more important is that we send a message that saying public transportation is more important than adding more parking spots

B - Commisioner Hold-over - Yes

Closes loophole reducing political pressure commissioners and board appointees, letting them focus more on their jobs.

C - Ballot reform - NO

In effect, fixes half of a broken system, allowing special interests to get away with stuff.

D - library - NO

This seems good, but not fiscally responsible enough. Hopefully this will fail and a better one will appear on the ballot next year.

E - Mayor MUST meet with Supervisors - Yes

Forces Mayor to do Q&A with Board of Supervisors once a month. Last year 55% voted yes on a similar measure - but that one was not legally binding, this one is. Some say this is just squable between Mayor Newsom and Chris Daly, some say it may won’t help and just take people’s time away from other things .. i say its a step in a right direction,

F - Airport Police - No

Give airport police retirements same as SFPD. I say no, SFPD is tougher job, more expensive city, they should get more retirement

G - GG Park Stables - No

Not fiscally responsible - doesn’t follow normal procedures - why are stables that much more important than other stuff?

H - Parking - NO NO NO

Backed by billionaire Don Fisher, this just adds parking downtown so he can easily sell more condos. Bad. But worse, is the magnitude - you want 20,000 more parking spots? HELL NO.

I - Local small business - Yes

Help local small businesses get on their feet - Good for SF, doesn’t cost much. Matches with my theory that big corporations are better for many things economically, but not ALWAYS better for society. This gives local small businesses more of an even playing field.

J - Wifi - Yes

A step in the right direction on helping get wifi to everyone

K - Street Ads - Maybe

I don’t really care about this one. Gives muni money for selling ad space on bus shelters. Good cuz it brings in money to Muni, bad cuz we don’t need more clear channel ads.

Who doesn’t love halloween? Every year i have fun, but there’s always that “What the hell do i wear this year” dilemma. Well, this year i went back to my roots - beer and music. I seriously considered being a giant speaker - but its a bit too impractical for an active guy like myself. So that left me to stare at my favorite beer - Racer 5. While looking for a giant beer bottle costume, i noticed a speed racer outfit, and thought “Speed Racer 5″ would be a good double costume. A couple days later, it was made (yes, i made the whole thing with some guidance from alice)

In searching for pictures of what speed racer and racer 5 looks like, i came across this awesome site called beeroftheday.com. It’s a really nice site - clean, tight, “less is more” philosophy .. great for when you’re drinkin’ beers.

I’m finally getting in gear for this year’s Burningman. This will be my 9th year going. Yeah, i’m old, and nine times may seem like alot, but each year is different at burningman and for me (where i am in my life). Why do i keep going? why don’t i get burned out? Well, i see burningman as life - you get out of it what you put into it. You don’t have to party or drink or build large things that take all your time. You just have to participate. You do have to abandon some comforts of home, but you get more creativity and freedom in a larger context. I like that alot.

This year i’m going small again, minimal planning, small camp of friends tied together by the Monkey Island Art Car - brainchild of Sir Checkoway (and chef ben as the workhorse). The island is a ford taurus station wagon with the back chopped off, wood platform for the island, rocks, green plants, a generator, dj setup, and tastee beats. Right up my alley, and i’m lucky to have close friends that let me join in at the last minute. Sadly, i’m not staying with the brasstax bunnies - they’re way over at 3 o’clock and we’ll be at 9 o’clock area.

I’ve only been back in SF for about 2 weeks, so i’m still getting my feet wet in this year’s theme - the Green Man - but its right up my alley. Mainly cuz i’m looking into doing a Green MBA - environmentally and socially aware business - but i admit i’m still just looking.  But if you know me at all, you know i love nature - especially hiking in mountains.  I read that the man will be on a green mountain peak this year.  Can’t wait to climb that mtn !!

I also put together a list of DJ lineups at Burningman 2007. This will be updated till i leave on Monday. Enjoy.